
Egypt Declares Thursday Paid Public Holiday to Mark July 23 Revolution Anniv.
The Egyptian government announced that Thursday, July 24, 2025, will be a paid public holiday, in lieu of Wednesday, July 23, to mark the anniversary of the 1952 July 23 Revolution. The move aligns with a Cabinet decision to shift official holidays to the end of the week to provide extended breaks for workers.
According to the Prime Minister's Decree No. 2474 of 2025, the holiday will be granted to employees across ministries, public authorities, state administrative bodies, public sector companies, and public business sector enterprises. The private sector will also observe the holiday under the provisions of Egyptian Labor Law No. 12 of 2003.
The Ministry of Labor issued Circular No. 15 of 2025, clarifying that private sector workers covered by the labor law are entitled to a fully paid day off on Thursday, July 24. The decision is made in accordance with Article 52 of the labor law, which grants employees paid leave on official public holidays as determined by the competent minister.
The circular emphasized that employers may require employees to work on the holiday if necessary for business operations. In such cases, workers are entitled to double their standard pay for the day, in addition to their regular wage.
The Ministry urged all central administration heads and labor directorates across the country to implement the circular at workplaces and production sites and ensure full compliance with its provisions.
The July 23 holiday commemorates the 1952 revolution led by the Free Officers Movement, which ended the monarchy and laid the foundations of modern republican Egypt.
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Al-Ahram Weekly
9 minutes ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
London mayor urges UK to recognize Palestinian state - War on Gaza
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has called on the British government to immediately recognise the state of Palestine and break its silence over the 'horrific, senseless killing' by Israeli forces in Gaza. In a strongly worded statement, Khan condemned the Israeli war, calling the scenes of Palestinians suffering "absolutely harrowing." "Starving children searching hopelessly for food in the rubble. Family members shot dead by Israeli soldiers as they search for aid. In heartbreaking scenes, innocent lives are being torn apart before the eyes of the world," he said. "Innocent lives are being torn apart before the eyes of the world," he added, accusing the international community — including the British government — of failing to act. "The international community – including our own government – must do far more to pressure the Israeli government to stop this horrific, senseless killing and let vital life-saving aid in. Nothing justifies the actions of the Israeli government." He urged Downing Street to stop shielding Israel diplomatically and instead recognise Palestinian statehood as a matter of urgency. "There can be no two-state solution if there is no viable state left to call Palestine," he warned. His remarks place renewed pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government, which has so far resisted calls for immediate recognition of Palestine despite growing international support and global calls for governments to hold Israel accountable for the starvation and killings in Gaza. Israel has killed at least 59,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them children and women, and wounded over 142,000 others since October 2023. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), co-sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN children's agency UNICEF, and other agencies, 470,000 people in Gaza are now in IPC Phase 5 (catastrophic hunger), the worst category. The entire population is enduring acute food insecurity across Gaza, with nearly one in every three people going without food for days at a time, according to the WFP. The UN said Israeli forces had killed over 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid since the GHF began its operations in late May, with most near the foundation's sites. Spain, Ireland, and Norway formally recognised a Palestinian state in 2024. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:


Al-Ahram Weekly
39 minutes ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Syria's existential moment - Region
The crisis facing Syria extends far beyond the Sweida clashes – it is consequential, just as those are. On Tuesday, the interim Syrian government said it was aware of major violations that were committed by individuals wearing security uniforms during the conflict that took place in Sweida last week. The statement came against the backdrop of alarming concern over Syria's social cohesion and territorial integrity, given the repeated ethnic confrontations in different parts of the country, the latest of which was in Sweida. Having started on 19 July and lasted for about five days, with considerable bloodshed and subsequent displacements, the Sweida clashes brought attention to the complex problems that are challenging the stability and territorial unity of Syria beyond the rule of the Assad regime that was toppled on 8 December 2024. The deadly clashes — which have started with what seemed to be common theft in a Druze-majority city in the south of Syria, Sweida, between the Druze, a Muslim minority sect, and Bedouin tribes, mostly Sunni — demonstrated the high level of ethnic tension. The Druze have a presence in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and historic Palestine. Those in Palestine chose to subscribe to the Israeli state and are serving in the Israeli army. When the Sweida Druze leaders warned of a deliberate massacre against their people, Israeli Druze militants moved into south Syria, with the direct support of the Israeli army, to reach out to the Druze of Syria. Israel bombarded Damascus allegedly to retaliate for the attacks conducted by the Bedouins on the Druze. Upon the intervention and pressure of the US, which shared a rare opposition to the Israeli strikes on Syria, the interim Syrian government decided to pull the non-Sweida militants out and allow for a fragile truce to go into effect on Sunday evening. A US-sponsored deal allowed Israel to send humanitarian and medical aid into Sweida. The interim government that stretched its security in the roads leading to the city succumbed to the Sweida Druze leader's decision to deny the entry of any government-associated or condoned militants into the city upon the execution of the ceasefire. The Sweida clashes, according to sources informed about developments on the ground, could escalate again. 