Latest from Mada
Mada
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Mada
Sudan Nashra: PM Kamel Idris yet to form govt, pledges nonpartisan cabinet RSF launches major assault on Babanusa, West Kordofan Military airstrikes on Nyala continue
A month after his appointment, Prime Minister Kamel Idris, whose selection drew regional and international support and expression of hope that he could steer Sudan toward a new political phase, has yet to form a government. Now tasked with leading a country worn down by two years of war, Idris is facing serious obstacles. Chief among them are the competing demands of political and armed groups aligned with the military and who believe their share of power is secured under the Juba Peace Agreement. At the same time, Idris is grappling with the difficult task of apportioning political power among Sudan's diverse geographic and social communities. The war has only deepened the role of ethnic and regional identity as a basis for political representation. On top of all this, Idris is trying to govern a country already mired in poverty amid an economic crisis brought on by the ongoing war. On the combat front, the military has stepped up its drone strikes on Nyala — the capital of South Darfur and the main stronghold of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — after weeks of sustained attacks, suggesting it may now have gained air dominance over the city. Meanwhile, the RSF continues to gain ground in Kordofan. Its forces mobilized on the outskirts of Babanusa, attacking the last major military-held city in West Kordofan — a region bordering South Sudan and home to the majority of Sudan's oil fields. The RSF's campaign comes as the military's 22nd Division, based in Babanusa, remains cut off from supply lines following the paramilitary group's recent takeover of surrounding cities and towns. On Friday, the RSF launched an attack on Babanusa, which the military was able to repel. The border triangle between Egypt, Sudan and Libya continues to be a hotbed for military action. Earlier this week, the RSF seized the Karb al-Toum area in Northern State. Inside the triangle on the Libyan side, Military units loyal to Libyan National Army (LNA) Commander Khalifa Haftar stepped up their presence, securing further arms shipments to the RSF via the Kufra airport. The RSF is coming under airstrikes, however, in an effort to dislodge them from their newly opened supply route. In North Darfur, the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate rapidly, particularly in the city of Fasher, which has been under RSF siege for over a year. Hundreds of thousands of residents are living amid acute shortages of food, water, medicine and other basic necessities, as fears grow over a possible cholera outbreak. Thousands of Sudanese people in Fasher and neighboring displacement camps have fled to nearby areas such as Tawila, which has become a central hub for the displaced across the state. But with resources overstretched and infrastructure deteriorating, these destinations are struggling to meet the rising demand for essential services, particularly healthcare, food and shelter. *** A month after his appointment, Prime Minister Kamel Idris has yet to form a government, as political infighting in the administrative capital of Port Sudan continues over power sharing in the upcoming administration. In a speech addressing the Sudanese people on Thursday night, Idris unveiled the broad outlines of what he called the 'government of hope' — a civilian technocratic administration. A former UN official, lawyer and past presidential hopeful, Idris was chosen for his nonpartisan background — unlike Ambassador Dafallah al-Hajj Ali, who had initially been tapped for the post by Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) Chair and military Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Concerns over Ali's ties to the former regime and the sweeping powers attached to the premiership ultimately led the TSC to favor Idris instead. Idris said his cabinet would be composed of technocrats with no political party affiliations, describing it as a government that 'represents the voice of the silent majority' with a mandate to deliver prosperity and improved living conditions for the Sudanese people. But according to a former ministerial official who spoke to Mada Masr, Idris faces four major challenges in forming his cabinet. The first is balancing Sudan's complex web of political and social blocs. Idris, according to the source, wants to correct the lack of representation from certain regions in previous governments and insists on appointing ministers based on merit and professionalism — criteria that may rule out several candidates favored by political blocs, the source said. Secondly, Idris aims to fill most cabinet posts with younger figures, a goal that proves difficult, according to the source, given youth underrepresentation across Sudan's political and social structures. The third obstacle concerns Idris's stance toward Islamist factions. While groups such as the former ruling National Congress Party and other Islamist-aligned forces welcomed his appointment, two high-level TSC sources told Mada Masr that Idris has since kept his distance from any Islamist entities — an approach they said reassures the TSC leadership. The final hurdle is the Juba Peace Agreement. Armed movements that signed the 2020 deal are insisting on their full share of cabinet positions as stipulated by the agreement. In his Thursday speech, Idris stressed that he retains the right as prime minister to independently select members of his cabinet using a range of selection methods. Membership in the 'government of hope,' he said, would be open to Sudanese citizens regardless of race or religion, provided they have no party affiliation. A senior source in the Justice and Equality Movement, led by Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim, told Mada Masr that Idris is bound by the terms of the Juba agreement. The constitutional amendments passed in February did not override the peace deal, the source said, and would not do so until the 39-month transitional period concludes. Idris announced that he would begin forming the government immediately and incrementally, pledging not to betray the public trust and to lay the foundation for a state governed by the rule of law. *** A week after capturing border triangle, RSF advances in Northern State, Haftar-aligned forces expand border deployment Just over a week after the RSF took control of the border triangle between Sudan, Egypt and Libya, the paramilitary group continued its advance into Northern State while military units loyal to Libyan National Army (LNA) Commander Khalifa Haftar stepped up their presence on the Libyan side of the border. On Tuesday, RSF fighters took control of the Karb al-Toum area in Northern State, following the withdrawal of the military toward the Atrun military base, a source from the Sudanese Armed Forces