Egypt registered on Tuesday 432 new coronavirus cases, upping the total number of confirmed cases to 117,156, according to a statement released by Health Ministry.

Egypt has released three human rights campaigners whose arrests last month triggered widespread international condemnation, their organization said Thursday.

Joe Biden’s victory in the US election is said to “spell trouble” for outgoing US President Donald Trump’s “favourite dictator”, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. “The Egyptian president was quick to congratulate Biden, though the president-elect’s rhetoric on human rights and political prisoners spells conflict,” ran one news report.

Egypt’s crackdown on members of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) forewarns of a second wave of branding civil society work as “terrorism”, in a bid to silence the last remaining independent human rights activists in the country.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met with Greek Defense Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, agreeing on strengthening the joint military exercises between the two sides, as well as at the tripartite level with Cyprus, according to a statement from the Egyptian Presidency.

After a rush of coronavirus patients overwhelmed Egypt’s healthcare system in the spring, the official number of new COVID-19 cases in the country calmed over the summer. Yet, the decline in new cases was not mirrored in the country’s daily number of deaths.

Egypt’s Cabinet is planning to issue a new law imposing more penalties for the marriage of underage girls and child labour, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said during a Cabinet meeting on the national strategic population plan.

Deputy leader of Palestine’s Fatah movement, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, said a committee which includes Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian officials has been formed to coordinate the Palestinian call for holding an international peace conference.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is participating for the first time, along with new arrival France, in the joint Greek-Egyptian-Cypriot Medusa-10 training exercises being held Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 off the coast of Alexandria.

Egypt Greece and Cyprus on Tuesday began the “Medusa 10” naval and aerial training session featuring the participation of Egyptian, Greek and Cypriot air/naval forces, which will last for several days on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt.