An Egyptian-American wins a Senate seat 🇺🇸

Hey friends, welcome back to the Egypt Weekly Roundup!

Seven people were killed and more than a hundred injured on Sunday when two passenger trains collided at El-Ayyat, south of Giza. Three days earlier, the cabinet ordered state bodies to cut their electricity and fuel use and froze new government projects until the middle of 2027.

In Tripoli, Egypt reopened its embassy building after almost 12 years and pressed its objections to Turkey’s maritime deal with Libya, in a week when the Egyptian and Turkish navies were exercising together off the Egyptian coast.

And, in surprising news, Egypt’s national football team coach, the legendary Hossam Hassan, has been fired.

Let’s get into it.

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• Seven killed as two trains collide at El-Ayyat 🚆

• Egypt reopens its embassy in Tripoli 🇱🇾

• The government orders a three-month spending squeeze 💸

RAIL | GIZA | SAFETY
TRAIN CRASH KILLS SEVEN IN EL-AYYAT

SEVEN KILLED AS TWO TRAINS COLLIDE AT EL-AYYAT

Seven people were killed and more than a hundred injured on Sunday 8 November when a Tahya Misr train from Giza to Fayoum ran into the back of a Cairo to Aswan service at El-Ayyat, in southern Giza. According to Egyptian National Railways, train No. 134 struck the rear of train No. 2010 between Kafr Ammar and Al-Raqqa stations, and several carriages came off the tracks.

The count rose through the day: The Health Ministry first reported four dead and 88 injured, then seven dead and 112 injured. By late Sunday, Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar put the number of injured at 125. Seventy-two ambulances took them to the central hospitals in Al-Wasta, El-Ayyat and Atfih, and 11 were transferred on to hospitals in Beni Suef. By the end of the night, 71 had been discharged and 43 were still under observation; most of the injuries were bruises and abrasions, with some fractures and head and chest injuries.

The response: El-Sisi said on Facebook that he was following the aftermath closely, offered his condolences, and ordered medical care for the injured and a faster investigation, adding that anyone found negligent would be held accountable. A Public Prosecution team inspected the site, and the bodies were placed at its disposal. The railway authority sent cranes and emergency teams to clear the line, and the Transport Ministry is running buses between Al-Wasta and El-Ayyat, and between El-Moneib and El-Ayyat, until trains are running again.

What is not known yet: No cause has been announced. A technical committee from the railway authority has been asked to establish why the carriages derailed. El-Ayyat was also the site of Egypt’s deadliest rail disaster, a fire on a Cairo to Luxor train in February 2002 that killed more than 360 people. In March 2021, a rear-end collision near Sohag killed 18 and injured 200, and prosecutors later ordered the arrest of eight railway employees.

LIBYA | DIPLOMACY | THE MED
EGYPT REOPENS EMBASSY IN LIBYA

Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty reopened Egypt’s historic embassy building in Tripoli on Saturday 7 November, almost 12 years after it closed. Egypt shut the building in January 2014, after gunmen kidnapped five embassy staff, and its diplomatic mission resumed work in Tripoli in May 2021. Libya’s acting foreign minister, Taher al-Baour, joined him at the ceremony, where Abdelatty said the building’s history “aligns with the deep-rooted human and cultural ties that characterize Egyptian-Libyan relations.”

Who he saw: Abdelatty met Abdulhamid Dbeibah, prime minister of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, to discuss making trade easier; according to Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, Dbeibah praised the part Egyptian companies and workers have played in rebuilding Libya. With Libya’s acting oil minister, Abdelatty pressed for faster progress on gas pipelines between the two countries and on refining Libyan crude in Egypt for export, and the minister said he would travel to Cairo for further talks.

The maps: Abdelatty also raised Egypt’s objection to the 2019 maritime memorandum between Turkey and the then government in Tripoli, which Libya’s eastern-based parliament ratified on 20 October after years of opposing it. He said Egypt’s concerns must be taken into account when maritime boundaries are drawn. Dbeibah told Al-Qahera News that officials would discuss the maps and each side’s claims at their next meeting. Greece and Cyprus also oppose the deal, and the EU has said it can have no legal effect on other countries; Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called it “an entirely legitimate agreement, both from a legal and a political perspective.”

East and west: Cairo has long backed Khalifa Haftar, whose forces dominate eastern Libya, where a rival government is based, and it presents the reopening as a rapprochement with the government in Tripoli. The maritime deal it objects to was signed in Tripoli in 2019, but it was the parliament in the east, Haftar’s side of the country, that ratified it last month.

Meanwhile, at sea with Turkey: The Egyptian and Turkish navies held their “Sea of Friendship 2026” exercise off the Egyptian coast from 4 to 9 November, with surface and anti-submarine warfare, combat divers and air defence training. It is the second such exercise since the series resumed in 2025 after a 13-year break. In Istanbul in late October, Abdelatty had told Fidan that Egypt “categorically rejects the 2019 memorandum of understanding on maritime jurisdiction areas in the Mediterranean.”

PUBLIC SPENDING | ENERGY | FOREIGN CURRENCY
CENTRAL BANK RAISES RATES FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2024

The cabinet approved on Thursday 5 November a three-month round of cuts to state spending, ordering government bodies to use 20 percent less electricity and at least 30 percent less fuel in official vehicles. The electricity cut is measured against actual use in the same period last year. The measures apply to bodies in the state budget, local government and public economic authorities, and they can be extended if the crisis continues.

What stops: Projects newly added to this year’s plan are postponed, and no contracts for them, or for any new project, may be signed until 30 June 2027 unless they were signed before the decision. Contracts to buy passenger cars are banned for the same period. National projects that burn large amounts of diesel, fuel oil or petrol are to be postponed or slowed. Spending on advertising, publicity, parties, receptions, exhibitions, prizes and medals is stopped, and every body must freeze at least 20 percent of what is left in its goods and services allocation and report the frozen items to the Finance Ministry within a month.

Dollars: Any spending in foreign currency now needs the Finance Ministry’s approval first. Contracts for works that need foreign currency, and local projects that need foreign borrowing or imported components, are barred, and official travel abroad is restricted further.

What is spared: The Health Ministry and university hospitals, national security, interest and loan repayments, pensions, the Takaful and Karama cash transfer programme, and subsidies for essential goods are exempt. On investment, the Decent Life (Haya Karima) initiative is protected, along with health, pre-university education, the interior ministry, drinking water and sanitation, and projects linked to water, food, energy and cyber security.

Why now: The cabinet cited events in the region and the need to reorder spending priorities. The same week, fertiliser producers were told their gas supply would be cut by a further 33 percent, and the S&P Global purchasing managers’ index for the non-oil private sector stayed at 47.2 in October, its tenth month in a row below the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction. The government had already slowed energy-intensive state projects earlier this year, as the oil import bill rose.