136 Articles
Remember the story of Joseph, left at the bottom of the well for dead by his brothers? In his poem, ‘Oh my father, I am Yusuf,’ great late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish adopted this Biblical and Quranic story to express the nuances of the Palestinian situation, when he wrote the lines, “They want me to …
CAIRO: When Doctor Ilhamy Sultan began searching for his missing brother on the night of July 21, 2008, the last place he expected to find him was lying in a hospital bed, the victim of brutal police violence. Ragai Sultan is 46 going on 47. However, with an IQ of 50, he could be classified …
CAIRO: A student blogger has been detained for 15 days without trial after “turning himself in to security. Mohamed Rafat Bayoumi, mass communication student at Cairo University, was not at home when security raided his house around midnight on July 21. Lawyers acting on behalf of Bayoumi told Daily News Egypt that security confiscated the …
CAIRO: The split in Coptic opinion over foreign interference in Egypt’s internal affairs once more reared its head Monday, as international Coptic organizations called for American action to protect Christians living in Egypt. Senator Frank Wolf, Virginian Republican, introduced resolution 1303 on July 24, 2008. The resolution, as stated in a press release from the …
CAIRO: Pleasure tourism always demands some sense of delusion. Whether that might be deluding yourself into believing that the business phone-call will have miraculously been made by the time you get back, that somehow the sea-air will cure that mysterious ailment you’ve been suffering recently, or that the hot waiter you met on a beach …
If you’re looking for a quiet night in, a Sufi Moulid is something to avoid at all costs – i.e taking a metro trip to Sayeda Zeinab and actually alighting then finding your way into town wouldn’t be ideal. This week, the Sayada saw thousands of Cairenes, governorate residents and real country-bumpkins make their way …
There’s something mercilessly haunting about Osama Dawoud’s current exhibition “Rosetta at Artellewa art space. Perhaps it’s the drawn, haunted faces staring out from beyond the chemical pallor of the photo, or the sweeping reeds across the sand dunes. Or it could be, having paid a brief glimpse to the blurb explaining the content of the …
CAIRO: Thousands of workers were made redundant and homeless in the first part of 2008 alone, reports a human rights group. “Sons of the Land Association for Human Rights, an NGO founded in 2004, released its bi-annual report tracing a high number of workers’ action in the first half of 2008. Out of the 20,550 …
CAIRO: An Alexandria court on Sunday ordered the release of 14 detained youth belonging to the April 6 movement, but lawyers are skeptical of whether the youths will actually be released. Lawyer Mohamed Hassan El-Sirry, told Daily News Egypt from Mansheya Court in Alexandria, “There will most likely be a counter-appeal from the Ministry of …
For Walid Hassanien, coming to Egypt was more an adventure than strategic career move. “I figured something interesting was going to happen, he told me over a coffee. With a degree in Industrial Design from Carleton University, Ottowa, Walid had been working in metal fabrication prototyping. So how did Walid go from designing sat-nav trolleys …
CAIRO: Young activists from the April 6 movement launched a spirited demonstration Thursday in protest at the arrest of 14 of their compatriots.The 14 youths, aged in their early to mid 20s, were snatched off the streets of Alexandria by police as they celebrated the July 23 national holiday on the beach. The group will …
Those deep, longing melodies sung by great legends from the Arab region known as Bilad El-Sham will always elicit a kind of nostalgic response. Whether you’ve visited Lebanon, witnessed its paradoxical beauty hanging between love and war, or just read of its war-torn history, it is near-nigh impossible not to feel some sort of emotional …
CAIRO: Hopes and expectations were dashed Tuesday as it became evident that incarcerated lawyer and former presidential candidate Ayman Nour would not be released mid-sentence. Supporters and family members of cult-figure and former presidential candidate were hoping that Nour would be pardoned from serving the remaining two and a half years of a five-year sentence. …
CAIRO: In 2003, the Housing Ministry, under the auspices of the First Lady, launched a campaign to provide housing for some of the poorest Cairo residents. Five years later and white apartment blocks, Suzanne Mubarak’s ‘gift’ to the poor, pepper the landscape. But it is the slum housing, thickly crammed up the mountains of Manshiat …
There’s a lot more to the term ‘piano recital’ than meets the eye. Conveying the intense, technical, yet highly spiritual language hovering between the cords is no easy job. As Mark Damisch demonstrated, it’s a skill that takes years to perfect. The American pianist dazzled audiences at Qubat El-Ghouri with his first performance in Egypt …
CAIRO: The brother of the subject of a recent documentary highlighting alternative lifestyles of Sudanese gang culture in Egypt, was left fighting for his life in hospital last week following a brutal attack by gang members. Raymon Justin, 19, was walking home in Maadi after a wedding on the night of July 6, when he …
If you were unlucky enough to be born in the 1980s, the name Torii will send the wheels of time swinging back to blonde, busty prima donnas and an iced up quiff a razor blade couldn’t cut. I’m talking about Tori Spelling and Matt Dylan. The latter apparently had some serious parental problems, while the …
Sitting in the middle of Tahrir square in the sweltering summer heat isn’t exactly the most enjoyable way to spend an evening. But when you’re sitting on the grass of the AUC campus gardens, watching some quality comedy performances, suddenly everything becomes a little bit brighter. The Howard Café named after the original “little black …
CAIRO: Standing on the steps of the Journalists’ Syndicate, press and activists – led by the Head of the Freedom Committee Mohamed Abdel Qoddous – voiced Monday their support for Al-Fajr journalist Kamal Murad, who was assaulted and arrested by police last month. Activists leading the demonstration called for the cessation of police attacks on …
CAIRO: On July 7, 2005, four British Muslims blew themselves up on the London public transport system. Fifty-two commuters, Muslims included, were tragically killed. Two years later, and the fundamental question of why it was that four, seemingly middle class, educated young men took their own lives and others’, remains largely unanswered. For Muslims on …
What have a downing a cup of coffee and the modern age got in common? One leaves you feeling a little less corpse-like early morning, the other leaves corpses strewn in a savage cultural onslaught. “Ahwa Sada (Unsweetened Coffee), the latest production from scriptwriter/theater director Khaled Galal, offers you a sip of both, and in …
CAIRO: It was a victory that was a long time coming. The shrill cries of ecstatic women filled the air as farmers made their way to the Journalists Syndicate Monday evening to celebrate the final verdict of a four-year-long battle. Before an audience of press, lawyers, activists and farmers, Nadir Fargani chaired a whistle stop …
Myriam Faris is championed as being a child prodigy. She started singing at the age of about minus five, won about a thousand prizes during her youth, and went on to study musicology before earning a place among the golden pop-brats of the Arab world. So she’s been criticized for emulating Shakira, but does that …
BEHEIRA: Twenty-three families left their homes and fled to their fields on Tuesday in an attempt to escape forces mobilized by local ‘land thugs’ in Ezbet Muharram, in Beheira, formers told Daily News Egypt. Under the advice of the Solidarity Board for Egyptian Farmers, the families left their houses for their fields on Saturday after …
CAIRO: Two hundred and fifty workers at the Mansoura-Espana garments factory in Talkha demonstrated for a second day against the dismissal of colleague Mohsen El-Shae’r. El-Shae’r, 34, was given his marching orders after “speaking to the papers about proposed changes to working regulations in the factory. “I was called into the office where I was …
Khaled Al-Khamisy recent literary hit “Taxi opened up those transitory spaces in Egyptian locomotion to an audience of spectators. With the endless episodes that happens inside the cab having proved rich pickings for the recent blossoming literary scene, it was only a matter of time before the film industry flag down a slice of petrol …
Standing on the sand bank in the red sea, I turn to face the shore. I let the water whirl around my ankles; it’s the perfect temperature. I’m about 100 meters out, and the clear blue waters, which had reached my knees, are now just over my ankles. Behind and beneath me is a coral …
Mawawil – Gypsy songs of Egypt – are driven from the Egyptian countryside: Mansoura, Sharqeya, Menufiya, Beheira and Qaliubiya. And in Cairo’s Downtown Makan theater last Tuesday, the audience found themselves transported to 1900s Sharqeya itself, sitting in a simple, almost makeshift building on the banks of the Nile in the West Delta. Cairo’s urban …
CAIRO: A court in Port Said Monday reviewed the first defamation case filed against an Egyptian blogger, Tamer Mabrouk. Mabrouk, author of Al-Hakika blog, is being accused by the Trust Chemicals Company of writing false information concerning their alleged dumping of chemical waste into the Manzallah Lake and the Suez Canal. The preliminary review set …
CAIRO: Standing before a row of black-clad central security police, lawyers from all over Cairo crammed into the small forecourt of the Lawyers’ Syndicate to protest against proposed amendments to the lawyers’ laws. The protest comes on the eve of what is expected to be the final vote on the amendments, which, according to sources …