Australia's Ashleigh Barty celebrates after her match against Alison Riske of the U.S. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach(Reuters) - Australian world number one Ash Barty breezed past holder Iga Swiatek 6-2 6-4 in their Adelaide International semi-final on Saturday to set up a showdown with Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina. Barty, who won the tournament in 2020, was dominant from start to finish, winning 76.3% of her first serve points. Rybakina went down a break in the second game of the first set, but immediately broke back. She then sent down five aces to claim the first set 6-4, before breaking Doi's serve twice in the second to seal victory. In the men's Adelaide ATP 250 event, second seed Karen Khachanov beat Croatia's third-seeded Marin Cilic 7-6(3) 6-3 to seal his spot in the final.

Egyptian judicial and security sources said that police arrested businessman Mohamed al-Amin from his villa in Cairo on charges of human trafficking and acts punishable by law against girls in an orphanage that he founded in Beni Suef governorate, Upper Egypt. The police filed a case with the incident and referred it to the Public Prosecution to conduct further investigations. The state-owned al-Akhbar newspaper reported sources following investigations as saying that two girls accused Amin of molesting them. Amin attended investigations on Friday at the Public Prosecution Office, which concluded in detaining the suspect for four days pending investigations. The Public Prosecution also demanded investigations by the Department of Human Trafficking and Illegal Immigration to reveal further details of the incident.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran displayed three ballistic missiles at an outdoor prayer esplanade in central Tehran on Friday as talks in Vienna aimed at reviving Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers flounder. Diplomats from countries that remain in the 2015 nuclear deal — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — are working with Tehran to revive the accord, which had sought to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for lifting of economic sanctions. American diplomats are present at the nuclear talks in Vienna but they are not in direct talks with Iranians. The accord collapsed in 2018 when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the deal and re-imposed sanctions on Iran. A report by Iranian state television said the missiles on display were the same types as those used to strike U.S. bases in Iraq.

A policeman was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence by the Bobigny court in Paris. The policeman was found guilty of describing the Egyptian man as a goat saying “a goat like this doesn’t swim”, referring to the young man he had just arrested after throwing himself in the Seine. Four of his colleagues were sentenced to 12 months in prison with a 12-month ban from practicing the profession. Six of them were handed suspended sentences. A policewoman was handed a 12-month suspended prison sentence for “failure to prevent violence”.

Members of the public continue to be barred from entering the court building, as they have been since March 2020. The justices, sometimes divided, have rejected several religious-based challenges to state vaccine requirements. Friday’s cases are the first tests of the federal government’s authority to issue its own vaccine mandates. Some legal experts suspect the healthcare worker mandate has a better chance of surviving Supreme Court review because the regulation covers just facilities that decide to accept patients covered by Medicaid and Medicare. “The quicker they can issue the decision the better,” Logsdon said of the Supreme Court.

The RSPA said in a statement Friday that the volume of exports reached 371 tons of goods, 202 trucks and eight cars. The volume of imports stood at 47 tons of commodities, 257 trucks and 82 cars, it added.

CAIRO - 7 January 2022: State-owned EgyptAir will organize an exceptional flight to evacuate stranded Egyptian passengers from Casablanca to Cairo on January 19, the Egyptian embassy in Rabat announced in a statement. On December 24, 2021, the Moroccan authorities have extended the suspension of commercial flights to and from Morocco until January 31, 2022, as part of the Kingdom's efforts to curb the spread of the Coronavirus, especially the "Omicron" mutant. The passengers could book their seats on the flight by attending in person at the headquarters of the EgyptAir office in Casablanca, or by calling the phone numbers of the EgyptAir office in Casablanca. All travelers heading to Egypt (except for children under 12 years old), should obtain COVID-19 vaccination certificates or negative PCR test certificates that should be issued 72 hours before the departure of the flight, the embassy added.

In a statement on Friday, the center said it contacted the Agriculture and Land Reclamation Ministry that dismissed as groundless such reports. There is no hike in meat price, the center said, stressing that sufficient quantities of meat are available in the market. It urged media outlets to be accurate in reports it published as related to the Agriculture Ministry and to contact the ministry to verify the authenticity of any news to avoid disrupting public order.

CAIRO – 6 January 2022: A source at the Ministry of Health and Population told Al Watan newspaper Thursday that consignments – whose size ranges between 20,000 and 50,000 doses - of anti-COVID-19 drugs will arrive in Egypt by the end of January. The source elaborated that those include "Baclofen" (20,000 doses); and "Evusheld" (50,000); and the Egypt-produced "Molnupiravir." The recovery rate from the coronavirus (COVID-19) at Egyptian isolation hospitals has reached 83.3 percent, after the number of people recovering from the virus increased to 321,568 cases, according to the Ministry of Health's statement.

BAGHDAD, Jan 5 (Reuters) – The Iraqi government has given its approval for the Iraqi National Oil Company to acquire Exxon Mobil Corp’s (XOM.N) stake in the giant West Qurna 1 oilfield, Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar said on Wednesday. West Qurna 1, in southern Iraq, is one of the world’s largest oilfields with recoverable reserves estimated at more than 20 billion barrels. It had a production capacity close to 500,000 barrels per day in 2021, according to Iraqi officials. State-run Basra Oil Company director Khalid Hamza told Reuters last year that Exxon was seeking to sell its 32.7% stake in the field for $350 million. read moreForeign interest in developing fields in southern Iraq has fallen as Iraq along with other top producers curbs output to support prices and as a result of tension between the United States and Iran, which has close ties to Iraqi Shi’ite militias.

The World Youth Forum management announced the launch of its interactive platform for those willing to participate in the activities of the fourth edition of the World Youth Forum in the presence of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in Sharm el-Sheikh, South Sinai, from January 10 to 13, 2022. As part of the forum management’s keenness to provide the opportunity for those who were unable to attend, the forum management said in a statement, Thursday, that the platform aims to provide an opportunity for all those interested in following up on all the forum’s activities, in addition to participating in the forum’s workshops, which helps to create an interactive atmosphere. The platform also includes information about the forum, the agenda of events and speakers, as well as the ability to participate by default in the forum through the “Share the forum online” list by registering by email only. The statement said that the platform allows users to collect points with each use through an interactive points system. The total points can be used to take a picture as a special souvenir using “photo booth” technology.

Reuters - Paris St Germain forward Lionel Messi has returned to Paris after testing negative for COVID-19 and will resume training in the coming days, the French Ligue 1 club said on Wednesday. Messi was among the four PSG players who returned positive results on Sunday. The seven-times Ballon d'Or winner missed their 4-0 win away to third-tier club Vannes on Monday in a French Cup round-of-32 match. Argentina international Messi joined PSG from boyhood club Barcelona in August and has scored six goals in 16 games in all competitions for the Parisian side. Mauricio Pochettino's team are top of the Ligue 1 standings on 46 points after 19 matches, 13 points above second-placed Nice.

PARIS, Jan 4 (Reuters) – French prosecutors said on Tuesday they had opened a terrorism investigation into an explosion that went off under a French vehicle involved in the Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia. The blast, which seriously injured one of the rally competitors, hit a support vehicle belonging to the French team Sodicars soon after it left its hotel in the Saudi city of Jeddah for the race route, according to accounts from the team and race organisers. Five team members were in the vehicle at the time and one of them – driver Philippe Boutron – sustained serious leg injuries. French newspaper L’Equipe quoted a team-mate as saying the blast ripped through the floor of the vehicle, which then caught fire. Race director David Castera told L’Equipe that the two-week race will continue, and that he had asked Saudi authorities to assign more police to protect the rally.

CAIRO – 5 January 2022: The Egyptian Armed Forces published an infograph highlighting the 29 joint military exercises it carried out with counterparts in 2021 on Egyptian territories. The country that comes next is the United States, which carried out with Egypt five naval exercises in the Red Sea, and a "special forces" exercise in the anti-terrorism field. Naval exercises also took place with Spain in the Red Sea (3), and Greece in the Mediterranean (2). Further, a naval exercise was held with each of India, and Italy in the Mediterranean, which witnessed the Egyptian-Russian exercise "Friendship Bridge 4." The infograph noted that Egypt participated in 12 exercises with other countries overseas, which makes the total number of joint exercises in 2021, 41.

The suicide of 17-year old Pasant Khaled from Gharbiya governorate has sent shock-waves across Egyptian society, after she was the victim of e-blackmail using fake inappropriate photographs of her. The pictures were modified by some ill-intentioned young men using photo-editing programs and shared on social media after the victim refused to get into a relationship with them. The Sada al-Balad website published steps that users of social media networking websites must follow in case they are subjected to e-blackmail with pictures or personal conversations. – If the blackmailer threatens you through your Facebook account, you can report their account to the Facebook administration here. – Change the password for all your accounts on social media, and do not share your personal photos on any social media.