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Are US-Egyptian ties finally warming, after two years in which a chill appeared to have descended?

Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cairo recently to resume the strategic dialogue with Egypt for the first time since 2009.

Shortly beforehand, Washington delivered eight F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, with more to follow in the coming months.

They are part of the US’s annual military aid to its important Middle East ally.

A large part of this $1.3bn (£834m) package was suspended after the Egyptian army ousted Islamist former President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Due Share

But things took a different turn last March when the Obama administration decided to lift the arms ban. “This batch of air fighters should have been delivered last year. It is long overdue,” said Mohamed Rashad, a retired Egyptian army officer and military analyst. “The US military assistance is part of the Camp David agreement that Egypt signed with Israel in 1979. As long as the Egyptian government is committed to this agreement, it should receive its due share.” Some interpreted the suspension of arms sales as pressure on the Egyptian authorities to improve their human rights record and engage the now banned Muslim Brotherhood group in the political arena. But over the past two years little has changed in these areas.

Since Mr Morsi’s ousting, the authorities have cracked down heavily on his supporters, as well as on secular political activists. Thousands have been put behind bars and hundreds have been sentenced to death. The Muslim Brotherhood has been designated a terrorist group by the Egyptian judiciary.

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Families of British soldiers killed in Iraq are threatening to take legal action against Sir John Chilcot, who led the inquiry into the conflict.

He has said publication of his report has been delayed to allow those who have been criticised to respond.

Lawyers for the soldiers’ families claim he acted unlawfully by refusing to set a deadline for publication.

The five-member panel, led by Sir John, began its work in 2009 and held its last hearings in 2011.

The inquiry took evidence from hundreds of witnesses, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and is set to cost taxpayers £10m. The delays, to allow those who might face criticism in the report to argue their case, have led to frustration among some of the soldiers’ families.

Open Wound

Lawyers acting for 29 of them have written to Sir John calling for him to set a deadline for witnesses to respond and to promise the report will be published by the end of the year or they will take their case to the High Court. Reg Keys, whose son L/Cpl Thomas Keys was killed in Iraq in 2003, said he was “losing patience” and the families had come to the “end of our tether”. “It’s got to the stage now where Iraq is like an open wound and it is continually prodded and opened with all these delays,” he told the BBC.

Since the death of his son, Mr Keys has been campaigning on Iraq. He even stood against Tony Blair in the 2005 general election. He said: “The families want closure now, we need to know why our loved ones died. “Those who were seriously wounded and maimed, those families will want to know why their loved ones have ended up in that state.”

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The main suspect accused of killing two people at an Ikea store in Sweden faced imminent deportation and attended a meeting on his asylum status just hours before the knife attack, officials say.

The 35-year-old Eritrean, who was found at the scene with serious knife injuries, had earlier met to discuss his failed residency application, the Swedish Migration Agency said.

A mother and her adult son died in the attack in Vasteras on Monday. A second man has also been detained.
On Wednesday, the prosecutor’s office said that investigators were still holding the 23-year-old who was staying at the same centre for asylum seekers as the injured man. He has denied any involvement in the attack.

Police say the reason for the stabbing is unclear, but they do not believe it was politically motivated. Migration officials said the 35-year-old had attended a meeting at the agency on Monday morning about plans to deport him to Italy after his residency application was rejected last month.

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The Greek economy grew by 0.8% in the second quarter of the year, confounding expectations of a steep contraction.

The official figures, based on a flash estimate, also revised a reading of 0.2% negative growth in the first quarter to a flat reading, showing no change in economic activity.

The reading did not break down which sectors had been most active.

The figures from the country’s Elstat agency come as the Greek parliament prepares to vote on new bailout plans.

The Greek government has defended the controversial new programme as tough, but essential if the country is to avoid financial collapse. The credit crisis sparked six years of recession in Greece, from which it emerged in 2014 before shrinking again.

Until these latest figures were released, the economy had been forecast to shrink again this year by between 2.1% and 2.3%. Nikos Magginas at National Bank said it was now possible that the contraction would be less than 2%. He said there were a number of sectors likely to have helped boost activity: “Some economic activity indicators in the second quarter, including consumption, industrial production and tourism, had shown particular resilience.”

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Guinea-Bissau’s President Jose Mario Vaz has dismissed the government following a rift with Prime Minister Domingos Pereira.

The two men are said to have disagreed on a number of issues including the use of aid money and the return to Guinea-Bissau of a former army chief of staff.

The West African state returned to civilian rule in June last year.

With a history of coups, no elected leader has served a full term since independence from Portugal in 1974.

Many senior military officers have also been accused of turning the country into a narco-state as it a major hub for cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe.

Zenaida Machado says the announcement follows weeks of tension between the president and the prime minister. In a televised address, Mr Vaz said a simple reshuffle would not be sufficient to solve the problem. “It is public knowledge that there is a crisis undermining the proper working of institutions,” he said.

Unpredictable Consequences

The UN Security Council has asked the leaders to resume dialogue. Earlier in the week, Portugal warned that development aid could be at risk if the country slipped back into instability. One of the dismissed ministers said that the consequences of the sackings were “unpredictable”. “If the state does not work, if people are in the street, we don’t know what can happen,” Angelo Regala, the former communications minister, told BBC Afrique.

The African Union representative to Guinea-Bissau, Ovideo Pequeno, said that the military was unlikely to get involved.

He told the  Focus on Africa programme that top commanders had said they consider it a political issue, which was not their concern.

Guinea-Bissau:

Five coups since 1980
One of the poorest countries in the world
Major hub for cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe