The National Council for Women (NCW) on Wednesday has allocated an operations room and hotline 15115 to receive and monitor any complaints of harassment that women may be exposed to during Eid al-Fitr. The Director General of the NCW’s Women’s Complaints Office Amal Abdel Moneim said that the room aims to provide social and legal support for victims to file lawsuits. Moneim stressed that the NCW continuously cooperates with the Anti-Violence Against Women Unit at the Ministry of Interior, in order to support victims of sexual harassment, protect women from violence and combat all forms of violence against women. The operations room for receiving women’s complaints works around the clock and during holidays, a time when cases of sexual harassment are known to spike. Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

CAIRO – 12 May 2021: Safar Khan Gallery in Zamalek is preparing to present a group exhibition during summer to commemorate the pioneers of modern Egyptian art, as well as internationally established contemporary artists. This is in addition to presenting some promising, newly-discovered talents that deserve a chance to shine. This year's summer exhibition will be divided into two parts, each consisting of a different set of works and dates are as follows:Part 1: Tuesday, May 25 - Tuesday, July 6. The summer collection presented this year is from the works of well-known artistic pioneers such as artist Youssef Saida, artist Kamal Khalifa, artist Mohamed Ismail, artist Mahmoud Afifi, and Zamila Ramzy Mustafa. The gallery will also unveil some rare and unprecedented works for the distinguished pioneers Fouad Kamel and the artist Hamid Saeed, among many others.

On Tuesday, the Egyptian Public Prosecutor’s Office released the detained suspects in the Fairmont gang-rape case due, where a group of men were accused of gang raping a woman in the Fairmont Hotel back in 2014. The Public Prosecution said in a statement that the case was closed due to insufficient evidence, and it ordered the release of those detained pending the case. Investigations into the incident lasted for about nine months. The accused reportedly raped the victim in a suite in the hotel after she lost her consciousness during a private ceremony they attended in 2014. Public prosecutors at the end of last July closely monitored the incident on social media.

CAIRO – 12 May 2021: The Ministry of Transportation announced Wednesday the arrival of two Korean metro trains within deals with Hyundai Rotem as well as the parts of another that will be assembled locally. One is the ninth within a deal worth LE6.4 billion (€317 million and LE640 million) to supply 32 metro trains. The other is the first within another deal worth ($130 million and LE63 million) to supply six metro trains. The trains of the former deal are air conditioned and will be operated on the Greater Cairo's Third Metro Line. Hyundai Rotem also delivered the parts necessary to assemble the second of the 10 metro trains being produced by Egypt's Semaf factory.

Egyptian and Liverpool football superstar Mohamed Salah on Tuesday called on the UK prime minister and world leaders to stop violence and the killing of innocent civilians, referring to escalating tensions between Israeli forces and Palestinian people in Jerusalem. “I’m calling on all the world leaders including on the Prime Minister of the country that has been my home for the past 4 years to do everything in their power to make sure the violence and killing of innocent people stops immediately. Enough is enough.”Salah also shared a previous tweet showing an old photo of him in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The football star had been criticized online for remaining silent about the recent clashes in Jerusalem, with some saying that he did not deserve the “Pride of Arabs” title his fans have granted him.

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CAIRO - 12 May 2020: Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria and Patriarch of St. Mark Diocese on Tuesday held a consultative meeting at the Papal headquarters in Cairo's district of Abbassiya to discuss the recent incidents at the Deir al-Sultan monastery in the Old City of Jerusalem. In statements, Spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church Moussa Ibrahim said the Pope Tawadros II stressed the church's ownership of the monastery, adding that it rejects all Israeli attempts to falsify historical facts. Pope Tawadros explained that the church would take all legal procedures to regain this usurped religious site. Throughout the past decades, the Church has been keen to follow peaceful solutions and legal methods in dealing with this issue, adhering to all the verses of wisdom and reasoning that are appropriate for it, in a way that does not prejudice its right to its ownership of the monastery, which is something that does not and will not allow to harm it under any circumstances.

REUTERS: Liverpool and Netherlands defender Virgil van Dijk has said he has made the difficult decision to skip next month's European Championship in a bid to fully recover from his season-ending knee injury. Van Dijk, who was injured in the Premier League Merseyside derby against Everton in October, has been sidelined ever since after undergoing surgery and the 29-year-old said he was "gutted" to miss out on the Euros. "Obviously I am very gutted to miss the Euros, to miss the European Championship and leading out my own country there, but things have been like they have and I have to accept it." REUTERS: Liverpool and Netherlands defender Virgil van Dijk has said he has made the difficult decision to skip next month's European Championship in a bid to fully recover from his season-ending knee injury. "Obviously I am very gutted to miss the Euros, to miss the European Championship and leading out my own country there, but things have been like they have and I have to accept it."

Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam confirmed that anyone afraid of performing the Eid prayers due to the pandemic can still pray at home. Desirable sunnahs on the first day of Eid include taking a shower, using perfume, wearing new clothes and looking good, he continued. Allam reminded Muslims to pay the “Zakat al-Fitr” charity before the Eid prayer. The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments has renewed its instructions to hold Eid prayers in mosques where only Friday prayers are held. The ministry emphasized that there is no room for Eid prayers to be held in any squares or yard under the current circumstances of COVID-19 in order to preserve the health of the whole community.

A traffic accident in Sohag left 5 people dead and 16 others injured after a microbus collided with a pick-up car on the Sohag-Dar al-Salam road. Ambulances moved to the location of the accident, transferring the dead and injured to hospitals. The agency added that the number of car accident deaths rose to 3,484 in 2019 – an increase of 12.9 percent. The rate of car accidents increased to 27.4 accidents per day in 2019, it said. CAPMAS attributed the main cause of car accidents to human error at 79.7 percent of the total road accident causes in 2019, followed by technical vehicle defects at 13.5 percent.

President Joe Biden will hold his first White House meeting with top Republican leaders from Congress on Wednesday in an effort to find common ground on his proposals to spend trillions of dollars on U.S. infrastructure, education and childcare. Wednesday will be the first time he has hosted Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy in the Oval Office. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that Biden hoped to find common ground with Republicans on his legislative goals and would not try to solve the party’s identity battle. The White House said Biden hoped to focus on areas where the two sides could work together rather than on areas of disagreement. “He’s invited bipartisan leaders to come to the White House to have a discussion about where we can find common ground and how we can work together,” Psaki said.

CAIRO – 12 May 2021: Head of Genome Research Unit at Children Cancer Hospital Ahmed al-Sayed stated in a phone-in Tuesday that there is collaboration with researchers at Cairo University Medical School to determine the origin of the COVID-19 virus of the third wave in Egypt. The doctor pointed out that the viruses of the first and second waves were of European origin, and that the results of the analysis of the current samples will be out by the end of May. He added that until present Egypt is clear of the Indian, South African, Brazilian, and British variations. The recovery rate from the coronavirus (COVID-19) at Egyptian isolation hospitals has reached 74.4 percent, after the number of people recovering from the virus increased to 176763 cases, according to the Ministry of Health's statement Monday. The Ministry of Health and Population said that according to the recommendations of the World Health Organization issued on May 27, 2020, the disappearance of symptoms for 10 days after infection is an indication of the patient's recovery from the Corona virus.

Egypt’s Presidential Adviser for Health and Preventive Affairs Mohamed Awad Tag Eddin warned civilians during a Tuesday phone call on the “Extra News” satellite channel to avoid following any coronavirus treatment guides taken from the internet. He stressed that while there is no cure for the virus, its symptoms can be treated. The head of Egypt’s Scientific Committee to Combat Coronavirus, Hossam Hosni, said on Sunday that the coronavirus vaccine will likely need to be taken annually. He further stressed that the vaccine is safe and effective, and called on the public to register for the vaccine. Some countries, such as the UK, he added, are aiming to finish vaccinating their populations by the end of the summer.

Egypt’s Health Ministry on Tuesday confirmed 1,180 new coronavirus cases, bringing the country’s total up to 139,740. The total number of COVID-19-related deaths has now reached 14,033 nationwide, after the ministry announced 61 deaths. And 801 patients were discharged from quarantine at isolation hospitals, raising Egypt’s total number of fully-recovered cases to 178,241. Egypt has banned Tahajjud prayers (night prayers) within mosques, their annexes, and their surroundings, only allowing Tarawih prayers. The Ministry of Health announced last week that it will soon begin producing Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s Sinovac vaccines at Vacsera.

CAIRO (AP) — Two protesters were killed when Sudanese security forces dispersed a demonstration late Tuesday in the capital of Khartoum, a local medical group said. The protesters have demanded justice for those killed in the 2019 violence. Security forces closed off major roads and streets leading to the government and military headquarters in Khartoum ahead of the protests. The June 2019 disposal of the Khartoum protest camp coincided with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Over 120 people were killed in that dayslong crackdown, according to protest groups.