Fire that engulfed an export warehouse belonging to Egyptian sanitary ware and ceramics maker Lecico last week caused damage worth LE 70 million ($12.3 million), the firm said in a statement on Monday. A significant portion of exports was destroyed along with the warehouse, it added. Higher sanitary ware volumes were the main driver behind …

KINSHASA: The chief of police in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been suspended and several officers arrested in the probe into the death of leading human rights campaigner Floribert Chebeya, the interior minister said Sunday. Reading out a communique on national television, Adolphe Lumanu said President Joseph Kabila was "determined that all light be …

JERUSALEM: An Israeli official said Sunday that UN chief Ban Ki-moon is moving ahead with plans for an international commission to investigate Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Ban wants former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, a maritime law expert, to head the panel, which would include Israeli, Turkish and US representatives, …

CAIRO: The Egyptian property market is on course to outperform all other MENA countries in 2010, according to a recent report. Citing a Credit Suisse report, Dubai-based analyst Ahmed Badr explained that growth in the Egyptian real estate market will be spurred by “strong domestic housing demand recovery that should filter through developers’ sales figures …

CAIRO: At a time when many world markets were in recession, Egypt’s economy consistently recorded positive growth figures, above both analysts’ forecasts and government expectations. Despite the better-than-expected numbers, projections for growth were higher before the onset of the crisis — around 7-8 percent for this period, and continuing over the next several years, Hani …

Helwan governorate launched an $800 million power generation project to recycle waste into energy using Canadian technologies, reported AmCham Energy Sector Coverage. The project envisages the supply and establishment of two waste recycling and energy recovery units with a daily capacity to handle 2,400 tons of waste, which is almost 70 percent of the waste …

CAIRO: Originally a Roman garrison town named Rhinocolorum ("Noses Cut Off") after the fate of dissidents exiled there, Al-Arish, the capital city of the North Sinai governorate, historically has experienced more than its fair share of invasions. After being briefly occupied by Israel in 1956, and again after the Six Day War of 1967, Al-Arish …

TORONTO: Israel Saturday denounced as "hypocritical" a resolution adopted by the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s 189 nations and said it would refuse to take part in a conference on a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. Israel said the resolution adopted at the United Nations on Friday singles out the Jewish state and fails to mention arch-foe Iran’s nuclear ambitions. …

LONDON: Oil hit a two-week high above $75 on Friday, heading for its first weekly gain in almost a month on rallying stock markets and expectations of rising US oil consumption. Oil prices have risen more than 7 percent this week with official data showing soaring fuel demand in top consumer the United States and …

The son-in-law of Tunisia’s president launched the country’s first Islamic bank on Friday to tap into growing demand for alternative finance and investment products in the secular-leaning country. North Africa has begun to embrace Islamic finance after years watching from the sidelines, partly to channel more Arab Gulf petrodollars into the region. Sharia-compliant finance bans …

Three weeks ago, I was invited by a South-African NGO called the Arterial Network on a “sponsored cultural tour [for African journalists] to the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa).” During my five-day stay at the Zimbabwean capital, several truths about both the Arterial Network and the hosting country began to unfold, divulging a …

CAIRO: Egypt moved up one place in the monthly FIFA ranking for national teams, taking 12th place in the table. Even though they gained no points during the past month, the African masters leapfrogged Greece to edge closer to the top 10. Of the top 20 teams, only Croatia (10), Russia (11) and Egypt will …

MOSUL: Relatives and colleagues of an Iraqi MP gunned down outside his home blamed government negligence for his death as the lawmaker, from ex-premier Iyad Allawi’s bloc, was buried on Tuesday. Security forces arrested one man in connection with the assassination of Bashar Hamid Al-Agaidi, who was ambushed outside his home in the main northern …

  BNP Paribas Egypt, which has been offering international trade finance services since 2005, acquired the ISO 9001:2008 model, which is a Quality Management System (QMS) in the scope of documentary credit and collection and letters of guarantee. It is the first bank in Egypt certified with ISO 9001:2008 in this field. The bank’s international …

CAIRO: Ahly’s versatile midfielder Ahmed Fathi has recovered from injury in time to take part in Wednesday’s Cairo derby against Zamalek, the Egyptian champions said on Monday. Fathi, one of Ahly’s indispensable players, has been struggling with a groin injury he picked up last month. He missed the team’s 3-0 Champions League victory over Libyan …

CAIRO: Wind energy is growing leaps and bounds globally, at rate of 31.7 percent since 2001, and wind capacity is doubling every three years. While Africa is having difficulty keeping apace, Egypt seems to be forging full steam ahead. The actual growth rate for the continent hovered around 28 percent last year, below the 31.6 …

DUBAI: Dubai-based interiors contractor Depa Ltd said on Thursday it is "cautiously optimistic" about 2010 and expects profit and revenues for the year to be in line with 2009. Depa, which listed shares on the Dubai Financial Exchange in April 2008, will target markets in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and South East Asia as it …

HAMMELBURG, Germany: On the outside, it looks like a normal SUV. But the prototype "autonomous robot car" — fitted with sensors and scanners, multifocal camera systems and powerful computers — might one day help avoid military fatalities from bombings and ambushes — or so its designers hope. Researchers presented the so-called MuCar-3 at the European …

In one of those semi-comical, philosophically-fueled drunken sessions I remember, the unavoidable question of death, a recurring topic of these discussions, popped up. And for some peculiar and not-so-morbid reason, we laid down our thoughts about how our funerals would be like. The choice of burial varied considerably. One expressed his wish to be buried …

CAIRO: A court in Egypt is to rule next month on whether Egyptian men married to Israeli women are to be stripped of their citizenship, a judicial source told AFP on Tuesday. "The High Administrative Court will issue its verdict in June," the source said, in a case that highlights Egyptian sentiment towards Israel, more …

TEHRAN: Iran inked a nuclear fuel swap deal Monday which commits it to ship 1,200 kilograms of low enriched uranium to Turkey, potentially ending a standoff with world powers gearing for new sanctions against the Islamic republic. The agreement, under which Iran will in return receive nuclear fuel for a Tehran reactor, was signed in …

CAIRO: The net profit of Export Development Bank of Egypt (EDBE) dropped 19 percent to LE 168.9 million ($30.14 million) in the nine months to end-March, the stock exchange said on Sunday. The consolidated net profit for the same period a year earlier was LE 208.6 million, the exchange said. The government owns 77 percent …

CAIRO: Police have detained an American-Egyptian man who arrived in Cairo on a flight from New York with several weapons in his luggage, airport officials said Wednesday. The officials said the man was taken into custody as he tried to pass through customs with a metal box containing two 9 mm handguns, 250 bullets, several …

BEIJING: China registered a monthly trade deficit of $7.2 billion in March 2010, its first since April 2004. And yet, at around the same time, the United States Congress issued its loudest call ever to classify China as an exchange-rate manipulator, accusing Chinese leaders of maintaining the renminbi’s peg to the dollar in order to …

LONDON/CAIRO: The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Sarmady, Vodafone Egypt’s digital arm, announced the launch of NBA.com/arabic, the first-ever Arabic language NBA website for basketball fans in the Middle East and North Africa. The new site, which will be the ultimate online destination for fans to experience the NBA in Arabic, will feature daily video …

MANAMA: Bahrain’s Gulf Finance House is considering increasing its stake in Khaleeji Commercial Bank instead of selling it under its asset sales program, its chief executive said on Tuesday. Like other Bahraini investment houses, GFH has been badly hit by a regional real estate crunch and narrowly escaped default in February by striking an eleventh-hour …

Egypt’s Finance Ministry is reopening three, five and seven-year bonds with offerings worth LE 1.5 billion ($268 million) each for the five-year and seven-year bonds, and one billion pounds for three-year bond, the central bank said on Tuesday. The three-year bonds, which mature on April 6, 2013, carry a coupon of 11.35 percent. The five-year …

So — at last — Greece, the Eurozone and the IMF have reached an agreement and, if it holds up, money will start flowing. But how many times have we heard that delayed promise as we witnessed the sorry sight of European politicians dealing with crisis. It has left many wondering whether the system is …

CAIRO: Egypt reported an increase in Suez Canal revenues in April, reaching $374.9 million, which according to the canal authority spokesman is an indicator of a global economic recovery. “The canal is a good indicator of how the world economy is doing, not just the Egyptian economy,” Tarek Hassanein, a spokesman for SCA, told Daily …

CAIRO: Egyptian real estate developer Palm Hills Developments posted a 75 increase in net income to reach LE 107.1 million ($19.4 million) for the first quarter of 2010, the firm said in a statement Sunday. PHD said it recorded net sales of LE 198.0 million ($35.9 million) in the three months ending March, a 52 …