Egypt's Ministry of Endowments just announced a new record: in the last six months, yet another 964 mosques were opened, costing Egypt more than 21 billion pounds since 2014.
Today there more than 150,000 mosques in Egypt. The total number of prayer halls is easily tenfold that number—meaning almost 1.5 million.
The total number of churches and monasteries for all Christian denominations in Egypt, including those “licensed” since the issuance of the 2016 Law for Building and Restoring Churches, is currently estimated to be about 5800.
There is one mosque or prayer hall for every 40 or so Muslims, but only one church or monastery for every 2,400 Christians.
That’s a 1:60 ratio of blatant discrimination.
Moreover, 22 billion Egyptian pounds are annually paid to Al Azhar, which has a parallel educational system, or madrasa, from KG to university, with over 2.8 million pupils and students.)
Conversely, not only does Egypt make it immensely hard for Christians to open or maintain churches, but the government does not contribute a single penny to their survival. Churches are even required to pay their utility bills, which no mosque in Egypt does, as the government happily picks up their bill.
Greece’s Minister of Migration and Asylum, Thanos Plevris, has announced a new legislative framework targeting the operation of illegal places of worship, emphasizing that non-compliance will lead to the immediate revocation of residency permits. In Agios Nikolaos, a Mosque was sealed and the alleged imam had his residency permit revoked and faces deportation.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
—Matthew 11:28-30
That's China's vision, objective and immediate goal. They have the leverage to make it happen.
Summary of Xi's January 2026 announcement:
"It's a sweeping vision for building a global financial power organized around socialist principles, without the greed and without a financialization of the economy (what Xi calls 脱实向虚, “drifting from the real economy into the virtual”).
-- Arnaud Bertrand