Al Sissi set to be elected as Egypt's new President

1.    Al Sissi set to be elected as Egypt's new President

i. In Egypt, former Army Chief, General Abdel Fattah Al Sissi is all set to be elected as the new President of the country. 
ii. The preliminary results after counting of votes have shown that Al Sissi is heading for a landslide victory. 





iii. Sissi’s campaign quoting judicial sources engaged in the counting of votes said that he has got 93 percent votes. 
iv. His rival Hamdeen Sabbahi is reported to have secured only 2.9 percent votes. Although the results are announced by the Judges supervising polling centres across the country, they are still considered unofficial as they must be verified and then announced by the Presidential Elections Commission.

v. The Presidential election in Egypt this time was marked by a low voter turnout of around 44 percent even though the polling was extended by one more day. Pro Morsi Islamist alliance led by Muslim Brotherhood boycotted these polls. 
vi. This was the second Presidential election in three years in Egypt. For the first time in the history of Egypt, elections were monitored by foreign observers from European Union.

2.    RBI directive on foreign currency accounts

i. The Reserve Bank of India has directed banks to: convert credit balances in any inoperative foreign currency (FC) denominated deposit into Indian rupee if the former remains not in use for three years from the date of maturity of deposit.

ii. Thereafter, the depositor shall be entitled to claim either the said Indian rupee proceeds and interest or the foreign currency equivalent (at the prevalent exchange rate) of the Indian rupee proceeds of the original deposit, the RBI added.

iii. The RBI further said in case of inoperative foreign currency denominated deposit not in use for three years and having no fixed maturity period, the bank should give three month notice to the depositor and convert the deposit from the foreign currency to Indian rupee.

3.    Syria has suffered $143.8-bn economic loss due to civil war: UN

i. Syria has suffered $143.8 billion in economic losses due to the continuing civil war in the country, according to a new UN report.

ii. The joint report by the Syrian Centre for Policy Research and the UN says that even as the death toll from Syria’s three-year civil war continues to rise, the country’s human development has also suffered immense collateral damage -- the economy has been gutted, the healthcare system is in ruins, and education facilities are "teetering".

iii. According to the report, titled 'Squandering Humanity', covering the last two quarters of last year, three out of four Syrians now live in poverty, with more than half the population - 54.3 percent in 2013 - living in extreme poverty.

iv. Syria is now blighted by joblessness and overwhelmed by unemployment," said Alex Pollock, director of micro-finance for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which worked with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Syrian Centre for Policy Research to compile the report.