Online Newsroom: Egypt News Archive
September 9, 2010
World Bank Group
PARIS, September 8, 2010—World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick today appointed Egyptian Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin Managing Director of the World Bank Group.
“Mahmoud Mohieldin has proven himself a tireless reformer whose work on economic and financial reform helped Egypt weather the global financial crisis. An outstanding young leader, his first hand experience of development and of the World Bank -- both as Minister and as World Bank Governor -will serve us well as we undertake our own reform program and scale-up our client focus,” said Zoellick.
In his role as Managing Director, Mr. Mohieldin will oversee the offices leading the Bank’s Knowledge development including: Finance and Private Sector Development; Sustainable Development; Poverty Reduction and Economic Management; Human Development; and the World Bank Institute. Mr. Mohieldin has been a leading client of the Bank’s Arab World Initiative and he will continue to innovate and improve this work.
“I look forward to joining this dynamic institution in supporting the enhancement of sustainable and inclusive growth of developing economies. At this critical juncture, when instability and successive crises have afflicted world systems and economies, the importance of the World Bank’s mission and presence has become more apparent than ever before,” said Mohieldin. “The World Bank’s mission to eradicate poverty and promote social and gender justice, as well as pursue economic progress while enhancing capacities and empowering people, is one that I profoundly share.”
Mr. Mohieldin has served as the Egyptian Minister of Investment since 2004. As minister, he led a comprehensive structural and regulatory reform program to modernize and liberalize the Egyptian economy in three critical areas - leveraging private investment for growth and job creation; enhancing access to non-bank financial services; and implementing a successful asset management program of public enterprises.
“Mahmoud Mohieldin’s outstanding track-record of results in reform, modernization, and knowledge-generation make him supremely well-suited to this position,” said Zoellick.
Mohieldin has established a global reputation for effective and strategic management and built an outstanding record of results including: creating an effective single regulator for the non-bank financial sector; building a stock-market for small and medium sized enterprises; consolidating and liberalizing the insurance sector and enhancing its regulatory framework; and developing the mortgage finance market and launching Egypt’s first liquidity facility for mortgage refinance.
He is also responsible for creating the first Institute of Directors in the Arab World, and producing the first Arabic Code of Conduct for corporate governance and introducing guidelines for corporate social responsibility. As a result of his leadership, Egypt was named Top Reformer for four years in the Doing Business Report and was top regional recipient of foreign direct investment.
Mr. Mohieldin holds a Ph.D.in Economics from the University of Warwick, UK; a Masters in Social and Economic Policy Analysis from the University of York, UK; a Diploma of Quantitative Development Economics from the University of Warwick; and a B.Sc. in Economics from Cairo University.
Mr. Mohieldin will join the Bank on October 4, 2010.
August 30, 2010
Reuters
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Europe on Monday to throw its weight behind U.S.-led efforts to secure a peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis.
Mubarak, whose country in 1979 became the first Arab state to strike a peace deal with Israel, discussed the matter with French President Nicolas Sarkozy before heading to Washington this week for the first direct negotiations in 20 months.
"The American administration needs strong backing from the European Union for the peace process to continue," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are due to meet President Barack Obama on September 1, according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and launch direct negotiations the following day.
Sarkozy said Europe planned to further promote the push for peace at a Euro-Mediterranean summit planned for November 20 in Barcelona, Spain, where key leaders from the Middle East would be present.
"After months of stalemate, a hope exists. This chance must be seized," Sarkozy said.
"I believe the U.S. role is very important but cannot be the only one."
Mubarak expressed concerns that Israeli building of further settlements would not help the peace process.
"We agreed that a peace deal should be reached within one year to end occupation and establish the Palestinian state," the 82-year-old president said.
"There is a hesitation among Israelis to stop settlements and that needs more effort and European support."
After their hour-long meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Sarkozy expressed a similar view.
"Firstly, every person in Israel should understand one thing. When there is hope for peace, everything should be done to bolster that," he said.
(Reporting by Felix Bate in Paris, Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, writing by Brian Love; editing by Michael Roddy)
August 23, 2010
Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to resume direct negotiations for the first time in 20 months, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have been invited to Washington on September 2 to start the talks.
They have agreed to place a one-year time limit on the direct negotiations.
Speaking at the State Department, Clinton said President Barack Obama had been encouraged by the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas, and had invited them to Washington to "relaunch direct negotiations to resolve all final status issues, which we believe can be completed within one year".
"President Obama has invited President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan to attend, in view of their critical role in this effort. Their continued leadership and commitment to peace will be essential to our success," she added.
Obama will hold meetings with the four leaders, followed by a dinner with them, on September 1. Tony Blair, the special representative of the Middle East Quartet - which comprises the U.S., the UN, the EU, and Russia - has also been invited.
A decade after the last real final-status talks, 20 months after the last direct talks, and after months of shuttle diplomacy by the Obama administration, Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu will come to face to face for dinner and talks in Washington.
Beyond that, there is still a blank. The U.S. special envoy, George Mitchell, said the location and timing of the next round of talks would be discussed during the Washington meetings. Hillary Clinton spoke about obstacles along the way - the first one may well be getting the two parties to agree to a second round of talks on key issues. If the Obama administration wants peace within a year, there will need to be more substance soon.
A trilateral meeting at the State Department between Clinton, Abbas and Netanyahu will formally relaunch the direct peace talks the following day.
"As we move forward, it is important that actions by all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it. There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead. Without a doubt, we will hit more obstacles," Clinton said.
"But I ask the parties to persevere, to keep moving forward even through difficult times and to continue working to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region," she added.
"These negotiations should take place without preconditions and be characterized by good faith and a commitment to their success, which will bring a better future to all of the people of the region."
The Quartet issued a statement calling for talks that "lead to a settlement... that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors".
Mitchell said the U.S. would be prepared to submit bridging proposals if the two sides failed to make progress.
Netanyahu welcomed the U.S. announcement, saying that "reaching an agreement is a difficult challenge but is possible".
"We are coming to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples that will protect Israel's national security interests," his office said.
The chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told the BBC that the talks with the Israelis should be productive.
"They have a choice now whether to choose settlements or peace. I hope they choose peace. I hope that Mr. Netanyahu will be our partner in peace... and we can do it," he said.
The Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, dismissed the direct talks as a US attempt to "fool the Palestinian people". However, US officials said Hamas would have no role in them.
Shuttle diplomacy
Clinton's announcement comes after months of shuttling by U.S. special envoy George Mitchell between Netanyahu and Abbas.
Officials said Clinton had also been speaking frequently on the telephone in recent days with regional leaders and Blair. President Obama meanwhile held separate meetings with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent weeks in a bid to break the deadlock.
Abbas broke off talks with the previous Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, in late 2008 and contacts were frozen following Israel's offensive against the militant Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip in December that year.
Indirect contacts resumed in May in the form of "proximity talks", overseen by Mitchell.
But Abbas resisted U.S. overtures to resume direct talks, saying he wanted guarantees that a future Palestinian state would be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war, and that all settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would stop immediately.
Netanyahu meanwhile insisted for many weeks that he was ready to come to the negotiating table, but without "preconditions".
These included an extension of his government's 10-month partial suspension of settlement construction in the West Bank, which is due to end on 26 September. Areas within the Jerusalem municipality were not included.
Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen says direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel used to be routine, but this time it has taken months of hard diplomacy by the Americans to persuade the two sides to sit down together.
It will be much tougher to get Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu, each with their own set of domestic political complications, to make any sort of deal, our correspondent says.
But it will be a huge challenge to get them to agree on final status issues, all with security guarantees for both sides, he adds.
To read the original article, please click here.
August 19, 2010
Daily News Egypt
CAIRO: Egypt recently allocated $1 billion to invest in broadband internet infrastructure, with the goal of boosting internet subscribers by 4 million come 2014, according to a Euromonitor International report issued in July.
The report, “Egypt broadband investment to fuel internet usage,” explains that “improved access to computers, especially amongst higher earners, has caused the number of broadband subscribers to increase more than tenfold from 2004 to 2009, rising from 141,100 to 1.5 million.”
Moreover, the report states, “Egypt's international internet bandwidth capacity has more than doubled over 2009-2010 from 48,073 MBps (megabytes per second) in February 2009 to 99,487 MBps as of January 2010.”
Yet opinions differ as to whether the government broadband infrastructure policy will have the desired effect.
“Broadband infrastructure needs to be upgraded, and the government’s plan will have a major impact,” Ahmed Ossama, managing director of internet service provider TE Data, told Daily News Egypt in a telephone interview.
Expanding broadband infrastructure, Ossama said, will inevitably increase the number of subscribers.
“Already at the end of 2009, there were 1.025 million broadband subscribers, and now there are 1.3-1.5 million, which represents a 40 percent growth rate,” he added.
Still, hindrances toward augmenting broadband uptake loom within the Egyptian market. “Household ownership of broadband computers remains amongst the lowest in the region and is hindered by low incomes and illegal sharing of internet,” the report notes.
Noran Abdel Rahman Ali, who previously worked for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and currently works as a telecommunications analyst at CI Capital, a Cairo-based investment firm, echoed the reports concerns regarding income and illegal sharing.
To address the latter, both Ali and Ossama pointed out, the government has implemented specific tools: The government as well as a few major corporations, such as Microsoft, have undertaken a series of awareness campaigns that explain the security dangers to which users are exposed by engaging in illegal connection sharing.
The campaign strategy, according to Ali, “has been ineffective in halting illegal connection sharing.”
Ossama, however, felt that while some impact had been achieved, the number and frequency of the campaigns needs to grow along with the market. Not only are individual consumers to blame for connection piracy, but, he said, many companies offering broadband connections facilitate and promote sharing between neighbors.
“It is not uncommon for internet companies to offer connections to several householders under one connection to entice consumers to make a purchase,” Ossama stated. Egypt is not unique in facing this problem, he added, “This practice is ubiquitous in countries such as India and in the Far East.”
Internet companies, such as TE Data, work with the telecommunications regulator to create a system of penalization for companies found guilty of selling one connection to several households at a time.
A further action taken by the government to stem piracy: reducing broadband tariffs, because in Ali’s view, the government has recognized that the high rate of piracy is strongly correlated with the low-income levels.
Triple-play
Triple-play licenses are another tool at the government’s disposal, she explained.
News last year that Egypt would issue triple-play licenses — for companies to offer the voice, data and video service — excited analysts and firms, but their limited scope and reliance on Telecom Egypt infrastructure later muted interest.
While common in the UAE and other Gulf countries, as well as the US and Europe, triple-play is yet to be offered in Egypt. Via triple play licenses, the government is hedging its bet that broadband penetration will increase “exponentially,” Ali said, as consumers will be forced into buying a broadband connection when seeking to purchase a telephone line or TV connection; but it is a bet, however, that the telecommunications analyst sees as dubious over the long-term.
In her estimation, the salient issue is not whether broadband uptake will increase by obliging consumers to purchase it through a bundle package, but rather, the heart of the matter must remain focused on the low levels of income coupled with high rates of illiteracy.
“In Egypt, broadband remains expensive, and Egyptians’ incomes as well as literacy rates remain low, which are all obstacles to expanding the number of broadband subscribers,” Ali explained.
“The government’s plan only targets high income earning Egyptians,” she added.
Indeed, the report cites income as a predicament in this matter, noting that Egypt, with a population of 78.2 million as of January 2010, has an average annual disposable income of LE 12,429 ($2,240) per capita in 2009, thus remaining “very low.”
Given such daunting figures, Ali believes that the government’s policy instruments and the $1 billion figure allocated to infrastructure reflect a failure to apprehend the core issue at play.
She mentioned that the Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel, in a recent speech bemoaned the number of broadband subscribers in Egypt — hovering around 1 million subscribers, which she says, further illustrates the inadequacy of the government’s efforts.
In the end, she said, “Egypt is facing a socio-economic dilemma,” and so the lack of broadband penetration will not be reversed by the government’s current policies because the problem is wider in scope.
August 11, 2010
HELWAN, Egypt — The observatory director, Salah M. Mahmoud, squinted at the smog gathering over the distant Nile.
“It looks like trouble,” he said.
His deputy, Ahmed Fathy, concurred with a sigh, “I’m afraid we’re not going to see anything tonight.”
The two Egyptian physicists on Tuesday night had a delicate mission: They were charged with providing the scientific imprimatur to the start of the holiest time for Muslims worldwide, the lunar month of Ramadan. Egypt plays a major role in this ritual because it is the seat of Al Azhar, the world’s most prominent Sunni Muslim institution.
According to the Koran, Ramadan, a month of fasting and prayer, begins on the first night that the crescent moon is visible to the naked eye. For centuries, clerics and laymen jostled to spot the Ramadan moon first and often differed. An area with cloudy skies or a different longitude and latitude might declare Ramadan a day or even two later than the rest of the Islamic world.
Modern astronomy long ago took the mystery out of the lunar calendar, whose year lasts some 11 to 12 days less than the Gregorian year used by most non-Islamic countries.
Mr. Mahmoud, the president of Egypt’s National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, publishes a hefty book of tables that lists the precise time and location that the Ramadan moon will appear in various cities throughout the Islamic world.
But science, it seems, can go only so far.
“We know it’s there, but Shariah requires us to see it with our eyes,” Mr. Mahmoud explained. The grand mufti, Egypt’s highest religious authority, awaits a report from Mr. Mahmoud’s team and from a secondary group of spotters organized by the Egyptian National Survey Authority.
The lunar month literally turns at the moment of conjunction, the astronomical term for the moment at which Sun, Earth and Moon lie on the same plane. This year, according to Mr. Mahmoud, conjunction occurred at 03:08 Greenwich Mean Time or 6:08 a.m. Cairo time. But the crescent moon will be visible only at sunset, and then for only a few minutes.
There is a narrow window of opportunity to lay eyes on the sliver of moon. In Cairo this year, the Ramadan crescent would be on the horizon for 11 minutes after sunset. In Tehran, by comparison, it would be on the horizon for just one minute, giving astronomers scant chance to spot it. Mauritania was in the best position for a sighting, with 20 minutes of Ramadan moon visibility.
Add to that atmospheric conditions — dust and smog in Cairo, humidity and haze along coastlines and in the sun-baked inland deserts — and you have the makings of confusion.
“We don’t expect to see it, but we must in order to follow the Shariah,” or Islamic law, Mr. Mahmoud said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Mahmoud and his deputy nervously assembled their staff at the Helwan observatory in the late afternoon. British colonialists built the observatory here in 1903, when the desert about 20 miles south of downtown Cairo afforded a clear view of the night sky.
As long as 50 years ago, Mr. Mahmoud said, smoke from the nearby brick factories and light pollution from Cairo had rendered the Helwan telescope useless for serious astronomy.
Now, he and Mr. Fathy organize scientific teams at locations across Egypt on the eve of Ramadan. Astronomers set up telescopes on the Mediterranean coast, near the Aswan Dam, in the Sinai, along the Nile, and in the desert west of Cairo.
“We hope that at least one of them will see the moon tonight,” Mr. Mahmoud said 30 minutes before sunset. Despite the nearly 100-degree temperatures, he was wearing a suit, and on it a lapel pin with the observatory logo.
The observatory’s principal telescope is too powerful for this sort of thing, so the staff lugged two reflective telescopes to the parking lot facing west. Below a sharp dun-colored bluff stretched the brick and cement factories of Helwan.
Mr. Fathy pointed the larger of the two telescopes, a white double-barreled apparatus about the size of a car axle, eight degrees south of the sun’s trajectory, toward the spot where he knew the Ramadan moon would be lurking.
Several families materialized. “We’re here to see the moon,” Tarek Ghazi, a factory supervisor, said brightly, his daughter and son in tow. He was wearing a loud pink plaid shirt. “I’ve never done this before,” he added.
“I want to see the crescent!” his 18-year-old daughter, Hiba, said.
It was 7:20 p.m., and the sun had sunk low enough to turn a dull orange. The correspondent for Al Jazeera carefully selected a position for his live shot that would feature the telescopes in the background and, he hoped, that anxiously awaited crescent moon above his right shoulder.
A thick gray miasma obscured the horizon. “You can’t even see the sun!” Mr. Mahmoud said.
A jetliner rumbled directly overhead, on the approach to Cairo International Airport, before it, too, entered the fog of pollution.
“It’s like a black cloud,” Mr. Fathy said.
At 7:36 p.m., Mr. Fathy was still peering into the telescope, but he was just going through the motions. “We’re not going to see anything here,” he said glumly. He clutched his cellphone. “Maybe the other teams will see something.”
A few of the sky watchers phoned in: nothing.
“What happens if none of you see it?” an onlooker asked.
“We will inform the mufti, and he will decide, from his point of view,” Mr. Mahmoud replied.
“We are only providing the scientific opinion,” Mr. Fathy added.
Another cellphone rang. “You didn’t see anything either?” Mr. Mahmoud shouted into his receiver, exasperation creeping into his voice.
He hung up.
“All negative,” he announced to the crowd that had swelled to a few dozen.
Mr. Ghazi, the factory supervisor who had brought his children to the hilltop, looked concerned. “Is it Ramadan then?” he asked his daughter.
“Yes, father,” she said.
Mr. Mahmoud made a few more phone calls. Apparently other teams — technically amateurs — reported a moon sighting in Abu Simbel, far south of Aswan, and in Sohag, in central Egypt.
“It is the mufti who will make the final announcement,” the observatory director said.
Beneath the plateau and to the north, in the city, the official Ramadan eve fete was under way, moon or no moon. In a vast banquet hall at Al Azhar, notables had assembled from the Islamic institution, the government, and the Dar al-Ifta, or House of Fatwa, which issues rulings on Islamic behavior.
There the grand mufti was waiting to certify the sighting of the moon and the commencement of the 30 days of Ramadan.
By the time Mr. Mahmoud had tabulated the results of his scientific observation teams, it was too late to make it to the celebration. Even though none of the astronomers had seen the crescent moon, the mufti already had declared Ramadan anyway on live television at 8:30 p.m.
To read the original article, please click here.
July 31, 2010
Suzy Shoukry, wife of Egyptian Ambassador Sameh Shoukry hosted a speech and discussion led by Dr. Jehan Sadat Thursday afternoon at her residence.
The discussion was on Egypt’s commitment towards peace. Dr. Sadat, former First Lady of Egypt from 1970-1981, gave her perspective on peace in Egypt and the Middle East.
The lecture was followed by a traditional Egyptian luncheon featuring eggplant moussaka, chicken sharkaseya and baklava. The lunch honored Dr. Sadat and Mrs. Janis Berman, wife of Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.). Berman and the group of women in attendance hold get-togethers every few months to promote peace.
Women in attendance included: Debbie Dingell, wife of Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Penny Thompson, wife of Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Penn.), Susan Blumenthal, wife of Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Marie Therese Porter Royce, wife of Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), Elizabeth Kucinich, wife of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Esther Coopersmith, among others.
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July 27, 2010
(CNN) -- It was my first time on a Harley Davidson and I'll admit I was more than a little nervous.
I had only known for two minutes the man in whose hands (and riding ability) I was entrusting my life. It didn't help that camerawoman Raja Razek kept whizzing past at up to 160 kilometers per hour on the back of another Harley; my heart skipped several beats as I watched her contort into frighteningly precarious positions to get the best camera angles.
We were in Sharm El Sheikh in south Sinai to cover Egypt's First International HOG (Harley Owners Group) rally for April's edition of Inside the Middle East.
Ahead of the 7 a.m. start time, the sight was surreal -- 167 Harley Davidsons, a classic American icon, chrome glinting in the rays of the Sinai sunrise. A slice of pure Americana in Egypt as 200 people prepared to cruise through the 461 kilometer route.
The excitement was palpable as everyone made final tweaks, tightening bolts and wiping down mudguards; all decked out in the finest biker gear -- the ubiquitous leather jacket, bandanas, studded boots, designer sunglasses and even some chaps.
The smell: a heady cocktail of leather, exhaust fumes and asphalt, topped off with strong doses of testosterone and adrenaline.
At first we couldn't get over how un-Middle Eastern the whole thing seemed. But this faded. We could see blue glass "evil eyes" on the handlebars (good luck charms). Flags from all over the region flapped in the hot wind; bikers came from Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the UAE, and a handful of Europeans and Americans.
Then we hit the road, led by a full police escort.
"It's the closest you can get to flying," says Indjy Ghattas, a young Egyptian woman who is not only one of the few women riders in the country but is also the Harley Davidson dealer in Egypt and the organizer of the whole event. "It's the sound of engine, the vibration, the feel of it."
The roaring sound of a large pack of Harleys revving up and hitting the pavement is rather intimidating for the uninitiated. You don't hear it as much as feel it coming up through the ground.
We snaked along the winding road out of the city and into the ancient land of Moses. The terrain is vast, rugged and beautiful; the mountains streaked with lines of green, yellow, red and black.
Fifty-five-year old Egyptian-American Sherif Begermi is a veteran biker and looks the part -- white goatee, denim jacket with patches from various Harley events, and a stars and stripes bandana.
"When we first started riding [in Egypt], people didn't know what to make of us," says Begermi. "Police would stop us to ask us 'what are you?' Not 'who are you?' but 'what are you'?"
As we rode through Sinai's villages, I'm not sure the stunned but amused-looking onlookers knew what to make of us either. Sheepherders, women walking their kids out of school, men coming out of mosques. Everyone stopped in their tracks and smiled in wonder. A few waved.
Even a herd of camels on the side of the road stared in confusion at the sight of these strange shiny monsters roaring through the terrain.
At a stop for gasoline, we caught up with some of the riders.
Lana Medawar rode on the back of her husband's bike all the way from Beirut -- a 1200 kilometer trek. "I'm planning to learn how to ride myself, not only be a passenger behind my husband."
Ghattas says the passion is slowly catching on with women. "When I have a woman buying a bike I'm like the happiest person on earth."
Mohamed Fahmy rides with daughter Sherifa in the backseat in a pink Harley T-shirt. Asked if she plans to ride, both smile as dad says "Soon - hopefully not too soon... She wants to take my bike."
In contrast to the stereotypical image of HOG riders as outlaws, this event feels like a family affair and HOG enthusiasts say it is part of what makes Harley unique.
"Harley Davidson is a culture, it's a community," says Ahmed Mourad as he pays a gas station attendant. "Other motorcycles are only motorcycles."
Swiss-Egyptian Sherif Loutfi says he rode Japanese bikes (what HOG riders like to call "riceburners") for a decade but switched to the Harley three years ago. "They call it a mid-life crisis," jokes Loutfi.
Halfway through the ride, we stop for lunch near of Saint Catherine's monastery at the foot of biblical Mount Sinai and everyone takes a much-needed reprieve from the kidney-rattling ride.
Leather jackets come off to reveal back braces. Conversations turn to day-jobs. Most of the riders are "weekend warriors," spending most of their days as upper-middle class businessmen; jewelry dealers, hotel managers, bankers and other white-collar professionals.
As fun as the ride is, one must take note of the fact that this is a hobby for the well-off. Even the cheapest Harley costs more than the average Egyptian makes in a year. Many riders we met own more than one bike and acknowledge the fact that, financially, this is a relatively exclusive club.
But Ghattas says Harley culture shouldn't be measured in dollars. "It's not a cheap hobby but it's not as expensive as people think."
"It's more than just an expensive toy," she says. "It's a dream."
To read the original article and view the picture slideshow, please click here.
July 20, 2010
CAIRO, July 20 (Reuters) - Reports about a deterioration in Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's health are categorically false, his information minister said on Tuesday, two days after a U.S. newspaper said Mubarak was dying of cancer.
"The president is in good health and has been given a clean bill of health by his doctors, following his recent gallbladder surgery in Germany," Information Minister Anas El Fekky said in a statement to Reuters.
"We obviously understand the interest in this issue given Egypt's geopolitical weight, and the president's role as a force for stability in the Middle East. However, the media reports published on the president's health are based on nothing more than rumor and speculation without any factual basis whatsoever, including a recent report citing anonymous intelligence sources."
An article in The Washington Times on Sunday said Mubarak was thought by most Western intelligence agencies to be suffering from terminal cancer affecting his stomach and pancreas.
It cited a central European intelligence officer as saying the 82-year-old leader could have less than a year to live.
Rumours about Mubarak's health have rattled markets in the past because he has no designated successor. He has not picked a vice president, the post he held before taking office in 1981.
The president has returned to a regular schedule of meetings with visiting officials since having surgery at Germany's Heidelberg University Hospital in March. On Sunday he met Palestinian and Israeli leaders and other officials.
He also appeared on Egyptian television on Tuesday attending a graduation ceremony for the Egyptian police academy. Television footage showed Mubarak standing to pin medals on graduates.
The Washington Times report was the latest of several reports questioning the president's health.
The Economist published an extensive report this week on Egypt which described his health as "not good".
Egypt dismissed last week a report in Lebanon's As-Safir newspaper that Mubarak would travel abroad for treatment.
El Fekky said Mubarak was maintaining a full schedule, citing his weekend meetings and recent trips to Algeria and France. Mubarak would meet Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Wednesday and would be making a speech to mark Egypt's national day, he added.
Stockbrokers in Egypt said they had not heard any new speculation about Mubarak's health on Tuesday, but recent reports could be putting some pressure on the market.
Mubarak has not said if he will run for a sixth six-year term in a presidential election in 2011. If he does not, his politician son Gamal, 46, is seen as a likely successor. Both Mubarak and his son deny any such plan.
http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE66J1EJ20100720?sp=true
July 20, 2010
July 19, 2010
Daily News Egypt
For the second year in a row, the Ministry of Family and Population launched a campaign to raise awareness of the dangers posed by underage as well as summer marriages, also referred to as temporary marriages, in the 6th of October governorate.
The awareness campaign will target young girls, students and families in the villages of Abou El-Nomros, El-Badrasheen and El-Hawamdeya through informal teaching methods and utilizing media outlets, according to a press statement issued by the ministry.
In the statement, Minister Moshira Khattab said that combating underage marriages is essential for Egypt's fight against child trafficking and abuse.
Khattab also said that one of the reasons behind the ministry's decision to kick off a second round of this campaign were the positive results of last year's effort which she said spurred a social movement.
The ministry will consult local councils and non-governmental organizations in the targeted areas.
Summer marriages typically see wealthy older men pick a young bride from a pool of potential girls, a process facilitated by a marriage broker in exchange for large amounts of money acquired by both the facilitator and the girl’s parents. The marriage then ends when the visiting husband returns home after the summer.
"We are in dire need for such a campaign. Summer marriages are one of the main forms of violence against women, especially underage women," managing director of the Egyptian Association for Family Development Hala Abdel-Qader told Daily News Egypt.
"Such marriages are a mere business deal; they disregard social and personal compatibility," she said, adding that in many cases these women are forced to marry more than once.
"It takes away from the idea that marriage is everlasting," added Abdel-Qader, who hailed the ministry for its initiative.
Egypt embraced amendments to its Child Laws in 2008, setting the minimum age for marriage at 18 — instead of 16 — and criminalizing female genital mutilation, a practice that was considered the norm across most rural areas.
On the effect of the amendments, Abdel-Qader said, "It is hard to determine exact figures in such a short time, but what we saw when we visited villages is a sense of fear."
Abdel-Qader explained that penalizing those who breach the law instills a sense of fear among Egyptians and hence encourages them not to marry off their children at a young age.
In May, a 66-year-old Saudi Arabian national was sentenced to 10 years in prison in absentia for marrying a 14-year-old Egyptian girl. The marriage broker who facilitated the marriage was also penalized.
The court sentenced the lawyer who forged the common law (urfi) marriage contract to two years in prison, while the minor’s parents were handed down a one-year suspended sentence.
"Such campaigns must exist alongside the new laws," Abdel-Qader said.
Last month, the US State Department published its 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report describing Egypt as a source, transit, and destination country for women and children who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution.
And on summer marriages, the report said, "Wealthy men from the Gulf reportedly travel to Egypt to purchase ‘temporary’ or ‘summer marriages’ with Egyptian females, including girls who are under the age of 18."
July 15, 2010
Washington Post "Guest Voices"
Last month marked the first anniversary of President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo where he sought "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect"
However, the hope that greeted President Obama's speech has turned into disappointment as people realized that turning promises into reality is not easy to achieve. While he should be congratulated on his efforts to change the discourse of US policy towards the Muslim world, it is clear that people expect more than simply statements from him.
It is vital to rekindle the new spirit that accompanied President Obama's speech and to discuss together how we can transform it into practical programs that bridge the concept of dialogue with real and affective partnership between East and West.
I believe there are several ways that can help forge a constructive partnership between the Muslim world and the US. The Islam we were taught in our youth is one that calls for peace and mercy. The Prophet Muhammad told us: "Those who show mercy are shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Show mercy to those who are on earth and the One in the heavens will show mercy to you."
Furthermore, the Qur'an teaches us: "O people we have created you from a single male and female and divided you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another." When God says "to know one another" He did not mean in order to kill one another. All religions have forbidden the killing of innocents. Rather we have been ordered to cooperate in a constructive manner.
For over a thousand years ordinary Muslims have worshiped God, engaged in developing their society and the human civilization, and have sought to cultivate good moral character. They have engaged, absorbed and assimilated a multiplicity of civilizations such as the Persians, Indians, Chinese, and Greeks, into our cultural and intellectual life. We benefited from all of them as well as contributing to them.
Such a humanitarian and cosmopolitan worldview does not allow us to consider ourselves as superior to other people. And since our civilization is concerned with humanity, it brings together both the spiritual and the material. We do not hate life nor do we seek to create social imbalance, and anyone who engages in this has gone against the teachings of our religion and what we have been taught as being worthy of good moral character.
The need for dialogue between people of different faiths and cultures is far greater today in view of the problems faced in the relations between peoples and communities. Dialogue stems from the recognition of identities and specificities, avoiding at the same time that their assertion turn into hostility towards others leading to bloody borders among religions and cultures. Dialogue is based upon the respect for religious plurality and cultural diversity. Dialogue is not about trying to defeat others, but about understanding and learning about them.
The Qur'an insists that the world's beauty lies in its racial and religious pluralism, otherwise God would not have created it so (see Qur'an, 10:99 and 5:48).
Sheikh Ali Gomaa is the Grand Mufti of Egypt.
July 15, 2010
Associated Press
A farmer in northern Egypt says his cow has given birth to a two-headed calf that he calls a "divine miracle."
Sobhy el-Ganzoury said Saturday it took two hours and much pulling to deliver the rare calf. He said the difficult birth has weakened the calf's legs.
El-Ganzoury said the veterinarian informed him that the calf, which was born this week, is now in stable condition and is expected to survive. He said he intends to keep the animal as a reminder that "God is able to do anything."
The calf still can't stand up because of its heavy heads and weak legs, and is being fed her mother's milk with a baby bottle.
July 12, 2010
The Shanghai World Expo 2010 is bringing together people from around the globe to witness the best that each country has to offer, and Egypt is no exception.
The Egyptian Pavilion opened in May with the theme "Cairo, Mother of the World: A City that Keeps Reinventing Itself". Inside the modern-looking black and white structure, visitors are treated to a series of artifacts and exhibits which highlight both the country's ancient past and the current role of Cairo as the center of the Arab world.
The pavilion will be featured among the various national exhibits on July 23, which is also Egyptian National Day.
Eight important antiquities were transported to the site from Cairo, a rarity that is sure to delight dedicated Egyptologists and casual viewers alike. The treasures on display include a statue of the pharaoh Amenhoteph IV, the father of Tutankhamun, and the Mask of Sheshonq II, another Egyptian king.
Films, music recordings, and other various objects are used to demonstrate the development of Cairo over the centuries. Visitors may view exhibits on technological and economic progress in Egypt, as well as the vast changes which have occurred in Egyptian society since ancient times.
More information about the Egyptian Pavilion may be found on the official site for Shanghai Expo 2010:
July 7, 2010
President Mubarak met on Tuesday with the leader of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region Masoud Barzani and Iraqi Vice-President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, in Cairo, where he pressed both leaders on the need to expedite the formation of the Iraqi government without excluding any parties. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit later announced that the President has agreed to the opening of two new Egyptian consulates, the first in Arbil, in the north of Iraq, and the second in Basra, South of Iraq. The two consulates will supplement the Egyptian embassy in Baghdad, which was reopened in December 2009. Aboul Gheit also expressed Egypt’s commitment to have Egyptian companies invest in various economic arenas in Iraq, and said that there was already a call for the “Arab Contractors” company to work on the construction of a metro in Baghdad.
Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif also held talks with Massoud Barzani, and stressed during his meeting with the Iraqi leader Egypt’s complete support for all political factions, as well as its commitment to a unified Iraqi government capable of achieving stability and development.
Within the context of supporting Iraq and the continuous collaboration between Egypt and Iraq, PM Nazif discussed Egypt’s efforts to increase trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, and especially noted the visit of an Egyptian delegation to Kurdistan in order to study possible environmental and development projects as well as investment opportunities. Egypt’s Minister of Investment Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, who will be heading that delegation, also met with Barzani and confirmed that there were a number of Egyptian companies studying various investment opportunities in Kurdistan.
July 2, 2010
Egypt was awarded the prestigious title of Offshoring Destination of the Year at the 2010 European Outsourcing Association Awards held in Brussels last night, beating rivals Philippines, Colombia and Sri Lanka to the accolade.
Dr. Hazem Abdelazim, CEO of Egypt's Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) received the award on behalf of Egypt during a glittering ceremony held at the Chateau Du Lac, Brussels.
More than 100 high-level executives and outsourcing professionals attended this inaugural ceremony, hosted by the European Outsourcing Association (EOA).
Commenting on this achievement, H.E. Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology said: "This award recognizes the outstanding progress Egypt has made in the last year as a global outsourcing destination. The country's credibility is going from strength to strength amongst European companies and has put its mark on the map of favored global services locations. We recognize the increasing role that Egypt can play in the fast-paced global ICT industry and we are advancing steadily on the way to position the country as a hub for IT innovation and entrepreneurship."
The awards recognize the success of organizations in outsourcing projects and raise awareness of the importance of best practice in outsourcing.
Commenting on Egypt's success at the awards, Martyn Hart, EOA Chairman said: "Egypt stood out for its multilingual capabilities and developments made to its infrastructure. It has proven itself to be both a strong player for European outsourcers and a gateway to the Middle East and Africa."
Through the support of ITIDA and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Egypt has shown ongoing improvement in the ICT sector.
The results of these developments have been reflected through numerous reports, with Egypt most recently being ranked sixth most attractive offshoring destination worldwide and number one in EMEA according to the A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index(TM).
The growing list of multinationals investing and expanding operations in Egypt, including Stream Global Services, Vodafone, EMC, Teleperformance, IBM, Microsoft, SQS, Oracle and Valeo, is further testament to the country's unwavering efforts to establish itself as the outsourcing destination of choice across Europe and beyond.
Notes to editors:
The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) is a governmental entity affiliated to Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
It is responsible for growing and developing Egypt's position as a leading global outsourcing location by attracting foreign direct investment to the industry and maximizing the exports of IT services and applications.
Located in the heart of the modern business environment at Smart Village, the six hundred acre business park on the outskirts of Cairo, ITIDA is a self sustainable entity that drives the IT industry in Egypt and raises awareness among the Egyptian people of the benefits and use of ICT to advance socio-economic welfare of the whole community.
Source: Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA)
July 2, 2010
FROM his pulpit at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Ismail Serageldin preaches what might be called Islamic liberalism, a philosophical view grounded in reason and tolerance with roots in the early days of his faith, when Muslims led the world in intellectual pursuits.
His goal is to help spark the Arab world’s own age of reason, though he acknowledges that there is a long way to go.
“We can defeat the forces of hate and confrontation and build through education, science and culture better understanding for our future,” he said at the opening ceremony of a recent conference at the library.
Mr. Serageldin has fashioned himself as the anti-Islamist, a self-declared “secularist when it comes to the civil state,” a calling that does not endear him to the conservative majority of this society. But he is comfortable in his role as the founding director of the library, the modern successor to the ancient library of Alexandria.
He uses his position to counter what he has called the “current drift toward an intolerant, pseudoreligious fanaticism.” He defends and promotes women’s rights, saying “no issue looms larger,” and calls for freedom of expression as “the foundation of self-fulfillment.” He opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, the popular Islamic movement, and has resisted pressure to allow the creation of a mosque or prayer room within the library itself.
And one of his core messages, aimed at his own community, is that Muslim societies today need to learn from Muslim leaders of the past, like Ibn al-Nafis, the 13th-century religious scholar, philosopher and scientist who called for tolerance in hearing out opposing views.
“How different these enlightened voices from the past sound compared to the frenetic ranting and condemnations of everything that is new and different that we see and hear everywhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds today,” he wrote in one of a series of pamphlets issued by the library.
His critics in Egypt’s Islamist circles note ruefully that Mr. Serageldin, for all his professed devotion to tolerance and freedom of thought, rarely, if ever, invites them to his conferences. “You find representatives from the left and the nationalists, and of course many of those who are loyal to the current regime,” said Muhammad Morsy, the former head of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in Parliament. “I am never invited, not me or anyone like me.”
Mr. Serageldin, 66, grew up in Cairo and graduated in 1964 with a bachelor of science degree from Cairo University. He earned a doctorate in planning from Harvard in 1972 and joined the World Bank that year, passing the next several decades there. He has received 26 honorary doctorates from universities around the world; he is a knight of France’s Legion of Honor and a member of Egypt’s upper house of Parliament.
But Mr. Serageldin was lured back to Egypt from Washington by the opportunity to help build the new library.
“The ancient library was about openness of knowledge, no taboos, questioning everything, ” Mr. Serageldin said as he strolled, hands in pockets, through the soaring 2,000-seat reading room in the library’s main hall. “Now, I would hope very much that our own society would benefit a lot from that.”
HE knows well that his views are among a distinct minority here in Egypt and around the region, and that his call for freedom of expression runs up against authoritarian systems that stifle public discourse.
He has also been called arrogant and condescending, and accused of exceeding the bounds of his actual expertise. During the closing ceremony of a recent conference, he publicly apologized to Rashad Hussain, President Obama’s special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, saying, “I spoke to him in a tone that appeared to him to be dismissive, and I apologize for that.”
But he also says that being unpopular in the more neutral sense is O.K. because throughout history great change was often instigated by the few, and then embraced by the many.
“We who believe in democracy and in liberty are going to win,” he said in a speech in 2007. “The statists and the Islamists are standing against the irrevocable march of history.”
For the sliver of liberal intellectuals in Egypt who bemoan their nation’s inexorable slide from a cultural and intellectual capital, Mr. Serageldin’s library is a rare bright spot. He has hired and trained a staff of about 2,200 and keeps the doors open seven days a week until 7 p.m. He said he received about 70 percent of the library’s $20 million annual budget from the government, raising the rest in donations, and has accumulated a $23 million endowment.
He has also helped define the library as a learning complex, with a planetarium, art exhibitions, a children’s learning center, a virtual reality chamber and a museum chronicling the life of President Anwar el-Sadat. The library also operates as a cultural pulpit for Mr. Serageldin and like-minded scholars and regional leaders.
“Dr. Serageldin debunks the myth about Islam with the insightfulness of a social psychologist and firmness of a school principal,” said Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California and a Jefferson science fellow with the State Department who attended a recent conference at the library on “Initiatives in Education, Science and Culture Towards Enhanced U.S.-Muslim Countries Collaborations.”
In signature fashion, the conference was a forum for opposing views, at times exposing tensions between American and Arab participants. But in explaining the value of debating ideas, rather than stifling discussion, Mr. Serageldin addressed his fellow Muslims.
“Do you think that in the last 1,400 years, there were not books attacking Islam everywhere, there were colonial powers everywhere, and despite that Islam has spread throughout the world,” he said. “So let us not be afraid of opinions and ideas; we can fight ideas with ideas.”
And to the West, he asked that Muslims not be treated as outsiders.
“The Muslims are here; they are in your own countries; they are your own citizens; they are the children of immigrants. You have to recognize the fact that Islam is part of the West today. It is no longer a force that is outside of it,” he said.
WHEN the morning session was completed, Mr. Serageldin gave visiting officials a tour of the library, obviously delighting in both what it is and what he hopes it will become. If there is one thing that Mr. Serageldin is not, it is modest. As he walked through the halls, past the art exhibits, sculptures, supercomputers and computer archives, the hundreds of computer terminals at desks, one visitor asked, “Is this all your doing?”
To which he replied, with a nod, “Yes.”
Around the corner, Ahmed Mazhar, an accountant, was touring the library with his wife and three children when he spotted Mr. Serageldin, whom he recognized from his television appearances.
“It is good that he is open-minded like this,” Mr. Mazhar said. “At this particular point, Egypt needs people like him, people who are well educated and who entice everyone else to be the same.”
Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting.
To read the original article, click here.
June 18, 2010
CNN
A new generation of designers infusing traditional craftsmanship with modern design are marking Egypt out as a future style capital.
The Middle Eastern country has a long tradition of skilled craftsmen working in family-run furniture workshops.
But for decades their output has been characterized by a style known locally as "Louis Farouk," after the Egyptian king who popularized it during the 20th century.
An imitation of the ostentatious "Louis XV" style, named after the 18th century French king, which features elaborate decorations, heavily gilded, intricate carvings, and richly patterned fabrics.
Young Egyptian designers are now leaving behind the excesses of the past for something more restrained -- and much more hip.
Last week, Cairo staged a design exhibition, curated by Italian designer Paola Navone, that could help establish the city as the "Milan of the Middle East."
During the +20 Egypt Design event, international firms such as Alessi exhibited next to their Egyptian counterparts, showing domestic designers can hold their own alongside Europe's finest.
Shahira Fahmy is an architect and product designer whose work was exhibited at +20. She told CNN Egyptian designers have started moving away from imitating foreign styles and are developing their own vision.
"You would find different styles that were all imitations, but now the environment has changed and you can do something new, that is challenging even to the West," she said.
During the 1990s, designers were heavily influenced by late 19th century movement, Art Nouveau, typified by curvilinear designs and floral motifs. Other popular influences included the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Fahmy told CNN.
There's now a demand for contemporary emergent designers to produce something new.
The construction boom in Dubai and elsewhere in the Middle East had been a catalyst for experimentation, she explained.
According to Fahmy, the boom brought in foreign architects whose progressive designs have led to an appreciation of quality design and increased acceptance of modern styles.
"Architecture, interiors and furniture have all changed in the past 10 years," she said. "There's now a demand for contemporary emergent designers to produce something new. They don't want the classical things that were happening 10 years ago."
Karim Mekhtigian is the creative brains behind Cairo-based design studio, Alchemy. He said Egyptian design is starting to develop its own identity.
"I don't know if we have a distinctive style yet, but I'm sure we can have a specific story to tell which comes from this region," he told CNN.
"Culturally, Egypt is very rich with a lot of different elements, so there is a great potential in design terms."
Having lived and worked in Paris for 15 years, Mekhtigian returned to Cairo 10 years ago and found he was influenced by his surroundings and daily life in Cairo.
"We are living in a geographical place which is multi-layered -- a mixture of cultures, of religions, of everything, and it's one of our sources of inspiration," he said. "It doesn't come out intentionally, but I believe it's there."
Fahmy also uses Cairo as a reference point for her modern designs.
"I am influenced by Cairo's rich and complex heritage, but [I] try to represent that in a new and contemporary language that is representative of the time the product or building was designed," she said.
Both designers say the recent success of Egyptian furniture design is partly down to the work of the Egyptian Furniture Export Council (EFEC), which organized +20.
Chairman Ahmed Helmy told CNN that EFEC has been working to modernize Egypt's furniture industry, which directly employs 600,000 people.
He said efforts to increase production capacity, improve quality control and introduce new machinery at factories have helped increase the value of the furniture industry's exports from $46 million in 2004 to $320 million in 2009, according to EFEC figures.
The new wave of Egyptian design is still be in its infancy, and for Mekhtigian that's part of the attraction.
"Design in Europe is almost saturated," he said. "One of the reasons I came back [to Cairo] is there's a great potential here. Everything has to be done, has to be designed, which is not the case in Europe.
"Egypt is starting from scratch. It is exciting and we are trying to create a new story, not to repeat something. We are fighting not to do the same as Europe. We need to tell you our story."
June 11, 2010
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is indeed a pleasure to be here today among this distinguished gathering. Allow me first to express my deepest appreciation to the National Academy of Sciences for making today’s event possible.
We are gathered today to celebrate the first anniversary of President Obama’s Cairo Speech, in which he emphasized , among other things, the importance of science as a tool for the progress of societies, and building bridges of understanding and cooperation among nations.
The President’s perspective in this regard is one that we fully agree with, not only because sciences are the basic tool for development, but most importantly because of their role in developing the potential of the people and their capabilities.
In this context, Egypt has undertaken in 2006 an ambitious and comprehensive strategy to ensure that the promotion of science is given the adequate support and is provided with the necessary resources.
The main goals of the strategy could be summarized in the following:
1- By 2020 we should have had a 50% increase in the graduates from science fields.
2- Research related industries and their main institutions will be economically self-efficient and capable of better competing in a globalized environment.
3- Applied research in Egypt will be the main tool to develop our economy and society.
This strategy, which was prepared by the relevant governmental agencies in consultation with more than 300 scientists, has a working budget of billions of Egyptian Pounds. It has three main pillars which focus on modernizing the educational curricula, developing the capabilities of students and educators, and building the necessaryeducational infrastructure.
The strategy also aims at linking the development of scientific research and higher education through strengthening research capacity, improving the quality of scientific research, fostering innovation and promoting public understanding of science.
Hence, Egypt has established in the past few years a national agency for accreditation in order to boost the quality of research and teaching, and ensure their conformity with international standards. We have also created the Higher Council for Science and Technology (HCST), and the Science and Technological Development Fund (STDF), in order to modernize academic curricula and improve the research-related infrastructure.
In parallel, we have also established eleven new universities with a science focus, in addition to a distance learning university and four technical colleges. Egyptian research institutions are developing exchange and cooperation programs with agencies and Egyptian scientists overseas.
The government has worked on increasing the networking between the Egyptian universities and research centers with their American, European, and Asian counterparts. The government has also established strong partnerships with the private sector, civil society organizations, and international partners in order to maximize the output of the strategy.
Egypt is also working to increase the accessibility of the general public to information, as it subsidized the internet and it agreed with a number of local and international corporations to provide computers software and hardware at an affordable price. As a result, we have today more than 13 million internet users.
Furthermore, based on an agreement with a number of European and Asian governments in the context of the Egyptian decade of science, the past three years were designated as joint science years with EU member states, India and Japan. 2011 will be the first Egypt / U.S. science year, and this will mark a long history of scientific cooperation between Egypt and the United States, which is manifested through, but not limited to, our 1995 joint technological agreement, the scholarship programs, and the existing collaboration between Egyptian universities and their American counterparts.
Our plan has also an important regional component, as Egypt is investing in the technologic infrastructure of its African and Arab neighbors. It is also currently undergoing a project to link research centers of the African continent and MENA region with their Egyptian counterparts, and with other institutions all over the globe.
However, this does not mean we have passed the bottleneck, but rather that we are aware of the challenges in front of us and that we are not saving any effort to confront them. We believe that through our cooperation with our international partners, foremost among them the United States, we will successfully deal with the United States is greatly valued and is regarded as a true testament to the friendship of our peoples.
On this note, it gives me great pleasure to introduce one of the pioneers and symbols of the cooperation between Egypt and the United States, and a living proof of the potential and capabilities of the Egyptian people. He finished his undergraduate education in Egypt, as well as his BS and MS degrees in Chemistry, after which he came to the United States where he was awarded his PhD. He is the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He is also the Director of the Physical Biology Center for Ultrafast Science and Technology at Caltech, and served as the Director of Caltech's Laboratory for Molecular Sciences. He is a member of the Egyptian Supreme Council on Science and Technology.
In 1999, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering developments in femtoscience. In that same year, he received Egypt's highest state honor, the Grand Collar of the Nile. Most recently, he became a member of President Barack Obama's Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Other international awards include the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1993) awarded to him by the Wolf Foundation, the Tolman Medal (1997), and the Robert A. Welch Award (1997).
He is married with four children.
It is my great pleasure and honor to introduce Dr. Ahmed Zweil.
June 8, 2010
International Foundation for Education
On May 13, 2010, at a lavish dinner reception at the Egyptian Embassy, the Institute for Education (IFE) presented its 2010 IFE Leadership Award to Christopher Caine, President and CEO of Mercator XXI, in honor of Mr. Caine’s leadership in every IFE program.
Chris was honored one year after President Obama’s historic speech at Cairo University, to recognize the importance of economic and cultural partnerships for leaders from Egypt, the USA and the global community.
In addition to honoring Chris Caine, the evening provided the occasion to announce LearnServe Egypt – IFE’s first-ever LearnServe program in the Middle East. Funds raised from the dinner will enable students in the Washington, DC area to travel to Egypt, partner with Egyptian students, and help build the next generation of social and cultural entrepreneurs. IFE will partner with Mercator XXI to encourage and promote entrepreneurship, innovation, risk taking and leadership.
Finally, the evening brought together esteemed opinion leaders with Egyptian diplomats featuring a vibrant discussion on the topic of “Egypt and USA: Leading Through Economic and Cultural Partnerships.”
His Excellency Sameh Hassan Shoukry, Ambassador of Egypt, opened the evening by welcoming distinguished guests. IFE’s Founder and CEO, Coach Kathy Kemper, echoed Ambassador Shoukry’s sentiments and highlighted the role that initiatives like LearnServe Egypt will play in drawing the United States and Egypt closer together.
After an elegant, multi-course dinner, Coach Kemper introduced His Excellency Jan Matthysen, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Belgium, and Samuel Palmisano, Chariman and CEO of IBM Corporation. Ambassador Matthysen and Chairman Palmisano presented Mr. Caine with the 2010 IFE Leadership Award as well as a prized replica of Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator’s famous globe.
Video of the event can be found at www.youtube.com/watch.
June 4, 2010
Reuters
Egypt launched an exchange offering cash-starved smaller firms a new a way to raise capital as markets pick up, the bourse chief said.
Maged Shawky, chairman of the Egyptian Exchange, said the new Nilex platform for smaller companies, on which trading started on Thursday, also gave private equity firms a route to exit some of their investments.
Tumbling global markets and a 15 percent drop in Egypt's benchmark index .EGX30 since an April high have prompted some analysts to question the merit of launching a bourse for smaller firms now.
Shawky told Reuters Insider TV: "If we just waited to define when is the proper time to start a new project or to provide a new service for our economy, I think we would have done nothing for the last three years.
"I believe when we start now and when the market picks up we will be ready, the companies will come and will be attracted to being listed," he added.
Egyptian banks have been cautious lenders after being burnt by bad loans in the 1990s. That caution has made them cash rich now and helped Egypt sail through the global credit crunch but small firms can struggle to raise loans, economists say.
Shawky said smaller firms "don't have the real access to finance and the opportunity to grow. So we believe that (Nilex) is a good gateway for investors to access a different kind of venture capital in our market and, from the other side, it (offers) good opportunities of finance for the SMEs."
Ten firms are listed on Nilex, which has fewer disclosure requirements than the main Egyptian market to make it suitable for smaller companies with a shorter track record.
Among them, Ameco Medical Industries AMEC.CA launched a 10 percent private placement on Thursday and is planning a further 10 percent share offering in two months.
However one Nilex member, TN Holdings for Investment (TNHI.CA), has requested a voluntary delisting.
Shawky said he saw more listings without giving numbers. "I do believe there will be ... IPOs ... during this year, despite the fact that it is a turbulent time." Analysts say Egypt needs more big-ticket listings with a new round of privatisations, including for state banks or other major firms, to boost the market's overall liquidity. But they say a small-cap exchange could help build a pipeline for the main bourse.
As part of efforts to deepen capital markets, Egypt aims to set up secondary trading in government bonds, although Shawky said regulations needed amending before trading started. He said the issue was with the Finance Ministry and central bank.
He also said there was little motivation for investors to trade corporate bonds, even though a secondary market existed.
"We have a secondary market but they are not traded because they (have) a very high interest rate so they are very attractive to hold to maturity," he said.
June 3, 2010
H.E. Sameh Shoukry, Ambassador of Egypt to the United States, Dr. Jehan Sadat, Mrs. Suzy Shoukry and Mrs. Janis Berman
Mrs. Janis Berman, Dr. Jehan Sadat and Mrs. Suzy Shoukry
On May 27, Mrs. Suzy Shoukry, wife of Egyptian Ambassador Sameh Shoukry, hosted a speech and discussion led by Dr. Jehan Sadat entitled, “Egypt: A Commitment towards Peace.” Dr. Sadat was the First Lady of Egypt from 1970-1981 which gave her a unique perspective on peace in Egypt and the Middle East. She is a world-renowned speaker and has been the recipient of national and international awards for public service and humanitarian efforts for women and children. Dr. Sadat has also received more than twenty honorary doctorate degrees from national and international colleges and universities.
Following the speech, the guests enjoyed a discussion and luncheon, held in honor of Dr. Jehan Sadat and Mrs. Janis Berman, the wife of Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA).
June 3, 2010
Voice of America
Humanitarian aid is entering the Gaza Strip after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered the opening of the Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian territory. But few Palestinians are able to take advantage of the chance to enter Egypt.
Moustafa Youssef needs help hauling his suitcase across the no-man's land between Egypt and Gaza. He has a long-standing heart condition, which normally is a liability. But in Youssef's case, he has medical permits letting him leave Gaza.
Seeking refuge from the blistering sun in the shadow of the crossing wall, he has nothing but praise for the country he has just entered.
He asks God to protect Egypt, saying that for Gazans "it is the only lung we have to breathe with." Without Egypt, he says, it is like living in a zoo - "We cannot move."
With the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza under blockade, Egypt is a sporadic lifeline, with brief openings coming every month or so. But after Israel's raid on a flotilla trying to break the siege, Egypt, caught between its relations with Israel and the anger of other Arab nations, says Rafah would stay open indefinitely.
There are limits to who and what can pass - mainly people with medical emergencies and deliveries of humanitarian aid.
At the border, Red Crescent trucks stacked with blankets, food and medicine idle as aid workers wait for clearance to pass through.
Ordinary Palestinians returning home take the opportunity to bring in other goods. Ashraf el Najar is driving a pick-up truck loaded with an electric fan, a refrigerator and other household goods.
Najar says he accompanied a relative for medical treatment in Cairo. He bought the appliances on the way back, he says, because his house in Khoza'a, near Khan Younis, was demolished during the last Israeli attack on Gaza.
He is referring to Israel's war last year against Hamas militants. While Israel has deplored Hamas attacks on Israeli territory, Egypt also takes a dim view of the group, which runs the region along its border. The group's rise to power in 2007 prompted Egypt, which is wary of like-minded Islamists at home, to say it would only deal with the ousted Palestinian Authority on the border issue.
While the problem of the blockade continues to be debated at higher political levels, those most affected try their best to work around it.
A young mother stands with her five-year-old daughter here at the eastern edge of the Sinai, waiting to return to their home in Gaza. The little girl has a patch over one eye, evidence of a recent operation to correct a damaged nerve.
Her mother says help is not available in Gaza, so for a year she asked for permission to take her daughter to Jerusalem, but with no success. She too is grateful for Egypt's current opening of the border, but she says she wants it to be permanent. Her daughter needs to come back for follow-up treatment next month, and she says she worries that the border will be closed.
May 27, 2010
Daily News Egypt
Egypt jumped 11 places to rank 70th in the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), up from 81 in 2009.
However, the overall improvement was largely based on deteriorating conditions in other countries, according to the seventh annual Egyptian Competitiveness Report (ECR) titled "Green Egypt: A Vision for Tomorrow".
The Egyptian National Competitiveness Council (ENCC) launched the report in a conference Monday, presenting its findings and discussing the main issues.
Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, who inaugurated the conference, disagreed with the report's conclusion, which attributed Egypt's improved ranking to the poor performance of other countries.
"Egypt showed progress when other countries were struggling, this is a testament to the financial and economic development Egypt has shown in the years prior to the crisis," Rachid said.
While the financial sectors of other countries suffered, Egypt was able to remain healthy during the crisis, the report said, due to regulatory reforms and improved supervision.
Egypt jumped 22 places in the financial market sophistication indicator.
The composite competitiveness raw score however has not improved since 2007, remained at 4. The score is ranged from 1-7 with 1 being the lowest competitiveness performance and 7 the highest.
According to the report, scores were lowest in the areas related to human development, labor markets and macroeconomic stability. In labor market efficiency, Egypt ranks 126 out of 133 countries; and in quality of education Egypt came in at 123.
Officials also discussed fiscal policies that should be utilized to improve Egypt's competitiveness.
The report finds that although fiscal, monetary and other reforms taken by the government were generally effective, "the crisis strongly highlighted the vulnerabilities in Egypt's macro-economy."
To be addressed
The report recommens that Egypt tackle issues including "high inflation, high unemployment rates, weak shared growth, persistent poverty, high budget deficits and high level of public debt."
"Egypt has made significant progress in a number of pillars including capital market development, infrastructure and technology readiness, which has resulted in the 11 place jump in the rankings," said Malak Reda, senior economist at the Egyptian Center for Economics Studies in her presentation.
"There is still a need for further progress in several other areas. Reform is needed with regards to macro-economic stability, and development of human resources through improving the quality of education and health and raising the efficiency of the labor market is needed," added Reda.
The most controversial argument was about the quality of fiscal spending. The report points out that too much government budget is allocated to operational salaries and poorly targeted subsidies and not enough is used for investment in human resources and infrastructure that can improve Egypt's long term competitiveness and lower poverty.
Amina Ghanem, deputy minister for international relations in the Ministry of Finance, said, "Fiscal space must be found through the re-distribution of public spending between current salaries and subsidy bills and long term investment spending."
"This could be done by finding new revenue streams without raising taxes and developing policies to support the medium-term competitiveness and the construction of the Egyptian growth engine," added Ghanem.
"Most importantly, this requires the establishment of an institutional structure that coordinates the balance between current spending and investment spending so the budget allocated for investment is not just the remaining "residual" amount after all the salaries and subsidies have been paid," Ghanem explained.
As the title suggests, the report also proposes a strategic framework for action to move to a green economy, building on Egypt's potential strengths and giving concrete recommendations on the roles of the government, private sector, civil society and education and research institutions in this framework.
Rachid stressed the importance of Egypt following the new trend.
"Egypt's limited resources, rising population, recent potential water scarcity issues and food security prioritization are reasons why Egypt should consider adapting to the new economic trends moving away from consuming huge amounts of energy and water to a more sustainable model," Rachid added.
"The green revolution is what we need as it a solution to many current problems including the ongoing depletion of our non renewable energy resources and the shortage of water as well as being a potential source of employment opportunities," explained Rachid.
Mona ElBaradei, executive director of the ENCC, said that through its discussion and recommendations with regards to Egypt's transformation into a green economy and its focus on human development indicators and the policies which advance them, the ECR provides a "pathway to the future" for Egypt.
April 29, 2010
AFP
A work by Egyptian master Mahmud Said sold for US$2.43 million at an auction in Dubai, a record for a modern painting by a Middle Eastern artist, auction house Christie's said.
The painting, "Les Chadoufs," portrays Egyptian peasants drawing water from the Nile.
Christie's, which organized Tuesday night's auction at a luxury hotel in Dubai, had estimated its value at between US$150,000 and 200,000. The identity of the buyer was not revealed.
The British auction house said the price was a "record for any modern painting by any Middle Eastern artist."
The auction was attended by dozens of buyers, with others participating by telephone or online.
A statement by Christie's said the sale netted a total of $US15.1 million--more than double the US$6.7 million raised during its auction last October in Dubai, which was hard hit by the global financial crisis.
The painting by Said, an Egyptian artist who died in 1964 at age 67, belonged to former mayor of the Saudi city of Jeddah, Mohammed Said Farsi.
It was auctioned along with 25 other works from Farsi's private collection at a total price of US$8.7 million.
"Sunset on the Nile at Luxor," another of Said's paintings, sold for US$902,000, while "Poet and Cage," a sculpture by Iranian Parviz Tanavoli, sold for US$1.02 million.
Christie's said that 64 percent of buyers were from the Middle East, while the rest were from the United States, Europe and Asia.
The auction was the eighth organized by Christie's in Dubai. It is holding another auction for jewelery and watches on Wednesday.
April 28, 2010
Financial Times
The Egyptian stock exchange index has risen 20.6 per cent this year. While still short of the peaks it reached in early 2008, the rise comes on top of a robust rally in 2009 and means that the Cairo exchange is one of the best performers in the Middle East and North Africa this year.
“What we thought of as a dead cat bounce in March last year has slowly but surely turned into a decent recovery from the bottom,” says Wael Ziada, head of Egypt research at EFG-Hermes, a regional investment bank.
At the beginning of the year, EFG-Hermes forecast 25 per cent growth in its benchmark HFI index but Mr Ziada says that, with most of this already achieved, he expects the bourse to beat the forecast by “maybe” 5 to 10 per cent.
“The only thing that could blemish this performance would be a significant macro event in the second part of the year,” he says. “It could be something like a severe financial crisis in Europe or an extreme political shock.”
For the moment, however, the best prospects, says Mr Ziada, are for stocks in cyclical sectors or those catering to local consumer demand.
Buoyed mostly by strong domestic demand, the Egyptian economy grew 4.7 per cent in the year ending June 2009, and forecasts for this year are for growth of upwards of 5 per cent.
Although the country’s main economic drivers – tourism, remittances, Suez Canal revenue and foreign direct investment – have all shrunk because of the global downturn, strong local demand in the country of 80m people has helped maintained momentum.
“When the market crashed, there was overreaction on the downside,” says Angus Blair, head of research at Beltone Financial, another regional bank. “The recovery had to make up that ground. Also, when you look at the regional context, you see that Gulf countries have issues, not least the real estate bubble and the level of indebtedness, neither of which Egypt has.”
In spite of the optimism, there is a consensus that Egypt cannot afford to be complacent, and that a reform agenda, which has lagged behind, needs to be reactivated.
Mr Ziada says he wants to see inflation brought down from its current rate of 12 per cent and the labour market reformed with better skills training to encourage industry and job creation.
In addition to reform, there are longer-term concerns attached to the political succession in Egypt. Uncertainty surrounding the health of Hosni Mubarak, the 81-year-old president, caused the market to fall for a few days last month.
“We’ve still got some upside,” says Mr Blair. “There have been some good rises, which means some stocks have reached their targets, but there are also some risks such as inflation and the political equation, which came to the fore more quickly and to a greater degree than we would have assumed a few months ago.”
April 27, 2010
Jerusalem Post
Amid fears of renewed armed conflict in the North, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reassured his Lebanese counterpart Sa'ad Hariri on Tuesday that Israel had no plans to attack his country.
On his way out of a meeting with Mubarak at the Red Sea resort of Sharm e-Sheikh, Hariri said the Egyptian president had cited "positive" signs from his recent contacts with Israel.
However, the Lebanese president said he was assured Egypt would support Lebanon should such a war break out.
Hariri denied recent accusations that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to Hizbullah in Lebanon, saying his country was "not prepared to sit in the dock."
Reports of the alleged Scud transfer surfaced in Kuwait’s Al-Rai newspaper earlier this month. Israel subsequently issued a stern warning that it would consider attacking both Syrian and Lebanese targets in response to a Scud attack on its territory.
Earlier Tuesday, Israel Radio reported that Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit had passed on messages to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and representatives of the other permanent UN Security Council members, warning that the current Israel-Lebanon tensions could deteriorate into a war in the summer.
Meanwhile, according to the radio station, Egypt denied Arab media reports that Aboul Gheit had called Israel an enemy state at a press conference in Beirut on Monday.
Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Yitzhak Levanon had protested the alleged remark on Monday to the director of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry's Israel desk.
In response, the ministry said that all Aboul Gheit had said was that he could not transmit messages from Israel to Lebanon since Lebanon viewed Israel as an enemy state.
April 27, 2010
Al Ahram
Daily News Egypt
Egypt’s Parliament approved on April 20th a law to combat Human Trafficking. The law comes at a crucial time as Human Trafficking has become a world wide problem and the third most profitable illegal business in the world after weapons and drugs.
The law aims to criminalize all forms of human trafficking, impose stern penalties on all parties involved in trafficking and guarantee the protection of the victim while working to adopt a comprehensive approach built on prevention, protection and assistance to the victims of human trafficking.
The anti-trafficking law is part of a comprehensive government strategy to combat the illegal transfer and exploitation of persons. Several measures have recently been introduced, including the creation of a new hotline to provide round-the-clock assistance to children and women in distress, the establishment of a National Coordinating Committee to Combat and Prevent Trafficking in Persons as well as an intensive media campaign to highlight the issue.
The recently passed law provides for the establishment of rehabilitation and educational programs for victims of trafficking through governmental and non-governmental agencies. The law also calls for strict prison terms for anyone convicted of a human trafficking related crime and fines ranging between $9,000 and $36,000.
The Minister of State for Family and Population Moushira Khattab noted the importance of the law, viewing it as a mechanism to protect the rights of those that are most vulnerable in society.
UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons Joy Ngozi Ezeilo praised the “strong political commitment of the Egyptian government to tackle [human trafficking],” while highlighting some of the challenges that still persist in combating the problem.
Ezeilo, who was on a 10-day visit to Egypt upon the request of the Egyptian government to evaluate the situation of human trafficking in Egypt and give recommendations, explained that the government showed commitment through the ratification of several international conventions and ongoing legislative developments.
She especially welcomed the adoption of the Law on Combating Trafficking in Persons as containing “all that is required to effectively combat human trafficking, especially an extensive definition of trafficking and a clause aiming at the non-criminalization of the victims.”
This new law comes within a series of legislative developments, such as the law prohibiting organ trafficking, the criminalization of child trafficking and the amendment to the Child Law which raised the minimum age of marriage of girls to 18 years.
April 27, 2010
Daily News Egypt
A school bus tour around Egypt’s governorates is UNESCO Egypt’s mobile, innovative way to raise awareness about the global movement Education for All (EFA).
As part of the EFA week, the campaign aims at educating people about the movement’s six main goals and is carried out in cooperation with UNICEF Egypt and under the auspices of the Ministry of Education.
“Every year UNESCO [on a global level] organizes an Education for All week to raise awareness about the importance of education and about reaching the six EFA goals,” said Ghada Gholam, program specialist in education at UNESCO Egypt.
“On the local level we usually organize events, this year we chose an innovative idea. We got a bus to use this week to roam around governorates to raise awareness among all members of the community about the importance of education,” she explained.
“It has a vision; education can take place anywhere, it can happen in schools and it can happen outside schools as well,” Gholam added.
The EFA bus will be touring around six governorates in Egypt from April 26 and until May 5 starting with Cairo to Menufiya, Alexandria, Minya, Sohag and Assiut.
The six EFA goals it will be advocating are: early childhood care and education; universal primary education; learning life skills; adult literacy; gender equality in education and enhancing the quality of education.
The campaign is targeting all stakeholders in education; these include the government, civil society, educators, parents and children. “We want to make sure that every member [of the community] receives good quality education,” noted Gholam.
The EFA bus took off from the premises of the Ministry of Education yesterday morning, with representatives from the different partners present.
The bus is carrying two young volunteers, who will be responsible for reaching out to the community in the respective governorate through various activities and games.
“We are planning to use all the different ways possible to bring people back to education,” said Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr, referring to those who dropped out of school or are illiterate.
“We are going to support innovative means in order to make up for past time,” he added.
“This is not a project it’s a vision that the ministry has for children in Egypt,” said UNICEF Egypt representative, Erma Manoncourt.
“Education is the foundation…it’s the basis for the future of Egypt,” she added.
Badr also outlined plans to increase the number of classes in schools as well as build new schools all in an effort to reduce the number of students in each class.
“When the minister talks about education for all it really [sheds light on] education for all children in Egypt,” said Manoncourt.
“He kept on emphasizing the kinds of things they want to do to either improve the schools, to expand the schools, to expose the children to other aspects, so it’s really getting to the fundamental basis of development which is education,” she added, “Education of children especially because those are the leaders of tomorrow so if you make the investment today, you get a double dividend, you get a multiplier.”
The global EFA initiative aims to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.
“I call on all UNESCO’s partners in Egypt, government, parliamentarians, international agencies, non-governmental organizations, communities, teachers and students to support the Global Action Week on Education for All and advocate for the right to education for all in order to meet the six EFA goals by the set target of 2015,” said Tarek Shawki from UNESCO Egypt.
The bus will make one-day stops in each governorate. Gholam noted that while educating a person in one day is not possible, advocating for the importance of education is.
“You can convince them that it is important to send their girls as well as their boys to school, convince them that early childhood education is important because then the child is prepared for basic education, convince those who are illiterate and didn’t get a chance to go to school that there are other ways as community learning centers where they can get educated,” she said.
“So it is not that one day is enough to educate people but one day is enough to raise awareness of the importance of education in that governorate,” said Gholam.
April 22, 2010
VOA News
Despite poverty, overpopulation and a lack of education about environmental issues, Egypt is making some small strides towards improving its environmental ecosystem.
Earth day is being celebrated in Egypt by environmentalists Thursday amid attempts to raise public awareness about the consequences of pollution and damage to the country's fragile ecosystem with a growing population now estimated at 80 million people.
The daunting task of improving the quality of life for those people amid challenging circumstances is being tackled by government agencies and NGOs, and small strides are being made.
Egyptian authorities have tried to clamp down, with partial success, on the pall of black smoke hanging over Cairo every autumn, after farmers illegally burn off what is left of their rice crops.
Sa'id Sadek, who teaches political science at the American University of Cairo says the government is trying to solve the problem, but many bureaucracies make that effort complicated:
"They are working on the black smoke; there are laws, but the problem is that the enforcement of the law is dispersed among several institutions," said Sa'id Sadek. "It is the job of the governorate, the ministry of the interior, the ministry of irrigation, agriculture. Then, because you have a jungle of institutions and bureaucracies involved, it is a little difficult. What to do? There are laws. The problem is always enforcement and the people breaking the law are not aware of the consequences."
Sadek notes the government made a major improvement to the nation's air quality after it switched over to lead-free fuel, but that the quality of life for many is not ideal:
"All the fuel in Egypt today is lead free and that has improved the quality of the air," said Sadek. "But still, the heavy traffic, the overpopulation, the poverty, the lack of green space in the city of Cairo makes it still not an easy, environmental friendly city."
He also points out that the government is gradually trying to phase out Cairo's ancient fleet of black and white taxis, many of which date back to the 1960s and '70s, by giving taxi owners the chance to buy new vehicles at subsidized prices.
Mona Fadali of the NGO "Friends of the Environment" says her group concentrates much of its efforts on educating young people in Egyptian schools, so that they are more aware of their responsibilities as good citizens to protect the environment.
She also points to several specific projects that have been undertaken to raise public awareness, including one to save the environmentally damaged Lake Mariout, south of Cairo, which has attracted the attention of the Egyptian media:
"We had two projects related to Lake Mariout," said Mona Fadali. "They were just building buildings on top of the lake and destroying the lake with all kinds of pollution: industrial pollution, agricultural pollution [were] being thrown into the lake. So, as an NGO, we made public hearing sessions, workshops, and a complaint in the newspapers about how to save the lake."
She also points to a campaign by her organization in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria to save the sea-turtle, which is increasingly threatened by garbage and the destruction of its habitat. "Each year, we work with other Mediterranean countries," she says, "to clean up the coastline and remove garbage that hurts the turtles."
To view this article from its original source, please click here.
April 22, 2010
A couple of days ago, I was visiting the Queen city- Charlotte. I was impressed by the architecture of the city, a blend of classic and ultra modern building, reflecting both the history of North Carolina’s largest city and its vibrant and modern economy.
The visit was an opportunity for me to meet with members of the Egyptian community based in the Charlotte area and to get to know their personal experiences and achievements. Among them were chemists, students, priests, sheikhs, lawyers and businessmen keen to discuss their community’s organization, Egyptian domestic developments and the services provided by the Egyptian Embassy and consulates in the US. In this regard, I affirmed my keenness to develop the online services available on the Embassy’s website, in a way that will help them getting their requests processed through a mouse click and help further connect the members of the Egyptian-American community in the US.
I was delighted to give remarks at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte (UNCC) regarding the challenges facing Egypt and the Middle East, during which I sought to highlight the effect of those challenges on international peace and security, and the centrality of the Palestinian issue in resolving regional crises and countering forces of instability. I further stressed the importance of ongoing Egyptian-American cooperation in achieving these objectives.
During my visit to the UNCC, I had a long discussion with the University’s professors and students, which confirmed to me how avid, are the Americans for understanding Egypt’s views on the urgency of advancing the peace process towards the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state in addition to strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
In the Middle East Council of the Carolinas, I had an invaluable conversation over dinner with several Carolinas’ prominent figures who are dedicating time and efforts to foster understanding a between the Middle Eastern community and the community at large in North and South Carolinas.
Members of the Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte at Shalom Park have also been very warm in greeting me, and I had a candid and very interesting dialogue with them on the ongoing developments in the Middle East.
Being at Charlotte, one of the largest banking centers in the United States, offered also a unique opportunity to reach out with leading business figures in North Carolina. In this regard, I had a thorough dialogue on the Egyptian Economy’s performance and Egypt-US economic relations, and I hope that such outreach will contribute in raising awareness on trade and investment opportunities with Egypt.
In a nutshell, it was a pleasure visiting Charlotte, and I’m personally grateful for the enthusiasm and support of all the people who were involved in the organization of the visit.
Sameh Shoukry
The Egyptian Ambassador’s visit to Charlotte took place from April 18 till 20. Mr. Shoukry concluded his visit with a TV interview at News 14 Charlotte with Rob Boisvert.
To read the press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, please click here.
April 16, 2010
Business Today Egypt
After a mediocre 2009, the economy is finally bouncing back, and the construction industry is poised to lead the way.
A recent Cabinet report expects annual GDP growth to hit 5.1%, with construction the third strongest sector, growing at 11.5% (behind hospitality, 13.1%, and information and communication technologies, 12.8%).
Analysts at EFG-Hermes have raised GDP growth forecasts from 4.5% to 4.8% and cite contributions from the construction industry as a driving force behind the increase. A government stimulus package that targets infrastructure projects helped revive the industry, which had virtually ground to a halt during the economic crisis.
Experts are optimistic about construction growth, centered on new infrastructure, housing and tourist developments, but warn that shortages in cement and steel could place limits on the upward trend.
And while there is widespread agreement on the promising future of the construction industry, affiliated industry leader opinions vary on the sectors that are most effectively pushing growth forward.
Stimulus
The construction industry suffered like any other during the global downturn, but a massive government stimulus helped it stay alive. A Beltone financial report states that the fiscal stimulus will total LE 33 billion between FY2008-FY2010.
At the Economist Intelligence Unit roundtable held on February 15, Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali indicated that the government will propose additional public projects to push growth over 5%. He also said that the government hopes to attract investments valuing LE 20–25 billion over the next five years through its Public Private Partnership (PPP) strategy.
Injecting funds into infrastructure projects to increase broad economic activity is a standard move for governments and has seen success in a variety of contexts. According to Dr. Ahmed Anees, former director of the Center for Real Estate Evaluation Experts at Cairo University, “This is the usual global policy whenever there is a recession, not only in Egypt. Investing in infrastructure is the most common solution as it creates jobs and expands public utilities for growth,” he says.
If there is any criticism of the government’s stimulus plan, it is that the plan should be more aggressive. “The country needs a lot of infrastructure; I believe that the best strategy to build roads, bridges, ports, etc. for a population of 80 million, would be BOT [build-operate-transfer],” says Dr. Ahmad Mattar, chairman of the Arab Union for Real Estate Development. “The [stimulus] packages are relatively insufficient for a real estate market that is worth LE 1 trillion.”
The BOT model is a form of PPP where a private company builds the infrastructure and operates it for a set amount of time in order for the company to turn a profit, but then transfers control of the infrastructure to the government after that time has elapsed. By giving private companies an incentive to use their own money in projects, the government is able to take on construction on a larger scale without substantially increasing the national debt.
Housing
Though the construction sector certainly benefitted from the stimulus, it is not completely reliant on government spending to survive. Egypt is one of the fastest growing nations in the world, and Mattar contends that demographic growth is the main factor behind the construction sector’s recovery.
“There’s a real increasing demand on housing due to the 2.1 percent annual growth in Egypt’s population, which represents an extra 1.4 million inhabitants every year that require an increase of 600,000 housing units,” he says. He points out that the cultural importance of owning a home before marrying also drives demand for residential building.
The former director of the National Center for Housing and Construction Research, Amr Ezzat, noted that the construction sector employs more than 4 million workers in an interview with the Emirati newspaper Alrro’ya.
But even with so many workers, he estimates that only about 60% of demand for residential housing is currently being met. (He also admits that this is a notoriously difficult percentage to estimate accurately.)
Tourism
With a wealth of ancient monuments and beautiful coastlines on two sides, Egypt is a perennially popular tourist destination. As the global economy continues to recover, new hotels and resorts are being built to accommodate the expected tourism surge.
Business Monitor International reported on March 10 that tourism dropped 2.3% in 2009. The report maintains that the drop is not as severe as industry experts had anticipated, given the economic climate, and that the tourism sector is positioned for a strong recovery in 2010.
Tourism growth fuels construction along the Red Sea and the Mediterranean as domestic and foreign investors increase capacity to accommodate travelers.
Anees claims that outside of government contracts, tourism is the primary driver of new construction. “Most projects are in the direction of tourism, [] other construction sectors are dominated by the government,” says Anees.
One example, according to Gulf News, is that the city of Marsa Matrouh currently has 29 separate construction projects underway with the goal of eventually accommodating up to 30 million visitors a year.
Governor of Marsa Matrouh Ahmed Hussein told Gulf News, “The project will help us bring in over $10 million (LE 55 million) worth of investments to Egypt, and will create more than 61,000 job opportunities.”
Steel and Cement
Even with these three sources of growth, a full recovery is not guaranteed. “Construction helps the growth of [numerous] industries that start with cement and steel and end with electric cables and water tanks,” says Mattar, highlighting the ability of the construction industry to spur overall growth.
But the industries that construction depends on could alternately hold it back.
At the Davos Economic Forum, Minister of Trade and Industry Rasheed Mohamed Rasheed announced that Egypt will issue draft permits for the construction of eight new cement plants.
Rasheed hopes that the new plants will start producing by 2014 or 2015 in order to help meet local demand, which increased 16% in 2009.
Responding to market forces, the two largest national cement companies, Suez and Amreya, attempted to increase prices by LE 22 per ton to reach LE 455, but in the end both companies backed off.
Rasheed’s legal advisor, Hisham Ragab said that the two companies backpedaled in response to a government warning, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm.
The steel sector is more complicated, reflecting the partially liberalized state of the economy. Local producers are asking for protection from importers, who want to profit over locally inflated prices.
Turkish steel producers rely heavily on scrap, while Egyptian firms rely on iron ore, which has the effect of making Turkish steel LE 200 cheaper per ton. This led Egyptian authorities to consider pursuing an anti-dumping case against Turkish importers, though further action failed to materialize.
While the cheap steel is welcome by builders now, undercutting local producers makes the construction industry more vulnerable to global price fluctuations, potentially creating problems down the road.
But Anees has great confidence in real estate investments. “Real estate was and still is safer [than investing in the stock market]. It will be the same or even grow faster in the near future.”
April 7, 2010
Reuters
The number of mobile phone subscriptions in Egypt rose by 642,000 to 56.49 million in February, according to communications ministry data. The figures amount to a penetration rate of around 72 per cent, although industry executives and analysts estimate that some 20 to 25 per cent of the market involves second phones. January subscriptions were 55.848 million.
Most see room for growth up to around 65 million accounts, or 85 per cent of the population. A year ago the three mobile firms -- Mobinil, Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Egypt -- had 43.49 million subscribers in Egypt, whose population is 78 million.
The communications minister said in January that a fourth mobile licence could be offered depending on factors such as available spectrum and revenue as well as subscriber growth. The state-owned landline monopoly Telecom Egypt has expressed an interest in any new licence, holding off on a dividend payment last month ahead of a possible bid.
Growth in subscriptions has slowed in recent months after jumping 1.67 million in December. More than a million accounts had been created every month since late in 2008 as the three operators offered heavily discounted on-network plans to garner customers. In October subscriptions fell.
April 5, 2010
Al-Ahram Weekly
Preparations for Easter commence with a 55-day fast when cereals and foods of plant origin cooked in olive oil form the main diet. No animal products -- no meat, eggs, milk or fish -- are consumed, nor even coffee. Spring is in the air, and on street corners in predominantly Christian areas of Cairo, palm-fronds woven into crosses of all sizes are sold on street corners. Some are rosettes in an exquisite design which people hang on the front doors of their houses. Others adorn the sitting room, and smaller ones are hung in bedrooms. Palm fronds and any early spring growth is a feature of Easter -- rebirth in every sense of the word.
Palm Sunday falls a week before the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem shortly before his Passion, as mentioned in all four canonical gospels, and the ritual is reminiscent of ancient times when the Pharaoh, having returned in triumph after victory over his enemies, was met with green branches, the blossoms of Spring, glorifying him as saviour and victor. Likewise, when Jesus Christ returned to the Holy Land he was met by multitudes waving palm branches, a symbol of victory over those who would do him harm, and to us today symbolising resurrection.
During Holy Week ( Isbu Al-Alam or "Week of Pain" in Arabic) the Passion of Jesus Christ is celebrated with specific events in the last week in his life, culminating in Palm Sunday ( Hadd Al-Zaaf ) when, as in the early church, the priest blesses fronds of the date palm and a procession is formed. The clergy, bearing the cross, incense tapers and palm fronds, move round the church, praying at each altar, the principal icons, and the reliquaries. On this day, Copts also remember their own dear departed, visit family graves, and place palm fronds and bunches of flowers around their tombs.
On Good Friday, which the Copts call Al-Gomaa Al-Hazina or "Sad Friday", church altars are draped in black. This is followed by Sabt Al-Nur, "Saturday of Light", so named after the miraculous light that appeared in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The bishop, in full ecclesiastical attire with stole and crown, and assisted by the clergy who forms a semicircle around him, stands before the elaborately adorned sanctuary screen of the church. Young deacons in long white robes assist in the service. Special prayers are said for the troubled and ailing, and, incidentally for "the River Nile" and for the "fruits of the earth".
The opening of the door of the sanctuary to reveal the holy inner chambers with the altar is an act that symbolises the rolling away of the stone from the tomb where Jesus was laid, and from which he arose. The bishop and the clergy then raise their crosses and banners high in jubilation and proceed round the church, intoning a joyous hymn. Holy Communion follows, with members of the congregation first shaking hands, symbolising fellowship, and then lining up (men and women separately) to receive the Eucharist.
Seven round loaves of freshly-baked bread made of the finest wheat flour are baked in a special oven by a member of the church. These are offered to the bishop, who carefully inspects each one to select the perfect one to represent the faultlessness of Jesus. The bread must not, according to long-established tradition, be cut with a knife, but should always be broken by hand in a special manner. The pieces are dipped in the holy wine -- unfermented wine made by soaking dried grapes in water which is distributed to churches in large wicker-covered jars.
Having received the Eucharist (standing, not kneeling), the clergy move along the aisle to give a final blessing, and as the congregation rises to leave the church, they utter such phrases as "Christ has risen", and "Indeed, He has risen". It is a joyous occasion. Easter celebrations provide a spiritual and dramatic narrative of the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, from the sorrows of his Passion through to the spirited tempo of Easter, his resurrection.
One cannot help but be moved by Coptic hymns and chants for the celebration of Lent, Holy Week, the Passion of Christ and "Light" Saturday, through to the magnificent Resurrection chants. And so, in conclusion, I would add that the late Ragheb Moftah, one of the founders of the Higher Institute of Coptic Studies in the 1950s, established a music division and formed the first Coptic Orthodox Choir. Moftah sought out the most accomplished cantors and deacons, and spent his lifetime preserving the musical heritage of the church. He established two centres to teach Coptic chant melodies, one in Bab Al-Hadid and the other in Old Cairo, and subjected his talented students to a rigorous training programme, recording their voices, and eventually completing the entire corpus of Coptic Orthodox liturgical chants.
As members of the congregation exit the church, many purchase sacred loaves which, like the Eucharist bread, are stamped with a cross at the centre, representing Jesus, and with 12 small crosses representing his disciples. These are later broken into pieces and placed under children's pillows as a personal blessing.
Easter is a time for alms-giving, part of an age-old tradition in the Nile Valley, when those of means help people less fortunate than themselves. It is also a time for good fellowship and, of course, merry-making by children. They walk along the streets, usually in groups to show off their new clothes bought especially for the occasion. Those with bicycles weave crinkly coloured paper into the spokes of their bicycles. Groups frequently hire a donkey-cart to travel along the main thoroughfares of the city, and the sounds of singing and drum-beating fill the air. Easter is a long holiday weekend, and an extremely popular one, because the following day, Monday, is Sham Al-Nessim (literally "smell the breeze"), the official first day of Spring and a national celebration for the whole population, Muslim and Christian, which has its origin in an ancient Egyptian festival associated with the rebirth of the land.
March 28, 2010
On Saturday, Egypt joined countries around the world in this year’s Earth Hour campaign. At 8:30 p.m. local time, lights were turned off at prominent Egyptian landmarks, including the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Mohammad Ali mosque in Cairo. The purpose of the campaign was to promote energy conservation and the fight against global warming. This was the second consecutive year that Egypt had participated in Earth Hour. Other notable landmarks participating included the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Hong Kong’s city center, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the Parthenon in Athens.
March 24, 2010
MENA
President Hosni Mubarak is to leave a German hospital in the coming days, after a gallbladder operation earlier this month, a spokeswoman for the clinic said Wednesday.
"Doctors had not yet decided when exactly the 81-year-old would be released," a spokeswoman for Heidelberg University Clinic was quoted by Egypt's official Middle East News Agency ( MENA) as saying.
She added, however, that health was stable enough for this to happen in the next few days.
"The doctors said they were happy with Mubarak's recovery and said he was in good health after the strain of the surgery," the spokeswoman said.
The president had his gall-bladder removed in the German hospital on March 6, after being diagnosed with a serious inflammation.
Meanwhile, Gamal Mubarak, the son of Egypt's president, and his wife have had a baby girl, state news agency MENA said on Tuesday.
Farida Gamal Hosni Mubarak was the first child born to Gamal, 46, and his wife Khadija el-Gammal.
The 46-year-old former investment banker married Gammal, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, in 2007.
Members of Mubarak's family have been by his bedside regularly, but MENA did not say where the baby girl, the president's first granddaughter, was born nor whether Gamal Mubarak was at the birth.
Mohamed, one of the president's two grandsons from his son, Alaa, died unexpectedly aged 12 last May. The president has worn a black tie in public since then.
Mubarak has not said if he will run for a sixth six-year term in the 2011 presidential election. Many Egyptians believe that, if he does not, he will try to hand power to his politician son. Both Mubaraks deny any such plan.
March 24, 2010
New York Observer
In 1978, as crowds packed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s blockbuster “King Tut,” Steve Martin had a hit with the novelty song about the doomed pharaoh. “Now, if I’d known they’d line up just to see him, I’d trade in all my money and bought me a museum.” Thirty years later, the boy king, his fellow rulers and their fortunes are back on view in New York—resurrected from their climate-controlled sarcophagi for the Met, the Brooklyn Museum and, in April, for a special exhibition space in Times Square.
Centuries-old vases, Coptic headpieces and golden royal trinkets have begun to arrive to go on display in a trio of warring, would-be audience draws. Why the sudden mummification of New York? Combine a healthy sense of box office competition with children’s love of all things creepy, and you have part of the answer. But there’s a little backstory, too, about the politics that brought King Tutankhamun to New York—but not to either of its two museums known around the world for their Egyptology departments.
First, the story of the king: He ruled in the 18th dynasty, with little distinguishing his short tenure, historians say, save for a move from one god back to many. He died in about 1327 B.C., at age 18 or 19. In recent years, various C.S.I.-like scientific groups have sought to find out why, with murder, a broken leg or malaria being the most common conclusions. In 1922, his tomb—KV62, a phrase still said by Egyptologists with awe—was found, its spectacular contents intact. Decades later, in a blockbuster dreamed up by Richard Nixon in a cold war swipe at the Russians (according to the letters of former Met museum director Thomas Hoving), those treasures toured the U.S. Tut broke all existing records for museum attendance.
But when Egypt proposed a reunion tour in 2004, the Met, surprisingly, balked. The Egyptian government was charging such hefty fees for the loan that the exhibit would have required a separate admission charge above the current “suggested $20.” Philippe de Montebello, director of the Met, passed. Brooklyn demurred, too, in part because, frankly, they don’t need loans, said Eric Bleiberg, curator of the current show there. The museum’s 9,000-strong collection of relics from the region is “an Egyptologist’s candy store,” he notes.
Ohio-based Arts and Exhibitions International, best known for its “Princess Diana: A Celebration” show, nonetheless went forward with a multi-city deal. “We pay the Egyptians a large guarantee and they participate” in the revenues generated by the show, said AEI president John Norman. Egypt’s Antiquities division had said it hopes to garner $40 million from the five-year tour, revenues that will go toward the construction of a museum. At the exhibition, a busy gift shop features “Kooky Mummy Pens” for $4.95”; Indiana Jones–style “explorer” hats; Halloween masks; and three styles of refrigerator magnet. There’s even a private event space for rental. “Party with the Boy King … enjoy themed menus … hold your event at Pharaoh’s Palace,” the exhibition’s marketing material invites.
For years, the tour criss-crossed the country, to Los Angeles, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia and San Francisco. It looked like New York would be one of the few major cities to miss Tut. But, when The New York Times relocated and a company retrofitted the printing plant to make an exhibition space, AEI found a climate-controlled, 20,000-square-foot home for the show in New York. “King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs” opens April 23 at the Discovery Center in Times Square. The show, with a $27.50 admission fee for adults, features relics from both other pharaohs and Tut, although not all the same treasures that toured decades ago. (Some don’t leave Egypt anymore.)
Brooklyn says its current show was already in the works when Tut booked Manhattan. But on May 5, it opens a show with two actual mummies (something the “Golden Age” blockbuster conspicuously lacks). And the Met’s “Funeral” exhibition was only announced recently. Mr. Norman said he’s not surprised to find that New York will be flush with Egypt shows. “People get Tut fever,” he said. “We take it as a benefit.” Their shows “will help to create that Egyptomania buzz,” he said. But, “we are the main exhibit.”
What’s Tut’s great drawing power? Antiquities dealer Sam Merrin, owner of his own $1.1 million mummy and sarcophagus (currently on loan to the Houston Museum of Art), explains: “It’s the only royal tomb found intact, and the quality and quantity of material was unheard of. Then, there’s the curse.” Illness struck several people who excavated the site, but whether it was bacteria or posthumous royal fury is still undetermined. Lastly, notes Mr. Merrin, “kids love mummies; they’re spooky.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Tut” show, which opened last week, certainly has both the scholarly and the ghoulish touches. “Tutankhamun’s Funeral,” a small but top-quality show, features funerary remains from near the circa 1327 B.C. tomb. There are clay vessels with leftovers from his embalming, pottery used in the funeral meal, linen bandages, preserved collars of flowers and a sculpture of the monarch. The burial relics in the show were a gift to the Met from the New York City–born explorer Theodore M. Davis, who excavated in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings a century ago. He tragically gave up after years of digging, believing there was nothing more to find, when he was within striking distance of Tut’s treasures. The Met’s own employee of a century ago, Harry Burton, photographed the Valley of the Kings for the museum.
Sensitive to concerns that their show could appear to be trying to head the Egyptian loan off at the pass, curator Dorothea Arnold stressed: “We are accompanying theirs. We are friends with Egypt. There is no war going on.” Museums, to some degree, like to stay on the right side of Egypt, since the nation has been among the most vociferous in claiming their relics back from international museums. (They’re still trying to get back the Rosetta Stone, now in the British Museum, that Napoleon’s army seized in 1799.)
Other exhibition artifact shows are welcome to the party, Mr. Norman said. Of course, they’re not from the hallowed KV62. Only AEI’s exhibition will feature material from King Tut. And why not? As Steve Martin put it: “He gave his life for tourism.”
March 24, 2010
Associated Press
For decades, Arabic fiction was associated with the name of one man: Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature. Nearly four years after his death, his native Egypt is experiencing an unprecedented fiction explosion from a new generation.
Unlike their predecessors, the expanding group of young authors putting out a barrage of celebrated novels in recent years has grown bored with tackling big political issues. Instead, they explore the deeply personal, day-to-day life and hidden ills of society, writing candidly on taboo topics.
And they have turned to a more accessible language, peppered with Arabic pop culture and often infused with the writing styles of the Internet, building an audience among Egypt's younger middle class. The fiction renaissance has fueled — and been fueled by — a spread of "Borders"-style bookstores, complete with cafes and reading areas, and of new prestigious Arab literary prizes.
"It is amazing that this kind of fiction has gained popularity when you consider the spread and influence of religious conservatism," said one of the most prominent new authors, Hamdi Abu Golayyel.
"We are closer to everyday issues," said Abu Golayyel, 42. "Our works have dropped dealing with the big issues and shaken off the burden of attempting to write prose for posterity."
While many in the new wave of literature are not overtly political, their focus on personal alienation brings a more subtle call for change in a country that has been ruled by authoritarian governments for decades and where nearly half of the population of 80 million live in poverty or close to it.
It's a contrast to earlier generations of Arab writers. The literary titan Mahfouz was best known for his sweeping depictions of Egyptian society and mores. Novelists from the 1970s-1990s often tackled issues of life under dictatorship and the direction of the Arab world after military defeats at the hands of Israel.
Abu Golayyel's latest, "A Dog With No Tail," is considered one of the most representative of the new wave. It tells the semi-autobiographical story of a poor Bedouin villager who lives as a migrant construction worker in Cairo. Told with humor, it follows the protagonist through some of the darkest sides of living in the big city — prostitution, drug abuse and a harsh class system.
"My friends and I were almost completely shut out, walking the streets of Cairo like we were citizens of another, faraway country we yearn to go back to," he writes of the peripheral life of the city's underclass.
A darker example is the 2010 novel "Farewell to Heaven" by Hamed Abdel-Samad, the tale of a childhood defined by the narrator's repeated rape by older boys and the later discovery that the father he revered as a wise religious leader was no different than any other man in his village. He settles in liberal and more forgiving Europe, but it does little to ease his scars, and he eventually enters a psychiatric institution in Germany.
The new generation's style is perhaps best typified in the 2003 "Being Abbas el Abd," told in a fragmented form intertwined with pop culture references, often in a sort of "emoticon" Arabic used in writing mobile phone text messages.
Written by Ahmed al-Aidy, it tells the story of a video store clerk whose job brings him into daily contact with Western culture. Much of his daily life revolves around his mobile phone and the SMS messages he sends.
Poor and socially immobile, the narrator cries "glory be to my favorite bar of soap" — a reference to his habit of masturbating to deal with unfulfilled sexual desires.
"James Joyce's 'Ulysses' is considered among the best books of the last century. But reading it is more of a challenge than a pleasure," said al-Aidy, 35, whose novel has been translated into English, Italian, Dutch and Turkish.
"In today's world, books compete with a cinema ticket or a pack of cigarettes for entertainment. If you don't capture the reader from the first page, he is gone forever," he said.
More recently, Mazen al-Aqaad's 2009 novel "Lost Anger" dives into the world of the Internet, an increasingly important social gathering point for young Egyptians.
The young narrator administers a chat room for men and women who share his desire for suicide because of their traumatic lives. The participants eventually organize a party to celebrate a young couple who decide to kill themselves. The couple changes their mind in the last-minute and the disappointed revelers become angry and beat them to death.
Egypt's fiction boom has rendered obsolete a common saying that in the Arab world, books are written in Cairo, published in Beirut and read in Baghdad. Today, all three stages are done in one place — Egypt.
The number of copies sold remain modest, however. As few as 10,000 earn a book a best-seller tag.
The biggest seller has been the 2002 novel seen as kicking off the new wave — Alaa al-Aswany's "Yacoubian Building." It depicts an Egypt where the dreams of the poor are constantly shattered, while corruption, social injustices and religious extremism flourish.
Its success opened the floodgates for fiction, said Hind Wassef, a co-founder of Diwan, a chain of American-style bookshops complete with coffee, loyalty cards and special offers.
"It is a fiction market," she said, "And we go out of our way to stock an excellent collection of fiction. It is what sells."
Many of those involved in the new wave hope that it will have a social impact.
"While not political, the intellectual stimulation created by all this fiction will one day bring about reform and help contain the dangers of religious extremism and sectarianism," said Mohammed Hashem, founder of Dar Merit, publisher of "Being Abbas al-Abd" and many of the more experimental new works.
"If I live another 10 years, I may finally see everything I have tried to do bear fruit," said Hashem.
March 22, 2010
Al-Ahram Weekly
Businessmen and investors from at least 23 countries met this week at the Fourth Cairo Investment Forum to discuss their next move as the global recession begins to wane. The two- day event brought both good and bad news.
According to World Bank (WB) Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) Vice- President Shamshad Akhtar there is enough evidence that the region weathered the economic and financial crisis well, "yet, this should not be a cause for complacency." She added that additional disruptions, like the recent Dubai events, short-term and long-term impacts of the losses emerging from the global financial crisis and the slow convergence of the region's per capita GDP to levels similar to those of higher income countries are all factors that render the region vulnerable.
