Egypt s Minister of Petroleum Tarek El-Molla said in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that extraction in the Zohr gas field, which is set to start in days, will see the country achieve self-sufficiency in the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) before the end of 2018. Egypt was a net exporter of LNG until 2014. However, it turned into a net importer in recent years due to a declining output and power shortages amid political turmoil.

Egypt’s aviation minister will travel to Russia to sign protocol agreements as early as Friday to allow the resumption of Russian flights that were suspended after the 2015 bombing of a tourist jet, Egyptian sources and Russia’s minister said on Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin met Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo this week to discuss resuming flights and to sign a deal for a nuclear power plant as part of growing bilateral cooperation.

A delegation from Russia s lower house of parliament – the Duma – arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for meetings with the Speaker of the Egyptian House of Representatives Ali Abdel-Al and MPs aimed at enhancing bilateral relations, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported. The Russian delegation, which will be in Egypt for several days, consists of six members of parliament led by Vladimir Shamanov, chairman of the Duma s defence committee.

Work with establishing Egypt’s first nuclear reactor in the Dabaa nuclear power plant will start after Russian experts return to Egypt after Christmas holidays, informed sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Tuesday. Officials at Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) held a meeting on Tuesday with representatives of Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom to discuss ways to initiate the construction of the first nuclear reactors.

The Egyptian Holding Company for Airports and Air Navigation has signed an agreement with the UK Department for Transport to supply Egypt with 12 bomb detection devices for airports in the country, the company said in a statement as reported by state news agency MENA on Tuesday. A cooperation agreement was signed between the company s chairman Mohamed Saeed Mahrous and the UK Department for Transport s Aviation Security Operations Director Kashif Chaudry.

The representative of the Egyptian side at the Egyptian-Russian Business Council Alaa Amin said that a feasibility study on establishing an Egyptian trade hub in Russia is set to be complete within two months, state-run MENA news agency reported. The logistical centre, which was first announced by Egypt s Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2016, is to serve as a hub to sell Egyptian products in Russia in parallel with Egyptian exports to the country.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin attended a ceremony of signing an agreement on Monday in Cairo officially launching work on Egypt s first-ever nuclear power plant at Dabaa on the north coast. Egypt s Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker and the Russian Rosatom Director General Alexi Likhatchev signed the document to officially start the project.

Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Tarek Amer denied on Sunday that reports that Egyptian banks and other banks operating in the local market are financing the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). During the past two days, a photo of a document went viral on social media showing a list of banks, which allegedly has financed the construction of the GERD through the purchasing of bonds from the Ethiopian government with a 36% interest rate.

A political agreement is the cornerstone for restoring stability in Libya, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi told the chairman of the Libyan Presidential Council Fayaz Al-Sarraj during a meeting in Cairo on Sunday. In an official statement, Egyptian presidency spokesman Bassam Rady said El-Sisi received Al-Sarraj in the Egyptian capital, where El-Sisi was presented with the latest developments in the Libyan political scene.

An Egyptian-Russian document to commence work on the Dabaa nuclear power plant will be inked during a meeting between Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Cairo on Monday, the Egyptian president s spokesman was quoted by the official news agency MENA. The authorisation to start work on the Dabaa plant in western Egypt, the country s first-ever nuclear energy project, comes two years after El-Sisi and Putin signed a tentative agreement in November 2015 to start the project.

Egypt s foreign ministry condemned on Wednesday US President Donald Trump s announcement that the US will recognise Jerusalem as Israel s capital and will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In a statement issued shortly following the US president s speech in Washington, the Egyptian foreign ministry said that such unilateral decisions violate international resolutions.

The spokesperson for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, said that an Egyptian-Arab response will take place in the upcoming period after US President Donald Trump proclaimed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Abu Zeid stated that Egypt had called upon the UN Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to discuss the matter, and to hear a statement from the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.

Egyptian MPs said on Wednesday that Egypt should boycott American products if US President Donald Trump goes through with his expected move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A group of leftist MPs affiliated with parliament s 25-30 bloc said in a statement that Trump s anticipated decision to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would constitute a "historic crime."

Parliament has approved on Tuesday the government-drafted Labour Syndicates Law, after months of heated debates about its articles, which was seen as an attempt to control syndicalist work and absorb it into the framework of the state. The executive regulations of the law are still to be issued. Ninety days after its issuance, elections will take place to select representatives, the first to take place since 2005, after years of unregulated syndicalist work.

Egypt has repaid a total of $4 billion of debt to the African Export-Import Bank, the country s central bank has announced. Egypt s state-run news agency MENA reported on Monday that the central bank recently paid back $2 billion to the African Export-Import Bank out of a $3.2 billion short-term loan.

Egypt’s interior ministry said on Tuesday that it had finally identified the location of former Minister of Interior, Habib al-Adly, who has been considered a fugitive since May, after being convicted in a corruption case. A statement for the ministry said that police has notified Adly with the court verdict and he turned himself in to serve the sentence.

Former Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, who returned to Egypt on Saturday after a five-year absence, said on Sunday that being in the country allows him to assess whether he should run in Egypt s 2018 presidential election Shafiq made the comment in a phone call with TV presenter Wael El-Ebrashy on the privately owned Dream channel, adding that he has enjoyed full freedom of movement since arriving in Cairo.

The Egyptian Bedouin tribe of Sawarka said on Saturday that it will place its men at the disposal of the armed forces as they seek to establish security and stability in North Sinai following last month s terrorist massacre in Bir El-Abd, where the tribe is mostly located. A statement from the Freemen of Sawarka obtained by Ahram Online declared the tribe s "absolute trust" in the ability of the armed forces to accomplish the security mission in the three-month timeframe set by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

Incoming tourists and visitors to Egypt can now apply for an online visa from the comfort of their home without the need for embassy appointments after Egypt officially launched its electronic visa services at the Cairo ICT Expo on Sunday aiming to lure tourists back into the country. “The Egypt eVisa aims to simplify the process for visitors to Egypt to obtain the correct travel authorization. The online visa program will not only accelerate the process for visa applications prior to traveling but also improve the system of customs and border control upon arrival in Egypt,” Egypt’s eVisa website said.

Egypt has expressed "grave concern" over a recent ballistic missile firing by North Korea, warning that the move will heighten tensions with neighbouring countries, the foreign ministry said late on Wednesday. North Korea said it successfully tested a powerful new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Wednesday that put the entire US mainland within range of its nuclear weapons. Egypt s foreign ministry warned that the development "would escalate the tension in the Korean Peninsula and neighbouring areas in an unprecedented manner." It urged North Korea to respect the United Nation Security Council s resolutions in this regard, which impose sanctions over the country s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes. The launch is the latest in a series of missile tests by North Korea defying world pressure to end its nuclear programme. The United States warned Pyongyang Wednesday it would be “utterly destroyed” if war were to break out after the missile was fired.

The Head of General Security for Dubai, Dhahi Khalfan, disputed the statement made by former Egyptian Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq, who claimed he had been banned from leaving the UAE by Emirati authorities, just hours after announcing his bid for the 2018 Egyptian presidency. Khalfan stressed that Shafiq’s name was not on the UAE travel ban, and posted on his Twitter account a strong verbal attack aimed at Shafiq.