{"id":26737,"date":"2026-11-10T13:42:03","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T11:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=26737"},"modified":"2026-11-10T13:42:03","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T11:42:03","slug":"late-disclosure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/late-disclosure\/","title":{"rendered":"“Purely defensive” and “false news”: what is announced late and what people are held accountable for publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today's brief:<\/h3>\n

The prosecution’s decision in Aida Seif El-Dawla’s second case and what emerged about its basis, three judicial milestones for the press within two weeks, what the foreign minister said about Egyptian forces in Saudi Arabia, four North Sinai residents detained over a video about a school, and a new case for Aisha El-Shater. And in public affairs: state entities’ surpluses and the debt swap, inflation, medicine and wheat, the gas cut to factories, the first results of the investigation into the Ayyat train, teachers’ promises, and Cairo’s positions on Gaza, the Nile and Sudan.<\/p>\n

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The Cairo Appeals Prosecution released<\/a> psychiatrist Aida Seif El-Dawla, one of the founders of El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, on the evening of yesterday, Monday 9 November, on bail<\/a> of 50,000 pounds ($925), after questioning her at the prosecution’s headquarters in Al-Rehab city in case no. 30 of 2026, investigation register, on two charges of “broadcasting and publishing false news at home and abroad, and using an account on the internet.” According to what her defense said, the case revolves around a post she reshared on her “Facebook” account, containing a statement by political parties on the “battle of the empty stomachs” and detainees’ hunger strikes in prisons, and it began with separate complaints<\/a> filed at different times by 17 lawyers, including one woman lawyer. Seif El-Dawla acknowledged in the questioning that she owns the account, and denied the charges entirely. The questioning had been set for 1 November, before the prosecution postponed it at her request for health reasons, as covered by the 8 November brief<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lawyer Haitham Mohamedeen, of the defense team, said that the case being heard before the Public Prosecution, away from the Supreme State Security Prosecution, “is considered a positive development, since Public Prosecution investigations are characterized by discipline and greater commitment to procedural safeguards,” but “the continued opening of complaints and prosecutions in cases of publishing and freedom of opinion and expression remains in itself a negative aspect.” The two cases differ in their beginning and their subject: the first case, no. 809 of 2026 Supreme State Security, was opened by the State Security Prosecution in February on a charge of “broadcasting false news,” and the questioning<\/a> in it revolved around the sources of a report issued by “El Nadeem” on detention conditions during 2025, and it ended with her release on bail of 100,000 pounds ($1,850). The second began, according to the defense, with complaints by individuals, and its subject is a post she reshared and did not write. Thus, within nine months, Seif El-Dawla paid two bails totaling 150,000 pounds ($2,776), in two cases whose subject is one: what is published about prison conditions.<\/p>\n

The names of the seventeen lawyers have not been announced, and neither the defense nor the prosecution clarified whether any of them was directly harmed by the post. The charge of “using an account on the internet” matches the wording of Article 27<\/a> of the Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law no. 175 of 2018, which punishes “anyone who creates, manages or uses a private website or account on an information network aimed at committing or facilitating the commission of a crime” with imprisonment of no less than two years and a fine of no less than 100,000 pounds, without the defense or the prosecution specifying the article on which the charge was based. Until today, the prosecution has not announced whether the case will be referred to trial or remain under investigation, and Zawia3 did not find a statement by Seif El-Dawla or by “El Nadeem” after her release.<\/p>\n

Before the session, political parties and movements, rights organizations and public figures issued<\/a> a solidarity statement published by the Egyptian Initiative<\/a> for Personal Rights on 8 November and the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms on 9 November, and signed, among others, by the Bread and Freedom Party (under formation), the Egyptian Socialist Party, the Egyptian Democratic Front Party (under formation), the April 6 Youth Movement, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Sinai Foundation<\/a> for Human Rights. The statement called on the Public Prosecutor to drop cases 809 and 30, release Ahmed Douma and the six journalists of the “Matsada2sh” platform, cancel the ruling closing “Mada Masr,” and stop “using summons, investigation and exorbitant bail as a tool to punish everyone who writes, publishes or documents the conditions of prisons and places of detention,” citing Article 71 of the Constitution, which it said prohibits “imposing any custodial penalty in crimes committed through publication or publicity,” an article that excepts crimes of incitement to violence, discrimination between citizens and attacks on the honor of individuals. It said: “The road to stability does not pass through silencing those who expose violations, but through addressing them.”<\/p>\n

The case comes at a time when official denials about prisons are recurring. A “security source” denied<\/a> on 28 October what it described as allegations of a hunger strike by inmates, and the denial was repeated three times until 7 November, as monitored by the 8 November brief<\/a>. Then two new denials were issued at dawn today, one of which<\/a> responded to an inmate’s wife’s complaint of “medical neglect,” saying her allegations “have no basis in truth” and that the inmate “receives full medical care like the rest of the inmates of reform and rehabilitation centers,” and the other<\/a> responded to what “one of the pages on social media abroad” circulated about the mistreatment of an inmate and depriving him of exercise and contact with his family, bringing the number to at least six statements in 14 days, none of which named an inmate or a center. The first of today’s two denials came on the third and final day of a three-day partial hunger strike begun<\/a> by Nora El-Sayed, wife of detained director Omar Salah Marei, on 8 November, in protest against what she described as deliberate medical neglect of her husband, without the statement clarifying whether the inmate in question is Marei. On prison conditions, the official account comes from an unnamed security source, while the woman who reshared a contrary account on her account under her own name is being investigated.<\/p>\n

Seif El-Dawla had been banned from travel since November 2016 in the foreign funding case no. 173 of 2011, until the investigating judge decided<\/a> in March 2024 that there were no grounds to bring a criminal case against the last five organizations in it, including “El Nadeem,” saying that “with this, the curtain has been drawn on the case papers.” Less than two years after that decision, two new cases were opened against her before two different investigating authorities, and Zawia3 did not find an announcement of an official investigation into the content of what was published in either instance, whether what El Nadeem’s report documented about detention conditions in 2025 or what the statement she reshared contained about the strikes.<\/p>\n

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The Supreme State Security Prosecution is reviewing today, Tuesday 10 November, the renewal of the pretrial detention of the six journalists of the “Matsada2sh” platform, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Omaira, Abdullah Qadri, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Adel and Mohamed Mahmoud, in case no. 8083 of 2026 Supreme State Security, according to what was announced<\/a> by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, and the prosecution’s decision had not been announced at the time of writing this brief. Their pretrial detention has continued since 4 October, and its last renewal was on 27 October<\/a> for 15 days, on charges including joining a terrorist group, financing it and publishing false news. The session comes days after a statement by 13 UN experts, in which they described the case as “a new setback for civic space, which is already witnessing increasing restriction in the country,” and called for the immediate release of the six, and Zawia3 did not find an official Egyptian response to the statement as of today.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, Wednesday 11 November, the objection<\/a> filed by the defense of Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of “Mada Masr,” against an in-absentia ruling issued against her in 2024 sentencing her to one year in prison on charges of publishing false news and running a website without a license will be heard, a ruling she said she learned of during the procedures for her release last month. Two weeks later, on 25 November, the appeals court begins hearing<\/a> the appeal against the ruling of the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court in case no. 11743 of 2026, which on 27 October fined her 3 million pounds ($55.5 thousand) and ordered the closure<\/a> of the website and the confiscation of its equipment. In an interview<\/a> with Agence France-Presse published on 9 November, Attalah said of the website’s closure and the detention of the “Matsada2sh” journalists: “The two incidents cannot be separated,” and described what is happening as “a new chapter in the attempt to limit the already limited space for independent media.” She added: “We are not against regularizing our status,” but “our problem is that licensing turns into a tool of control and exclusion,” and concluded: “Journalists should not go to prison. I must not be imprisoned and the Matsada2sh journalists must not be imprisoned.”<\/p>\n

These cases, alongside the case of Aida Seif El-Dawla, reveal the variety of legal tools used against publishing: the Anti-Terrorism Law and charges of joining and financing a group with the “Matsada2sh” team before the State Security Prosecution, the licensing requirement in the Press and Media Regulation Law with “Mada Masr” before the misdemeanor court, and the charge of publishing false news that brings together the “Matsada2sh” case, the 2024 in-absentia ruling against Attalah and Seif El-Dawla’s case. The Public Prosecution had listed<\/a> in its statement on the “Matsada2sh” case on 7 October, among what it attributed to the defendants, “highlighting the shortcomings – and nothing else – in state institutions, and belittling the roles of its officials and their performance,” meaning that part of the accusation relates to the content of the journalistic coverage itself, not to its means. 25 journalists are detained in Egypt, the highest number since 2021, according to<\/a> the Committee to Protect Journalists on 23 October.<\/p>\n

As for licensing, on which the “Mada Masr” case rests, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation has not closed its file yet. On 7 November, the council said<\/a> that “the cases that did not obtain a license represent a very limited percentage,” without naming them or giving a number, and on the same day the head of the Journalists Syndicate, Khaled El-Balshy, said<\/a> that there are “95 websites that have applied for a license and have not been decided on,” as covered by the 8 November brief<\/a>. According to the Egyptian Commission<\/a> for Rights and Freedoms, “Mada Masr” applied for a license in 2018 and then in 2020 “without the council responding either time,” then the website learned of the rejection of its application from the papers of an investigation with Attalah, in 2022 according to<\/a> the account of “Mada Masr” and in September 2023 according to the commission, and appealed it, while another application it submitted in 2023 remains pending without a response. The website is being tried for working without a license whose rejection it was only informed of through investigation papers, while 95 other websites await a decision that has not been issued, and the syndicate announced that the file will be raised at the first annual media conference on 3 December.<\/p>\n

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Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said<\/a>, in an interview with “France 24” on the evening of yesterday, Monday 9 November, on the sidelines of the meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Paris, that Egyptian forces have been present in Saudi Arabia for several months, in connection with the escalation that was ongoing with Iran, with the aim of “supporting the defensive capabilities of the Kingdom,” and that the security of Saudi Arabia is an integral part of the security of Egypt. He added that Egyptian support includes<\/a> strengthening defensive capabilities and securing important sites inside the Kingdom, including sending weapons and forces, without crossing the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, adding: “As President El-Sisi mentioned, the purposes are purely defensive.” The minister did not mention the number of forces, their formations, where they are deployed, the date of their arrival, or their cost and who bears it. Responding to the description<\/a> by a member of the Houthi group’s political council, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, on 27 October, of the Egyptian parliament’s mandate as a “declaration of war” on Yemen, the minister cited a member of the group’s political bureau who described Egypt as a “trusted partner.”<\/p>\n

