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The Star
01-06-2025
- Sport
- The Star
Soccer-Pyramids claim maiden African Champions League title
Soccer Football - CAF Champions League - Final - Second Leg - Pyramids v Mamelodi Sundowns - 30 June Stadium, Cairo, Egypt - June 1, 2025 Pyramids' Fiston Mayele in action REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh CAIRO (Reuters) -Egypt's Pyramids claimed a deserved 2-1 victory over Mamelodi Sundowns from South Africa for a 3-2 aggregate success and a first African Champions League title following the second leg of this year's final at the 30 June Stadium in Cairo on Sunday. After the first leg in Pretoria finished 1-1, Fiston Mayele gave Pyramids the lead on 23 minutes when he profited from a Sundowns defensive error, before Ahmed Samy doubled the advantage on 56 minutes with a header from a free-kick. Sundowns pulled a goal back through Iqraam Rayners with 15 minutes remaining and one more would have given them victory in the tie on the away goals rule, but Pyramids held firm despite heavy pressure from the visitors. Pyramids are the fourth Egyptian side to lift the Champions League trophy after record 12-time winners Al Ahly, Zamalek and Ismaily, while 2016 champions Sundowns head to this month's Club World Cup in the United States on a low note. (Writing by Nick Said; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
Egypt Today
18-05-2025
- Business
- Egypt Today
Parliament's Manpower Committee Approves Draft Law on Salary Increases, Bonuses for State Employees
File- An employee counts money at an exchange office in downtown Cairo (Photo credit: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh) CAIRO – 18 May 2025: The House of Representatives' Manpower Committee, chaired by Representative Adel Abdel Fadil Ayad, approved on Sunday a government-submitted draft law outlining new salary increases and bonuses for state employees. The bill includes provisions for periodic bonuses, special grants, and additional incentives aimed at alleviating the rising cost of living. The committee is preparing its final report on the draft legislation, which will be submitted to the House in the upcoming sessions. The draft law follows presidential directives to launch a new social protection package in response to the country's current economic challenges and inflationary pressures. Key Provisions of the Draft Law Article 1: Employees subject to the Civil Service Law (Law No. 81 of 2016) will receive a periodic bonus equivalent to 10 percent of their basic salary as of June 30, 2025, with a minimum of LE 150 per month. This bonus will be integrated into their basic salary starting July 1, 2025. Article 2: Employees not covered by the Civil Service Law will receive a special bonus of 15 percent of their basic salary as of June 30, 2025 (or on the date of appointment for new hires), also with a minimum of LE 150 per month. This amount will be incorporated into their basic salary from July 1, 2025. The provision excludes public service agencies and public economic entities already offering periodic bonuses of 10percent or more. In such cases, if a bonus is calculated as a percentage of the basic salary, employees will receive a special bonus equal to the difference between the legislated 15 percent and the bonus already provided. This amount will also be added to the basic salary. Article 3: Effective July 1, 2025, an additional fixed monthly incentive of LE 700 will be granted to all eligible employees, whether or not they are subject to the Civil Service Law. The amount will be treated as part of the employee's supplementary or variable wage, depending on employment classification. Article 5: Employees of public sector and public business sector companies will receive a monthly bonus starting July 1, 2025. This bonus will equal the difference between their recurring annual bonus and the special bonus granted to non-Civil Service Law employees under Article 2. The bonus will be disbursed as a lump sum and not included in the basic wage. Furthermore, if an employee's total monthly earnings—including wages, allowances, and fixed or semi-fixed bonuses—fall below LE 7,000 after these increases, their income will be topped up to meet the minimum threshold. The relevant ministers will issue executive regulations to implement this provision. Article 7: The Minister of Finance will issue the necessary executive decisions to enforce the provisions of this law, while other ministers will issue related decisions for Article 5 as applicable. Article 8: The law will come into effect on July 1, 2025. Pension Increases Clarified During the session, committee members inquired about pension increases and why they were not included in the draft law. A representative from the Ministry of Finance, Ali El-Sisi, clarified that pension increases are governed separately under the Social Insurance and Pensions Law, which was amended in previous years. He explained that while pension increases were previously scheduled for April 1, this year's increase will be implemented on July 1, through a presidential decree based on the Social Insurance Law. This law ties the increase to inflation rates, with a cap of 15 percent. Budget Allocations and Salary Floors Finance Ministry officials confirmed that LE 85 billion has been allocated to fund these increases. The minimum monthly salary increase for the lowest-grade employee (Grade 6) will be LE 1,100, with proportionally larger increases for higher grades.
