Cairo: At least two people were killed and 16 others injured after a train derailed in Qalyub, a city in the Qalyubia Governorate about 23 km north of Egypt’s capital Cairo.
Egypt’s Health Ministry said that 10 of the 16 injured people were receiving medical treatment at the Qalyub Specialist Hospital, adding that their injuries were not life-threatening, Xinhua news agency reported.
The other six injured people were released after suffering minor injuries and bruises.
Meanwhile, Egyptian National Railways said in a statement that the train went through the “closed semaphore” at the Qalyub Train Station and headed toward a blocked railway before colliding with the protection at the end of the railway.
As a result, the locomotive and the first carriage were derailed, the statement said, adding the Egyptian Transportation Ministry formed a committee to investigate the accident.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Public Prosecutor also ordered an investigation into the Qalyub train collision.
Egypt’s railway system has long been troubled by poorly maintained equipment and poor administration, which frequently results in train derailments and crashes. At least 32 people were killed in a train collision in 2021 in Tahta, a city in southern Egypt. Later that year, a train derailed in Qalyubia, killing 11 people.
Cairo: The Egyptian government has announced the discovery of a hidden 9-metre-long (30 feet) and 2.10-metre-wide corridor behind the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza, known as Khufu Pyramid, which “will lead to further findings”.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa said that “the discovery is a result of the international ‘ScanPyramids’ project that was launched in 2015 by the Ministry of Antiquities to study the structure of the pyramids without using harmful drilling methods”, reports Xinhua news agency.
“It will lead to further findings,” he added.
An international team, consisting of experts from Egypt, France, Germany, Canada, and Japan, has been working on analyzing a cavity behind the pyramid’s north face that was first discovered in 2016, he added.
Scientists used non-invasive and non-destructive surveying techniques called muons radiography.
Also addressing the same press conference, Mostafa Waziri, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the unfinished corridor was likely created to redistribute the pyramid’s weight around either the main entrance now used by tourists, almost seven meters away, or around another as yet undiscovered chamber or space.
“We’re going to continue our scanning so we will see what we can do … to figure out what we can find out beneath it, or just by the end of this corridor,” he added.
Five rooms atop the king’s burial chamber in another part of the pyramid are also thought to have been built to redistribute the weight of the massive structure, he said, adding that it was possible the pharaoh had more than one burial chamber.
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that is still standing today.
It was constructed as a monumental tomb around 2560 BC during the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu, or Cheops.
Built to a height of 146 meters (479 feet), it now stands at 139 meters and was the tallest structure made by humans until the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1889.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Saudi Arabia offered to pay for new sports stadiums in Greece and Egypt if they agreed to team up with the oil-rich Gulf heavyweight in a joint bid to host the 2030 football World Cup, POLITICO can reveal.
In exchange, the Saudis would get to stage three-quarters of all the matches, under the proposed deal.
The dramatic offer — likely worth billions of euros in construction costs — was discussed in a private conversation between Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in summer 2022, according to a senior official familiar with the matter.
A second senior official with knowledge of private discussions on the bid told POLITICO that Saudi Arabia is prepared to “fully underwrite the costs” of hosting for Greece and Egypt, but 75 percent of the huge 48-team tournament itself would be held in the Gulf state.
It is not clear whether the offer was taken up. But the three countries are now working on a joint proposal to host the 2030 tournament, a move which has triggered a backlash against Greece.
Riyadh’s megabucks offer to Greece, reported here for the first time, will fuel criticism that Saudi Arabia is effectively attempting to use its astronomical wealth to buy the World Cup by creating a trans-continental coalition to cleverly take advantage of the voting system.
In an attempt to persuade the members of football’s world governing body, FIFA, of the virtues of the Saudi-led bid, the proposed tournament would see matches held across three continents, providing geographical balance. A Middle East-only World Cup bid would be unlikely to succeed just eight years after Qatar hosted the tournament in 2022.
The Saudis’ main rivals are a joint Spain, Portugal and Ukraine bid from Europe, and a South American bid from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile.
The decision on who hosts the 2030 World Cup comes down to a public vote of the entire FIFA Congress, made up of more than 200 member associations from around the globe. If African countries, attracted by Egypt’s presence and Saudi investment around Africa, rally behind the bid, and Asian nations do the same, while Greece siphons off some European votes, the Saudi-led proposal will stand a strong chance of winning.
POLITICO approached all three governments for comment. The Greek and Saudi governments declined to comment and the Egyptian government did not respond to POLITICO’s requests. FIFA also declined to comment.
‘New world order’
Holding the World Cup would be the culmination of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious strategy to dominate major sporting events. Successes include winning the rights to host world championship boxing bouts, European football and Formula One motor races, while creating its own rebel golf tour. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund also bought a prominent English football club and the country will host football’s Asian Cup for the first time in 2027.
But Saudi Arabia’s desire to stage the World Cup goes beyond reasons of sporting prestige, according to one regional expert.
Lionel Messi of Argentina lifts the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Winner’s Trophy after the team’s victory during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 | Julian Finney/Getty Images
“Saudi Arabia is strategically trying to position itself as an AfroEurasian hub — the center of a new world order,” Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School in Paris, said of the Saudi-fronted bid. “This positioning would enable Saudi Arabia to exert significant power and influence across a vast geographic area, which it is seeking to achieve by building relationships with key partners.”
“The multipolar staging of a World Cup with Egypt and Greece would be neither altruism nor largesse. Rather, it would form part of a wider plan, which the government in Riyadh is enabling through the potential gifting of stadiums,” he added.
The Saudi move to host the tournament has sparked disgust among human rights watchdogs, who point out the country’s brutal treatment of the LGBTQ+ community and migrant workers.
“Saudi Arabian repression should not be rewarded with a World Cup,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “So long as Saudi Arabia discriminates against LGBT people and punishes women for human rights activism, and does not have protections for the migrant laborers who would build the majority of the new stadiums and facilities, the country cannot meet the human rights requirements that FIFA already has in place.”
The 2022 Qatar World Cup was blighted by criticism of the Gulf state over its treatment of migrant workers.
Bad memories
In Greece, paying for sports infrastructure is a touchy subject, where it is seen as a monument to government profligacy.
Back in 2004, Athens hosted the Olympic Games, with Greece splurging around €9 billion. However, much of the infrastructure was left abandoned after the Olympic flame went out.
As the country entered a decade-long depression and had to resort to bailout programs to avoid bankruptcy, the Olympics became a source of anger for Greeks who questioned whether the Games pushed their country further into recession. Nearly two decades after the Olympics extravaganza, many of the 30 venues remain unused, while some have been demolished.
Since coming to power in 2019, Greece’s conservative New Democracy government has sought to deepen ties with the Saudis and other Gulf countries, as a response to arch-rival Turkey’s expansionist policy in the region.
Mitsotakis has visited Riyadh multiple times, Greece has delivered military equipment and soldiers to Saudi Arabia and, in July last year, Athens became the first EU capital visited by bin Salman since he personally approved, according to declassified U.S. intelligence, the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Bin Salman, who is back in the West’s good books thanks to an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war on Ukraine, signed a number of bilateral agreements in Athens last summer, while pledging to make Greece an energy hub for the distribution of “green hydrogen.”
Saudi Arabia has traditionally enjoyed close diplomatic ties with Egypt. Bin Salman met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo last June where he signed billions of euros worth of investment deals and discussed “bilateral, regional cooperation.”
The decision on World Cup 2030 hosting will be made in 2024, with the bidding process set to open officially later this year.
Nektaria Stamouli and Nicolas Camut contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Gaza: A delegation of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militant group will head to Egypt on Thursday for dialogue on defusing the escalating tensions between Israel and Palestine, an official said.
Dawood Shehab, a PIJ leader from Gaza, told reporters that the group’s secretary-general Ziad Al-Nakhala, at the invitation of Egypt, will lead the delegation to discuss the escalating violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem with Egyptian security intelligence officials.
The meeting comes after a series of deadly incidents in the region.
On January 26, Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied northern West Bank and killed nine Palestinians and wounded 16 others.
A day later, a gunman opened fire on people near a synagogue at a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, killing at least seven people.
Egypt has been mediating between Israel and the Palestinians and brokered several ceasefire agreements to end hostilities in the region.
Cairo: Egypt’s renowned archaeologist Zahi Hawass has announced the discovery of “important tombs hosting a 4300-year-old mummy” in the Saqqara necropolis near the Pyramids of Giza.
“The mummy is the oldest and most complete unroyal mummy found in Egypt to date,” Xinhua news agency quoted Hawass as saying in a press conference on Thursday.
The mummy of a man, Hekashepes, covered with gold leaf, was found inside a large rectangular limestone sarcophagus in a room located under a 15-metre-deep shaft, the archaeologist said.
He added that many stone vessels were seen around the sarcophagus, which was completely sealed when the mission discovered it.
“The oldest mummy is part of the important discovery of a group of tombs that date back to the fifth and sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom,” said Hawass, the director of the Egyptian excavation team working with the Supreme Council of Antiquities at Gisr el-Mudir area in Saqqara.
He explained that new discoveries indicated that the site comprises a large cemetery.
According to Hawass, a tomb that belonged to Khnumdjedef, an inspector of the officials, a supervisor of the nobles, and a priest in the pyramid complex of Unas, the last king of the fifth dynasty, is the most important one among the new discoveries.
Khnumdjedef’s tomb is decorated with inscriptions of daily life.
The second largest tomb belonged to Meri, who was a keeper of the secrets and assistant of the great leader of the palace.
The mission also found a third tomb for Messi, who is a priest of King Pepi I Meryre, the third king of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt, and nine beautiful statues, which include one for the priest and his wife, several servant statues, and statues representing individuals.
Hawass added that the mission uncovered another 10-metre-deep shaft comprising a set of beautiful wooden statues, three stone statues representing a person named Fetek, an offering table, and a stone sarcophagus that contained his mummy.
