143 Articles
“This award is not an event, but a process . a valuable opportunity to reflect on the past, look at the present and plan for the future, said His Highness the Aga Khan at the opening speech of the tenth Aga Khan Award for Architecture ceremony in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month. Held at the …
SHARM EL SHEIKH: Barely in her twenties, the representative of the European Youth Forum Lisa, is assertive, confident and knows her path in life. Her aim: to challenge the tendency by young people to be apathetic or violent. But most of all, to spread a culture of resistance to living like penguins. “Penguins hide in …
Journalism is a matter of public trust. A journalist’s duty is, above all, to relay news accurately. This has always been the driving ethic behind The Daily Star Egypt; and so it will continue to be in our next phase under the banner of Daily News Egypt. When the newspaper first hit the newsstands, bundled …
The Four Seasons to open its door in San Stefano before the month is over. A few days before I made the two-hour trip to Alexandria to tour the Four Seasons Hotel’s new property in San Stefano, a colleague, learning the purpose of my trip, said with unwavering conviction: “It’ll be out of business in …
The renovated Dar Al Kotub in Bab El Khalq is a design gem, combining beauty with functionality Circa 1801 what we now know to be Cairo was little more than a swampy flood plain stretching between Ramses Square and the Nile. With the rule of Mohammed Ali Pasha’s dynasty, all that changed. The founder of …
CAIRO: Church sources denied allegations made in the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that Pope Shenouda plans to present the government with a proposal to set up a council for national unity. In its May 21 edition, the independent daily claimed on its front page that Pope Shenouda, the highest authority in the Coptic Church, had …
CAIRO: A dark-skinned, turbaned old man in a spotless white galabeya walked into the Egyptian Center for Housing Rights as I waited to interview Nubian author and activist Haggag Oddoul. I never spoke to the man in the galabeya, but the passing encounter took me back to 2002 when I visited Aswan for the first …
CAIRO: It’s hard to approach Naguib Mahfouz’s Karnak Café without remembering Ali Badrakhan’s harrowing 1975 film adaptation of this book about Nasser-era Egypt and our 1967 defeat to Israel. This short, but powerful book is, as translator Roger Allen describes in his Translator’s Afterword, clearly one of the Nobel Laureate’s angriest and most explicit works …
The hushed ambiance of the Cairo Opera House’s main building was interrupted for about an hour yesterday afternoon. Amid the huge weaved remakes of Gazbia Sirry’s brilliant paintings, the second floor teemed with journalists, cameras and a TV crew facing a panel of about seven people in honor of one of the world’s leading mezzo …
I must confess, I’m a tango virgin. One of my very few experiences of the Argentinean dance was that great bit in the film “Scent of a Woman when Al Pacino, playing the blind, ex-Colonel, literally sweeps the beautiful British-Iranian actress Gabrielle Anwar off her feet in that pivotal scene not long before he tries …
CAIRO: The Court of Administrative Justice (CAJ) ruled last week that the Ministry of Interior is under no obligation to amend the official documents of Christian converts to Islam who wish to revert back to their original faith, reported the press. Under the presidency of Judge Mohamed Al-Husseini, the court decided that the cases contesting …
CAIRO: In a six-part interview with Ahmed Zuweil that ran in Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper last week, the Nobel Prize winner for chemistry talks about Egypt’s past, present and future, and the place of the Arab world on the global map. Zuweil says that the timeline of Egypt’s modern state began with Mohammed Ali at the …
CAIRO: What are the differences between protests today and the protests of the 6os and 70s? How has the political and social reality in Egypt changed and what are the manifestations of these changes? Is there a feminist movement in Egypt? What about protest music? What makes Egypt’s Copts take to the streets? To answer …
CAIRO: During a People’s Assembly session on Monday, Gawdat Al Malt, head of the Central Auditing Agency (CAA) accused Cabinet of working on “isolated islands , reported Al-Masry Al-Youm Tuesday. In a heated discussion of the 2004-05 balance sheets, Al Malt pointed to the gross inconsistencies between the statistics pertaining to inflation rates, unemployment and …
It’s hard to stifle my urge to rhapsodize about the experience of watching Naseer Shamma live. The thing about the Cairo-based Iraqi oud virtuoso is that each time you attend a performance by him is like the first time; each time his music seems more intense, more inspired and more magnificent. His latest show at …
Two lovers hide in a shack in the woods. It’s turn-of-the-20th-century Vienna and the young duchess is not allowed to befriend a common peasant. On the day they plan to run away, the police go looking for them. She asks her lover to make them disappear, but he can’t. They are separated to for fifteen …
CAIRO: Reports on top US Congressman’s meeting with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) parliamentary bloc in Cairo on Thursday raised questions about whether there is a change of US policy in the region. US House Majority leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland who was in Egypt as part of a bi-partisan delegation …
CAIRO: Strikes by flourmill workers ended Monday following a meeting that brought together union representatives from Cairo and Giza flourmills companies, and three cabinet ministers. Magdy Abdel Azim, deputy head of the Union Committee of the North Cairo flour mills told The Daily Star Egypt that the workers were satisfied with the decision of Minister …
CAIRO: As Egyptians begin to cast their vote on the referendum to amend 34 articles of the constitution, many will be swayed by President Hosni Mubarak’s speech in Assuit yesterday urging them to vote yes. But for some who listened to recent lectures by acclaimed British journalist Robert Fisk in Cairo last week, political gambits …
CAIRO: “I’m proud to be a conspiracy theorist, said Galal Amin to a packed hall at the Cairo Opera House’s Open Air Theater on Saturday. The American University in Cairo’s economics professor stole the show at Diwan Bookstore’s fifth anniversary celebration, which also hosted journalist Robert Fisk, and novelists Bahaa Taher, Ahdaf Soueif and Ahmed …
When I was a kid, I hated raisins – their texture, the painful sweetness, how they looked so wrinkled and dry. It was bad enough having that granola cereal every morning, but my Mom had to throw in a handful of dried grapes to complete the nightmare. Of course, they surreptitiously ended up in the …
CAIRO: A redux of the sexual harassment incidents that shocked Cairenes during Eid El-Fitr in October 2006 plagued the city yet again on Eid Al-Adha. Incidents of harassment were reported in Al Masry Al Youm’s Jan. 1 issue, which stressed that such behavior has become endemic to special occasions where large crowds gather to celebrate …