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Ailing Egypt seeks $4.8 billion IMF loan
Yahoo! News ^ | 8/22/12 | Maggie Michael - ap

Posted on 08/22/2012 6:22:26 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt formally asked the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan on Wednesday, seeking a desperately needed rescue package for its faltering economy but raising the possibility of painful restructuring in a country still reeling since its revolution more than 18 months ago.

The loan deal, which Egypt says it will reach by the end of the year, presents a major test to the Muslim Brotherhood-rooted president, Mohammed Morsi, the country's first ever freely elected leader, brought to power after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

The IMF has avoided making specific conditions for a loan but it seeks a cohesive government plan for restarting economic growth and reducing a deficit that has grown to $23.6 billion, some 8.7 percent of gross domestic product.

A key part of that will likely be reducing subsidies that suck up a third of the government budget every year. Touching those subsidies, however, could bring social upheaval, since they keep commodities like fuel and bread cheap for a population of around 82 million, some 40 percent of whom live near or below the poverty line.

"The government will have to take urgent measures, at the top of them cutting energy subsidies," said Mohammed Abu Basha, a Cairo-based economist at investment bank EFG-Hermes Holding SAE. The biggest subsidies are those on fuel — including gasoline and cooking gas — costing the government some $16 billion a year.

Egypt's upheaval since the 18-day uprising that led to Mubarak's ouster on Feb. 11, 2011, has pushed its economy toward the brink. Amid near constant instability since, foreign investment has dried up. Revenues from tourism — one of the country's biggest money makers and employers — fell 30 percent to $9 billion in 2011 and the industry is only making a meager recovery.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: ailing; egypt; imf; loan; morsi; mubarak
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To: InterceptPoint

I’d like to see the pyramids but only if they’d pack them up and ship a couple on tour here so guess I’ll have to be happy with looking at pictures on the web.


21 posted on 08/22/2012 8:46:27 PM PDT by bgill
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To: null and void
Meeting my son there. A few days in Cairo some scuba diving mueseums and then take the train to Luxor. At least there are no lions this time.
22 posted on 08/22/2012 8:48:30 PM PDT by sharpee
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To: sharpee
Good luck with that, take lots of pictures.

Last time the muslims took over, they destroyed every scrap of writing they could find.

The hieroglyphs looked like satanically koranically forbidden depictions of human forms...

23 posted on 08/22/2012 9:07:52 PM PDT by null and void (Day 1311 of our ObamaVacation from reality - Obama, a queer and present danger)
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To: sharpee
The Islamic terrorist Muslim Brotherhood is now in charge of Egypt. What is it about that dynamic that you do not understand? They are gang-raping women and crucifying Christians along with anyone they think is opposed to their Islamic, Jihadist Muslim Brotherhood "president" in compliance with the dictates of Shariah law.

If you are white, American, European, Jew, Christian or atheist, you are an "Infidel" in their eyes. Their young men are told the only way they are guaranteed to get to "paradise" where they will have perpetual hard-ons so that they can have unlimited sex with 72 nubile virgins along with young boys is to KILL you or die in the process of killing you and your son. You and your son have a giant target on you and unless you are traveling with armed guards who are prepared to protect you with their very lives, you have to be out of your mind to go there, unless you are a Muslim. Does the name Richard Pearl ring a bell?

Do you have a death wish where some Egyptian-Islamic nut jobs kidnap you and your son, bind you to a chair and slowly cut your heads off with a dull knife while praising their blood thirsty moon-god "Allah" as you plead for your life, covering all of the action with a digital video camera so that you and your son can be put up on YouTube and Aljazeera as examples of what happens to Infidels who come to Egypt.

This is no longer the nice, tourist Egypt of the last 50 years plus. The entire country is now run by blood thirsty killers who are largely supported by the Muslim populace. They are animals and have no compunction about taking you or your son's lives.

The Muslim Brotherhood, AKA, Islamic terrorists in business suits which had a military coup last weekend are now in control of the 10th largest standing army in the world and just this week they have moved some of their 1,200 Abrams M1AI tanks into Sinai for the first time since the Egyptian Peace Accords were signed when Carter was president. On top of that the Egyptian government is already lying saying they told Israel that they would be moving them in to Sinai, which is a strict violation of the Peace Accords, and that Israel had given its approval. Israel has denied they were told about this militarization ahead of time.

The Muslim Brotherhood in control of Egypt hates Israel, hates the Jews, and hates Americans. They and are gearing up for a military confrontation i.e., WAR with Israel and they totally support the goals of Iran's insane "president" and the mullahs regarding the destruction of Israel and the USA.

You are free to do what you want, but you are taking your lives in your hands and if things go bad... no one, especially not the anti-Christian, pro-Muslim Obama is going to come to your rescue. After they butcher you and post it on TV, Obama and his pro-Muslim, pro-Islamic terrorist State department will send Egypt a strongly worded letter condemning what they did, but for you and your son... too bad, so sad. But you should have known better than to trust Egyptians run by Islamic thugs to protect you.

24 posted on 08/22/2012 10:43:59 PM PDT by Jmouse007 (Lord deliver us from evil, in Jesus name, amen.)
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To: NormsRevenge

Islamic parasites will pay back nothing on this loan. Steal from the stupid infidel is how Muhammadanism operates


25 posted on 08/22/2012 10:49:23 PM PDT by dennisw (Government be yo mamma - Re-elect Barack Obama)
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To: NormsRevenge

Starve the bastids!


26 posted on 08/22/2012 11:38:53 PM PDT by JDoutrider
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To: NormsRevenge

Tell them anything you want as long as it starts with “NO!”


27 posted on 08/23/2012 12:19:46 AM PDT by Bon mots ("When seconds count, the police are just minutes away...")
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