Military support had been presented over the past month as an upcoming step. On 17 October, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said<\/a> at the Military Academy that Egypt, “in accordance with the directives of King Salman and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will carry out any measure to protect the Kingdom and defend it,” if the Kingdom requests that, adding: “I know this matter requires ratification by parliament.” On 18 October, the National Defense Council pledged<\/a> to provide “all forms of necessary and possible support” without the presidency’s statement announcing the sending of forces, and the assistant secretary-general of the Mostaqbal Watan Party, Essam Helal, spoke<\/a> on the same day of the mandate request as relating to “the possible Egyptian move.” On 26 October, the House of Representatives approved<\/a> the mandate by a two-thirds majority in a roll-call vote whose tally was not published, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party called on its MPs to abstain from voting, and MP Maha Abdel Nasser described the mandate as open-ended and vague. On 1 November, the minister himself said<\/a> that the support is defensive “inside the territory of the Kingdom” and does not mean sending forces to Yemen, without mentioning that forces were already present.<\/p>\n

Article 152 of the Constitution, as quoted<\/a> by the same report, states that the President of the Republic does not send the armed forces on a combat mission outside the borders of the state “except after taking the opinion of the National Defense Council, and the approval of the House of Representatives by a two-thirds majority of its members.” The minister described the mission as “purely defensive,” and no official statement clarified whether the government considers the presence of forces for months a non-combat mission that does not require parliament’s approval, nor the decision under which they were sent before the mandate, nor the relationship between a mandate issued in October and forces the minister said were present months before it. On 19 March, after Iranian attacks on Gulf states, Minister of State for Information Diaa Rashwan said<\/a> that Egypt “will not be a party to any military alliance against a state in the region,” and that “the Gulf states have not requested any military support so far.”<\/p>\n

Sending Egyptian forces abroad has precedents whose decisions were announced. On 26 March 2015, with the start of operations in Yemen, Egypt decided to participate for 40 days, then the Cabinet approved<\/a> on 3 May 2015, in the absence of parliament, extending the participation of elements of the armed forces “outside the borders” in the Gulf region, the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab for three months, and later extensions were announced, including an extension<\/a> by the National Defense Council on 22 January 2017. In July 2020, the House of Representatives approved<\/a> sending elements of the armed forces on combat missions outside the borders in the western strategic direction, i.e. towards Libya. In both cases, official decisions were issued and announced, while in Saudi Arabia Zawia3 did not find an official announcement of the presence of the forces before the foreign minister’s interview with a foreign channel, two weeks after the mandate.<\/p>\n

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The Supreme State Security Prosecution renewed<\/a> on Sunday 8 November the detention of four citizens from Al-Arish and Sheikh Zuweid, Emad Salama Moussa El-Gabali, Sami Kayed Talab Salam, Sameh Moawad Abdel Hamid El-Ra’i and Mohamed Omar Abdel Hafez Mohamed Omar Hindi, pending case no. 7353 of 2026 Supreme State Security, on a charge of “misusing the international information network,” for circulating a video clip of residents of the Al-Nakhalat community in the village of Qabr Omeir demanding that their school be rebuilt, according to the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights. The four were arrested on 13 September, and disappeared for days before appearing before the prosecution in Cairo on 16 September, and their detention was renewed on 27 September<\/a> and 25 October<\/a>, meaning they are approaching two months in pretrial detention. Zawia3 did not find an official statement on the case, nor coverage of the decisions to renew their detention in Egyptian newspapers.<\/p>\n

The school in the video is the Al-Nakhalat Basic Education School in Qabr Omeir, which serves<\/a> 11 residential communities. According to the Sinai Foundation<\/a>, classes stopped there in mid-2015, it was shelled in September 2016, then the army demolished it completely in 2018, and the foundation counted in 2024 damage to 135 educational facilities in North Sinai, including 73 schools destroyed by security forces, mainly the army, and 49 schools used for military purposes. On the day the four were arrested, 13 September, the village’s pupils held their morning assembly on the rubble of the school, while the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education in North Sinai, Hamza Radwan, affirmed<\/a> “the readiness of all schools and the regular progress of work in them in the best way,” without mentioning the Al-Nakhalat school.<\/p>\n

On the same day as well, North Sinai senator Fayez Abu Harb said<\/a> that Maj. Gen. Yousry Salem, the official in charge of educational buildings at the Ministry of Education, informed him “that there is no obstacle to starting the construction of the school immediately, in coordination with the North Sinai governorate.” In another account<\/a> relayed by Abu Harb, the official linked the lack of objection to the existence of a plan for a development community in the village of Qabr Omeir, and said that the area’s pupils have been enrolled in the mother school in Qabr Omeir for more than five years. This means that the demand carried by the video reached the Senate, and a member of it relayed a response from an official that work could start “immediately,” on the same day that those who circulated it were arrested. Zawia3 did not find an announcement that construction had begun as of today, nearly two months later, while the four are still detained.<\/p>\n

The demand for reconstruction is not new, as the Sinai Foundation says it has been raised in parliament since 2022, while the position of the Education Directorate, as reported by the foundation, says the school was demolished during the “war on terrorism” and that the pupils were assigned to another school. The charge against the four, “misusing the international information network,” relates to circulating the clip itself, and the case is being heard before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which is competent for state security and terrorism cases.<\/p>\n

