The Huffington Post Human Rights Watch Slams Rampant Torture And Abuse In Egyptian Prisons Egyptian authorities have blood on their hands, Human Rights Watch said in a damning report published Wednesday that detailed scores of detainees dying and wasting away while in government custody. "The Egyptian authorities have appeared shockingly complacent in the face of so many detainee deaths," Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Director Sarah Leah Whitson said in the report. "They need to ensure that all such deaths, as well as abuse allegations, are independently investigated, and rapidly put in place and enforce effective safeguards to protect everyone in state custody." According to the Cairo-based Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, at least 35 people died in the first 100 days that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/21/human-rights-watch-egypt_n_6514682.html Al Monitor Egypt uses church to bolster ties with Ethiopia At a time when the Egyptian government officially acknowledged that obstacles re-emerged in the negotiations with Ethiopia over the Renaissance Dam — which is threatening the Egyptian share of the Nile's waters — Egypt is seeking to take advantage of the rapprochement between the Egyptian and Ethiopian Coptic churches. This was shown during the last visit of the Ethiopian patriarch to Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria at Christmas. Egypt is trying to benefit from these ties to improve bilateral ties, drawing on historical relations that have linked both churches since the 14th century until their separation in 1959. This comes as part of Egypt's penchant toward using all types of soft power on various levels in an attempt to regain its lost role in Africa and rectify the widespread perception on the popular level in all upstream countries that depicts Egypt as stealing Nile water. This inclination coincides with an expected visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Ethiopia to attend the African Summit at the end of January. Cairo wants to reintroduce the historical role the Egyptian church played in the past to resolve the crisis of Nile water flow from the Ethiopian highlands, providing Egypt with a popular support in its political negotiations. However, the majority of observers believe that even if the church's intervention does not entail an undesirable overlap between politics and religion, it is already too late. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/egypt-ethiopia-church-rapprochement-renaissance-dam.html#ixzz3PXr39gLK The Financial Times Egypt allows pound to reach record low against dollar Egypt's central bank has allowed the country's currency to hit a record low against the dollar in an attempt to restore confidence and narrow the gap between the official and unofficial exchange rate. Authorities in Cairo have been preparing the ground for an economic turnround through reforms, including measures aimed at narrowing the deficit by slashing energy subsidies and increasing taxes. The government of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi — the president who was elected last year after toppling his Islamist predecessor — hopes to woo back foreign investors with the offer of dozens of energy and other infrastructure projects worth billions at a conference planned for March. Analysts predicted that the currency's slide would continue in what they see as "a managed depreciation" to narrow the gap between the official exchange rate and the black market price. Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9d893bce-a183-11e4-8d19-00144feab7de.html#axzz3PXAVUOyQ Time Egypt's ‘Token Reforms' Fail to Protect Women, Says Amnesty International Recent efforts to address Egypt's deeply entrenched problems with sexual violence are too little, too late, according to a new report from Amnesty International. "Recent measures to protect women taken have been largely symbolic," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, in a statement. "The authorities must prove that these are more than cosmetic changes by making sustained efforts to implement changes and challenge deeply entrenched attitudes prevalent in Egyptian society." "The authorities have made big promises, but actually delivered very little of the root and branch reform that's sorely needed," Sahraoui said. Amnesty is calling on the Egyptian government to use the 2015 legislative elections as a reckoning point for dealing with violence against women. They ask that the government uses the new elections as an opportunity to pass legislation that gives women equal representation under the law, repeal all discriminatory laws, and write new legislation to impose harsh criminal penalties on all forms of violence against women. Read more: http://time.com/3675399/egypts-reforms-to-protect-women-international/
