Egypt’s new ambassador to Italy, Hesham Badr, left Cairo for Rome on Friday morning. On Wednesday, the new Italian ambassador to Egypt, Giampaolo Cantini, assumed his duties in Cairo. On Thursday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Italy’s Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano met in London, and stressed the importance of the strengthening the two countries’ cooperation in political, economic, and regional security areas. Cantini would be filling a position that had been vacant since April 2016, when the Italian foreign ministry recalled the ambassador citing concerns over transparency from Egyptian investigators looking into the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni in Egypt earlier that year. Alfano also said that sending Cantini to Cairo is intended to consolidate the political and ethical obligations of the Italian government regarding the search for the truth about the murder of Regeni. Italy is the fifth-largest foreign investor in Egypt. The two countries also closely cooperate on finding a peaceful resolution for the conflict in Libya, as well as combatting irregular migration from north Africa to European shores.
Egypt: 16 natural gas projects worth $25 bn planned in Mediterranean
16 projects with a total investment estimated at over $25 billion are being planned to be