Egypt has decided to maintain its current customs exchange rate of EGP 16 per $1, effective in April, for the sixth month in a row. In an official statement on Wednesday, Egypt s finance ministry said the unchanged customs exchange rate is due to the stability witnessed by the Egyptian economy.

A number of international organisations that are observing the voting in Egypt s 2018 presidential elections have said the process is going smoothly, two days into the three-day vote. "Voters cast their ballots in a very peaceful and organised environment on the first and second day of elections," said Abdallah Diop, the head of the 40-strong African Union observers mission, praising the security presence around polling stations and the organisation among voters.

Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) defended in a statement released on Sunday the Egyptian authorities’ recent decision to deport British correspondent for The Times Bel Trew from Cairo, accusing her of violating the regulations pertaining to the work of foreign correspondents in the country. The British The Times newspaper reported on Saturday that security authorities in Egypt detained Trew on 20 February for a duration of seven hours and threatened to try her in a military court if she did not leave Egypt immediately. She was then put on board the first flight to London.

16:00 In Qena governorate in the country s south, hundreds of volunteers from a pro-Sisi campaign (“We Are All With You”) have been stationed outside more than 400 polling stations to help voters through the balloting process, municipal campaign coordinator Osama El-Hawary told an Al-Ahram Arabic reporter. 15:10 The National Elections Authority (NEA) is holding a press conference to update the public on the progress of the first day of voting.

Egypt s National Elections Authority (NEA) announced Monday the hotline number "19826" for receiving voters complaints throughout the three days of the presidential elections. President Abdel-Fattal El-Sisi and Moussa Mostafa Moussa, the head of Ghad Party are the two candidates for the highest office in the country.

The interior ministry announced on Sunday that final procedures are underway to secure Egypt s 11,000 polling stations, which open tomorrow for the first of three days of voting in the country s presidential elections. Starting last week, the country s armed forces begun transferring nearly 18,000 judges, who will supervise and monitor the voting, and 110,000 administrative employees, to their posts nationwide.

Egypt s High Administrative Court overturned on Saturday a previous conviction against former president Hosni Mubarak, his prime minister Ahmed Nazif and former interior minister Habib Al-Adly, who were convicted in May 2011 for cutting electronic communication throughout the country during the January 2011 uprising.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said Saturday that the government will do its utmost to advance Egypt s status in the field of scientific research and innovation. “Dear society, the educated, we need you and your minds and studies to overcome the country s problems,” El-Sisi said in a televised talk during the inauguration of the National Conference for Scientific Research, mentioning water pollution and sanitation.

Egypt s Minister of Interior Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar on Thursday met with a number of ministry officials and high-ranking police officers to review the nationwide security plan for the upcoming presidential elections, which are scheduled from Monday to Wednesday, 26-28 March. The meeting was held at the ministry s information and crisis management center in Cairo.

Government allocations for projects implemented in the current year in North Sinai have totaled LE174.5 million, North Sinai governor Abdel Fattah Harhour said on Wednesday. A number of development projects in North Sinai have been launched in various sectors in several cities, in accordance to the development plan and schedule set out by the government, he added.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry headed for India on Wednesday to lead Egypt s delegation in the seventh round of the joint committee between the two countries. In an official statement, Egypt s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said the joint committee will commence its meetings on Thursday, followed by ministerial level meetings on Friday.

In his first interview dedicated to Egyptian media outlets after declaring his intention to run for the 2018 Egyptian presidential election, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi discussed several issues related to Egypt’s political and economic status during his interview with Egyptian independent film director Sandra Nasha’at. The nearly-one hour interview which was broadcasted on various Egyptian television networks, including state-run channels, posed questions to Sisi to voice the concerns of the Egyptian people regarding the current political and economic conditions.

British police investigating the death of a female engineering student attacked by a group of women in the city of Nottingham city have said the assault on the teenager was not racially motivated, despite initial claims to that effect, and that a number of suspects have now been identified. Eighteen-year-old Mariam Moustafa Abdel Salam was left in a coma after an attack on 20 February and died from her injuries on 14 March.

Egypt s administrative court banned on Tuesday taxi-hailing services Uber and Careem from operating in the country. The case against the two companies was filed by a group of traditional taxi drivers in February 2017 who accused the services of breaking the traffic law by using privately-owned vehicles for commercial use.

The Egyptian government has approved the budget for fiscal year 2018-19, aiming at GDP growth of 5.8 percent, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said on Sunday, according to a cabinet statement. The new budget includes investments worth EGP 100 million, up from EGP 70 billion this year, to be spent on national projects and public services, the prime minister said.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed over a phone call with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday that efforts towards Palestinian reconciliation should move forward, Egyptian presidency spokesperson Bassam Rady said in a statement. El-Sisi told his counterpart that it is necessary to "work on containing any disagreements and to overcome all difficulties that hinder these efforts, in order to achieve the unity and the interests of the brotherly Palestinian people," the statement reads.

Egyptian expats headed to embassies and consulates around the world on Sunday to vote in the third and final day of polling abroad in the country s presidential elections, one week before polling stations open back home. President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Moussa Mostafa Moussa, the head of Ghad Party, are the two candidates on the ballot in the 2018 presidential elections.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will visit Egypt on Monday to discuss issues of common interest between the two countries during a bilateral summit with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In a statement to Al-Masry Al-Youm on Saturday, Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt Abdel Mohamoud Abdel al-Halim said that Bashir’s one-day-visit to Cairo comes within the framework of continuous communication between the two leaderships to follow up on the discussions held during a recent meeting between the presidents in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Emirati counterpart Abdallah Ben Zayed Al-Nahian stressed in a joint press conference Sunday in Cairo that there are no developments concerning the issue of Qatar, unless the Qatari government would change its policies. "One of the challenges before the region is the expansion of extremism and terrorism. One of the platforms of terrorism is Qatar," Ben Zayed said.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi honoured on Thursday the memory of a number of military and police martyrs and their families, saying he is ready to fight in person alongside heroes from the Egyptian Armed Forces and the police in battle. The president s statements came during the Armed Forces 27th intellectual seminar.

The countdown for Egyptian expats voting in the 2018 presidential elections has begun as the voting process is set to kick off on Friday March 16 and will last until Sunday March 18. Egyptians in 124 countries will be able to vote in a total of 139 polling stations. The voting will take place at the consulates headquarters along with several diplomatic missions set by the National Electoral Commission (NEC). Eligible voters are those whose names are registered in the voters database. They can vote using either their national ID cards or passports with the ID numbers identified.