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The Second Terrorism Circuit, sitting in Badr and chaired by Counselor Wagdy Abdel Moneim, is hearing<\/a> today, Tuesday 10 November, the pleadings in case no. 21582 of 2024, known as the “Tagamoa cell,” in which rights defender Aisha Khairat El-Shater is being tried as the first defendant along with 26 others. According to the referral order, “the first defendant Aisha Khairat El-Shater and the second were inciters of this agreement,” “during the period from 30 May 2019 until 5 February 2020,” while defendants three to twenty-seven are accused of financing and supplying weapons and explosives. The court had set<\/a> today’s session for pleadings on 26 September, and its decision had not been announced at the time of writing this brief.<\/p>\n

The period covered by the accusation falls entirely within El-Shater’s own period of detention. According to MENA Rights<\/a> Group, El-Shater’s home was raided on the night of 31 October 2018 and she was arrested, and the Egyptian government acknowledged in its reply to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, on 3 April 2019, that she was held in Qanater Women’s Prison pending case no. 1552 of 2018 Supreme State Security. On 5 March 2023, a sentence of ten years in prison was issued<\/a> against her in that case, not subject to appeal, along with lawyer Hoda Abdelmoniem, who was sentenced to five years, and Mohamed Abu Horeira and Ezzat Ghoneim, each of whom was sentenced to fifteen years. This means the referral order accuses her of incitement in a period that began seven months after her arrest, without explaining, according to what has been published of it, how the incitement took place from her place of detention.<\/p>\n

The new case has gone through successive postponements, including its postponement from 16 December 2025 to 10 February 2026 for requests<\/a>, then the sessions of 26 July<\/a> and 26 September, at which today’s session was set. By Zawia3’s calculation, the term of the first sentence, if counted from the date of her arrest, ends in late October or early November 2028. Defendants in the original case itself have a precedent of being tried in new cases after their sentences ended: on 17 August 2026, Amnesty International issued further information<\/a> on an urgent action regarding lawyer Hoda Abdelmoniem, titled “Lawyer in poor health risks prolonged imprisonment,” in which it said she completed her five-year prison sentence in October 2023, but remains detained and is being tried in two cases.<\/p>\n

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The spokesman for the Presidency, Ambassador Mohamed El-Shennawy, said that Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk presented<\/a> to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, yesterday, Monday 9 November, in the presence of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, the results of a “study on directing part of the surpluses and funds of state entities to be invested in government securities,” with the aim of reducing the budget’s need for domestic and external borrowing, in addition to “swapping part of the debt for investments and good assets.” The statement did not mention the size of the surpluses in question, the entities that own them, the return they will receive in exchange for buying treasury securities, the assets nominated for the swap, the creditors to whom it will be offered, or a timetable. Directing government entities’ surpluses into treasury bills and bonds means that the treasury will borrow from state-affiliated entities instead of banks and investors, so what it requests from the market declines without the debt itself disappearing, and the return on these funds becomes part of the interest bill. The minister had repeated<\/a> the idea of swapping debt for investments on 1 November, after he said<\/a> in January 2025 that the government was studying swapping debt for assets and investments, describing the Ras El Hekma deal as one of the best debt swap deals.<\/p>\n

The presentation came one day after the president affirmed<\/a>, at the Armed Forces medical conference on 8 November, that “Egypt does not sell its assets,” and that it pursues a strategy based on optimal investment in them. A week earlier, on 2 November, trading in Banque du Caire’s shares began on the stock exchange after Banque Misr’s offering<\/a> of 45% of them for proceeds of 36.37 billion pounds ($673 million), and on 6 November Hashem El-Sayed, assistant to the prime minister and CEO of the State-Owned Companies Unit, announced<\/a> the transfer of four holding companies to the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, with an exit target of $1.5 billion “before the end of December.” The two phrases, “does not sell its assets” and “swapping debt for good assets,” were issued by the Presidency on two consecutive days, while offerings and exits are taking place in the same days, and no official statement clarified the difference between selling an asset and swapping it for debt, who will value these assets, or whether the swap will include controlling stakes.<\/p>\n

Debt reduction promises have been accumulating for more than a year with different figures. In September 2025, the prime minister pledged<\/a> to reduce debt to its lowest level “in modern history” without specifying a ratio or a date, and in December 2025 the finance minister targeted<\/a> reducing the debt ratio of budget agencies to below 80% of GDP by June 2026, then the prime minister said<\/a> in January 2026 that the goal is “the lowest level Egypt has not seen in about 50 years,” and promised to announce the details “within a short period,” before the 2026\/2027 budget set<\/a> in April a target of 78% for total debt by June 2027. In contrast, Finance Ministry data<\/a> showed that debt interest amounted to about 512.2 billion pounds ($9.48 billion) in July and August, against revenues of about 533.2 billion pounds ($9.87 billion) in the same two months, meaning that interest alone consumed about 96% of revenues, before wages, subsidies and investments.<\/p>\n

On the same day, Central Bank Governor Hassan Abdalla said, during his meeting<\/a> with the president and the prime minister, that net international reserves reached a “record level” of $57.50 billion at the end of October, and that the net foreign assets of the banking sector reached their highest level since 2011. The reserves had reached<\/a> $57.35 billion at the end of September, meaning the monthly increase is about $150 million, compared with $50.1 billion in October<\/a> 2025. The statement did not mention the share of deposits in the reserves, and Gulf deposits at the Central Bank amount to about $18.3 billion, according to<\/a> data published in October, including a Saudi deposit of $5.3 billion that matured in October and no final agreement on its renewal had been announced as of 21 October at least. Also in October, foreign investors sold<\/a> treasury bills on the secondary market for a net of about $3.5 billion, according to the Egyptian Exchange’s monthly report, while external debt rose<\/a> to about $166.75 billion at the end of June 2026, an increase of about $2 billion in a quarter. External debt is thus about three times the reserves described as a record, and part of these reserves are Gulf deposits with maturity dates, such as the Saudi deposit.<\/p>\n