told Mada Masr. Located near the border triangle, Karb al-Toum is considered a key military and commercial gateway in Sudan's northern desert. A former Sudanese military officer told Mada Mar that the RSF's continued advance is backed by newly opened supply routes through Libyan territory. The officer warned that unless the military intervenes with ground and air forces, the group is likely to target the Atrun base and the Khandaq area in the Dongola locality next. The RSF seized the strategic border triangle on June 18, just hours after the military said it had vacated the area. The military accused the Haftar-aligned Subul al-Salam Battalion of aiding the RSF's takeover, which the LNA denied. The Subul al-Salam Battalion, which has controlled the border area since 2011, expanded its military deployment around Jebel Uweinat in the triangle earlier this week, a source close to the battalion told Mada Masr. Backed by the 87th special operations unit — under the LNA's ground forces command led by Saddam Haftar, son of Khalifa Haftar — the battalion launched additional patrols aimed at tracking a group suspected of ties to the Sudanese military-aligned joint force of the armed movement, the source said. The 87th unit dispatched reinforcements to Libya's far southeast on Sunday, deploying around Jebel Uweinat with surveillance aircraft overhead, the source said. The Subul al-Salam forces, meanwhile, remain stationed on the Libyan side of the border triangle as part of a broader plan to prevent infiltration or potential cross-border attacks. According to the source, the Subul al-Salam Battalion received what is believed to be a military shipment delivered earlier this week aboard two Emirati cargo planes. The cargo was heavily secured and transferred to private storage facilities in the nearby city of Kufra. Another military source told Mada Masr that three aircraft were spotted at the Kufra airport on Tuesday, amid what the source described as a significant uptick in logistical movements from Libya into RSF-held areas in Sudan's northern desert. A military source told Mada Masr last week that the border tensions stemmed from the RSF's attempts to establish alternative logistics routes via Libya after Chadian generals pressured President Mahamat Deby to halt the use of the Um Jaras base, which has served as a major RSF supply hub over the past year. Civilians fleeing the border triangle into Dongola, the capital of Northern State, told Mada Masr that RSF positions near the area have come under heavy airstrikes in recent days. A military source said that RSF fighters were hit by three strikes throughout Monday and Tuesday, two of which took place inside Sudanese territory. The strikes were intended to destroy the RSF drone platforms operating in Karb al-Toum, a source from the military's 19th Infantry Division said, warning that the paramilitary's presence in the area poses a direct threat to towns west of the Nile in Northern State. On Thursday morning, the military's air defenses intercepted three RSF drones carrying explosives launched toward the division's base in Merowe, eyewitnesses told Mada Masr. They described hearing loud blasts over the city as all drones were downed. The Sudan's Doctors Network warned on Monday of deteriorating humanitarian conditions among civilians fleeing the border area. The network said nearly 2,000 displaced people have arrived in safer areas of Northern State but lack basic necessities such as shelter, food, clean water and healthcare. After capturing Nuhud and Khawi in West Kordofan in recent weeks, the RSF launched a major attack on the military's largest stronghold in the state, the city of Babanusa, on Friday, following two days of artillery exchanges and military drone strikes targeting RSF positions in the city's outskirts. Throughout Monday and Wednesday, the RSF deployed reinforcements to the north and east of the city in a bid to encircle it from the two directions. They then began shelling the military's 22nd Infantry Division over two consecutive days, a military source in the division's command told Mada Masr. The 22nd Division responded with airstrikes and artillery shelling on Wednesday and Thursday, killing over 60 RSF fighters and destroying 13 of their combat vehicles, according to statements from the military unit. On Friday, the RSF launched a large-scale assault, with heavy fighting breaking out around the 89th Infantry Brigade command near the division's camp, a field source told Mada Masr. The military repelled the initial wave of the attack, but the source warned that Babanusa is likely to face more RSF offensives in the coming days. Located near the South Sudanese border, Babanusa is a strategic city home to the majority of Sudan's oil fields. According to the military source, the terrain surrounding the 22nd Infantry Division camp — characterized by hills and rocky plateaus — presents significant challenges to a full encirclement. Following the RSF's recent takeovers of Nuhud and Khawi in West Kordofan and Dubeibat in South Kordofan, the RSF leadership now believes the military's 22nd Division may struggle to hold out for as long as it did over the past year, RSF military sources in the West Kordofan sector told Mada Masr. According to RSF field commanders who spoke to Mada Masr, new fighters arrived in the city earlier this week with the goal of launching renewed attacks on the military division — after several failed attempts to seize it last year. Witnesses in Babanusa confirmed seeing large-scale reinforcements near the city. Local sources warned that the situation in Babanusa is becoming increasingly precarious, especially as the military appears ill-prepared for a full-scale confrontation, they said. Disruption to supply lines, the city's geographic isolation and the suspension of military air drops have left military forces exposed to what could be a decisive RSF offensive, they said. Babanusa entered the frontlines of the war between the military and the RSF in early January 2024. Operations in the area were initially delayed as local leaders from the Messiria tribe sought to broker an agreement between the two sides to spare the military's camp in the city, given its role in protecting the southern borders against cross-border raids by gangs from South Sudan. However, the initiative ultimately failed after RSF Deputy Commander Abdel Rahim Dagalo insisted on capturing the 22nd Division camp. Renewed clashes between military, SPLM-N in South Kordofan Fighting resumed between the military and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, in South Kordofan on Tuesday in the town of Dashoul, near Korgol, south of the capital, Kadugli. Forces of the SPLM-N, which holds significant territory in South Kordofan, launched an attack on military positions in the area, attempting to cut the main road linking Kadugli and Dalang, a field source told Mada Masr. The military repelled the assault. Military spokesperson Nabil Abdallah confirmed that the 14th Infantry Division in Kadugli pushed back the SPLM-N offensive on the Dashoul outpost, adding that their forces seized weapons, combat vehicles and three tanks during the operation. Fighting between the military and the SPLM-N has escalated in recent weeks along the Um Deheilib and Korgol fronts. In May, the military captured the town of Um Deheilib, located about 45 km east of Kauda, the SPLM-N (al-Hilu)'s stronghold. The armed group had long maintained a camp there, using the village as a forward defensive position for its main base in Kauda. Military cooperation between the SPLM-N (al-Hilu) and the RSF has been steadily growing since the signing of the Nairobi charter in February. Endorsed by over 40 civilian, political and armed groups, the agreement established a military-political alliance and laid the foundation for a parallel government in Sudan. The charter quickly translated into military cooperation between the RSF and SPLM-N leaderships in terms of troop mobilization and training in SPLM-N-held territories in South Kordofan and the southern Blue Nile State — where the rebel group has been in conflict with the military since 2011. Following the ouster of former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and in the years leading up to the outbreak of the war in 2023, the military and SPLM-N (al-Hilu) continued to renew a ceasefire agreement on an annual basis. Since the war, however, fighting has resumed between the two. *** Military drones continue to strike RSF strongholds in Nyala, South Darfur For the third consecutive week, the military carried out drone strikes on RSF positions in South Darfur's Nyala, the group's largest stronghold. On Wednesday, the military launched a surprise attack on the Rahman neighborhood, where RSF Deputy Commander Abdel Rahim Dagalo was attending the funeral of one of his commanders who was recently killed in the Kordofan battles, a senior military source in the General Staff told Mada Masr. The strike killed several of the attendees, who comprised fighters and field commanders engaged in logistical operations, according to the source. On Saturday morning, residents heard loud explosions and saw smoke rising near the city's international airport — the RSF's primary logistical and military base. Later that evening, drone strikes resumed, hitting multiple locations across Nyala, local sources told Mada Masr. At least three powerful blasts were heard across the city's central, southern and eastern neighborhoods. Among the sites targeted was Nyala University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, which the RSF had repurposed as a military base, one of the local sources said. According to eyewitnesses, the strikes killed and wounded around 25 RSF fighters. The injured were taken to the Turkish Hospital in southern Nyala — a facility that the RSF has recently reopened. Earlier this year, the RSF developed a military airbase and strategic cargo facilities at the Nyala International Airport, a senior military officer had previously told Mada Masr. RSF Deputy Commander Abdel Rahim Dagalo had also moved the group's command to Nyala and has been working to designate the city as the administrative capital for the paramilitary group, according to an RSF military source who spoke to Mada Masr in April. *** Direct clashes resumed in Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, with the military repelling a major assault by elite RSF units on Sunday. The two sides exchanged heavy artillery fire again on Tuesday and Wednesday. A field source told Mada Masr that the RSF deployed elite units — which they said recently trained in Nyala — in an attempt to storm Fasher and seize the military's Sixth Infantry Division command, along with the rest of the city. The assault began in the early morning hours from the eastern side and was preceded by heavy shelling and drone strikes on military defenses, as well as those of the armed movements' joint force and locally mobilized fighters. According to the source, the joint force repelled the assault and inflicted heavy losses on RSF fighters. In a statement, the joint force said it had foiled the 214th RSF attack on Fasher, destroying six Emirati-made armored vehicles and 10 combat trucks along with their crews. The statement added that dozens of RSF fighters were killed or dispersed, with the remainder pursued to the city's outskirts. On Tuesday, the military launched heavy artillery strikes on RSF positions east of the city, prompting retaliatory fire from the RSF, another field source told Mada Masr. The same exchange continued the following day, with RSF surveillance and combat drones flying overhead, according to the source. *** Health official: Nearly 30,000 dead or wounded in North Darfur since war broke out Since May 2024, North Darfur's Fasher has grappled with daily bombardments and a tight siege that has deprived hundreds of thousands of residents of essential supplies. North Darfur Health Ministry General Director Ibrahim al-Khater told Mada Masr that nearly 30,000 people across the state have died or been wounded — whether through direct attacks or illnesses and injuries exacerbated and caused by the RSF's siege and the attacks on healthcare facilities — since the outbreak of war in April 2023. According to Khater, the toll has been heaviest in Fasher and its surrounding areas, as well as in the localities of Kutum, Malit, Um Kadada, Tawila and Dar al-Salam. On the medical front, only three hospitals remain operational across North Darfur. Khater pointed to critical shortages of medicine, medical supplies and food. The ongoing siege has cut off all humanitarian aid, while daily bombardments of health facilities and civilian shelters have led to mounting casualties, he said. Most of those sheltering in these facilities, he added, are elderly people, women, children or already in poor health. The collapse of humanitarian conditions in Fasher was echoed by Adam Regal, the spokesperson for Fasher's General Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees. Regal told Mada Masr that the destruction of key health facilities — most notably the clinic at the Abu Shouk displacement camp, north of Fasher — due to RSF artillery shelling has led to a total breakdown of healthcare services. He estimated that dozens of displaced people are wounded everyday in the ongoing artillery attacks. The destruction, compounded by a shortage of medicines and deteriorating living conditions, has driven many to flee the camp, according to Regal. As the situation in Fasher worsens, the areas of Tawila and Kurma have become the destination for thousands fleeing the violence. But these areas are now overwhelmed by the influx and are equally lacking in basic and healthcare services, he said. Regal called on international organizations and donors to scale up aid to Sudan in general — and to Darfur in particular — warning that a cholera outbreak may be imminent if swift containment measures are not taken.
Mada
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Mada
The indigenous, the current and the art of the Sharjah Biennial
The Sharjah creek runs parallel to the old Sharjah market. While searching for freshly grinded turmeric for a friend, we came across Photo Kegham, quietly nestled between the shops. Photo Kegham, part of the 16th Sharjah Biennial, is a reproduction of Gaza's first photo studio, originally located on Gaza City's central Omar al-Mukhtar street. The installation draws from an archive preserved by artist Kegham Djeghalian, grandson of Kegham Djeghalian Sr., who founded the studio. Born in Anatolia, Djeghalian Sr. fled with his family to Syria during the Armenian Genocide, later moving to Jerusalem, where he trained in photography, before eventually settling in Gaza and establishing Photo Kegham in 1944. Djeghalian curated the content of three boxes of his grandfather's negatives, revealing an intimate portrayal of everyday life in Gaza. Before its current iteration at the Sharjah Biennial, the project was presented in various forms: at Rawabet Art Space in Cairo (2021), the Institut français d'Égypte (2024), the Photographers' Gallery in London (2024), and Fonderie Kugler in Geneva (2025) — each offering a distinct curatorial approach, beginning with Cairo. At the biennial, a selection of the photographs are separately exhibited at the Sharjah Art Museum's main venue, restaging glimpses of lives once lived in Gaza. Each photograph carries with it a lineage of histories and experiences to be imagined through the captivity of the image. But then there is the shop outside, its stark presence signaling disappearance more than return. The literal apparition of Gaza in Sharjah is disorienting. The architectural reconstruction of Photo Kegham's facade is striking — subtly embedded within the fabric of Sharjah's old market, yet unmistakably staged. In contrast to the generative, layered substance of the photographs in the museum, the careful replication of the studio verges on fetishism. The tension between art as spectacle and its political potential is a defining and perhaps inevitable feature of the Sharjah Biennial. Biennials amplify the question through the density of artistic production, but also, perhaps, augment the promise: will this profusion of art sharpen our attention? Will it unsettle us? Will it reorient our perception? Or does the very inclusion in the biennial risk neutralizing art, muting its performative potential? Does the biennial open up a platform for possibility, or does it risk becoming a structure of containment? What, if anything, allows art to exceed the terms of its exhibition? The curators of the 16th Sharjah Biennial — Alia Swastika, Amal Khalaf, Megan Tamati-Quennell, Natasha Ginwala and Zeynep Öz — pose a perennial question: 'What do we carry when it is time to travel, flee or move on?' The answer, for many participating artists, lies somewhere in indigenous roots. Over 40 of the biennial's 190 participating artists center indigeneity in their work, celebrating marginalized cultures of origin while mourning erasure and dispossession. Some works present a spectacle of indigeneity, a quest for visibility, a form of signage within the binds of a contemporary art biennial. Others stage indigeneity to pose questions or offer propositions. While the former tend to perform a predictable role of political responsibility within the exhibition, the latter manage to transcend its confines. One of the works that depart from indigeneity to ask political questions is Hylozoic/Desires, the mutli-media performance duo of Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser. Their film, The Hedge of Halomancy (2024), features Mayalee, a woman performing rituals using the same salt extracted by the British from the native Great Indian Hedge in the late 1800s. The Hedge of Halomancy contrasts rare archival findings documenting the salt extractions, in which its protagonist appears only marginally as a 'dancing girl' or a courtesean, with the fictional account in which she performs a salt ritual. The duo also present a series of staged photographs from the film's imagined world. One of them, titled عراف الهالة (The Halomancer), portrays a diviner who seeks insight by casting salt into the air. For the duo, what appears in the archive as a courtesan resisting the loss of her right to salt becomes a woman enacting a ritual. We don't know what made this piece stand out in its wrestling with the native's right — is it the rigor of the research and its layered, speculative morphing? the quality of the form that both reveals and withholds? Perhaps not knowing is better. The biennial is dizzying, with countless works that reenact indigeneity in a quest to make the native visible or to declare the plight of the indigenous. This presence demarcated the politics of this edition, yet it did not pass without the tension of being curiously housed in Sharjah, where indigeneity is neither clearly defined nor synonymous with marginalization. But the oddities of Sharjah's homemaking for the art world is nothing new. Sri Lankan artist Rajni Perera paints Lover not a Fighter (2024), which takes inspiration from traditional oral rituals suppressed by the colonization of his home country. American artist Sky Hopinka from the Ho-Chunk Nation of the Midwest mounts a three-channel road trip video titled In Dreams and Autumn (2021), where they use Chinuk Wawa, an indigenous language, as a 'means of return.' Australian artist Yhonnie Scarce, descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, presents Operation Buffalo, an installation that opens the Hamriyah coastal site with shimmering glass pieces suspended from the sky like atmosphere — the work is a spectral prelude to this liminal industrial shoreline north of Sharjah, one of the Biennial's key off-site venues. Their technique of making gestures to the mushroom clouds left by nuclear tests in the Maralinga desert of South Australia in the 1950s — tests that contaminated land inhabited by indigenous communities for years after. Hopinka's images are scenic, Perera's paintings adroit, and Scarce's installation spectacular. Yet their aesthetic craft somewhat lock their political potential, they are often consumed in their exhibitionism. In a way, interventions like Fabio Morais's murals unintentionally respond to the dilemma of aesthetics dispersing political potential. The Brazilian artist turns aesthetics into gesture, placing discourse at the forefront. One of his murals reads: 'We fulfilled pacts and agreements, but suddenly…' — a sentence that repeats and then fragments into scattered letters. Morais's nod is to the shaky foundation of the textual tradition of the law, but the erosion he evokes could just as easily belong to contemporary art. One of this year's biennial exhibition sites is the decommissioned Al-Qasimiya School, renovated in 2019 by the Sharjah Art Foundation. Vacant of schooling, yet full of its traces — educational signage and classrooms encircling a playground. It was one of the most magical spaces we encountered. We wonder if it's a kind of nostalgia for a school that has not yet been, a space of childhood emptied of indoctrination, where art takes on the role of pedagogy, while admitting to its vulnerability, its shakiness. The school holds one of the works most resonant with us, and with anyone grappling with being an incapacitated witness to Israel's genocide in Gaza, a genocide unfolding in intimate spatial and psychic proximity, the stuff of hauntology. Gazan artists Mohamed al-Hawajri and Dina Mattar were invited to exhibit works they managed to rescue during their escape from Israeli airstrikes on the Bureij camp in Deir al-Balah. Hawajri shows several of his inked bone-based sculptures alongside a vivid, staggering painting of their flight from war — a scene also depicted in Mattar's works and in a video by the two artists' eldest son, Ahmed. Their younger children, Mahmoud and Lea, contribute too: Mahmoud with crafted puppets whose wide eyes stare back at us, and Lea with drawings of houses, birds and suns, often delicately adorned with pasted bougainvillea petals. The exhibition does not change our position as incapacitated witnesses to the genocide. If anything, it throws into sharper relief the dissonance of our daily lives as politically engaged, middle-class cultural workers — lives that, in moments like this, feel unavoidably complicit, even hedonistic. But this exhibition specifically offers a slight reprieve from the burden of consuming the spectacle of art in the context of genocide. It felt like a kind of homecoming. One can barely escape seeing the pieces as both artworks and survivors — self-contained objects in a spectacle, and at once witnesses to and traces of their conditions of making. These are works that carry more than the intention of art; their fleeing journey is now part of them. They bear the messiness of staying alive amid genocide — the horror not yet rendered legible, the fugitivity they aspire to. When writing critique, we are often invited to learn how to read works immanently, but in this art space, mounted in a bygone school, we find ourselves unlearning the rules. Each work gestures toward something beyond itself. They are bearers of their own negativity. Palestinian singer and sound artist Bint Mbareh presented a new sound work titled What's Left? (2025) at Qasimiya as well. She assembled a choir as a communal act, summoning the air it takes to vibrate herself away from the heaviness of genocide through singing. The piece draws on her research into communal singing practices around rainfall in Palestine — traditions that resist colonial narratives of water scarcity. Like other ancestry-bound artists in the biennial, Bint Mbareh works with revolutionary songs passed down across generations. Among them is the iconic سـاعة التحرير دقّت (The hour of liberation has arrived), featured in Jewish-born Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Sorour's film about the Dhofar rebellion against British colonizers in Oman. Layered and embodied, yet deeply contemporary, the work manages to flip the game of nostalgia. And just as we might ask the exhausted question, does nostalgia impede urgency?, What's Left? seems to offer another: Can sharpening our gaze on what we are nostalgic for liberate it from impotence? But the perils of nostalgia are often evoked in sound — and the double LP on vinyl Only Sounds that Tremble Through Us (2025), also presented in Qasimiya, got to us. We were drawn in by a magnetic remix of a chant that always managed to tremble through us: علي وعلي وعلي الصوت اللي بيهتف ما بيموت (Raise, raise, raise your voice; those who chant do not die). The remix, by Ruanne Abu Rahme and Bassel Abbas, stems from their ongoing performance May Amnesia Never Kiss Us on the Mouth (2020 – ongoing), and features music commissioned from DJ Haram, Julmud, Makimakkuk, Muqataa, Freddie June, among others. The LP is part of a broader show, Speaking with the Dead, curated by Palestinian writer and curator Adam HajYahia, and undertaken by Bilnaes, or In the Negative, an 'adisciplinary' platform that also intervenes in how artistic collaborations are distributed. HajYahia engages the question of debt as a discursive device indexing colonial history and an ongoing capitalist condition. With it, he brings together Brazilian artist Jota Mombaça's raw scribbles, Asian-American artist Martin Wong's bestial painting of White Cypress, Palestinian artists Dina Mimi's montage of images of resistance for liberation and Muhannad al-Azzeh's embodied facial sketches of Palestinian imprisonment. There is nothing poetic or complete in this show — it is precisely 'in the negative,' and this is where its authority lies: in its wrestling with art forms that exceed the totality of discourse, and with discourse that floods art with its certainty. Many artists in Sharjah worked with textiles, and each time we encountered these works, it felt like a hug. Isn't clothing a form of hugging? In Qasimiya, the school's central grounds are embraced by recycled cotton bedsheets, pillowcases, burial cloth and other fabrics — including silk and chiffon — by Emirati artist Hashel al-Lamki. One hanging cloth even had some questions for us: Were you the reason behind someone's tears? Were you the cause of an animal's distress? Did you torture a plant and forget to give it water? The work's statement claims to summon wisdom. Its presence amid classrooms housing different artworks evokes the kind of knowledge weaving that once threaded through schools. In Dhaid, a more distant oasis in Sharjah, the biennial extended into a palace, an old clinic, and a farm — spaces where the artworks seemed to take up more room. We walked into a formidable pool-like architectural installation and recognized Mahmoud Khaled, a compatriot and member of our community in Egypt. In Pool of Perspective – 2030 (2025), he stages a voided future as a site of malfunction, referencing the mega-national construction projects back home, laden with the promise of futurity. This illusory future is embedded in the structure through various forms of optical play. We also found Wael Shawky's I am Hymns of the New Temples (2023) and enjoyed a fragment of his theatrical production crafted through tableaus that fantasize the real. The work belongs to a similar repertoire of films Shawky makes, using similar form to stage a different protagonist: In this case, it's the story of the ruins of Pompeii. On our way out, we stopped at the farm in Dhaid, where musicians and sound artists composed with trees, waterways and other lifeforms in the deserted oasis. Among them were Joe Namy — whose main work Dub Plant, tracing connections between radio and agriculture, we sadly missed — Başak Günak, Sandy Chamoun, Hauptmeier|Recker, Berke Can Özcan and Sary Moussa. It was magical. Many of the works predictably engaged with ecological questions, especially around resources. Italian Libyan artist Adelita Husney-Bey uses art and pedagogy to think with water about scarcity, famine and colonialism. Brazilian artist Luana Vitra imagines attraction and desire between minerals as a refusal of extraction for profit. Filipina-Canadian artist Stephanie Comilang takes us to the curious worlds of pearl diving and industrialization in the Arabian Gulf, the Philippines and China. From the Gulf, most of the art deals with similar questions. Saudi artist Ayman Zedani spotlights an ancient fungi, recovered in Saudi Arabia, in an experimental film about its violent extraction — an echo of the oil industry. Kuwaiti artist Monira al-Qadiri presents an oil refinery that shimmers as both metropolis and sci-fi city. Bahraini artist Mariam Alnoaimi collaborates with fishermen and biologists to explore the Gulf's waters not as sites of trade and transfer, but as lived environments. An unconventional work in this Gulf tapestry is Saudi artist Sarah Abu Abdallah, who turns more directly to the everyday. Her You Ask, We Answer (2024) — a massive canvas sprawling across several rooms — brims with images, paintings, and collage. It's playful, ceaseless, whimsical and doesn't care to exceed its own aesthetic momentum. On the short drive back to Ajman — just 15 minutes, though it often feels like crossing into another world — we tried to recall what stayed with us. The smallest of the seven emirates, Ajman hasn't caught up with the global integration spree that animates the UAE's vision. It's a rougher edged, laid-back space, where labor is visible and contemporary art is absent. In a reading group on Aesthetic Theory, we learned that art must turn against itself. That line returned to us as we revised the show into memory. We imagined fugitive artworks following us into Ajman. This is probably the art that turns against itself.
Mada
2 days ago
- Business
- Mada
State budget passes even as MPs malign steep debt service bill
The House of Representatives gave final approval on Tuesday on the state budget and economic and social development plan for fiscal year 2025/2026, along with the budgets of 63 public economic entities. According to the Planning and Budget Committee's report, cited by the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper, 41 of these entities are projected to turn a profit under the new budget, while 16 are expected to incur losses. Budget discussions earlier in the week saw sharp criticism from several MPs over the steep rise in debt service allocations, which now account for 65 percent of total expenditures. Lawmakers also voiced concerns that the government circumvented its constitutional obligations for health and education spending. In response, Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk insisted on Tuesday that the government complied with all constitutional requirements. Several MPs attacked the government's overall performance, accusing it of mishandling public finances amid regional turmoil, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported. 'The country is in crisis, and we're facing a tough regional environment that requires progress,' Planning and Budget Committee Secretary MP Abdel Moneim Emam said, arguing that the current government — in place since Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly assumed office in 2018 — 'is not fit to be a wartime government.' MP Ahmed al-Sharkawy also rejected the budget, citing the need for 'precautionary measures and readiness for any scenario' given the region's volatility. He argued that Egypt's economic performance has direct implications for its political and regional standing and warned of a looming 'disaster' brought on by successive governments and their budgetary choices over the past decade, particularly the mounting domestic and foreign debt. Last year's budget faced similar criticism in a report by the Central Auditing Organization (CAO), which pointed to patterns of mismanagement across public finances — from covering defaulted debt by several non-budgetary governmental bodies, to the rise in tax arrears among government entities and the failure to make use of foreign loans. The House's Planning and Budget Committee incorporated the CAO's findings into its own report, which recommended investigating some of the foreign loans in question. But, according to a member of the committee who had previously spoken to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, 'the entire Parliament discussed the report and passed it without forming the [fact-finding] commission, effectively closing the matter.'
Mada
2 days ago
- Business
- Mada
House approves tax exemptions for UAE sovereign fund
To pave the way for more Emirati investments and secure the capital return on those already made in Egypt, the House of Representatives approved on Sunday a supplementary protocol to the Egyptian-United Arab Emirates tax agreement, granting the Emirati sovereign wealth fund a tax exemption in Egypt. The annex, issued by presidential decree earlier this year, recognizes Egypt's Sovereign Fund and UAE's Abu Dhabi Development Holding Company (ADQ) as 'government institutions' and consequently allows both funds to benefit 'from the tax exemptions stipulated in the agreement.' Upon their approved recognition in the agreement as government bodies, both funds are subject to Article 24, which grants tax exemptions on income generated by the government as well as its affiliated bodies, according to a joint report issued by the House planning and budgeting and Arab affairs committees and reviewed by Mada Masr. The agreement with the UAE, aimed at enhancing investment and trade relations between both countries, was initially approved by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in November 2019, under the Presidential Decree 558 of 2020. Emirati investments are crucial for Egypt at a time when the country's economy is deeply affected by Israel's aggression on Gaza and more recent attacks on Iran. Last year alone, ADQ, the Gulf country's largest sovereign fund, invested US$35 billion through the Ras al-Hikma development project in the North Coast. Half of the mega deal's proceeds were allocated at the time to easing the country's growing public debt. ADQ also acquired stakes in three state-owned petroleum companies for $800 million in November last year. Under Article 24's second section, the term 'government' includes 'the government, its agencies and institutions […] as well as any other institution or body mutually agreed upon from time to time by the governments of the two contracting states.' In the past, Egypt signed 60 similar agreements with other countries, some dating as far back as the 1970s, a Finance Ministry official told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. These agreements are periodically reviewed and re-negotiated by both parties, the official said. When amendments are limited to one or two provisions, they said, they are issued in the form of a protocol and appended to the original agreement. In this case, the protocol was necessary because the original tax agreement was finalized in 2017, before either the Egyptian or Emirati sovereign wealth funds were established. Agreements to avoid double taxation typically require that the benefitting entities be explicitly named. According to the official, the supplementary protocol was added after it became clear during ADQ's financial dealings that the fund was not listed among the beneficiaries of the agreement, as it had not been named or specified in the original text. The exemptions outlined in Article 24 include taxes on three types of income: dividends, capital gain, and interest, a source in the House Planning and Budgeting Committee told Mada Masr. The interest exemption applies to all forms of government lending instruments, such as bonds, sukuks and deposits, among others. Upon the maturity of the financial instrument, the lender or investor receives the principal amount along with interest — or what is considered profit — from which the Finance Ministry deducts a 20 percent tax, as stipulated in the Income Tax Law, which applies to both Egyptians and non-Egyptians. While the government continues to offer incentives, including tax exemptions, to encourage Emirati investment in the domestic economy, it has been less forthcoming with other international entities. In November 2023, Euroclear, a platform for settling securities transactions that Egypt had hoped to join, requested a tax exemption on treasury bills and bonds as a condition for granting access to the government's debt market. The Egyptian government has yet to respond to the request.
Mada
3 days ago
- Business
- Mada
How will the Israel-Iran war affect the Egyptian economy?
The Egyptian economy continues to tremble with uncertainty in the face of the widening regional war escalated when Israel attacked Iran on Friday night. By the end of Sunday's trading session, the stock market's main indices declined, with total losses amounting to LE93 billion. The Egyptian pound also weakened, reaching a value of LE51 to the dollar, compared to nearly LE49.8 last week. As the war continues, Egypt faces a series of profound economic repercussions, sources in the Parliament and domestic banking and financial sectors told Mada Masr, marked most prominently by the exit of hot money from the country. Hot money is still the main factor propping up the pound's value, and if it goes, exchange rates will fall and, combined with global price hikes on oil and natural gas, Egypt could see a new wave of inflation. Hot money withdrawal Investors already began to withdraw hot money from the domestic market on Sunday. A hot money outflow ranging from US$3 billion to US$4 billion is expected this week, a financial analyst at an investment firm told Mada Masr. The forecast was echoed by Mahmoud Sami, a member of the Senate Financial and Economic Affairs Committee, and Saad Ali, a financial analyst at Okaz Investments. The three sources also expected that the withdrawal of hot money could cause the exchange rate to rise to a rate LE52 to LE52.2 per dollar. Egypt's risky reliance on hot money was laid bare following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when investors withdrew nearly $22 billion out of Egypt to seek safer debt markets. The resulting capital flight triggered a severe foreign currency crisis that persisted for two years, during which the dollar surged from LE15 to LE50. Current estimates place the amount of hot money in Egypt's bond market at $30 to $35 billion, according to the three sources. Hot money inflows are a key pillar in maintaining the stability of dollar liquidity and ensuring the availability of foreign currency in the economy — a factor that has been reflected in the relatively stable exchange rates over the past several months. Exchange rate and futures exchange The price of the dollar began to rise on Sunday, posting a rate of LE50.56 compared to LE49.5 before Israel's attacks on Iran, according to central bank data. A sharper rise was recorded in other Egyptian banks on the same day, with the price of a dollar reaching LE50.87 in the Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank. The exchange rate then slightly stabilized on Monday, dropping by 0.33 points to LE50.23. Rates on Credit Default swaps (CDs) were also negatively impacted, rising to 560.3 points and marking a 12 percent increase compared to rates ahead of the Israeli aggression on Iran. The pound's one-year forward exchange rate, also known as Non-Deliverable Forwards (NDFs), rose as well from LE58.80 to LE60 per dollar on Sunday, financial analysts told Mada Masr. Oil and fertilizer prices In addition to the rise in the pound's exchange rate, oil prices surged by seven percent after Israel attacked Iran. On Friday, prices peaked at $77 per barrel, up from around $60 at the start of June, before stabilizing around $70. The spike followed Israeli strikes on Iran's oil and gas fields, which account for nearly 11 percent of total production by OPEC oil-exporting countries. Natural gas prices also saw a rise by nearly 13 percent following the regional escalation. Israel's decision to halt its natural gas supply to Egypt in late May prompted the government to cut gas supplies to fertilizer factories, leading to a suspension of their production and, consequently, their exports. While this comes amid rising global prices and a halt in local market supplies, summer season crops —which began last month — will not be affected, Hatem Naguib, head of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce Vegetable and Fruit Division, and a former Agriculture Ministry advisor told Mada Masr. Both sources, however, said the situation could become concerning if the halt in fertilizer production drags on, warning it could lead to a shortage of fertilizer supplies at the start of the winter season and consequently drive up prices. Higher insurance costs for shipping A rise in maritime transport costs has also been recorded, which translated into higher insurance costs for shipping due to the increased risks of an escalating Israeli-Iranian war, former member of the Suez Canal Authority Wael Kadoura told Mada Masr. The hikes come as 80 to 85 percent of Egypt's total imports are transported by sea, Kadoura noted, warning that continued military escalation between Israel and Iran could worsen the crisis of shipping companies avoiding the Suez Canal and increase the likelihood of re-routing via the Cape of Good Hope. Fees levied on vessels passing through the Suez, which links the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, form a key component of Egypt's budgetary resources. These revenues have already taken a hit, with the central bank recording a 24.3 percent drop in receipts for FY 2023/24 due to maritime disruptions stemming from Houthi attacks aimed at deterring Israel's ongoing war on Palestinians. A boost to inflationary pressures The rise in both the exchange rate and in commodity prices globally, paired with the increased costs of insurance on shipping, will increase the pressure on the general budget, the MP and two financial analysts explained, and deepen the rise in inflation rates, which have already been witnessing a rise over the past three months due to fuel price increases. According to the sources, the government plans to raise fuel and electricity prices again at the start of the upcoming fiscal year in July, in line with International Monetary Fund conditions tied to Egypt's US$8 billion loan program. Energy prices have already been raised multiple times in recent years under a plan to phase out subsidies by the end of 2025. A source in the House of Representatives Planning and Budgeting Committee told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that the recent regional escalations have sparked renewed talks with the IMF. According to the source, the fund has shown some flexibility on the timeline for reaching cost-recovery pricing if global oil prices continue to rise. However, this flexibility does not apply to the upcoming consumer price hikes, he noted. Consumers have been affected by a noticeable rise in inflation rates during the past three months, after nearly four months of a slowdown in inflationary pressures. In May, inflation witnessed the sharpest rise in eight months, with a 16.5 percent increase compared to the same month last year and a 1.8 percent hike compared to April. Analysts pointed to energy prices as the main factor behind the surge. In televised statements on Monday, attempting to appease the public amid the regional escalations, Cabinet spokesperson Mohamed al-Homsany reiterated the government's commitment to its 'promise' not to raise fuel prices before October, though he acknowledged that global fuel price fluctuations, especially amid the Israel-Iran escalation, will likely impact efforts to contain inflation rates. The two financial analysts agreed that the current regional escalations and their repercussions on the Egyptian economy will likely prompt the central bank to hold off on the monetary easing policy it has been aggressively pursuing in April and May. They therefore predicted that the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee will fix interest rates in their upcoming meeting to preempt further inflation.