Straits Times
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Minutes to leave: Syria's Alawites evicted from private homes at gunpoint
FILE PHOTO: A fighter of the ruling Syrian body, who lost a finger during fighting, rides a bicycle at the official housing of the Fourth Division in the army under the Assad regime, following evacuation orders from factions of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo FILE PHOTO: An image depicting Syria's Bashar al-Assad, is damaged, after he was ousted, near the Lebanese-Syrian border, in Syria, January 1, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo FILE PHOTO: Syria?s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa attends an interview with Reuters at the presidential palace, in Damascus, Syria March 10, 2025. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi/File Photo FILE PHOTO: A (HTS) fighter and the Syrian ruling body walks alongside workers putting the belongings of the families of former soldiers and officers of Assad's regime army out of the apartment on a truck as they leave their homes in the officer housing on the outskirts of Damascus following evacuation orders from factions of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo FILE PHOTO: A family member waits for workers to move his family's belongings, following evacuation orders from factions of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, on the outskirts of Damascus, in Syria, December 29, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo DAMASCUS - Early one evening in late January, 12 masked men stormed the Damascus home of Um Hassan's family, pointed AK-47 assault rifles in their faces and ordered them to leave. When they presented ownership documents, the men arrested Um Hassan's oldest brother and said they could only have him back once they had moved out. The family surrendered the house 24 hours later and picked him up, battered and bruised, from the local General Security Service headquarters, said Um Hassan, giving only her nickname for fear of reprisals. Her family is part of Syria's minority Alawite community, an offshoot of the Shi'ite faith and the sect of former strongman Bashar al-Assad. Their story is not unique. Since Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa seized power in December, hundreds of Alawites have been forced from their private homes in Damascus by the security forces, according to Syrian officials, Alawite leaders, human rights groups and 12 people with similar accounts who spoke to Reuters. "We're definitely not talking about independent incidents. We are talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of evictions," said Bassam Alahmad, executive director of human rights group Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ). The mass evictions of Alawites from privately owned homes have not been previously reported. For more than 50 years, Assad and his father before him crushed any opposition from Syria's Sunni Muslims, who make up more than 70% of the population. Alawites took many of the top positions in government and the military and ran big businesses. They now accuse supporters of Sharaa, who once ran an al Qaeda affiliate, of systematically abusing them as payback. In March, hundreds of Alawites were killed in Syria's western coastal region and sectarian violence spread to Damascus in apparent retribution for a deadly ambush on Syria's new security forces by armed Assad loyalists. Two government officials said thousands of people had been kicked out of homes in Damascus since Assad was toppled by Sharaa's rebel force, with the majority being Alawites. The officials said most resided in government housing associated with their jobs in state institutions and, since they were no longer employed, they had lost their right to stay. But hundreds more, like Um Hassan, were evicted from their privately owned homes simply because they are Alawites, Reuters interviews with multiple officials and victims show. The interior ministry, which oversees the GSS, and Sharaa's office did not respond to requests for comment. 'WAR SPOILS COMMITTEE' Sharaa has vowed to pursue inclusive policies to unite a country shattered by a 14-year sectarian civil war and attract foreign investment and aid. But Alawites fear the evictions are part of systematic sectarian score settling by Syria's new rulers. An official who declined to be named at the Damascus Countryside Directorate, which is responsible for managing public services, said they had received hundreds of complaints from people who had been violently evicted. An Alawite mayor in a Damascus suburb, who also asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, said in March that 250 families out of 2,000 there had been evicted. The mayor shared with Reuters a call recorded in March with someone claiming to be a member of the General Security Service (GSS), a new agency made up of rebel fighters who ousted Assad. The GSS official demanded the mayor find an empty house for a family relocating from the north. When the mayor said there were no apartments for rent, the official told him to, "empty one of those houses that belong to one of those pigs", referring to Alawites. Muslims consider pigs unclean and impure and calling someone a pig is highly offensive. According to three senior GSS officials, the new authorities have established two committees to manage properties belonging to individuals perceived to be connected to the previous regime. One committee is responsible for confiscations, the other addresses complaints, the people said. Reuters was unable to determine to what extent Sharaa was aware of how homeowners were being evicted, or whether his office had oversight of the committees. They were created as Sharaa's forces closed in on Damascus in December and were modelled on a similar entity known as the "War Spoils Committee" in his former stronghold Idlib, the GSS sources said. "These evictions will certainly change the demographics of the city, similar to the changes that Assad implemented against his opponents in Sunni areas. We are talking about the same practice, but with different victims," said Alahmad at STJ. On April 16, STJ filed a complaint with the Damascus Suburbs Directorate, calling for an end to "sectarian-motivated" property violations and the return of looted properties. TWO MINUTES TO LEAVE Assad's father Hafez al-Assad moved Alawites from coastal areas to urban centres to help cement his powerbase. Assad set up military installations and housing units for troops and their families around Damascus, where Alawites, who were over-represented in the army, made up a significant portion of the population, according to Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert and an associate professor at the University of Lyon 2. Balanche estimated that half a million Alawites have moved to coastal areas after being evicted from the capital, Homs, Aleppo, and other parts of Syria following Assad's fall. In the Alawite neighbourhood of Dahyet al-Assad, civil servant and mother of four Um Hussein