The Jim Bakker Show

Cairo church bombing kills 25, raises fears among Christians

A nun cries at the scene of the Cairo Church bombing

By Ahmed Mohammed Hassan and Ali Abdelaty

CAIRO (Reuters) – A bombing at Cairo’s largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people and wounded 49, many of them women and children attending Sunday mass, in the deadliest attack on Egypt’s Christian minority in years.

The attack comes as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi fights battles on several fronts. His economic reforms have angered the poor, a bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has seen thousands jailed, whilst an insurgency rages in Northern Sinai, led by the Egyptian branch of Islamic State.

The militant group has also carried out deadly attacks in Cairo and has urged its supporters to launch attacks around the world in recent weeks as it goes on the defensive in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but exiled Brotherhood officials and home-grown militant groups condemned the attack. Islamic State supporters celebrated on social media.

“God bless the person who did this blessed act,” wrote one supporter on Telegram.

The explosion took place in a chapel, which adjoins St Mark’s, Cairo’s main cathedral and the seat of Coptic Pope Tawadros II, where security is normally tight.

The United States said it “will continue to work with its partners to defeat such terrorist acts” and that it was committed to Egypt’s security, according to a White House statement on Sunday.

The UN Security Council urged “all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities” to hold those responsible accountable.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis condemned what he called the latest in a series of “brutal terrorist attacks” and said he was praying for the dead and wounded.

The chapel’s floor was covered in debris from shattered windows, its wooden pews blasted apart, its pillars blackened. Here and there lay abandoned shoes and sticky patches of blood.

“As soon as the priest called us to prepare for prayer, the explosion happened,” Emad Shoukry, who was inside when the blast took place, told Reuters.

“The explosion shook the place … the dust covered the hall and I was looking for the door, although I couldn’t see anything … I managed to leave in the middle of screams and there were a lot of people thrown on the ground.”

Security sources told Reuters at least six children were among the dead, with the blast detonating on the side of the church normally used by women.

They said the explosion was caused by a device containing at least 12 kg (26 pounds) of TNT.

Police and armored vehicles rushed to the area, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the compound demanding revenge for the attack that took place on a Muslim holiday marking the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday and weeks before Christmas. Scuffles broke out with police.

A woman sitting near the cathedral in traditional long robes shouted, “kill them, kill the terrorists, what are you waiting for? … Why are you leaving them to bomb our homes?”

“EGYPTIAN BLOOD IS CHEAP”

Though Egypt’s Coptic Christians have traditionally been supporters of the government, angry crowds turned their ire against Sisi, saying his government had failed to protect them.

“As long as Egyptian blood is cheap, down, down with any president,” they chanted. Others chanted “the people demand the fall of the regime”, the rallying cry of the 2011 uprising that helped end Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

Sisi’s office condemned what it described as a terrorist attack, declaring three days of mourning and promising justice. Al-Azhar, Egypt’s main Islamic center of learning, also denounced the attacks.

Orthodox Copts, who comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people, are the Middle East’s biggest Christian community.

Copts face regular attack by Muslim neighbors, who burn their homes and churches in poor rural areas, usually in anger over an inter-faith romance or the construction of church.

The last major attack on a church took place as worshippers left a New Year’s service in Alexandria weeks before the start of the 2011 uprising. At least 21 people were killed.

Egypt’s Christian community has felt increasingly insecure since Islamic State spread through Iraq and Syria in 2014, ruthlessly targeting religious minorities. In 2015, 21 Egyptian Christians working in Libya were killed by Islamic State.

The attack came two days after six police were killed in two bomb attacks, one of them claimed by Hasm, a recently-emerged group the government says is linked to the Brotherhood, which has been banned under Sisi as a terrorist organization.

The Brotherhood says it is peaceful. Several exiled Brotherhood officials condemned the bombing, as did Hasm and Liwaa’ al-Thawra, another local militant group.

Coptic Pope Tawadros II cut short a visit to Greece after learning of the attack. In a speech aired on state television, he said “the whole situation needs us all to be disciplined as much as possible … strong unity is the most important thing.”

Church officials said earlier on Sunday they would not allow the bombing to create sectarian differences.

But Christians, convinced attacks on them are not seriously investigated, say this time they want justice.

“Where was the security? There were five or six security cars stationed outside so where were they when 12 kg of TNT was carried inside?” said Mena Samir, 25, standing at the church’s metal gate. “They keep telling us national unity, the crescent with the cross … This time we will not shut up.”

(Additional reporting by Arwa Gaballa, Amr Abdallah, Mohamed Abdel Ghany, Amina Ismail, Mostafa Hashem in Cairo, Philip Pullella in Rome, Michelle Nichols in New York and; Yara Bayoumy in Washington; writing by Amina Ismail and Lin Noueihed; editing by Ros Russell and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Rivals, regional powers grow uneasy with Palestinian leader

Palestinians take part in a rally in support of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah

By Ali Sawafta and Nidal al-Mughrabi

RAMALLAH/GAZA (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Arab states are piling pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resolve divisions in his Fatah party and with the rival Hamas movement, amid growing concerns about whether Palestinian democracy is under threat.

Neighboring states, diplomats and major funders fear the festering divisions could lead to conflict, and say the lack of a clear transition process raises questions about what would happen if the 81-year-old Abbas, in power since 2005 despite his mandate expiring, were to die in office.

In a non-binding paper circulated last month, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates made recommendations for tackling splits that have deepened over the past year, while strengthening Palestinian leadership and trying to keep the stalled peace process with Israel alive.

“Efforts to unite Fatah and empower it are aimed at balancing the Palestinian internal arena and this falls under the responsibilities of the head of the movement, Abu Mazen,” the two-page paper said, referring to Abbas by his nickname.

Among the recommendations was the holding of “free and fair” elections for parliament and the presidency by July 2017, although there are no indications that will happen. They would be the first parliamentary elections since January 2006.

“The primary reasons are Abbas’s systematic mismanagement of such relationships, and a weakness of leadership that has opened greater opportunities for Arab and foreign interference in Palestinian internal affairs,” said Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow with the Institute for Palestine Studies.

In a clear signal of its growing frustration, Saudi Arabia, which normally provides around $20 million a month to the Palestinian budget, has not made any contributions since April, according to the Palestinian finance ministry’s website.

Palestinian officials say Riyadh is withholding the funds because it first wants to see progress on unity within Fatah and with Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.

With the United States, the European Union and individual EU member states having already cut their contributions, the Palestinian budget faces a severe shortfall this year, which the World Bank puts at around $600 million.

Asked about the pressure from Arab states, Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah declined to comment directly but said the focus of Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Abbas also chairs, has always been on Palestinian unity.

“Any attempt to intervene in the independence of Palestinian national decision-making will fail, just as it has failed throughout the past 40 years,” he said. Abbas himself has said nothing in public about the political process in months.

POLITICAL JOSTLING

Rabbani said it was increasingly clear the race to succeed Abbas had begun, with a number of rivals positioning themselves for the day he is gone.

Abbas faces several challenges. Opinion polls show Palestinians have lost confidence in his leadership, and if parliamentary elections were held tomorrow, it is possible Hamas would win in both Gaza and in the West Bank, where Fatah and Abbas have traditionally been stronger.

At the same time, factions within Fatah are growing more agitated, with rival groups emerging ahead of a party congress set to take place next month, the first since 2009.

Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah security chief who fell out with Abbas and now lives in self-imposed exile in the United Arab Emirates, is a staunch Abbas critic who retains influence within Fatah’s revolutionary council and central committee.

Some senior Fatah figures want Abbas to reconcile with Dahlan, but the president shows no such inclination. At the party congress, Abbas is expected to push for the election of a new central committee and revolutionary council – the equivalent of Fatah’s parliament – that would be free of Dahlan loyalists.

Dahlan, 55, said that if Abbas did try to push such changes through, it would be “illegitimate”.

It “will represent the most dangerous split in the history of Fatah and will be regarded as a palace coup,” he told Reuters in written comments, adding that there were legitimate reasons to worry about a collapse in the democratic process.

“It is time to implement the will of the people and implement the law by electing a new leadership and not a new leader. There is a historical and national need to hold parliament and presidential elections,” he said.

In an analysis last week, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace described Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian politics for more than 50 years, as “tearing itself apart”, with worrying implications for the future.

“It is likely that the split within Fatah will further widen if Dahlan is excluded from holding a leadership position,” it wrote. “Furthermore, the dispute between the Dahlan and Abbas factions could evolve into open warfare, which could mean instability or even violence – especially where Dahlan wields considerable power in the Gaza Strip, the northern West Bank and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.”

This week has already seen unrest in some West Bank refugee camps where Dahlan has a strong following.

Diplomats say Dahlan has good ties with Egypt as well as the Gulf states. Cairo sees him as a helpful interlocutor with Hamas in Gaza, where Dahlan is from, and as someone with the energy and strength to shake up Palestinian politics.

Others, though, see Dahlan as the power behind the throne. Officials who have met him think he may act as a kingmaker, rather than a future Palestinian president, throwing his support behind another senior Fatah figure as leader.

A number of names crop up in both Palestinian and Israeli assessments, including Nasser al-Qudwa, the nephew of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Jibril Rajoub, a former security chief who heads the Palestine Football Association, and Majid Faraj, the head of Palestinian intelligence.

Yet the most popular Palestinian politician, according to opinion polls, remains Marwan Barghouti, a leader of the first and second uprisings against Israel who was convicted of murder by an Israeli court in 2004 and is serving five life sentences.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Ethiopia blames foreigners for stoking violent unrest over land rights

People walk near a torched truck in the compound of a textile factory damaged by protests in the town of Sebeta, Oromia region, Ethiopia,

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia accused “elements” in Eritrea, Egypt and elsewhere on Monday of being behind a wave of violent protests over land grabs and human rights that have prompted the government to declare a state of emergency in the Horn of Africa nation.

The unrest has cast a shadow over Ethiopia, whose state-led industrial drive has created one of Africa’s fastest growing economies but whose government also faces criticism at home and abroad over its authoritarian approach to development.

Ethiopia declared a state of emergency on Sunday after more than a year of unrest in its Oromiya and Amhara regions, near the capital Addis Ababa, where protesters say the government has trampled on land and other political rights.

Rights groups say more than 500 people have died in the violence. The government says the death toll is inflated.

“There are countries which are directly involved in arming, financing and training these elements,” government spokesman Getachew Reda said, referring to the protesters, although he added that those responsible might not have state approval.

Getachew told a news conference the six-month nationwide state of emergency had been declared to better coordinate security forces against “elements” intent on targeting civilians, infrastructure and private investments.

Last week, protesters damaged around a dozen factories and equipment mostly belonging to foreign firms, which demonstrators accuse of purchasing leases on seized land.

The latest flare-up followed a stampede on Oct. 2 in which at least 55 people were killed after police fired teargas and shots into the air to disperse protesters during a crowded annual festival in the town of Bishoftu in Oromiya.

Protesters had chanted anti-government slogans and made arm gestures to symbolize repression, while some had waved flags of an outlawed rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Front.

Getachew named Eritrea, which has a long-running border dispute with Ethiopia, and Egypt, embroiled in a row with Addis Ababa over sharing Nile waters, as sources of backing for “armed gangs”, although he said it might not come from “state actors”.

“We have to be very careful not to necessarily blame one government or another. There are all kinds of elements in the Egyptian political establishment which may or may not necessarily be directly linked with the Egyptian government,” Getachew said.

Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman dismissed accusations of meddling in Ethiopia’s affairs. In a statement he said Egypt had “absolute respect for Ethiopia’s sovereignty” and “urged vigilance against any attempts to harm the brotherly relations”.

Eritrea routinely dismisses charges that it wants to destabilize its neighbor, and instead accuses Addis Ababa of stoking unrest on its own soil and backing Eritrean rebels.

HISTORIC FRUSTRATIONS

Many people from Oromiya, a region at the heart of Ethiopia’s industrialization drive, accuse the state of seizing their land and offering meager compensation before selling it on to companies, often foreign investors, at inflated prices.

They also say they struggle to find work, even when a new factory is sited on property they or their families once owned.

Frustrations about mistreatment by central government have long festered in Oromiya and Amhara, where new industries and foreign flower farms have sprung up.

Together the Oromos and Amharas make up more than half Ethiopia’s total population of 99 million people.

The ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been in power for a quarter of a century, is made up of four parties representing the main ethnic groups. But opponents say Tigrayans, a smaller ethnic group whose powerbase is in the north, are pulling the strings.

The government dismisses such charges.

Though praised for transforming an economy that Ethiopia’s former Marxist rulers drove toward a devastating famine in 1984, the government has also come under fire from domestic critics and rights groups for offering little political reform.

“(The government) seems to have concluded that economic development alone will satisfy the overwhelming majority of Ethiopians,” said David Shinn, an academic and former U.S. envoy to Addis Ababa. “Regular elections are permitted in this system, but they do not come close to meeting Western standards.”

Economic growth in 2015 hit about 10 percent, although a long drought has knocked it down into single digits this year.

In last year’s parliamentary election the opposition failed to win a single seat after holding just one in the previous assembly.

U.S. President Barack Obama told his Ethiopian hosts in Addis Ababa last year that greater political openness would “strengthen rather than inhibit” their development agenda.

The government said it ensured political freedoms but differed over the pace of any reforms demanded by Washington.

Protests first erupted in Oromiya and Amhara in 2014 over a development plan for the capital that would have expanded its boundaries, a move seen as threatening farmland.

The government shelved the boundary plan but the unrest persisted, turning into broader-based demonstrations over politics and human rights abuses.

(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed in Cairo; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Death Toll from capsized migrant boat off Egypt rises to 177

An Egyptian mother reacts beside the body of her son who was on a boat carrying migrants which capsized off Egypt's coast, in Al-Beheira, Egypt, September 22, 2016.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Eight more bodies from the wreck of a boat carrying hundreds of migrants were recovered from Mediterranean waters off Egypt on Tuesday, ambulance sources said, taking the death toll to 177.

The boat capsized off Burg Rashed, a coastal village in the Nile Delta, on Sept. 21. Rescue workers and fishermen said they had rescued at least 169 people, but confusion remained over how many might still be unaccounted for.

The spokesman for the Beheira regional governor said the shipwreck had been hoisted out of the depths and was likely to contain dozens more bodies.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday it was still tracking the incident and believed that about 300 people in all were aboard the boat.

Egyptian security sources initially said there had been almost 600 migrants aboard. But a survivor whose comments appeared in an online video said the migrants had been told that about 200 people would be making the journey but traffickers had then added another 50, causing the boat to founder.

Officials said the boat was carrying Egyptian, Sudanese, Eritrean and Somali migrants, and that they believed it was heading for Italy. Four members of the crew were arrested.

The IOM says that more than 3,200 migrants have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean this year, while an estimated 298,474 have reached European shores. More than 1 million Middle Eastern, African and Asian migrants entered Europe in 2015.

(Reporting by Mohamed Abdellah in Cairo and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by Asma Alsharif; editing by Mark Heinrich)

International experts in Egypt to inspect Metrojet wreckage

An Egyptian man puts flowers near debris at the crash site of a Russian airliner in al-Hasanah area at El Arish city, north Egypt, November 1, 2015.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Experts from Russia and Germany are in Egypt to inspect the wreckage of a Russian passenger plane that crashed in Sinai last year killing all 224 people on board, the Egyptian-led investigating committee said on Monday.

Irish, American, and French experts will join the inspection team which will seek to pinpoint the area where the plane began to break up, the committee said in a statement.

“Representatives from Russia and Germany have arrived today to inspect the wreckage of the doomed Russian Metrojet plane which crashed over the Sinai Peninsula last October,” the committee said.

Parts of the wreckage had been previously gathered and moved to Cairo International Airport. The experts will attempt to reconstruct the plane.

The Airbus A321, operated by Metrojet, had been returning Russian holiday makers from the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh to St Petersburg when it broke up over Sinai, killing all on board. Islamic State said it brought down the plane with a bomb smuggled inside a fizzy drink can.

Russia and Western governments quickly confirmed a bomb brought the plane down and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi later said the cause was terrorism. Britain and Russia suspended flights to Sharm al-Sheikh as a result, devastating Egyptian tourism, a lifeline of an already battered economy.

Russia is participating in the investigation as the airline’s country of origin, Germany as the manufacturer’s, Ireland because the plane was registered there, France because that is where it was designed, and the United States as the engine maker’s country of origin.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Lin Noueihed)

Egypt’s former Grand Mufti survives assassination attempt

Egypt's former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa speaks during the King Abdullah II World Interfaith Harmony Week

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, once one of the country’s top religious authorities, survived an assassination attempt on Friday, security sources told Reuters and state television later reported.

Two men on a motorcycle fired guns on Gomaa as he entered a mosque, the sources said. He was unharmed and one of his body guards received a minor injury to the foot. The gunmen immediately fled the scene.

“If Ali Gomaa dies there are millions who will take his place,” Gomaa told state television shortly after news of the attempt was made public. “I gave my sermon right after my survival.”

Like many of the top religious figures in the Egyptian state, Gomaa is an adherent of a mystical school of Islam known as Sufism whose practices have sometimes set them at odds with more puritanical Muslims, including hardline Islamist groups.

Gomaa is an outspoken critic of Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood which the military ousted from power in 2013 after mass protests against former President Mohamed Mursi.

He is also close to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led the military’s ouster of Mursi, and campaigned for his election.

“I tell Sisi remember your God and pray to him and walk in his blessing. God will grant you victory. This proves you are on the right path,” Gomaa said.

The grand mufti is in charge of issuing religious edicts as well as issuing a non-binding opinion on all capital sentences.

No group claimed the attempt on Gomaa’s life.

Egypt is facing an Islamist insurgency led by Islamic State’s local branch in North Sinai where hundreds of soldiers and police were killed. There have been attacks in Cairo and other cities as well.

The country’s top prosecutor was assassinated by a car bomb in June last year.

(Reporting by Ahmed Mohamed Hassan and Mostafa Hashem; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Russian suspect in Istanbul attack: a shy student who found religion

By Maria Tsvetkova

IKON-KHALK, Russia (Reuters) – When Rahim Bulgarov graduated from college in southern Russia with a diploma in tourism, his teacher expected him to go on to further study, or fulfill his dream of opening a car repair shop.

Instead, Bulgarov started going to the mosque with followers of a pious strain of Islam, and, according to a close relative and Egyptian security sources, went to Cairo last year to study Arabic.

Turkish state media have identified Bulgarov, 23, as one of the suspected suicide bombers who attacked Istanbul’s Ataturk airport on June 29, killing 45 people and wounding hundreds.

Several of the attackers were from Russia or ex-Soviet countries, making it the deadliest foreign attack by militants from that region since the Boston marathon bombing in 2013, carried out by two young ethnic Chechen brothers.

In the space of two years, Bulgarov changed from a shy young man who led a secular lifestyle to a suspected jihadist bomber, according to Reuters interviews with his teacher, an imam, a classmate and the close relative.

His case shows the challenges that Russian security agencies face identifying potential security threats out of the thousands of young people in Russia who are turning to ultra-conservative forms of Islam.

EGYPTIAN STAY

Three Egyptian security sources told Reuters Bulgarov spent 7 months and 12 days in Cairo, leaving in January this year, and that he signed up for Arabic classes at Al-Azhar University, an Islamic center of learning.

“He lived in a flat with another young Russian man in the Ain Shams area,” said one of the sources, referring to a suburb of Cairo.

Bulgarov was not on the radar of Egyptian security services until Russian authorities contacted them around a week ago seeking information on him and any other Russians he mixed with in Cairo, said the same source.

Bulgarov left Egypt on Jan. 13 for Turkey, according to the three Egyptian sources.

Some time after that, he returned to Russia and was interviewed by the Federal Security Service (FSB), which is responsible for counter-terrorism, and had to undergo a lie detector test, according to the relative, who did not want to be identified.

The relative said Bulgarov was then allowed to go home.

“He passed the test, he was fine,” said the relative.

Reuters could not confirm that the interview, a routine procedure in Russia that does not necessarily mean the authorities thought he was a security threat, took place. Local police and the FSB did not respond to requests for comment.

COMFORTABLE UPBRINGING

Bulgarov grew up in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, a Russian region on the northern slopes of the North Caucasus mountains where many people are Muslim.

But unlike other parts of the North Caucasus, such as nearby Chechnya and Ingushetia, there was no strong tradition of hardline Islamism or rebellion against Moscow’s rule.

Bulgarov’s family home is in the village of Ikon-Khalk, a settlement of the Nogai people, a Turkic ethnic group.

His upbringing was comfortable. His father is a tractor driver. His grandmother owns a deli store in the village which, among other items, sells food cooked by his mother.

Putting Bulgarov through college to get his tourism diploma would have cost his family nearly $3,000, according to Mardjan Dagujieva, the director of the college, a substantial sum by local standards.

At the college, Bulgarov was shy.

“When he dared to say a word in class, that was already a shock for us,” said Yevgeny Romanenko, a classmate.

He said Bulgarov at that time smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol – both habits which are forbidden according to most interpretations of Islam.

His teacher at the college, Gor Kurginyan, said Bulgarov was one of his best students with a dream to start a small business.

“He planned to launch a car repair shop along a road in his neighborhood,” said Kurginyan.

Bulgarov graduated from the college in 2011, and his teacher expected him to either pursue the workshop plan or keep studying, maybe at university in the nearby city of Pyatigorsk.

But when Kurginyan met up with some of his ex-students about two years ago, he heard the unexpected news that Bulgarov had devoted his life to Islam.

“I asked the guys: ‘And how is Rahim?'” said Kurginyan. “They told me he had … turned to Islam.”

RECRUITS TO MOSQUE

After Bulgarov graduated from college, he had been working on a farm and in construction in his Ikon-Khalk, according to his close relative.

But the village was changing. In 2013 or 2014, young local men started visiting the mosque at the end of his street, drawn to practicing Islam for the first time in their lives, and in particular to a very strict interpretations of the faith.

This mirrors a trend throughout the North Caucasus. According to a report this year by the International Crisis Group, poverty, corruption and police crackdowns in the region have left many young people feeling angry and persecuted.

Some of them have been drawn to radical forms of Islam which they feel offers a way to address injustices.

“More people started going to mosque,” said the imam at the mosque in Bulgarov’s village, Abdulla Kumykov. “It had been very few, about 10 people at Friday prayer. And now it’s 40-50, (taking up) about half of the prayer room.”

When a Reuters reporter visited last week, several men in their 20s and 30s hung around the mosque. They refused to speak with the female reporter, and insisted she did not cross into the mosque’s courtyard, saying women were not allowed in.

The imam, who could not explain why there had been an influx of new worshippers, spoke to the reporter outside the perimeter of the mosque.

He said Bulgarov had first come to the mosque around 18 months ago, and had prayed there regularly until he left for Egypt.

The close relative said Bulgarov left home for a second time in March this year, telling his family that he was traveling to find work in Labytnangi, a Russian mining settlement near the Arctic Circle.

The next time the relative knew of his whereabouts was when they learned he was a suspect in the Istanbul airport bombing.

(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed and Ahmed Mohammed Hassan in CAIRO and David Dolan in ISTANBUL; Editing by Christian Lowe and Anna Willard)

Rising prices mar prospects of economic revival in Egypt

By Mohamed Abdellah

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s efforts to relieve a crippling dollar shortage are pushing it towards a sickly combination of rising prices and lower growth, undermining hopes for economic revival after years of political upheaval.

Prices have soared since Egypt devalued its currency by 13 percent in mid-March to end speculation against the pound and ease a dollar shortage that has disrupted trade in a country that relies on imports of everything from food to fuel.

But the black market for dollars has since rebounded, putting Egypt back at square one: under pressure to devalue and spark a new round of price rises just as economic growth slows.

Affordable food is an explosive political issue in Egypt, where tens of millions live a paycheck from hunger and economic discontent has helped unseat two presidents in five years.

Living in a slum built on an abandoned refuse dump in Cairo, Mahmoud Abdallah describes the daily battle to make his family’s income stretch beyond beans and potatoes as core inflation hit a seven-year high above 12 percent in May.

“Fruit? What fruit?” the father of six asks with a bitter laugh. “It’s enough for us to look at fruit in the street.”

Importers say devaluation has made shipments more costly, while the hard currency shortage forces some to pay a premium on the black market where one dollar sells for about 11 pounds. The official rate is 8.8, but banks cannot meet demand.

In an effort to cut imports it blames for excessive dollar demand, Egypt increased customs duties this year. The idea is to nudge consumers toward locally-made substitutes, boosting Egyptian firms and encouraging exports.

But exports fell 13.9 percent in the first half of 2015-16, with manufacturers saying the dollar shortage made it harder to import raw materials. The devaluation means they pay more for those inputs too, so local produce is also more expensive.

“They want to make it more difficult to import things but they are also effectively risking engineering a recession,” said Timothy Kaldas, non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “I don’t envy anyone having to deal with this situation because there are no good solutions.”

Abdallah has struggled to find regular work since the 2011 revolt that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule and was propelled, in part, by anger over economic policies that appeared to benefit the rich and leave everyone else behind.

“The situation is below zero… Every time prices rise, we fall, others fall… the poor are lost,” he told Reuters.

CALLING IN THE ARMY

The dangers are not lost on President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who promised to revive the economy after taking power in 2013 and has called in the army to help keep a lid on prices.

Over the past year, army vans have begun roaming the country selling cheap groceries and military outlets have popped up.

“Air Defence Outlet. No to Higher Prices. No to Greedy Merchants,” reads a sign above one such store in Cairo.

Through its barred window, customers call out their orders.

The colonel who manages the shop says the goods are made by military companies primarily to feed troops, but are being sold to consumers to combat price rises he blamed on merchants.

But business people say they cannot offer the same prices as the military, which is exempt from tax and uses conscripts as free labor in its factories and farms.

By offering subsidized goods they cannot compete with, economists say the state is undermining the private sector and increasing reliance on subsidies the state cannot afford and should be scaling back.

“Look at the rise in the price of oil, butter and vegetables and you’ll know why we raised prices,” said Mohamed Abdel Rahman, a bakery owner.

COMPETING FOR CUSTOMERS

At a wagon selling cheap cuts of meat at an open food market in Cairo, a woman buys a bag of cow intestines. Another asks the price of a shin and walks away on hearing the answer.

At another stall, women pick through a pile of rotten tomatoes selling at a discount. A fresher batch, at twice the price, sits untouched.

The month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, is normally busy for food-sellers as families gather for the evening meal. This year, it is more subdued.

“We used to wait for this season,” said a butcher, who declined to give his name. “This was the season when people bought quantities and varieties. Now they just look and leave.”

As people cut back on spending, the slowdown could gather pace, say economists, spelling trouble for a government that needs faster growth to create jobs for a growing population.

Growth slowed to 4.5 percent in the first half of 2015-16 from 5.5 percent a year earlier, robust by Western standards but too slow, say experts, for a population that expanded by 1 million, to 91 million, in the last six months.

Yet rising inflation forced Egypt to hike interest rates by 1 percentage point last week to their highest levels in years.

That makes borrowing, and expansion, more expensive for private sector firms in a country where banks already prefer to invest in high-yield, low-risk government debt.

A plan to introduce Value Added Tax is in the works but has been delayed as policymakers fret over the political repercussions of another round of inflation.

The past two years have already seen the government slash electricity and petrol subsidies, though further cuts were delayed due to declining oil prices. In recent weeks, Egypt has raised price caps on the cheapest generic medicines.

The prospect of more price rises is a nightmare even for middle class Egyptians like civil servant Shadia Abdallah, whose husband is retired and two grown-up sons live at home.

“Our income is fixed but prices are rising,” she says.

Egypt builds new homes to replace crumbling slums

A man shows cracks in walls at his home in Al-Assal, one of the oldest slums in the Shubra district of Cairo, Egypt June 1, 2016.

By Mahmoud Mourad

CAIRO (Reuters) – Bayada Mohamed has left her old slum on a crumbling cliffside and moved into a new flat in a Cairo residential complex, making her among the first to benefit from a government plan to rehouse residents of Egypt’s most dangerous slums.

