CAIRO, April 3 (Reuters) – A delegation from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) has arrived in Egypt for talks
on a $4.8 billion loan to ease an economic crisis in the most
populous Arab country, state news agency MENA said on Wednesday.

After two years of political upheaval, foreign currency
reserves have fallen to critically low levels, threatening
Egypt’s ability to buy wheat, of which it is the world’s biggest
importer, and fuel.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt raised the price of state-subsidised cooking gas for the first time in two decades on Monday, a government official said, trimming an unaffordable subsidy bill but increasing the risk of unrest.

The price rise comes two days before an IMF mission arrives in Cairo to continue talks on a $4.8 billion (3.15 billion pounds) loan needed to stave off a budget crisis and support a fast-weakening currency.

CAIRO (Reuters) – An IMF delegation will arrive in Egypt on Wednesday for talks with the government on a $4.8 billion loan, a government spokesman said on Sunday, as Cairo seeks to conclude a deal vital to easing a deep economic crisis.

Spokesman Alaa El Hadidi added that Egypt would not seek any emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund and faced no “crisis” in funding the import of essential commodities.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt rattled investors on the Cairo stock market on Tuesday by unexpectedly announcing that a takeover of its second biggest private bank would be subject to a new capital markets tax.

Shares in the bank, National Societe Generale Bank (NSGB.CA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which is being taken over by Qatar National Bank QNBK.QA, tumbled by their legal limit of 10 percent and helped pushed Cairo’s benchmark index down to its lowest level since December.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Opposition activists from Syrian’s President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect called for his overthrow on Sunday and urged their co-religionists in the army to rebel.

In the first meeting of its kind by Alawites who support the revolt, delegates distanced themselves from Assad’s crackdown against an uprising in which 70,000 people have been killed.

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – Fighting has broken out between government forces and rebels in central Sudan, both sides said on Sunday, in an escalation of violence so far concentrated closer to the country’s borders.

Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels from the western Darfur region said they attacked troops in North Kordofan state.

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – Fighting has broken out between government forces and rebels in central Sudan, both sides said on Sunday, in a possible escalation of violence that has hitherto been concentrated closer to the African country’s borders.

Rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) from the western region of Darfur said they had launched an attack on the army in North Kordofan state.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudanese authorities cut off a hand and foot of a man convicted of armed robbery, rights groups said on Wednesday, the first such punishment under Islamic law in Sudan for almost 30 years.

It followed a pledge by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to implement a “100 percent” Islamic constitution as a result of the secession in 2011 of the mainly non-Muslim south of Sudan.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – When Pastor Kamis went to visit his small church in the Sudanese capital just before Christmas last year, he found a pile of rubble and the remains of a single blue wall.

Hours earlier, authorities had sent in a bulldozer and workers backed by police to demolish the Africa Inland church, which used to lie in a slum suburb of Khartoum.

ATBARA, Sudan, Feb 20 (Reuters) – On rail tracks in Atbara,
Sudan’s main railway city, stray engines and empty coaches from
trains built in Europe, India and the United States, some more
than 50 years ago, stand still in the scorching heat.

The trains broke down years ago and many of the coach
windows have been smashed, while the tracks they stand on are
derelict.