CAIRO: The Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center revealed that Egypt topped the list of countries in the Middle East and North Africa region for its number of startup deals, coming in at 160 deals in 2022.

According to the IDSC, the UAE ranked second with 153 deals, Saudi Arabia third with 144 deals, Qatar fourth with 45 deals, and Tunisia fifth with 30 deals.

Egyptian startups were able to raise finances amounting to $517 million in 2022.

BEIRUT: At least four Lebanese people have died by suicide in the past week.

The population of the country is finding the prevailing economic and social conditions hard to bear, and Diab Audi, a retired warrant officer in the Internal Security Forces, died after suffering a heart attack inside a Lebanese bank, unable to retrieve withheld savings.

Lebanon is in the midst of a devastating economic crisis that has plunged more than 80 percent of its population into poverty, according to the UN.

TUNIS: Hundreds of Tunisians rallied Sunday in defiance of a protest ban, demanding the release of more than 20 prominent figures opposed to the president who were arrested in recent weeks.
President Kais Saied sacked the government and froze parliament in a 2021 power grab and imposed sweeping changes to the political system of the sole democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings.

RAMALLAH: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said the remarks by a key Cabinet ally calling for a Palestinian town to be erased were inappropriate, after the US demanded that he reject the statement.

In a Twitter thread posted in English shortly after midnight, Netanyahu did not appear to condemn the remarks outright and implied that the ally, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, misspoke.

AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: A Yemeni government military commander was killed and another injured in separate clashes with Houthi forces over the weekend.

Col. Shadi Al-Mejzi, commander of Brigade 63’s First Battalion, was fatally wounded on Sunday morning during an assault by the Iran-backed militia in the Baqum district of Saada province, Saada Gov. Hadi Tarshan told Arab News.