'Tension is still very high; each side wants to avenge; regional players, including Israel, are trying to re-incite violence; and the interim regime is still unable to take matters into its own hands,' said an Arab diplomat who follows the developments in Syria closely. These clashes took place less than nine months after the ouster of the dictatorial regime of Bashar Al-Assad at the hands of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a militant group of the diverse anti-Bashar forces that have been working to topple his rule since 2011. They came at a time when the interim regime of HTS leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa was attempting, with the mediation of Turkey and the US, to reach a political compromise with the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces). This leading Kurdish militant group has the support of both the US and Israel. They also occurred a few months after similar clashes took place on the western coast, which has a sizable presence of Al-Assad's Alawite, another Syrian minority. According to Cairo-based foreign diplomats, it is hard to deny the sectarian nature of the clashes. 'The regime security forces are not in control, and they cannot quell the radical Sunni groups who had previously fought alongside the HTS against Al-Assad, who was practically liquidating and bombing all segments of the Syrian opposition, with the help of some regional players, including Iran and Hezbollah,' one of those diplomats said. Today, the same diplomat argued it is not hard to see the radical Muslim Sunnis wanting to avenge the blood baths that Al-Assad had committed in his fight to stay in power. It is not hard, either, he added, to see why Al-Sharaa is avoiding a confrontation with those radical militants who were his allies. According to another diplomatic source, who is well informed on Syria, today some 30,000 to 40,000 radical non-Syrian fighters are heavily armed and running uncontrolled in Syria. There is no way, he added, that Syria's interim president could send home these thousands of Tajik, Igor, and Chechenian fighters – or, for that matter, to disarm them. 'It is an open secret that these and other radical fighters, including Syrians, are not at all happy about Al-Sharaa's current compromising political choices and that there have been at least two to three attempts on his life from these groups,' he said. "It is equally challenging to overlook the fact that the attempts of Al-Sharaa to reach a consensual deal with the Druze on the terms of rule have almost systematically failed due to the failure of the Druze leaders to commit," according to Rabha Seif Allam, a senior expert on Syrian affairs at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. She explained that the Druze had enjoyed a semi-autonomous set-up in the last few years of the rule of Al-Assad, who pulled out troops from Sweida to help with the fight against the 2011 democracy calls that he turned into civilian strife. It is equally hard, Allam added, to overlook the fact that Israel, via the Druze of historic Palestine, has been trying to breach the Syrian ethnic and political make-up. While some diplomatic sources have been speculating over the chances for Israel to succeed with its campaign to turn Syria into a federal state, with a weak central government, Allam argued that the recurrent ethnic-and-faith-based clashes in the post-Assad Syria are threatening 'disunity rather than an administrative federal situation.' 'The areas that Israel bombed, allegedly to retaliate for the violations against Syrian Druze, are exactly the areas that Israel would like to see emptied of any tribal presence,' Allam said. The objective, she explained, is to create corridors that connect all the Druze segments away from any other tribal presence. Allam said Druze leaders in Israel are lobbying some of their Syrian counterparts to seek some independence. She noted that this is neither helpful nor fair to the image of the Druze, who had played a very consequential role in Syria's independence at the end of the French mandate in 1946. 'Upon the Israeli occupation of the Golan [Heights in 1967], the Druze of Syria declined to either leave their lands or to be integrated into the Israeli entity,' she said. Throughout the decades, she added, a minority as they are, the Druze have been part of the Syrian political dynamics. Beyond their part in the fight for the independence of Syria, Allam stated that the Druze were part of the establishment of Baathist rule in the country in the early 1960s. Later, she said, they could carefully manage their relationship with the Al-Assad regime, both under Hafez Al-Assad and his son Bashar Al-Assad, whose successive rule spanned from 1971 to 2024. 'The Druze did not take part in the democracy protests of 2011, and they actually declined to serve in the army for its violations against the Syrian people,' Allam said. 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Diplomatic sources have suggested that the UAE has been more aligned with the 'federal scenario." However, Allam argued that Syria's unity serves the trade and economic cooperation interests of the Emiratis. Other than Israel, Allam 'so far' sees Iran as the possibly only other regional player who might be interested in a less central future for Syria, because it serves Tehran's interest to have an almost connected land route from Iran to Iraq, Syria, and then Lebanon. 