Egypt

April 24 (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah headed to Cairo on Sunday for trilateral talks with Egyptian and Emirati leaders that were not previously scheduled, the royal palace said.

The meeting will include Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, according to Jordan's state news agency.

The Jordanian king was accompanied by Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah.

21 April 2022; MEMO: Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on Monday that restoration work has begun on the Ben Ezra synagogue in the Religious Complex of Old Cairo.

The restoration work, which includes cleaning walls, treating cracks and insulating the roof will be the first time similar repairs have been carried out since 1991.

21 April 2022; MEMO: The Arab League called on Israel on Thursday to end Jewish prayers inside the compound of Islam's third holiest shrine in East Jerusalem, warning it was a flagrant affront to Muslim feelings that could trigger wider conflict, Reuters reports.

They said, while Israel was restricting the right of worship of Muslims in Jerusalem's Old City, ultra-nationalist Jews under police protection were being allowed at the height of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

April 2022; MEMO: The Tunisian central bank said yesterday it had signed a $700 million loan deal with Africa Export Import Bank (Afreximbank).

The deal was signed in Egypt on 13 April and the loan falls within the framework of mobilising external resources included in the state budget for the year 2022.

The loan, which has a 5.76 per cent annual interest rate, will be repaid over seven years, including a two-year grace period.

CAIRO, Apr 21 (NNN-MENA) – Egypt signed yesterday, two major commercial agreements, to boost the country’s production of green ammonia, in the Ain Sokhna region of Suez province, east of the capital Cairo, as the country aspires to upgrade its environment-friendly industry.

The Egyptian cabinet said in a statement that, the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), worth three billion U.S. dollars, with a consortium of EDF Renewables and ZeroWaste for the production of 350,000 tonnes of ammonia annually.

21 April 2022; MEMO: Egypt's Court of Cassation yesterday upheld the life sentence handed to Mohamed Badie, the leader of the now banned Muslim Brotherhood, Anadolu reported.

Judicial sources reported that the court also upheld life terms against two other Muslim Brotherhood leaders – Mohamed Beltagy and Safwat Hijazi.

20 April 2022; MEMO: The arrest and imprisonment of journalist Ahmed Al-Bahey has raised the number of reporters in Egypt's jails to 70, according to the Arab Observatory for Media Freedom.

Al-Bahey, a correspondent for the independent news website Masrawy, was arrested from his home at 6am on 16 April and accused of "inciting violence".

The prosecutor ordered that Al-Bahey be held on remand for four days.

20 April 2022; MEMO: Some 11,500 doctors resigned from government hospitals between 2019 and March 2022, according to a recent report issued by the General Syndicate of Egyptian doctors.

The report also stated that at the end of 2018, 212,835 doctors had a licence yet only 82,000, 38 per cent of the figure, were working in the government sector.

The rate of doctors in Egypt is 8.6 per 10,000 citizens compared to the global average which is 23 doctors per 10,000 citizens.

19 April 2022; MEMO: Egyptian authorities have put the country in a state of high security after an online petition calling on the president to stand down began circulating.

According to the New Arab, Egypt's Technocrats, which the expats who launched the petition are known as, have asked for the upper and lower houses to be suspended.

They are also calling for confidence to be withdrawn from Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's rule due to an array of failures, including his mismanagement of the economy.

18 April 2022; MEMO: Egypt yesterday sentenced the Deputy General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ezzat, to life in prison in a case known in the media as "storming Egypt's eastern border."

Since his arrest in 2020, Ezzat has been handed sentences of a total of 75 years in prison in different cases.