Among the sources of hard currency the government relies on, the head of the Suez Canal Authority, Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie, said<\/a> that October revenues reached $724 million compared with $373 million in October 2025, with 1,490 ships transiting, which are “its highest monthly rates since the outbreak of the Red Sea crisis.” But the authority’s own targets show a later date for full recovery: in November 2025, Rabie announced<\/a> the aim of returning to the level of 2023 revenues, about $10.2 billion, expecting gradual recovery to begin the following year, then said<\/a> on 4 November this month that the authority targets $6.6 billion in 2026, $7.6 billion in 2027 and $10.3 billion in 2029, meaning the 2023 level has become a target for 2029. Revenues for the first nine months of 2026 reached about<\/a> $4.05 billion, which means that reaching the year’s target requires about $2.55 billion in the last quarter, of which, after October’s revenue, about $1.83 billion remains for November and December, i.e. more than $900 million a month, about 25% higher than the October revenue that the head of the authority described as the highest since the crisis began.<\/p>\n

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The Central Bank announced<\/a>, yesterday, Monday 9 November, that annual core inflation fell to 13.1% in October from 14.1% in September, but the monthly core inflation rate rose to 1.2% from 0.8%, after the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics announced<\/a> on 5 November that annual urban inflation fell to 12.7% from 13.9%. The Central Bank had set<\/a> in December 2024 a target of 7% (\u00b12%) on average for the last quarter of 2026, i.e. a maximum of 9%. The last quarter has already begun, and the headline urban inflation rate is about 3.7 percentage points above the upper limit of the target. The target is an average for the whole quarter, and its first month recorded 12.7%.<\/p>\n

The annual decline is due in part to the base-year effect, as monthly urban inflation recorded<\/a> 1.8% in October 2025, so this large rise dropped out of the annual comparison this year, while monthly core inflation accelerated to 1.2%. At the national level, prices of the housing, water, electricity, gas and fuel group rose<\/a> 24.1% year on year, transport 22.3% and education 20%, and meat and poultry rose 3.2% and milk, cheese and eggs 2.5% in a single month, compared with an annual increase of only 7.5% in the food and beverages group, while fruit prices fell 2.9% and vegetables 2.6% during the month. The largest annual increases therefore came in the housing, water, electricity, gas and fuel group, transport, and education, groups in which the government sets the prices of a large part of the items or affects them directly, not in seasonal items.<\/p>\n

On medicine, the spokesman for the Egyptian Drug Authority, Yassin Ragaei, said the authority has not received<\/a> exceptional requests to raise medicine prices by 20%, and that routine pricing requests arrive throughout the year and are studied according to the mechanism applied since 24 September, a formula in which the exchange rate accounts for 60% of the weight, urban inflation 30%, and the overnight deposit rate 10%, and the review is only opened if costs change by at least 10% for 45 days. Ragaei had said<\/a> on 8 November, in his capacity as assistant to the head of the authority, that “the news circulating about an increase in medicine prices next January is untrue.” The denial in the two statements concerns “exceptional” requests and the January date, not the pricing requests themselves, which the spokesman said continue and are being studied. Ali Ouf, head of the pharmaceuticals division at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, said in the same statements that newly priced packs will not reach pharmacies before the end of the second quarter or the beginning of the second half of 2027. Ouf had set in September the level of 55 pounds to the dollar as a dividing line for moving prices, and the dollar exceeded it in late October and rose above 56 pounds on 26 October, before falling to about 53.9 pounds by 5 November, so, according to Ouf, the condition of it staying above 55 pounds for 45 consecutive days was not met. The official dollar rate closed<\/a> yesterday at 54.05 pounds for selling. This means that moving medicine prices has become tied to how long the dollar stays above a certain threshold, not to its level on a given day.<\/p>\n

On bread, Supply Minister Sherif Farouk said<\/a> yesterday, at a conference hosted by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, that the state received “about 5 million tons of local wheat during the 2026 season,” and that the storage capacity of silos is about 4.4 million tons, with a target of 6 million by 2030. The procurement total had reached<\/a> 4.719 million tons on 15 August, the day of the official close of the season, against an announced government target of 5 million tons, and Zawia3 did not find an official announcement of the final figure closing the gap of about 280,000 tons. In January 2023, an interview with the head of the Holding Company for Silos, Maj. Gen. Sherif Basili, reported<\/a> that capacity would rise “soon” to 5 million tons, a figure capacity has not reached after nearly four years, according to what the minister said yesterday. On the same day, the Senate Industry Committee discussed<\/a>, in the presence of the minister and the head of the Consumer Protection Agency, Ibrahim El-Seginy, two requests for general discussion submitted by senators Tamer Abdel Hamid and Zein El-Abdeen Kamel, with the support of more than 20 members, on market control and rising prices.<\/p>\n

