The Higher Administrative Court rejected on Monday a government plan to transfer two uninhabited Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, saying that the government had failed to provide evidence that the islands belonged to Saudi Arabia. The court aned the agreement in June, upheld the government appeal last month, and rejected its final appeal on Monday. The maritime demarcation accord, which was announced during a visit by King Salman in April, prompted protests from Egyptians and has become a source of tension between the two countries. Saudi and Egyptian officials had argued that the islands belonged to Saudi Arabia and were only under Egyptian control because Riyadh asked Cairo in 1950 to protect them. But the lawyers who opposed the accord said Egypt's sovereignty over the islands dated back to a treaty in 1906, before Saudi Arabia was founded. (Reuters)