Short fuses in Egypt as blackouts stretch into sweltering summer

Cairo: At least once a day, the hum of every fan, air conditioner and fridge across Egypt goes quiet. The lights go out and an expletive is muttered o...

Cairo: At least once a day, the hum of every fan, air conditioner and fridge across Egypt goes quiet. The lights go out and an expletive is muttered or hurled into the quickly-heating air.

Lifts stop, errands are cancelled and meetings delayed for as long as the power stays out -- hopefully an hour or two, but recently even longer.

It is now a year since energy and foreign currency crises led Egypt's government to institute planned blackouts known as "load shedding".

But the measures have not been felt equally across the country.

In the southern city of Aswan, where temperatures neared 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in the shade earlier this month, "the lights are out for up to four hours a day, and with them the water", Tarek, a resident of western Aswan, told AFP.