Egypt has dismissed as "baseless allegations" the UN s human rights chief criticism of the political climate in Egypt in the run-up to this month s presidential elections. Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein, the high commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Wednesday there was a "pervasive climate of intimidation" in Egypt ahead of the vote, marked by arrests, "silencing" of independent media and torture in detention.

Production is set to begin at BP s Fayoum and Giza gas fields before the end of the year, according to a petroleum ministry statement. The fields are expected to produce 500-700 million cubic feet of gas per day.

Egypt’s Education Ministry declared that the days of the upcoming presidential election will be official ‘off-days’ for all school students in Egypt, to encourage ministry employees to participate in the voting process. The country’s presidential election will be held from March 26-28. On January 19, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi formally announced he would run for a second and final term. A runoff, if necessary, will take place on April 19-21 April for voters outside the country, and from April 24-26 April within the country.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia have signed an agreement allotting 1,000 square kilometres of land in South Sinai for a megacity project as part of the kingdom s mammoth NEOM project, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman said on Monday evening during a meeting with several Egyptian media figures in Cairo. Prominent Egyptian TV presenter Lamis El-Hadeedi said on the privately owned CBC satellite channel that Bin Salman spoke about “everything,” answering questions on democracy and reforms in the kingdom, NEOM, Jerusalem, Israel and Qatar.

The Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) signed an agreement Tuesday with a consortium comprising Orascom Construction, Engie, and Toyota Tsusho Corporation to build a $400 million wind farm in the Gulf of Suez s Gabal El-Zeit, according to a Cabinet statement. The agreement is under a build-own-operate framework to generate wind power at a capacity of 250 MW. This represents a third of the total wind power currently generated in Egypt, according to the statement. The wind farm will be linked to the national grid for trial operation by mid-2019, and will be fully linked by the end of 2019.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are set to attend on Monday evening a theatrical performance titled Turn Yourself In at the Cairo Opera house, as part of the crown prince s official three days visit to the country. Sallem Nafsak (Turn Yourself In) is a 2017 Egyptian play directed by Khaled Galal and staged by the students of the Actor s Studio, which Galal manages.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed on Monday investment agreements worth $10 billion to develop 1,000 square km of land in South Sinai, and commit the territories to Saudi’s ‘Neom’ Project, which seeks to build a new megacity, Sky News Arabia reported. The agreements were signed as Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Egypt in his first public trip abroad, where he held meetings with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

During a summit in Cairo on Sunday, Egypt President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Saudi Arabia s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stressed the importance of joining their countries efforts to address attempts to divide the region and the threat of terrorism and countries supporting it. Bin Salman arrived in Cairo earlier on Sunday for his first official visit to Egypt as part of his first foreign tour since assuming the position of Crown Prince in June 2017. He was received by President El-Sisi at Cairo airport.

Egypt did not receive any notification from Ethiopia about filling the reservoir of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), an official source familiar with GERD negotiations told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Saturday. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the technical negotiations have been halted since political unrest broke out in Ethiopia recently after the resignation of Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and the declaration of a state of emergency in the country.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi received a phone call on Sunday from US President Donald Trump in which they discussed a range of regional matters and ways to enhance bilateral relations between both countries, a statement by Egypt s presidential spokesman said. "During the phone call, the two leaders discussed ways to develop aspects of Egyptian-American strategic relations on all levels during the upcoming period," the statement said.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated via video conference on Thursday the first phase of New Alamein City in Marsa Matrouh governorate and other national projects. The first phase of the city includes 5,000 housing units to be available for reservation in April, according to Al-Ahram Arabic news website.

In his speech to the high-level segment of the 37th session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in Geneva, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry criticized what he called fabricated news circulated by media on the human rights situation in Egypt, referring to a report published on Friday by the BBC on enforced disappearances. “Egypt is keen every year to inform the international Human Rights Council about its achievements in promoting democracy and the rule of law. In less than a month the presidential election will take place, becoming the fourth electoral event after the revolution of June 30,” Shoukry mentioned, emphasizing the integrity and transparency of elections in Egypt.

One of the main features of the current development programme in Egypt, which was launched after the June 2013 Revolution, is a focus on infrastructure and national projects (in industry, agriculture, fishing wealth, housing, roads, mining, energy, services and trades). This approach has come under some criticism. Critics have held, firstly, that the government has given infrastructural projects priority over the human dimension of development, especially in the fields of healthcare and education. International experiences have taken the educational sector as their starting point, since education is the essence and prerequisite of the development process, they argue.

The Ministry of Transport announced that the death toll in a collision between a cargo and a passenger train in Beheira has risen to 15, with 40 people injured. A passenger train collided with a cargo train in Beheira on Wednesday afternoon. The Railway Authority explained in a statement the cause of the accident, saying part of the passenger train’s wheel fell off from the third wagon and hit the cargo train.

Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met in Geneva on Tuesday with Filippo Grandi, the Commissioner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where he affirmed Egypt s moral commitment towards the millions of refugees living in the country. Shoukry arrived in Switzerland to deliver a speech in front of the UN s Human Rights Council and a UN sponsored Conference on Disarmament.

An Egyptian parliamentary delegation led by speaker Ali Abdel-Aal paid a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates on Monday and Tuesday, where they attended a plenary session held by the Emirati parliament – the National Union Assembly – to express solidarity between the MPs of the two countries. Abdel-Aal was received by his Emirati counterpart Amal Al-Qobiasi, who said the Egyptian parliamentary delegation s visit reflects the strategic relationship between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates at all levels.

As of January 2018, 221,675 refugees and asylum-seekers were registered in Egypt, with 3,118 newly registered in 2018, according to a new report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Egypt. The number of Syrian refugees registered with the organization reached 127,414, comprising 57 percent of the total number of refugees registered in the country, according to the report.

Egypt s official State Information Service (SIS) has described a recent BBC report on human rights and torture in the country as containing "lies and allegations," saying it will summon the head of the BBC s office in Egypt "to receive an official letter" of response. The SIS, acting on an official request, called on the BBC to take an "unmistakable and clear stance to address the flagrant professional violations of its correspondent."

Dressed in military uniform, Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated on Sunday the East of the Suez Canal Counter-Terrorism command, a statement by presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said. Several top state and army officials attended the event, including Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi, Army Chief of Staff Mohamed Farid and others.

Egypt has the natural potential to become one of the world’s strongest energy players as it contains the three main natural elements to develop an abundance of energy: sunlight, wind and hydro-energy. Despite that, Egypt has been failing to provide a stable source of electricity to its ever-growing population. The country imports oil despite having the largest oil refinery in Africa, according to an American Security Project background report from 2015.

Egypt and France on Saturday finalized the “Cleopatra 2018” naval exercises, one of the biggest joint marine exercises to have taken place in the Red Sea, as part of the Egyptian armed forces plan for training with allied countries, during which troops launched a landing operation on an island. Egypt’s Army Chief-of-Staff Mohamed Farid, the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Navy Lieutenant General Ahmed Khaled, and the commander of the French forces attended the final stage of the exercise.