Egypt Tag

Egypt suspended a capital gains tax on Monday, sending shares soaring after a months-long downturn in which investors had complained of a lack of clarity about the new taxes, with some even taking the government to court. Immediately after the announcement, Egypt's EGX 30 index rose 3.3 percent to 8562.07, according to Egypt's official news agency. By late afternoon, shares were up 6.5 percent. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi approved a law nearly a year ago which placed a 10 percent tax on capital gains, fueling a sell-off by investors in an economy already battered by years of political unrest since the 2011 uprising. The law had been part of a broader government effort to broaden the tax base as it pushed through a host of tough measures, including slashing fuel subsidies, amending the property tax law, imposing a 10 percent tax on stock dividends and allowing the Egyptian pound to devalue somewhat against the dollar.

In a wide-ranging interview with Vox, Obama discusses his proposal to raise capital gains taxes on couples making more than $500,000 a year to help pay for middle-class tax breaks. The rate would go from 23.8% to 28%. Obama tells Vox’s Ezra Klein the capital-gains proposal “would make a big difference in our capacity to give a tax break to working moms for child care.” And, says Obama: “There’s no evidence that would hurt the incentives of folks at Google or Microsoft or Uber not to invent what they invent or not to provide services they provide.”

The Egyptian leader expressed his condolences to his French counterpart Francois Hollande, the families of the victims and the wounded, his office said in a statement. Sisi, in a telegram sent to Hollande, "expressed the Egyptian people and government's condemnation over the terrorist act that the French capital Paris witnessed today," the statement said. Offering his condolences to the victims' families and the wounded, Sisi said "terrorism is an international phenomenon that should be faced and terminated through joint international efforts".

Egyptian police have used tear gas to disperse protesters angry that charges against ex-President Hosni Mubarak over killings during the uprising three years ago have been dropped. About 2,000 people massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the 2011 revolution. At least one person was reported killed in the clashes. Mubarak was originally sentenced to life in jail then cleared in a retrial. In a TV interview after the ruling, Mubarak said he did "nothing wrong". The former president, 86, is serving a separate three-year sentence for embezzlement of public funds.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed on Sunday that "the new Egypt, born after the January 25 and the June 30 revolutions … cannot move backwards," in a statement issued in reaction to the acquittal of former President Hosni Mubarak.

Some turn attention to low voter turnout....

A judge in Egypt on Monday sentenced to death 683 alleged supporters of the country's ousted Islamist president in the latest mass trial that included the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader, defense lawyers said. But in a surprise reversal, the same judge also reduced most of the death sentences handed to 529 defendants in a similar case in March, commuting the majority of them on Monday to life imprisonment. The judge, Said Youssef, said he was referring his ruling on the 683 death sentences for violence and the killing of policemen to the Grand Mufti, the top Islamic official -- a requirement under Egyptian law, but one that is considered a formality. Both mass trials are linked to deadly riots that erupted in Minya and elsewhere in Egypt after security forces violently disbanded sit-ins held by Brotherhood supporters in Cairo last August.

Egypt's security authorities launched a sweep of arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members on Thursday and warned that holding a leadership post in the group could now be grounds for the death penalty after it was officially declared a terrorist organization, stepping up the government's confrontation with its top political nemesis. The announcement came as a bomb exploded in a busy intersection in Cairo Thursday morning, hitting a bus and wounding five people. Though small, the blast raised fears that a campaign of violence by Islamic militants that for months has targeted police and the military could turn to civilians in retaliation for the stepped up crackdown. The terrorist labeling of the Brotherhood — an unprecedented step even during past decades when the group was banned — takes to a new level the government's moves to crush the group, which rode on elections to dominate Egypt's politics the past three years until the military removed Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in July after massive protests against him.