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Abu Qir Fertilizers disclosed to the Egyptian Exchange, yesterday, Monday 9 November, that it was notified<\/a> of raising the cut in natural gas supplies to 33% as of noon on 8 November, after a 20% cut that began on the first of the month, and said it will run two of its three plants at full capacity, without mentioning the duration of the cut or its financial impact. With this, two of the largest listed companies in the sector, “Abu Qir” and “MOPCO,” have announced the same cut within two days, after the disclosure<\/a> of “MOPCO” on 8 November, while Zawia3 has not found, as of today, a statement from the Petroleum Ministry on the cut, its duration, the quantities withheld or the plants covered by it. The only information available about a decision affecting an entire industry came from the two companies’ disclosures to the stock exchange, and nothing has been announced about unlisted plants.<\/p>\n

The cut extended to iron and steel. MPs Ahmed Nasser and Hossam El-Khasht, of the Justice Party, submitted yesterday two briefing requests<\/a> on the gas cut to iron and steel plants. Nasser asked: “How does the government talk about reducing the cost of steel production and protecting its competitiveness, then cut gas supplies to it after only five days?” while El-Khasht said that “real hedging does not begin after the shock occurs and prices rise, but begins with advance planning and preparation for it,” and requested a comparison of the cost of hedging with spot purchases over the last three fiscal years. The five days Nasser refers to separate the cut from the speech<\/a> of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly at the Arab Iron and Steel Summit on 3 November, in which he said the government is working to support the industry “by reducing the costs of production and its inputs.”<\/p>\n

The current cut contradicts an official denial issued no more than two and a half months ago. On 29 August, the ministries of petroleum and agriculture affirmed<\/a> “the continued securing of fertilizer plants’ needs of natural gas in the required quantities,” and described reports of reduced quotas as “untrue in whole and in detail.” The cut is not new to the sector: in summer 2024, Abu Qir’s three plants stopped<\/a> twice due to a gas shortage. The 2024 cut came at the peak of summer electricity demand, while the November cut comes outside the peak season, and no official body has mentioned its reason. Egypt’s gas production fell from about 7 billion cubic feet per day in 2019 to about 3.7 billion<\/a> currently, i.e. by about half, and the government relies on imported liquefied natural gas shipments to cover the gap. Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi said in early September that the cost of a single shipment rose<\/a> to about $80 million compared with $40 million before the war on Iran.<\/p>\n

In the Senate, the chamber today, chaired by Counselor Essam Farid, discussed a request<\/a> for general discussion submitted by Senator Ahmed El-Hamamsy on the provision of subsidized fertilizers, in the presence<\/a> of Agriculture Minister Alaa Farouk. El-Hamamsy said that “the regularity of providing and distributing them at suitable prices is a necessity that cannot be postponed,” and El-Hamamsy raised the persistence of the shortage despite the ministry’s announcement in 2026 that 2.3 million tons of subsidized fertilizers are available inside the agricultural cooperatives, and its confirmation in August that the annual quota remains at 2.4 million tons, errors in landholding data and the breakdown of the electronic disbursement system, the cutting or halting of quotas for sugarcane, sugar beet and orchards, and the leakage of fertilizers to the black market. The minister’s reply to these points had not been published at the time of writing this brief, and he merely said that the ministry will respond to what the members raised. The minister had said<\/a> on 8 November that the impact of the gas cut on subsidized fertilizers is “completely nonexistent,” and that agricultural cooperatives hold about 400,000 tons, out of winter season needs of about 900,000 tons, i.e. less than half.<\/p>\n

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The Public Prosecution ordered<\/a>, on the evening of yesterday, Monday 9 November, the detention of the controller of Al-Raqqa station and its stationmaster in the Ayyat train collision, and “holding the assistant driver of train no. 134 until he can be questioned.” It said in its statement that the technical examination of the automatic control equipment on the trains and at the station showed that “the driver of train no. 134 disabled the train’s automatic control system,” and that the head of the central department for signals and communications stated that the controller and the stationmaster failed to monitor the control panel of signal tower “T 10,” which they admitted in the investigations, and that the controller “tampered with the signals log to conceal evidence of his negligence.” The prosecution tasked a committee of professors from the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University with examining the operating system of the Egyptian National Railways, safety and monitoring procedures, signal systems and development works, and the extent of their ability to prevent accidents, reviewing the files of previous accidents, and identifying shortcomings and those responsible for them. The official toll settled at 7 dead and 125 injured, according to<\/a> the Health Ministry spokesman, Hossam Abdel Ghaffar.<\/p>\n

The result of the technical examination brings back to the fore the very system that Transport Minister Lt. Gen. Kamel El-Wazir made a condition for his work more than five and a half years ago. In March 2021, after the collision of two trains in Sohag, the minister said<\/a>: “I will not bear any more bloodshed, and I can’t work without ATC technology,” referring to the automatic train control system. According to the prosecution’s statement, the system was present on train no. 134, but its driver disabled it. The statement did not clarify how the driver disabled the system, nor whether the authority’s monitoring equipment records the disabling or alerts to it, issues that fall within the examination of safety and monitoring procedures assigned to the Cairo University committee. The station itself lies on the Cairo – Beni Suef sector, for which the minister attended the signing of a contract to upgrade its signals in September 2023, and Zawia3 did not find an official announcement of its completion, as covered by the 8 November brief<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first detention orders fell on the workers on site, a station controller and stationmaster, which is the pattern that Zawia3 documented<\/a> last August in train accidents since 2019, when accountability fell on drivers, control-tower officials and level-crossing workers, and the minister remained in his post. In contrast, parties and parliamentary blocs demanded<\/a> yesterday the dismissal or resignation of the minister, among them the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, whose MP Fredy El-Bayadi submitted an urgent briefing request calling for dismissal, and the Civil Democratic Movement, which said that “the minister’s dismissal is overdue,” while MP Maha Abdel Nasser called for dismissal and a transparent investigation, and MP Reham Abdel Nabi announced that she submitted an interpellation of the minister over the recurrence of railway accidents.<\/p>\n

The Transport Committee of the House of Representatives meets today, chaired by MP Waheed Qarqar, with the expected<\/a> attendance of the minister, after the Speaker, Counselor Hisham Badawi, approved the urgent meeting. Before the meeting, the committee’s secretary, MP Ahmed El-Darbi, said<\/a> that the meeting does not aim to interrogate the minister, and that he opposes hasty dismissals. What the minister told the committee had not been published at the time of writing this brief. The House plenary is adjourned<\/a> until 16 November, meaning interpellation requests will not be presented to the plenary before that date.<\/p>\n

In the debate over the size of the problem, MP Ihab Mansour, deputy head of the Manpower Committee, said that train accidents rose<\/a> 64% over five years, but the bulletin<\/a> of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics issued in June 2026 recorded 170 accidents in 2025 compared with 220 in 2024, a decrease of 22.7%, and the agency had recorded<\/a> 898 accidents in 2020 and 1,442 in 2019, meaning its published figures show a decline, not a rise, over five years, unless the definition of an accident changed between the bulletins. Zawia3 did not find the figure the MP relied on. On the day of the collision itself, hours after it, a car of train no. 982 derailed<\/a> at Mazghouna station between Badrashin and Ayyat, without injuries according to a railway source, and on 10 September two freight trains collided<\/a> at Al-Balida station in Ayyat, and the results of the investigation into it were not announced. The Cairo University committee’s mandate includes reviewing the files of previous accidents, without the prosecution’s statement specifying which ones.<\/p>\n

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Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly directed<\/a>, yesterday, Monday 9 November, during his meeting with Education Minister Mohamed Abdel Latif and Higher Education Minister Abdel Aziz Konsowa, the speedy provision of 400 plots of land in 400 districts, each with an area of 5,000 square meters, to expand Egyptian-Japanese schools “from 103 schools to 500 schools within three years.” According to the Cabinet’s statement, the minimum income of the teacher will reach 15,000 pounds ($278) within two years, and “the value of the increase will reach 5 or 6 thousand for each teacher within two years,” with the evening shift ending in primary schools by 2027, preparatory schools by 2028 and secondary schools by 2029, along with an urgent meeting of the ministers of finance and higher education on a plan for faculty members’ pay. The statement did not mention the cost of the schools or the increases, their source of funding, the number of teachers covered, or a figure for faculty members’ pay.<\/p>\n

The same promise has a recent history in different forms. On 24 October, the “Egypt Forum 2026” recommended<\/a> that “the minimum income (15,000 pounds) is reached within only two years,” and two days later, on 26 October, a joint plan of the ministries of finance and education set<\/a> the start of the increases in July 2027, at between 2,500 and 3,000 pounds a year depending on grade, over the two fiscal years 2027\/2028 and 2028\/2029, without mentioning a cost or a source of funding. This means the plan does not include an increase in the current fiscal year, which ends in June 2027. On 5 November, the “competencies incentive” was approved<\/a> for teachers in general, technical and Azhar education, with a minimum of 500 pounds a month per beneficiary, and an amount of at most 4,000 pounds a month placed at the disposal of the school principal or institute head, conditional on 18 actual working days, a “competent” rating and fulfilling the class-period quota. In the same week, the Cabinet approved<\/a> a draft decree on rationalizing spending for three months, extendable, which postpones projects newly added to the year’s budget and bans contracting on them until 30 June 2027, and exempted from postponement sectors including pre-university education, and did not mention higher education among the exemptions, as covered by<\/a> Zawia3.<\/p>\n

The minister’s own statements differ on the size of the shortage these promises come to address. On 12 November 2025, Abdel Latif said<\/a> before the prime minister: “There is no shortage in the number of teachers in Egypt,” pointing to the use of about 160,000 teachers paid per class, and on 17 August 2026 he said<\/a> that “the teacher shortage in core subjects is zero.” Then on 19 October, during a session at the Egypt Forum attended by the prime minister, he said<\/a> that the ministry had been facing a shortage of about 469,860 teachers, at a time when the teaching force was about 832,000, and announced that the shortage of core-subject teachers was closed by hiring 30,000 teachers a year, per-class teachers and increased teaching loads. The shortage whose existence he denied in November 2025 he described less than a year later as having reached more than half of the teaching force. Yesterday, the Central Administration for Teachers’ Affairs announced<\/a> “the acceptance of all teachers who applied to work in the border governorates,” and described the step as “new and unprecedented,” aimed at “closing the shortage,” without mentioning the number of applicants or those accepted, the governorates or the pay, nor whether they will be appointed or work per class.<\/p>\n

At Al-Azhar, the House of Representatives’ Religious Affairs and Endowments Committee, chaired by MP Amr El-Wardany, approved<\/a> today, in principle, in a joint meeting with the offices of the committees of education and scientific research, manpower, and constitutional and legislative affairs, a bill<\/a> submitted by the government amending Law no. 103 of 1961 on reorganizing Al-Azhar, which counts sick leave and childcare leave toward the periods required for promotion, keeps a teacher who reaches retirement age during the school year until its end, and allows the President of the Republic or his delegate, on the recommendation of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, to extend service in subjects the institutes need, one year at a time, up to three years, with full pay alongside the pension and the suspension of insurance contributions. The explanatory memorandum cites a shortage of teaching staff at Azhar institutes, without the bill mentioning the size of this shortage, the number of those whose service will be extended, or the cost to the treasury and the insurance authority. The bill does not include a provision on hiring new teachers.<\/p>\n

The target for Japanese schools itself changed within six months. On 11 May 2026, the Education Minister said<\/a> before the Senate that the government program’s target had been 100 Japanese schools by 2030, which had been achieved, and that the next target was 500 schools “by 2030.” Then, in the Egypt Forum recommendations<\/a> on 24 October, and in yesterday’s statement, it became a target “within three years,” i.e. by 2029, without announcing the cost of building 400 new schools or their source of funding, nor the number of teachers they will need.<\/p>\n

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In the same interview with “France 24” yesterday evening, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty described<\/a> the situation in the Gaza Strip as “miserable, shameful and embarrassing to the world and humanity,” ruled out achieving tangible progress before a new Israeli government is formed, and said that Israel blocks the entry of caravans into the Strip on the pretext of “dual-use materials.” Speaking to the Middle East News Agency on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Paris, he said<\/a> that the agreed minimum for the entry of aid, about 600 trucks a day, has not been met, and that negotiations on the second phase of the peace plan have not begun. The minister did not mention the number of trucks actually entering, or the status of the Rafah crossing. The figure of 600 trucks a day had been announced<\/a> since the January 2025 agreement, then returned as a minimum in the US president’s plan, and has not yet been met, as acknowledged by the minister, while heavy rain on the night of 8 November washed<\/a> a sand hill onto displaced people’s tents south of Deir al-Balah, and paramedics said a woman and three children were killed and six were injured.<\/p>\n

On the Nile file, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Nader Zaki said<\/a> that the minister affirmed, during his meeting with the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, yesterday, that “the Nile water file is an existential issue for Egypt,” and rejected any unilateral measures in the Eastern Nile Basin, without reference to the statements of Ethiopian Minister of Water and Energy Habtamu Itefa, who said<\/a> on 5 November that Egypt should apologize to Ethiopia and reward it for its contribution to sustaining the Nile’s waters, then said<\/a> to the Ethiopian News Agency on 8 November about building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: “We have closed that chapter,” adding that it is “contradictory” for Egypt to demand rights in the Red Sea while insisting that Ethiopia remain landlocked. Zawia3 did not find a direct official Egyptian response to the two statements. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi had said<\/a> in August 2025: “Whoever thinks that Egypt will allow an existential threat to its water security is mistaken,” the Foreign Ministry said<\/a> on the day of the dam’s inauguration in September 2025 that “Egypt will not turn a blind eye to its existential interests in the Nile River,” and the joint statement of the “2+2” mechanism with Sudan on 2 November this month described the dam as “unilateral, in violation of international law.” The official Egyptian description of the file has remained at “existential” for more than a year, the dam has been operating since its inauguration, and the Ethiopian minister speaks of it in the past tense.<\/p>\n

On Sudan, Abdelatty condemned, during a call<\/a> yesterday with the British National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, “the systematic targeting of civilians in Sudan by drones,” without naming the party responsible, but he said in his interview with the Middle East News Agency, published today, that the strikes come from the side<\/a> of “one of the countries neighboring Sudan,” noting that everyone knows it. This came a week after the statement<\/a> of the “2+2” mechanism on 2 November, which condemned “militia” attacks on infrastructure “through launching drones from one of the neighboring countries,” and announced Egypt’s readiness to take the necessary measures under the “joint defense agreement.” On the southern border, the military spokesman, Staff Col. Ahmed Otman, announced<\/a> on 5 November<\/a> that the first three phases of the expanded campaign to confront illegal gold-ore mining in the Eastern Desert, known in the media as “Southern Shield,” between 14 June and 29 October, resulted in the arrest of 150 Egyptians and 540 foreigners, 6,614 people surrendering themselves before the campaign began through proactive control points, and the seizure of 860 tons of quarry material containing gold ore, and that Col. Ahmed Samir and Lt. Col. Ahmed Gouda, head of operations of a border guard battalion, were killed in a clash with miners, stressing that “all operations to confront illegal gold mining take place within the Egyptian borders,” before the fourth phase began on 7 November.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the Sudanese group Emergency Lawyers said<\/a> on 11 October that an airstrike the previous day killed 72 workers at a mine in the Jabal al-Uqaydat area, and attributed it to Egyptian aircraft, and the head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, ordered the formation of a fact-finding committee whose results have not been announced. Yesterday, the Sudanese Communist Party condemned<\/a> what it described as Egyptian strikes on Sudanese miners, citing the raids of 16 June and 10 October. Zawia3 did not find an official Egyptian comment on these accusations, except for the military spokesman’s assertion that operations take place “within the Egyptian borders,” his talk at the same press conference of “the existence of coordination and exchange of information between the Egyptian and Sudanese sides,” and his warning against “rumors.” Egyptian statements condemn the targeting of civilians in Sudan by drones, while Sudanese parties attribute to Egyptian aircraft the killing of mining workers in a border area.<\/p>\n

Photos: Psychiatrist Aida Seif El-Dawla, Zawia3 archive; Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, photographed by the U.S. Department of State via Wikimedia Commons (public domain<\/a>); Mada Masr editor-in-chief Lina Attalah, photographed by Jennifer 8. Lee via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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