136 Articles
SAMANOUD, Menufiya: Over a hundred farmers gathered outside the Samanoud Cooperative Building for Land Reform to express their anger over a five-year delay in receiving their land deeds. Farmers of Samanoud, located in the Ashmoun suburbs of Menufiya governorate, held a demonstration when, after five years of waiting for deeds to be issued, they were …
CAIRO: After years of serious neglect by international organizations and nations alike, agriculture is being put back on the policy map. “And it could never be at a better time, announced Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza in his fly-by stop to the World Bank’s World Development Report seminar at the Center for Genetic Engineering Studies …
CAIRO: Hundreds of angry lawyers staged a demonstration outside the Lawyers Syndicate Thursday, protesting against the lawyers’ reform law initiative. Members of the syndicate are also threatening to hold a second demonstration this Monday as well as sleeping inside the syndicate until Tuesday, the day in which the prospective laws will be formally discussed at …
I am being stalked. I was lolling in my bed a few nights ago. Correction. I was deep in sleep a few nights ago, and my mobile phone suddenly rang on loud, nearly knocking me out of bed with its hideously high-pitched drone. I answered. Why, exactly, I’m still asking myself. There were a few …
CAIRO: Human Rights Watch has condemned the decision taken by the Cairo Appeals court to uphold the sentencing of five men diagnosed with the HIV/AIDS virus to three-year prison terms, labeling it, “inhuman and unjust. In a press release issued by the organization, a torrent of criticism has also been directed at the ‘months-long campaign’ …
The concept of the prototypical polymath has disappeared into the folds of the 16th century, with science, math and art racing on a course far beyond the capacity of most. This doesn’t mean, however, that artists cannot attempt to recreate a sense of what it means to embrace scientific mechanics in holy matrimony with the …
BEHEIRA: It’s a long drive from Cairo to Janaklisse, but going deep into the countryside has no bearing on the long arm of corruption. After Sunday’s arrests of 1,230 farmers in the suburbs of Beheira on charges of tax evasion, the presence of journalists in the village of Janaklisse made farmers twitchy, fearing they might …
CAIRO: Over 1,230 farmers have been arrested in the past two days in Aboul Matamir in Beheira governorate, accused of failing to pay agricultural land taxes (known as the attyan tax) on time. According to the Solidarity Committee of Egyptian Farmers, arrests began on the morning of May 24 and continued for two days. Owners …
There’s self-destructive poetry, which breaks the conventions of traditional poetry in the name of inspiration, and then there’s the destruction of poetry itself, that does neither. Nafisa El-Sebai’s “Meditations in Rhyme is of the latter genre, the kind that wonders how deluded publishers were to grant her a book deal. Her collection of “rhyming prose, …
CAIRO: “Sustainable development can only take place under good governance, said former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, in a speech given to the press to launch the Commission for Growth and Development. As a developing country which is currently undergoing a spurt in its economic growth, Zedillo chose Cairo as the point to launch the commission, …
CAIRO: Muslim Brotherhood member Saad Khalifa Saad has made a parliamentary demand that the two respective boards of health and education undertake an investigation into the visual health of Egypt’s students. Saad cited statistics gleaned from a World Health Organization survey, which reports that of a sample of 5,839 students aged 7-14 years in Cairo, …
Iwas once sitting at a travel agents trying to get travelers’ cheques for Syria. “Where are you going? the bleached damsel behind the desk said, “Sierra Leone? Egypt, despite owing affiliation to the same cultural and regional bloc as the aforementioned country, is a household name. If biblical pre-school Pharaoh stories haven’t etched the country …
CAIRO: Against a global background of house price slumps and the great Western recession, those ubiquitous vistas of real estate projects that dominate the Egyptian horizon might now seem in jeopardy. There are fears asunder that Egypt’s property bubble may be about to burst into a kaboom of bricks and mortar. However, Ahmed Sabbour, managing …
There’s nothing special about being a child of globalization. In fact, it’s rather mundane. If I had to count how many of my friends and family are the products of cross-cultural backgrounds, were refugee immigrants, belong to minority religions, or happened, through one reason or another, to be bilingual, I’d be here all day. I …
Looking at all the hullabaloo outside the American University in Cairo’s Howard Theatre Tuesday evening, one might have assumed there was some kind of star-studded gala taking place. Fear not, oh theater-goer, because unless you were friend or family of a player, it’s unlikely you would have bagged a seat anyway, such was the support …