The Egyptian mission also found many amulets, stone vessels, tools for daily life, and statues of the funerary deity Ptah-Sokar at the site, he added.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
An ambulance drives past an Israeli military vehicle as smoke rises from objects set on fire by Palestinian rioters, in the West Bank city of Jenin, on January 26, 2023. (Zain Jaafar / AFP)
Cairo: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit condemned in the “strongest terms” an Israeli raid on Jenin city and Jenin refugee camp that reportedly killed at least nine Palestinians.
Aboul Gheit follows the development in the occupied territories with great concern and calls for the international community to protect the Palestinian people, Xinhua news agency reported, citing an Arab League statement.
The state of indifference encourages the occupying forces to commit more crimes under the leadership of a government with hardline plans, Gheit said.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the raids on the Palestinian cities, which threaten the security in the West Bank, must stop immediately.
The ministry warned against the dangerous repercussions of such assaults on the security and stability of the occupied territories.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israeli soldiers on Thursday “killed at least nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, and injured 20 others, four of whom are in critical conditions, in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank”.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi: India and Egypt have reaffirmed their commitment to the founding values of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), international law and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states.
It was mentioned in a joint statement released on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi held wide-ranging talks covering bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest.
On economic ties, the statement mentioned that the Egyptian side is considering the possibility of allocating a special area of land for the Indian industries in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCEZ), adding that “the Indian side can arrange for the master plan”.
The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is one of the world’s busiest trade routes. About 12 per cent of the global trade passes through the canal each day.
The statement said India would encourage its companies, which have the potential to establish overseas investments, to make use of the available investment opportunities in Egypt.
“In this context, the Egyptian side considers the possibility of allocating a special area of land for the Indian industries in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCEZ), and the Indian side can arrange for the master plan,” it said.
The Egyptian president, who arrived here on a three-day visit on Tuesday, attended the Republic Day celebrations as the chief guest.
The joint statement noted that Modi and Sisi reviewed the status of the bilateral relationship based on the pillars of closer political and security cooperation, deeper economic engagement, stronger scientific and academic collaboration as well as wider cultural and people-to-people contacts.
“The two countries reaffirmed their commitment to multilateralism, the principles of the United Nations Charter, international law, the founding values of the Non-Aligned Movement, and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states,” the statement said.
Though it did not mention any context or country, the reference to sovereignty and territorial integrity of states came amid growing global concerns over China’s aggressive military muscle flexing and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“The two sides take into consideration the cultural and social sensitivities of all states and, in this regard, they agreed to work together to promote and safeguard these basic principles through regular consultations and coordination at bilateral and multilateral levels,” the statement mentioned.
It said Modi and Sisi expressed concern over the spread of terrorism across the world and agreed that it poses one of the most serious security threats to humanity.
“Both leaders condemned the use of terrorism as a foreign policy tool. They called for ‘zero tolerance’ for terrorism and for all those who encourage, support and finance terrorism or provide sanctuaries to terrorists and terror groups — whatever their motivation may be,” the statement said.
It said the two leaders emphasised the need for concerted and coordinated action by the international community, with the objective of eradicating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism.
“They reiterated their condemnation of efforts, including by States, to use religion to justify, support and sponsor terrorism against other countries,” it said.
“They also called upon all countries to work towards rooting out terrorist networks and their safe havens, infrastructure, their financing channels and preventing cross-border movements of terrorists,” the statement added.
Both leaders reiterated their common resolve in promoting the values of peace, tolerance and inclusiveness and making concerted efforts to fight terrorism and violent extremist ideologies.
“They emphasised the need for a holistic approach to counter terrorism and violent extremism, which includes inter alia disrupting the use of the internet and social media and preventing the use of religious centres to radicalise youth and recruit terrorist cadres,” the statement said.
It said Modi and Sisi also agreed on the need to hold the joint working group meeting on counter-terrorism on a regular basis to exchange information and best practices.
The two sides agreed on enhancing the interaction between their respective national security councils.
The joint statement said the two leaders look forward to deepening cooperation in the field of agriculture and allied services, while noting the importance of strengthening the supply chain of food articles.
Jaisalmer: The first-ever joint exercise between the special forces of the Indian Army and the Egyptian Army named “Exercise Cyclone-I” is underway in Rajasthan, according to an official statement.
The exercise which began on January 14 is aimed at bolstering defence cooperation between the two nations and focus on sharing professional skills and interoperability of the special forces in desert terrain while undertaking counter-terrorism, reconnaissance, raids and other special operations, the statement added.
This is the first exercise of its kind bringing the special forces of both the nations on a common platform.
“The 14-day exercise which is being carried out in the deserts of Rajasthan engages both the contingents to advance special forces skills such as sniping, combat free fall, reconnaissance, surveillance and target designation, sharing of information on weapons, equipment, innovations, tactics, techniques and procedures,” the release said.
The participants would also undertake joint planning and drills for special forces operations in a mechanised warfare setting as well as surgical strikes on terrorist camps/ hideouts to include sniping of high-value targets.
The joint exercise would provide an insight into the culture and ethos of both the armies thereby fostering military cooperation and interoperability to further strengthen the diplomatic relations between India and Egypt, the release added.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is scheduled to arrive in India on January 24. He will be the first Egyptian President and the fifth leader from the Middle-East to grace the Republic Day celebrations as the chief guest.
