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.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Wednesday commanded the Egyptian army and police forces to restore stability and security in the Sinai Peninsula within three months using "utmost force." The president s orders came as part of his speech on Wednesday at an event marking the celebration of Prophet Muhammad s birth (Moulid El-Nabi), which was also attended by Egypt s Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayyeb.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu arrived in Cairo Wednesday for talks with his Egyptian counterpart Sedki Sobhi and other Egyptian officials, state-run MENA news agency reported. The officials will discuss boosting military cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) lifted on Tuesday the monthly cap on foreign currency deposits and withdrawals imposed on importers of non-essential goods, state-run news agency MENA reported. In October 2016, Egypt s Chamber of Commerce banned the import of more than 50 types of nonessential goods before the CBE introduced caps on importers in November 2016. Deposits were capped at $50,000 and withdrawals at $30,000 per month, with a $10,000 a day limit, in an attempt to eradicate the foreign currency black market and tackle the country s foreign exchange crisis.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry explained to CNN on Monday the reasons for the current restrictions on media access to North Sinai, telling anchor Christiane Amanpour that foreign journalists traveling in the area might be targeted by terrorist groups. In a video interview with Amanpour published on the CNN website, Shoukry said that, while press freedom is "very important", North Sinai is an area of ongoing military conflict, where terrorists target foreign nationals as well as locals.

The US dollar exchange rate against the Egyptian pound witnessed a slight increase in several banks in Egypt on Monday. According to the latest price updates, the dollar exchange rate increased by two piaster, recording LE 17.63 for buying and LE 176.73 for sale in the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), Bank Misr, The Arab African International Bank (AAIB), The Commercial International Bank (CIB), the National Bank of Greece (NBG), and Bank of Alexandria.

Elsewedy Electric plans to build two 500 MW wind farms in cooperation with Marubeni Corporation of Japan, with investments of up to €500m. Sources at the company told Daily News Egypt that there are negotiations underway with the New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) to allocate land for the two power plants. The company is choosing between a plot in the Gulf of Suez and another west of the Nile.