Sami Aboudi News

Egypt's petroleum minister said on Tuesday that a regasification vessel would leave Egypt by the end of the week, a day after Norway's Hoegh LNG said Egypt was to give up one of its two floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.The minister, Tarek El Molla, told Reuters the other vessel would stay behind as part of the petroleum ministry's strategy to maintain energy supplies for the country.Hoegh said Egypt Natural Gas Holding (EGAS), having decided to end its charter early…

At least 22 students drowned on Wednesday when a boat carrying more than 40 people sank while crossing the Nile in northern Sudan, state news agency SUNA said.Civil defense forces were searching the waters for the missing passengers but had not recovered the bodies, the agency added. A female hospital employee also drowned.(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, writing by Amina Ismail, Editing by Sami Aboudi and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Egypt has approved an exploration agreement with Italy's Eni and the Egyptian Tharwa company to search for oil and gas in the Mediterranean off the coast of northern Sinai, the Egyptian oil minister said on Wednesday.Under the deal, Eni and Tharwa will spend $105 million in two stages over six years, which involve drilling one well in the first stage and another in the second, Tarek El Molla told journalists.Reporting by Momen Saeed Atallah, writing by Sami Aboudi

Bahrain accused Qatar on Monday of illegally seizing three boats with 16 sailors on board, state news agency BNA reported, worsening an already deeply troubled diplomatic situation in the region. Coast Guard Commander Commodore Alaa Siyadi told BNA the boats were seized over the past three days. The report gave no details on the nature of the boats or where they were seized. Qatari officials said they were checking the report. Siyadi said the seizure raised to 15 the number of boats seized, and the number of sailors in Qatari custody to 20, adding that some of the boat seizures date back to 2009, BNA reported. Bahrain, together with Saudi Arabia…

At least 35 of the 64 people who were on a ferry that sank off Yemen have been rescued, a Yemeni minister said on Wednesday. Rescue teams continued to look for survivors from the boat that was en route from Hadramout province in mainland Yemen to the island of Socotra, Fisheries Minister Fahad Kaffen said on his Facebook page. Socotra and Hadramout are under the control of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is in a war with the Houthis who control most of northern Yemen. The Aden al-Ghad news website said the ship was believed to have suffered an accident and authorities at Hadramout's Mukalla port lost contact with it on Tuesday evening. It sank 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Socotra, an archipelago some 380 km south of mainland Yemen.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the United States have agreed to carry out joint patrols to stop any Iranian arms shipments reaching Yemen, the bloc's secretary general, Abdullatif al-Zayani, said on Wednesday.   Zayani was speaking at a news conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter after a meeting between Carter and his counterparts from the GCC, which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.   Iran denies accusations by Gulf states that it is smuggling weapons to Yemen, where GCC countries are involved in a military campaign against the Tehran-allied Houthi movement.     (Reporting by Sami Aboudi and Yeganeh Torbati, Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by William Maclean)

Iran released 10 U.S. sailors on Wednesday after holding them overnight, bringing a swift end to an incident that had rattled nerves days ahead of the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had freed the sailors after determining they had entered Iranian territorial waters by mistake. The sailors had been detained aboard two U.S. Navy patrol boats in the Gulf on Tuesday. "Our technical investigations showed the two U.S.

Press release - Officials at Yemen's Red Sea port of Hodeidah said the first ship to dock there in three weeks arrived on Tuesday, carrying desperately needed fuel, as Saudi Arabia denied it was obstructing aid supplies heading for Yemen by sea. Yemen is suffering what the United Nations has designated as one of its highest-level humanitarian crises but aid efforts have been severely hampered by ongoing fighting and air and sea ports being blocked for long periods. Hodeidah port officials said that two cargo ships, one carrying wheat and the other timber, were the last vessels to enter the facility about three weeks ago. The tanker that arrived on Tuesday had been waiting in international waters for two months…

Saudi-led coalition forces said on Wednesday they had seized an Iranian fishing boat loaded with weapons on its way to deliver them to Houthi fighters in Yemen. The announcement came a day after tribal fighters backed by the coalition won control of a strategic dam in central Yemen from Houthi forces following weeks of fighting east of the capital Sanaa. The coalition, which also includes Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, has been battling the Iranian-backed Houthis for more than six months. It aims to restore to power President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government, forced out by the Houthis, and contain what Gulf Arab states see as Tehran's growing influence in their backyard.

Merchant vessels are taking weeks to deliver vital food supplies to Yemen as Saudi-led coalition warships search for arms bound for Iran-allied Houthi fighters and heavy fighting disrupts shipments in a worsening humanitarian crisis. The conflict has hurt imports to Yemen, where about 20 million people or 80 percent of the population, are estimated to be going hungry. The Arabian peninsula's poorest country, Yemen imports more than 90 percent of its food, including most of its wheat and all its rice - most of it by sea. It faces increasing problems as many shipping companies have pulled out and those still willing to bring cargoes in face a long wait to get navy clearance.

Warships from the Saudi-led coalition have blocked a vessel carrying more than 47,000 tonnes of wheat from entering a Yemeni port, demanding United Nations guarantees that the cargo would not go to military personnel, shipping sources said on Thursday. Ocean Marine Services, which acts as the Yemen-based agent for the ship, said in a letter to the director of the Yemeni Red Sea Ports Authority, that the Lycavitos, carrying 47,250 tonnes of wheat, had been stopped from entering al-Saleef port, north of Hodeidah on Wednesday night, on the grounds that all Yemeni ports were off limits to shipping. "As official bodies, we appeal to you to communicate with whoever may be in charge to find a quick solution to the problem…

The rocket that tore through a minivan outside the Aden Grand Hotel last week killing nine men, women and children was a clear message that it was time to leave. Yemen's civil war had come too close for comfort. As Shi'ite Muslim fighters closed in on Aden to confront President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his supporters, they cut off all escape routes by road and foreigners in the city began jostling for a way out. Workers from the oil, shipping and services industries, as well as doctors, engineers and students made for the old port terminal erected by Aden's colonial British rulers more than 90 years ago. They included Indians, Nepalis, Syrians, Egyptians and Iraqis, as well as British and Americans, some of Yemeni origin.

As Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies stage air strikes against Shi'ite Muslim militiamen threatening to topple Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the southern port city of Aden shudders from within. Hadi's supporters are fighting street battles with pockets of militiamen and allied army units who have penetrated the city's northern suburbs, with at least 16 dead in total. Rumours of Houthi sleeper cells abound and a curfew has been ordered to stop rampant looting. As Aden's security wobbles, the Arabs' intervention may have come too late to save their ally Hadi's last refuge. "The Houthis came at night, entered the camps and caused the army to defect," said Aseel, a Hadi supporter from the Popular Committees, standing guard at a roundabout in al-Mansoura district.

Iran has called off a deployment of warships to the Atlantic Ocean, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Sunday, shelving plans for its vessels to approach U.S. maritime borders in response to the U.S. navy's presence in the Gulf. A senior Iranian naval commander was quoted in February as saying that several warships would be sent towards U.S. maritime borders in the Atlantic although the Pentagon said at the time that it was not concerned and that many countries operated in the ocean's international waters. He gave no reason for the decision but said warships' missions were likely to change "depending on the situation in the region", such as a rise in piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

Pirates sprayed bullets into an Australian family yacht near the coast of Yemen and the holidaymakers were eventually rescued by a Saudi Arabian oil tanker, one of the victims said. Moya Tucker, resting with her husband and two children at a Yemeni army resort in Aden, said her family was shaken but none was hurt in the incident, which occurred on Nov. 12. Yemeni authorities launched an investigation into the incident and vowed to bring those responsible to justice. Tucker, who is from Crookwell, west of Sydney in New South Wales, said the family were sailing near the Aden coast when five pirates in a fishing boat stopped them, claiming they were policemen. "At the beginning they sort of waved at us.