'This scenario also contributes to the weakening of the Sunni regime in Syria that has distanced itself from the previous Damascus-Tehran alliance under the Al-Assad regime,' she said. 'With Iran and Israel not being candidates for any agreement, it is hard to see how they could both push for the disintegration scenario,' she noted. With such complex elements of the current situation in the country, Allam said it is not easy to have a clear or comprehensive forecast for Syria's political future. 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She argued that addressing the threats of disunity requires a clear recognition of the reasons behind the current state of affairs in the country, which is dominated by a sense of discord that was not there upon the ouster of Al-Assad in the winter of last year. 'We need to realize that the national dialogue that was engineered and managed by the new regime fell far short of being representative and fell far short of addressing the many concerns of Syrians,' she said. The same, she added, applies to the constitutional declaration, 'which was basically drafted and passed by the new regime.' Khubie added that there was a failure in the pursuit of a genuine transitional justice, which opened the door for vindictive and counter-vindictive attacks. 'So, we have been seeing crimes that are ethnic, sectarian, and political – with a subsequent dominating sense of fear and uncertainty on the ground among the people of all backgrounds,' she stated. Khubie argued that 'Syria needs a prompt process of justice' – both for the crimes that were committed during the Al-Assad regime and those that have been happening since last December. 'If criminals are left without a due legal process of investigation and trial, then the people would lose all faith in the ability of the regime to induce security and stability,' she said. In parallel, she argued that there is a need for 'a new and real political process with a true national dialogue that could produce a non-consensual and representative constitutional declaration.' With this, she added, there needs to be a new government 'of qualified technocrats rather than political alliances' to take control of the country's affairs. 'These are the key prerequisites to control and contain the spike of sectarianism, the hate speech, and the calls for violence,' she said. It is also essential for the containment of the over-expanded role of religious leaders at the expense of politicians in Syria, especially among the minorities. Syria needs to move towards state rebuilding and proper regime construction to make up for the vast damage caused by the war of the Al-Assad regime against the Syrian people and to cut off the influence of foreign fighters in the country, Khubie concluded. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:


Al-Ahram Weekly
an hour ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Dabaa Nuclear Plant's 1st unit to start operations in H2 2028: Egypt PM - Energy
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly confirmed on Wednesday that the first unit of the Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant will begin operations in the second half of 2028. PM Madbouly made this statement while discussing the project's timeline during his visit to the site. He added that the remaining three units are slated for completion in 2029. According to a cabinet statement, Madbouly stated that over 80 percent of the project's workforce is Egyptian, with tens of thousands working on-site. "It is a great honour that Egyptian personnel are trusted to carry out this ambitious undertaking," he expressed. He explained that the plant consists of four nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 4,800 megawatts (MW), each with a capacity of 1,200 MW, and construction is currently underway across all phases of the project. The premier clarified that the Dabaa project is part of Egypt's commitment to having 42 percent of its electricity generation sourced from renewable and clean energy by 2030. According to a separate cabinet statement on Wednesday, the project will be operated entirely by qualified Egyptian personnel from the very first day of operation. Egypt has recently witnessed a sharp increase in electricity loads, culminating in a record high of 37,600 MW last Thursday — the highest so far this year. In previous summers, the country had faced frequent power shortages, leading to rolling blackouts. In 2023, the government introduced a load-shedding programme to alleviate the strain on Egypt's gas network caused by rising temperatures and increased air conditioning use. National dream The prime minister said the project fulfils a national dream the Egyptian people have had since the mid-20th century. 'It is now a tangible reality that reflects our national will and firm determination to possess advanced, safe, and sustainable sources of electricity generation,' he stated. Madbouly added that the project had remained a mere plan on paper for many years, until President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi's strong political will and determination made it a reality. In 2015, Egypt's Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) and Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation (ROSATOM) launched the Dabaa nuclear project in the northwestern governorate of Matrouh. The project is Egypt's first nuclear power facility in the Mediterranean coastal city of Dabaa, approximately 300 kilometres northwest of Cairo. In April 2025, ROSATOM Director General Alexey Likhachev stated that Egypt's Dabaa NPP will become the world's largest nuclear construction project in terms of geographical scale once it is completed by 2030. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link: