On the international day for the eradication of poverty, Egypt announced that it aims to reduce poverty by half by 2020 and eliminate it by 2030 as part of its strategic development plan, according to the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS). According to the last report issued by CAPMAS, Egypt s poverty rate rose to 27.8 percent in 2015, compared to 25.2 percent in 2010/11.

House of Representatives member John Talaat said on Monday that he would submit amendments on the drug penalties in the Egyptian penal code to the House of Representatives on Sunday. Talaat suggested that the amendments would cancel the imprisonment penalty on drug addicts, replacing it with three to six months of treatment in a psychiatric clinic.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said in a speech in front of the Russian Federation Council on Tuesday that he is confident that direct Russian flights will return soon to Egyptian cities besides Cairo. "Our efforts to resume direct flights between Cairo and Moscow ended in success after the visit by President Putin to Egypt in December 2017. I am confident that given the positive spirit between the two countries, direct flights to other Egyptian cities will resume," the Egyptian president said, adding that the resumption of flights will help restore the flow of Russian tourists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered on Monday the signing of a comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation agreement at the highest level between Egypt and Russia. A signed decree carrying Putin s instructions was posted on the Kremlin s official portal for legal information.

The United Kingdom announced a 12 million GBP to support education reform in Egypt through the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF), the British embassy said on Monday. In a press release, the UK Embassy in Cairo said the UK fund will include support for teacher training, through the ministry s flagship education programme, and support children s education in governorates across the country.

Egypts Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has praised a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the economic performance in Egypt. The report was positive and focused on the good economic performance in Egypt despite the crisis witnessed in emerging markets.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has affirmed that Cairo will continue to support the efforts of its brotherly nations to maximise benefits from the River Nile in a way that does no harm to the Egyptian people. The president s statements came during his reception of the heads of delegations participating in Cairo Water Week (CWW) events in Cairo under the title Water Conservation to Achieve Sustainable Development.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has said that Egypt wants notorious Egyptian terrorist leader Hesham El-Ashmawi to be returned to his country to be held accountable for his crimes. El-Ashmawi, a former Egyptian army officer and leader of an Al-Qaeda offshoot, was captured earlier this week in Libya.

The Central Bank of Egypt said on Thursday it agreed to enter into a "new repurchase transaction" of $3.8 billion with a consortium of international banks including Citigroup, Credit Suisse AG, Deutsche Bank AG, First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC and HSBC. ICBC Standard Bank, JPMorgan Securities, Natixis and Nomura International are also part of the consortium involved in the loan, it said in a press release on its website.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has said the Wednesday tripartite cooperation summit between Egypt, Greece and Cyprus aims to "take practical steps" to boost cooperation between the three countries. El-Sisi, his Cypriot counterpart Nicos Anastasiades and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met on the Greek island of Crete for the sixth round of the summit, which was first held in Cairo in 2014.

Egypt parliament s speaker Ali Abdel-Aal and President of the Senate of France Gerard Larcher held a round of talks in Paris on Wednesday. An official statement said the talks covered the current conditions in Egypt, particularly the country s battle against terrorism, the IMF-inspired economic reform programme, reform of religious discourse, and the human rights situation.

A report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has said that Egypt has the potential to generate up to 53 percent of its total energy from renewable energy sources by 2035. The report, titled "Horizons of Renewable Energy in Egypt," was released on the sidelines of Egypt s first conference on renewable energy on Tuesday.

Egypt s State Council President Ahmed Abou Al-Azm said there was no constitutional prohibition to appointing women as judges in the State Council, adding that the State Council itself has no objection to the matter. However, he said the entire process was a “matter of time”, as there are protocols that have to be followed to appoint women as state council judges, some of which include vacating suitable positions for women. During a speech he gave at the International Conference of the Arab Union of Administrative Judiciary, Abou Al-Azm added that, at that point, Egypt is content with the number of female ministers in the current government, which is evidence that Egypt is keen on women participating in different fields.

Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed on Monday with the Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn the ongoing preparations for holding a meeting of the EU-Egypt Association Council by the end of 2018. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 3rd Regional Forum of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM).

Egypt’s Balance of Payment (BoP) ran an overall surplus of $12.8 billion during fiscal year (FY) 2017-2018, compared to an overall surplus of $13.7 billion during the previous fiscal yea. The Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) statement on Monday explained that this sharp surplus is attributed to the currency devaluation decision from November 2016.

Egypt launched a pan-Asian roadshow to promote its international bonds in South Korea on Sunday, part of a bid to bring down rising yields on its debt, the finance ministry said. The non-deal roadshow that starts in Seoul aims to open up new bond markets for Egypt, the statement said. The government cancelled four consecutive local currency T-bond auctions last month after bankers and investors demanded high yields on the debt.

Cash transfers for all was how Philippe Van Parijs, a professor of politics and economics, explained the concept of basic income at a lecture at the American University in Cairo (AUC) last week. A basic income policy is a programme through which citizens of a country may receive a regular sum of money from a source such as the government, without strings attached, as their “basic income.”

Egypt s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly was witness Thursday to the signing ceremony of a project to support adaptation to climate change on the North Coast and in the Nile Delta. The ceremony was attended by Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aati, Minister of Environment Yassmin Fouad and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Richard Dictus.

Petroleum Minister Tarek Al-Molla announced this week that Egypt will no longer import liquefied natural gas (LNG), saving the government the LE3 billion it earmarked annually to meet local demands. The savings are due, in large measure, to the Zohr gas field which began output in December 2017. Zohr, with reserves of more than 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf), is among the largest gas fields discovered so far in the Mediterranean.

The Egyptian cabinet approved a soft loan agreement between Egypt and the Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD) to assist in financing the construction of the Bahr El-Baqar Water Drainage System Project. The approval of the loan, worth 70 million Kuwaiti dinars (EGP 4.1 billion), came during a meeting Tuesday night chaired by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly.

Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will start a two-day visit to the Japanese capital Tokyo on Wednesday to attend the ministerial meeting of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), scheduled for 6 and 7 October, Egypt s foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Hafez said. Shoukry will also meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other Japanese officials to discuss boosting bilateral cooperation and regional issues of common interest.