CAIRO: Politicians, UN officials and key players in forming Egypt’s UN Development Report for 2008 praised the role of what is being called “the third pillar of the Egyptian nation: civil society. Entitled “Egypt’s Social Contract: The Role of Civil Society,” the report was launched yesterday before an audience of press and civil society workers …
CAIRO: ‘Making the World a Safer Place’. It’s a mantra chanted by Western politicians to their fear induced nations and the cause d être of the Bush administration. In the eyes of many, it’s an inherently flawed principle, peddled by the elite who conflate economic self-interest with the interests of their nation at large. For …
Ever been fed up taking taxis everywhere you go? Waiting on the street, sticking out a salutary arm and flagging down some battered old 1980’s fiat about to vomit up its own engine? Now, and I really do feel glad for the tourist when I say this, there really is an alternative. Any unsuspecting tourist …
Symbolist adherents are a dying breed. The days of exalting the virtues of the lover-country metaphor are over; the sinner snake and hero reborn have been buried under withering copies of ‘Golden Boughs.’ That’s not to say that cinematic symbolism isn’t valid, it’s rather more subtle complexities of living have eclipsed the black and the …
CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood has blasted the government’s decision to raise prices accusing Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif of swindling the citizens and falsifying facts. In a press conference organized on Monday by the Islamist group’s parliamentary bloc, the Brotherhood Secretary General Mohamed El Beltagy announced that the real price hikes have reached 40 percent, and …
CAIRO: Thirteen Cairo activists who were detained on April 6 were released on bail Monday, after spending almost one month behind bars. Families and friends had been expecting their release Sunday, after a hearing that incited demonstrations outside the court. A day later, however, they were still waiting for a verdict to be issued. With …
Anybody who’s been fortunate enough go to university has probably been unfortunate enough to have been subjected to the genre of performing art known as “college theater. It more often than not comprises of the epithetical ‘minimalist’ stage and as few actors as possible to aid minimal direction. Perhaps I’m being a little harsh. I’ve …
CAIRO: The first conference organized by the group Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination (MARED) got off to a tense start on Friday, after facing a fierce confrontation by a group of ‘fundamentalist’ journalists. Conference organizers and attendees arrived at the Journalists’ Syndicate at 9 am on Friday. They found that the doors were locked, and that …
The trajectory of Cairo’s history has always resembled a struggle for self-immortalization. Lest their memory became a muffled gulp from the depths of the mighty Nile, sultans and presidents, invested, immured and consecrated themselves in brick and stone, as if these architectural regalities might transcend the limits of their own brief existence. In the case …
CAIRO: Over a thousand social and political activists, as well as unaffiliated citizens, gathered inside the Lawyers’ Syndicate yesterday as part of the April 6 strikes, calling for immediate government intervention to bring down food prices and raise wages. Protests had originally been designated to take place in certain key points around the city, as …
Entering Eudreiana, the new florists tucked away on Zamalek side street Ahmed Sabry, is a cure for stress relief. A mere glance at the array of lilies, mums and roses lined on the white washed walls in fresh bunches sends your grime streaked cares asunder, and the torturous Al-Gala mini-bus port, where you were standing …
Father of Iron may initially sound like something out of a c-rated wrestling movie; there’s definitely something to be said for the concept “lost in translation. Abu Hadid, its Arabic-rendered counterpart, doesn’t in fact involve Hulk Hogan or any other aging barrel-backed performer, chunking his way through blown-out cars. It is, in fact, the new, …
CAIRO: The People s Assembly passed a law banning demonstrations in places of worship in an emergency session on Tuesday. The assembly announced that the “law for the preservation of sanctity of the holy places will be implemented nationwide. However, according to local press, the decision was pushed through by a National Democratic Party majority; …
CAIRO: The homeless families of Kafr El-Elew staged an all-day sit-in on Monday outside the Cabinet building to pressure the Cairo governorate to grant them housing. The 24 families, who are now living in tents in the streets, had their homes torn down last September to make way for a water plant. Monday’s sit-in was …
FAYOUM: Five hundred workers staged a demonstration outside the Ghazl El-Fayoum factory Saturday to protest against its imminent closure. Abdel Aziz Moussa, 40, who has worked at the factory for 18 years, told Daily News Egypt, “It is due to close down in the next couple of days. We were given notice that we would …