After pushing its economy to the brink, Egypt gets a bail-out

IN ANCIENT times, the pharaohs knew their survival might depend on the annual flooding of the Nile. Without its deluge of rich black silt, crops could not be sown, and hungry people tended to turn on their leaders. Times have changed, but Egypt’s modern-day pharaoh still looks elsewhere to sustain his rule: not south, to the headwaters of the Nile, but east, to the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf.

On February 23rd Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed a $35bn deal to develop Ras el-Hekma, a wedge of land jutting off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The biggest urban land sale in Egypt’s history saw the Emiratis buy the rights to 171m square metres (42,000 acres) of land, with plans to build homes, hotels and shopping centres in a sort of Dubai on the Med. Egypt will retain a 35% stake in the project.