Egypt ups IMF loan request to $4.8 bln
BY AMIRA SALAH-AHMED Cairo: Egypt’s new government has officially requested a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, significantly higher than the original $3.2 billion on the table since July 2011. The five-year loan comes at an interest of 1.1 percent with a 39-month grace period, Prime Minister Hesham Qandil said Wednesday at a conference with IMF chief Christine Lagarde. “The loan should be finalized before the year’s end or sooner if possible,” Qandil said, “and our program will focus on the budget deficit, supporting investment and targeting subsidies to the poor.” “This is a homegrown program developed by…
A personalized revolt
BY FARAH SAAFAN With the preliminary results of the first post-Mubarak presidential election indicating that the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohamed Morsi may become our next president, Egypt’s future first lady quickly became the subject of heated debate on social networking sites. Just as Egyptians began to wonder about Morsi’s wife, Naglaa Aly, a photo of her began circulating on the internet creating a web frenzy over her “look” as a conservative Muslim who dons the Islamic Khimar, a type of veil that covers the hair and falls loosely below the chest. Aly, who in a rare interview said that she…