said two armed masked men came to her privately owned home on January 16 and identified themselves as GSS members. The newly created GSS deployed by Sharaa seems to be an extension of the security force that ruled Idlib province, said Syria expert Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. The GSS now seems to be the Police, FBI, CIA and national guard, all rolled into one, he said. Um Hussein said the men gave her 24 hours grace to leave, because of her son's dependence on a wheelchair. She appealed to numerous government bodies to keep her home, and received some assurances. The next day at about 10 a.m., the men returned and gave her two minutes to leave. Um Hussein said they also confiscated a shop her family owned in the neighbourhood and were renting out. "We have been living in this house for more than 22 years. All our money and savings have been invested in it. We cannot afford to rent elsewhere," said Um Hussein. Reuters spoke with two members of the security forces at the private homes they had occupied. One had seized two houses - including Um Hussein's - after evicting the owners. Hamid Mohamed, meanwhile, said his unit had taken over four empty homes belonging to Shabiha, a notorious pro-Assad militia. He said the security forces had not seized anything that wasn't theirs and recalled angrily that his home in a Damascus suburb was destroyed during the civil war. Mohamed said he moved to the capital after Assad's fall and had nowhere else to stay. 'TRANSITIONAL INJUSTICE' On February 12, the Damascus governor called on citizens who say property has been unjustly confiscated to submit complaints at directorates. Reuters visited one in March where the official who declined to be named confirmed a pattern: armed individuals evicted people without a court order, prevented them from taking their belongings - and then moved in. The majority of confiscations targeted low- to middle-income Syrians who had lost their jobs and lacked the resources to pay their way out of the situation, the sources said. Another official in another Damascus directorate said the evictions happened overnight without due process. "It's chaotic, but there is a method to the madness, which is to terrify people and to let the whole world know that Alawites are no longer (in power)," said Landis. "There is no transitional justice. There's only transitional injustice." Seven armed men came to Rafaa Mahmoud's apartment on February 20 and threatened to kill her and her Alawite family unless she handed over the keys to the property they had bought 15 years earlier, she said. Mahmoud shared a 2 minute 27 second video with Reuters showing her standing behind her door, desperately arguing with the men, who warned the family to leave by nightfall. The men, who identified themselves as state security agents, called Mahmoud and her family "infidels and pigs". When Mahmoud asked for a court order, the men replied: "We only do things verbally here." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Star
24-04-2025
- Business
- The Star
US reinstates Thailand's top aviation safety rating
FILE PHOTO: Workers service a Thai Airways Airbus A380-800 aircraft at Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand September 3, 2019. Picture taken September 3, 2019. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday it had upgraded Thailand's air safety rating to "Category 1" a decade after a downgrade, paving the way for direct U.S.-Thailand flights to resume. Thai airlines could not launch or expand services to the United States, either directly or as a code-share partner, under the International Aviation Safety Assessment "Category 2" rating the FAA had assigned in 2015 due to a shortage of technical officers and certification problems in transporting hazardous goods. The top rating shows compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization standards. In 2017, Thailand resolved a significant safety concern identified through the ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Program in 2015, the agency said on Thursday. Prior to late-2015, Thai Airways flew direct between Bangkok and New York and Los Angeles. In 2017, Thailand said it aimed to get an air safety rating upgrade by 2018. Bangkok is a regional airline hub and Thailand had more than 35 million foreign tourists last year. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese and Richard Chang)
Egypt Today
17-04-2025
- Sport
- Egypt Today
Egyptians take on South Africans in African Champions League semis
Al Ahly celebrate with the trophy after winning the final REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo (Reuters) - Two Egyptian clubs face two from South Africa this weekend in the semi-finals of this season's African Champions League in a rare bilateral contest. Holders Al Ahly continue their bid for a fifth title in six seasons in Pretoria on Saturday against Mamelodi Sundowns, a side who once handed them a record defeat but have too often exited in the knockout stages after dominating the group phase. Also on Saturday, Pyramids will be hoping to consolidate their fast-track emergence as a force in the African game when they take on Orlando Pirates in Soweto. The return legs are both in Cairo next Friday with the winners advancing to the two-legged final at the end of May and in early June. Egyptian giants Al Ahly are the dominant force in African football and have won 12 previous Champions League titles while the other three semi-finalists have two triumphs between them -- Pirates in 1995 and Sundowns in 2016. But despite their strong track record, Ahly are not favourites after unconvincing performances in the league phase, where they were runners-up in their group. There has been criticism of their Swiss coach Marc Koller in recent days after they also stumbled against Pyramids in the Egyptian league. Sundowns handed Ahly a record 5-0 defeat in the 2019 quarter-finals and also scored five against them in Pretoria two years ago in the group phase. But the South African club, owned by the family of Confederation of African Football president Patrice Motsepe, have a long history of falling short in the knockout rounds. SAUDI INVESTORS Pyramids are competing in the Champions League for only the second time. The club was formed in 2008 but moved to Cairo a decade later after being taken over by Saudi investors and are well placed to win a first Egyptian championship at the end of this season. Opponents Pirates were one of only two unbeaten sides in the group competition and have won three away matches in north Africa in this season's campaign. But they will need home success on Saturday to ensure a defendable lead to take to Cairo for the return leg. It is not the first time clubs from two countries have clashed in both Champions League semi-finals. In the 2020, Al Ahly beat Morocco's Wydad Casablanca 5-1 on aggregate in their semi-final, while Zamalek were too good for Raja Casablanca, winning 4-1 over their two ties. Al Ahly edged Cairo rivals Zamalek 2-1 in the final in the Egyptian capital.
