Beltone Financial, one of Egypt’s largest investment banks affiliated with business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, said on Sunday that the board of directors had agreed to acquire a controlling stake in the URA Group, which owns banks in 12 African countries, Reuters reported.

Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal headed the 27th Conference of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union, which is being held in Cairo at the headquarters of the Egyptian Parliament. Its first session was Wednesday.

Egypt s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will head on Monday to the Algerian capital of Algiers to participate in a meeting of the tripartite initiative of Arab states neighboring Libya, which includes Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said in statement "The meeting comes in the framework of regular meetings of the tripartite initiative held continuously between the three states to discuss the latest developments in Libya and how to support the Libyan brothers on the political and security levels to achieve a national consensus and political solution to the crisis in the country," the statement said.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said during the fifth edition of the National Youth Conference that anyone who wishes to participate in the country s political life must have a comprehensive understanding of Egypt s political and economic landscape. The first session of this edition of the youth conference, which kicked off in Cairo on Thursday, is titled The Youth s Vision for the Egyptian Political Scene. The session included a discussion among youth representatives on the prospects of the youth becoming more active in political life as well as the future of political parties in the country.

The Central Bank of Egypt will most likely keep interest rates unchanged during its upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting on Thursday, a number of economists have said. Deposit and lending rates are currently at 16.75 and 17.75 percent respectively. Managing Director of Multiples Group Omar El-Shenety says that despite the easing of inflation, a wave of price increases is expected in fuel and electricity, in addition to the latest public transportation price increases.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi opened on Wednesday the fifth youth forum in Cairo with wide participation from political figures and parties, civil society groups and youth representatives. The president said in his opening speech that the conference presents an opportunity for dialogue for the sake of Egypt.

After more than 12 hours of non-stop talks in Addis Ababa, Egypt s ministers of foreign affairs and irrigation, along with the country s intelligence chief, reached on Wednesday morning an agreement with their Ethiopian and Sudanese counterparts on the next steps to reconcile their views on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced. The meeting between the nine officials was an attempt to break the deadlock in recent talks over the technical study conducted by a French firm on the potential effect of the Ethiopian dam on Nile downstream countries.

Egypt s Minister of Interior Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar opened a new special forces training institute in the Cairo suburbs on Monday, which aims at improving the tactical and combat capabilities of units. Located on the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway, the institute was built over 72 feddans and can fit up to 1,450 personnel for training courses. The faciltiy also includes residential units.

Egypt’s state security prosecutor ordered on Monday the detention of 20 people for 15 days pending an investigation into their roles in protests at Cairo metro stations last week after the government raised fares, state news MENA reported. There were small but rare protests at metro stations across Cairo on Saturday after fares more than tripled for some commuters as the government tightens spending and implements measures to achieve IMF-backed economic reforms.

Egypt s parliament provisionally approved on Sunday a 35-article law aimed at regulating the business of medical and clinical research. Parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said the final vote on the law will be postponed to a later date. "We do not have a two-thirds majority of MPs right now in order to be able to take a final vote on it," Abdel-Aal said.

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on Sunday for African youths "to change reality,” during a speech at the Model African Union in Cairo. The president said that African countries face the same challenges, which include “unemployment, poor education, child marriage, terrorism, extremism, and illegal migration.”

Egypt s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called on Sunday for African youths "to change reality,” during a speech at the Model African Union in Cairo. The president said that African countries face the same challenges, which include “unemployment, poor education, child marriage, terrorism, extremism, and illegal migration.”

Egypt s parliament provisionally approved on Sunday a 35-article law aimed at regulating the business of medical and clinical research. Parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said the final vote on the law will be postponed to a later date. "We do not have a two-thirds majority of MPs right now in order to be able to take a final vote on it," Abdel-Aal said.

Italian multinational oil and gas company Eni announced Thursday the start-up of the third production unit (T-2) of the Zohr Gas Field project, increasing its functional capacity to 1.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d). "Zohr is now producing 1.1 bcfd, equivalent to approximately 200 thousand boe/d [barrels of oil equivalent per day], of which 75,000 boe/d net currently go to Eni. This outstanding result has been achieved only a few months after the field s start-up in December 2017," the company said in a press release.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi was named in 2018’s Forbes Most Powerful People list and occupied the 45th place among Forbes magazine’s 75 most powerful figures in the world in 2018, according to the magazine’s new classification. According to Forbes, the international personalities were classified based on four indicators: the number of people controlled by the candidate, the value of the assets, resources managed by the personality, the variety of their influence, and the extent of the strength and powers of the candidate. Forbes list included leaders of countries, businessmen and decision-makers.

Egypt and Uganda signed a number of cooperation agreements on Tuesday in a ceremony in Cairo attended by ministers of both countries and presided over by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Musevni. The agreements were made during the Ugandan delegation s two-day trip to Cairo as part of the second meeting of the Joint Permanent Commission between the two countries.

The Unicode Consortium has released a revised draft of encoding Egyptian hieroglyphics proposing that over 2000 Hieroglyphs may soon be available for use on cell phones, computers, and other digital devices. The draft is the product of cooperation between the Unicode Consortium, ancient linguists, font designers, and the federal government in attempt to study, preserve, and then digitally represent ancient and endangered languages through the use of computer code, according to a report published by Brooklyn-based arts online magazine hyperallergic.

The Egyptian Public Prosecution released a statement on Monday stating that Egypt agreed to allow Italian Judicial delegation to take part in the process of retrieving the CCTV [Closed-circuit television] cameras of the Egyptian subway where the Italian student Julio Regeni was passing before being found dead in 2016. The prosecution added in the statement “the unloading of the subway CCTV will take place on May 15, in order to reach the truth about the disappearance and killing of the Italian student on January 25, 2016.” In the framework of judicial cooperation between the Egyptian Public Prosecutor s Office and Italy in the investigation into the kidnapping and killing of Regeni in Cairo.

Minister of Finance Amr al-Garhi stated on Sunday that the Egyptian government is working on a medium-term plan to cut public debt levels from 107 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2016/2017 to 80 percent by 2020, after public debts level rose fivefold over the past five years from LE 800 million. During the Inclusive Growth and Job Creation Conference, organized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in cooperation with the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), al-Garhi clarified that the debt reduction plan aims first to reduce the overall deficit in the budget and achieve an initial surplus of 2 percent of GDP, in addition to an increase of the average per capita income.

The head of Egypt s Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Mohab Mamish announced on Monday the signing of a memorandum of understanding in Dubai with Dubai Ports (DP) and the Holding Company for Maritime & Land Transport (HCMLT) to develop Egypt s first dry port in the 6 October City on the western outskirts of Cairo at a cost of $100 million. The MoU was signed by Mamish and Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman and chief executive officer of DP World Group, as well as Mohamed Youssef, the chairman of HCMLT, which follows the Egyptian Ministry of Business Sector.

The tripartite technical meeting of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which was held over the last couple of days by the irrigation ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, was ended in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday, with no tangible results. Ethiopia holds onto its position on the initial technical report, which qualifies for the preparation of the technical report that defines the safe path of the dam.