Like other residents of the Doueyka slum where homes have no running water and a rockslide killed about 130 people in 2008, Bayada’s family has been offered a rental flat in the recently-opened Tahiya Misr development in the Moqattam area, as pictured in this photo essay – http://reut.rs/21hyvjc.

“Where was I and where am I now?” exclaimed Bayada, sitting in her new flat surrounded by new furniture.

There are 351 slums deemed unsafe in Egypt, most of them in the sprawling capital where the poorest have built ramshackle homes that lack basic amenities such as mains sewage and water. Some 850,000 people are believed to live in dangerous slums.

Building collapses are common in Cairo, home to some 20 million people, and the shortage of affordable housing is so acute that 1.5 to 2 million are believed to live in tombs in an area known as the City of the Dead.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised last month to move all those living in unsafe slums to new flats over the next three years in an ambitious project expected to cost about 14 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.58 billion).

The first two phases of Tahya Misr, which is dedicated to rehousing slumdwellers, were completed in 11 months and comprise 12,000 flats. The third phase opens in 2017, bringing the number of flats to 20,000. The completed complex will house 100,000.

Government efforts to eradicate the worst slums come as Sisi faces growing pressure to revive the economy and avoid the kind of protests that toppled two presidents in the last five years.

But rising prices are eroding living standards in a country where tens of millions rely on state-subsidised food and complicating efforts to rid Egypt of its slums.

MORE SLUMS

Not all slum residents have been as enthusiastic as Bayada about leaving behind their communities and seeing their old homes demolished.

“Most of the residents of these areas wish to be in areas close to where they are actually living now and this for us is a problem,” Sisi said at the recent opening of a low-income housing project in the Madinat Badr area of Cairo.

While it evacuates dangerous areas, the government is upgrading other informal settlements, connecting them to basic services and paving roads.

But many residents are disappointed with the upgrades.

Magdi Mahmoud, a factory worker who lives with his family in the informal settlement of Abu Dahruj in southern Cairo, said the work should have stretched to schools and clinics.

“The improvements are not bad but the important thing is people look after them,” he said.

And on Cairo’s dusty and desolate fringes, the city’s poorest are building more illegal homes on land they do not own.

As the Tahya Misr development nears completion, Ahmed, a vegetable seller, is working with neighbors to complete a new slum near Arab al Barawi, an older informal settlement in southern Cairo, after struggling to afford the rent there.

His new house is built with scavenged materials.

“Thank God, today he blessed us with a bit of wood that was left on the street … to roof my house,” Ahmed said.

(Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Egypt Muslims attack Christian woman, burn houses after affair rumor

CAIRO (Reuters) – Hundreds of Muslims have set fire to homes of Christians in southern Egypt and stripped a 70-year-old woman naked after rumors her Christian son had an affair with a Muslim woman, the local church and witnesses said.

The Christian man fled with his wife and children on May 19, said Ishak Ibrahim at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. His parents went to the police, fearing for their lives.

The next day, around 300 Muslim men set fire to and looted their house in the southern province of Minya and stripped the mother naked out on the street. They also set fire to and looted six other houses, eyewitnesses told Reuters.

“They burned the house and went in and dragged me out, threw me in front of the house and ripped my clothes. I was just as my mother gave birth to me and was screaming and crying,” the woman, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi condemned the attack in a statement on Thursday and ordered authorities to bring those behind it to justice. He also ordered local authorities and the military to rebuild all damaged properties within a month at state expense.

Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II called for calm and restraint in a statement on Thursday. He said he was pursuing the matter with Egyptian officials and that he had spoken to the woman and all those whose homes were attacked.

The woman accuses three Muslim men of stripping her and dragging her in front of her house, her lawyer Ehab Ramzi told Reuters.

Security sources said police arrested five men in connection with the incident and the public prosecutor had ordered their detention and the arrest of 18 others.

Ten members of parliament put forward a motion to cross-examine Interior Minister Magdi Abdel Ghaffar over the incident.

Orthodox Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people, are the Middle East’s biggest Christian community. They have long complained of discrimination under successive Egyptian leaders.

(Reporting by Mohamed Abdellah and Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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