According to WB statistics, economic growth in MENA fell by 2.6 per cent in 2009 which is significantly less than the four per cent decline observed in the advanced economies thanks to little direct exposure to the epicentre of the shock, which were the toxic assets of financial systems in developed countries and the limited role of private investment in these economies compared to the rest of the world. "This helped minimise the impact of the shock on overall investment," she said.
According to Akhtar, most MENA countries adopted prudent fiscal stances prior to the crisis which helped bring down public debt/GDP ratios. For instance, Egypt's public debt ratio has fallen by almost 20 per cent since 2006, "which gave the country sufficient room for policy manoeuvrability while taking steps to stimulate the economy."
In its attempt to drive out of the dark tunnel, President Hosni Mubarak underlined that Egypt has adopted a stimulus plan to encourage more investment into more diversified infrastructure projects and greater attention has been given to the developmental dimension in the governorates of Upper Egypt. In his speech, delivered on his behalf by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, Mubarak declared that the government will soon inject more investment in Upper Egypt. Projects include a natural gas pipe extension to Aswan as well as the renovation and establishment of new airports and roads in Upper Egypt. "Assiut airport is now being developed. A new airport in Sohag will be inaugurated and the Upper Egypt-Red Sea road connecting Upper Egypt governorates to the Red Sea ports will soon become operational," said Nazif.
This month, the Egyptian Chemical Industries Company, better known as Kima, in Aswan received its first share of natural gas as the farthest southward destination to where natural gas has so far been transported.
Other projects include the establishment of a new marina in Luxor, medical compounds in Alexandria and 6 October governorates in addition to a number of projects northwest of the Suez Gulf.
According to Mahmoud Mohieldin, minister of investment, these projects will be concluded in full partnership with the private sector. "In order to attract these investments, we have to maintain growth rates above five per cent and keep the budget deficit at round seven per cent of GDP," he said.
Mohieldin indicated that a full package of investment-friendly laws and regulations has been adopted during the past four years to encourage more investment inflows in the country. In addition to dispute settlement mechanism and safe exits from the market, the cabinet will soon be discussing the draft of a new law that will regulate microfinance lending as a step towards encouraging this vital sector to have a more secure and diversified access to finance.
Access to finance tops the list of challenges facing the sector. "It is important to stress the fact that there are at least six million micro- enterprises in the country which statistically represent a large segment of society estimated at no less than 25 million people. It is a huge market and the financial gap in this market is estimated at almost 90 per cent," said Amr Abul-Azm, vice-chairman and CEO of a company providing development services to micro- enterprises. Notably, the SME sector in Egypt contributes at least 70 per cent of the nation's GDP. According to Osama Saleh, chairman of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI), at least 85 per cent of the companies established during the year fall within the small and medium-size category.
A step on the right direction is the establishment of Bedaya or "The Start" as a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) service provider that will be entrusted with the task of encouraging these enterprises to start a business development plan, train owners and workers to adopt entrepreneurial skills, help assemble industries in clusters to provide high quality products and finally provide access to finance through banks and companies according to certain regulations that are now being studied by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE).
On the regional front, Egypt has decided to contribute to a $2 billion development initiative that was earlier suggested during an Arab economic and social development summit held in Kuwait last January. The development initiative is mainly aimed at providing required financial resources to SMEs.
March 22, 2010
The Egyptian Gazette
"Al-Azhar will continue to be a bastion for tolerance and moderation against extremism and fanaticism," el-Tayyeb said.
President Hosni Mubarak on Friday named el-Tayyeb as the new head of Al-Azhar, which includes a university and a research centre. He has presided over Al-Azhar's University since 2003 and will succeed Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, who died of a heart attack in Saudi Arabia on March 10.
"All possible means, including the latest technology, will be used to spread moderate Islam across the world," el- Tayyeb said.
He added that a website for the Al- Azhar would be used for this aim. "Also the expatriate students who come to study here, then travel back home could also have a crucial role in helping spread values of tolerance and accepting the other," 64-year-old el-Tayyeb said. Tayyeb was Egypt's Grand Mufti for 18 months between 2002 and 2003. He is considered to be one of the more enlightened Egyptian Sunni clerics, as he speaks fluent English and French and has a PhD in Islamic philosophy from France's Sorbonne University.
He is known for his moderate and progressive opinions and was previously criticised by some Al-Azhar clerics and professors for preferring modern suits to the traditional cloaks worn by nearly all Al-Azhar leaders.
"Through his work as head of Al-Azhar University, el-Tayyeb has proved and shown that he is well capable of being Al Azhar's top cleric," Gamal Awad, a professor at Al-Azhar's Sharia college told The Times of London.
"The man has full understanding of the religion without any complications, and he made some great efforts in making Al-Azhar reach out to Muslims and non-Muslims from all nationalities, and that's exactly what Al-Azhar needs."
Tayyeb is known for his tough stance against the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's banned-yet-largest opposition group.
In 2006, he condemned a militarystyle parade by Brotherhood students at Al-Azhar University, in which they wore black facemasks "like Hamas, Hizbollah and the Republican Guard in Iran", he said at the time.
He was congratulated yesterday by Pope Shenouda III, Egypt's Coptic Christian Patriarch, and Mohamed Badei, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tayyeb, who heads Al-Azhar University's religious dialogue committee, is also a member of the ruling [National Democratic Party] chaired by the president's son Gamal Mubarak. Despite his efforts to maintain a low profile and distancing himself from religious or political controversies, Tayyeb has appeared in the media spotlight on a few occasions.
March 18, 2010
Reuters
Egypt's El Sewedy Cables is looking into supplying wind energy projects in Egypt, the Middle East and African markets to tap growing demand and suitable climates, its investor relations director said on Tuesday.
Research shows that the world market for wind turbine installations was worth about €45 billion ($61.5 billion) in 2009 and that global installed capacity will more than double to 340 gigawatts by 2013.
"Wind energy is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. Everyone wants it, and Egypt has high potential to produce such energy," Ahmed El Homosani, Sewedy's investor relations director, told Reuters in an interview.
Sewedy, the largest Arab cable maker by market value, started operating a €40 million ($54.66 million) wind tower plant in Ain Sokhna on Egypt's Red Sea coast on Tuesday to manufacture equipment for electricity-generating wind farms.
"Wind energy does not cost a lot to produce, and its price now is very suitable as a source of energy," Homosani said.
The firm has also invested some €20 million in a turbine factory in Tenth of Ramadan City, on the outskirts of Cairo, which is due to become operational within the next seven to eight months.
Officials say Egypt's combined oil and gas reserves will last the most populous Arab country roughly three decades, encouraging a shift to alternative energy sources, including wind, solar and nuclear.
The North African country, an oil and gas producer, has been developing wind power along its eastern Red Sea coast. It has wind farms at Zafarana and Hurghada in the area and has so far installed capacity of 430 megawatts of wind energy.
Egypt expects to see its wind power capacity reach 7,200 megawatts by 2020 and is already boosting the capacity to 550 megawatts by May.
Sewedy's wind towers plant in Ain Sokhna, a joint venture with Germany-based SIAG Schaaf Industrie AG, will produce 100 towers within its first year of operations and has total capacity to produce 300 towers per year. The plant will mainly provide towers for markets in North Africa and Africa as well as Egypt.
"Electricity consumption in Africa is huge, and there is a big deficit in supply," Homosani said. "So, there is strong potential in this market."
Sewedy has production plants in Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Algeria, Ghana, Zambia, Qatar, and will soon open a plant in Libya.
It said last week it expects to post a 24 percent decline in 2009 unaudited net income to LE 630 million ($115 million), below analysts' forecasts.
The firm might also consider investing in solar energy within the next four to five years if it finds the sector "economically viable," Homosani said.
The solar industry is emerging from a tough 2009, when prices for modules that turn sunlight into electricity fell by more than 40 percent as a glut of supply and difficult financial markets slowed growth for renewable energy sources.
Solar projects in Egypt have lagged behind wind schemes, but the country's first solar power plant will start production by the end of the year, Egypt's electricity minister said earlier this month.
The country has strong solar energy potential due to low rain, clouds and year-round sun.
March 17, 2010
Reuters
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk will travel to Egypt next week for talks with a key Arab ally that has long wanted a free trade agreement with the United States. Kirk will meet with Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohammed and other Egyptian officials, his office said on Wednesday. The trip follows President Barack Obama's visit last year to Cairo, where he gave a speech aimed at improving U.S. relations with the Muslim world. It comes during a rough patch in U.S.-Israeli relations over Israel's plan to build 1,600 more homes for Jews near East Jerusalem, angering Palestinians.
Kirk has downplayed the possibility of a free trade pact with Egypt, but said earlier this month he wanted to explore other avenues for expanding investment and trade. The two countries signed a strategic partnership plan in May to foster increased economic cooperation. Two-way trade between the two countries was a relatively tiny $7.2 billion last year, with the United States enjoying a rare trade surplus of about $3.2 billion. U.S. trade with Israel last year was $28.3 billion and the United States ran a $9.1 billion deficit.
The United States and Egypt were close to launching free trade talks in 2005, but that was derailed when the government of President Hosni Mubarak imprisoned liberal opposition leader Ayman Nour on forgery charges. Nour, who said the charges were politically motivated, was released last year on health grounds after spending more than three years in jail.
The United States has free trade agreements in the greater Middle East with Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain and Oman. Egypt does enjoy duty-free access to the U.S. market for goods produced with Israeli components and assembled within certain "qualifying industrial zones."
March 10, 2010
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
March 10, 2010
We express our deepest condolences on the passing of Egyptian cleric Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi. As the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar University, he was a voice for faith and tolerance who was widely respected in Muslim communities in Egypt and around the globe, and by many who seek to build a world grounded in mutual respect. Sheikh Tantawi graciously hosted President Obama last June in Cairo, and we remember well his hospitality. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who mourn him on this day.
March 10, 2010
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
I was saddened today to learn of the passing of Grand Imam Mohamed Sayyid Tantawi, the head of al-Azhar University in Cairo.
Imam Tantawi was a highly respected cleric and the leader of one of the most important institutions of Islamic learning in the world. As President Obama said in Cairo last summer, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning for over a thousand years, and it continues to play a dynamic role today. Imam Tantawi was an important voice for dialogue among religions and communities. Under his leadership, the university co-hosted the President’s speech laying out a vision for a “New Beginning” between the United States and Muslim communities around the world. And Americans will always remember Imam Tantawi for his condemnations of violence after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when he said: “It's not courage in any way to kill an innocent person.”
We offer our condolences to the Imam’s family and friends today, as well as his many students in Egypt and in Muslim communities throughout the world.
March 10, 2010
Wall Street Journal
Egyptian officials have laid out an ambitious set of economic targets for the Arab world's most populous country, hoping to recapture the fast growth of the middle of the last decade and to lift living standards.
Egyptian officials are promising 5% gross domestic product growth this year and 6% in 2011, eventually matching the growth of 7% and higher that Egypt enjoyed for three years before the global economic crisis hit in late 2008.
If Cairo is even moderately successful, it could bode well for other countries in the region. Egypt's slower economic overhauls may emerge as a sustainable model for countries in the Middle East, such as Jordan and Syria, that have big populations but little of the region's oil wealth. Dubai and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, for years the engine for rapid growth and investment in the Mideast, now suffer weakened banks, defaults and falling property markets brought by over-reliance on global credit.
To reach its goals, the Egyptian government plans to actively seek more foreign direct investment by emphasizing the country's comparative resiliency during the economic crisis, to push tax reform by streamlining the complicated income-tax and property-tax codes, and to curb widespread nonpayment of taxes with stricter enforcement. They also aim to reduce the drag created by Egypt's socialist-era subsidy programs.
A new set of property-tax laws just took effect, preceded by months of public-service announcements on radio and television to explain the changes.
A sustained expansion is needed to help put an end to Egypt's persistent economic ills. The inflation rate has slowed only slightly from a peak of 13.3% in November. The budget deficit, weighed down by high food and fuel subsidies, consumes about 8% of gross domestic product. Unemployment stands at an official 8%, but many economists say the figure is much higher and doesn't reflect rampant underemployment.
Ragui Assaad, an Egyptian-born economics professor at the University of Minnesota, estimates that only one in four new university graduates will find substantial jobs.
"Unemployment doesn't measure intermittent work, low productivity work or below-subsistence-level incomes," he says.
Few observers expect an easy path to growth. A recent report by the government's General Authority of Investment describes major structural obstacles to having economic policies benefit the majority of the population. It says that much of the foreign direct investment coming into the country targets the petroleum and financial sectors, which don't create large numbers of jobs. It also highlights policies such as fuel subsidies, which help big businesses keep costs low in factories and help trim car owners' household budgets, but don't help most people.
Economists inside and outside the country have criticized Egypt's education system for failing to provide job skills for a fast-growing youth population.
The government's past successes, however, offer reason for hope.
For several years, a small cadre of economic reformers, working under President Hosni Mubarak and his son, Gamal, pushed to liberalize Egypt's creaking, state-dominated economy. Overhauls focused on reducing bureaucratic red tape for business owners and foreign investors, as well as on privatizing or selling several state-owned banks and industrial companies. The process had its critics, but succeeded in pushing Egypt to growth peaks.
Things came unhinged in 2008, however, as the expansion stoked inflation and triggered unrest in some places, including the so-called bread riots in Cairo and in several rural cities in the Nile Delta.
Foreign direct investment fell to about $8.1 billion in the fiscal year ended June 2009 from a peak of $13.2 billion the previous year, according to the central bank. Suez Canal receipts fell to $4.74 billion for the year from a record high of $5.1 billion, says Suez Canal Authority Chairman Ahmed Ali Fadel. Tourism and remittances from workers overseas also slumped. Critics also complained that too much economic power was concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy with deep ties to the Mubarak family. The following global economic downturn further worsened the economy.
But last month, Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin said Egypt is optimistic again, setting a $10 billion target for FDI this year. Suez receipts rose 6.6% to nearly $390 million in December from the previous month, government data show.
Economists had expected remittances to plunge as Egyptian expats, especially in places like Dubai, lost jobs. But many brought savings home to Egypt, boosting the local economy.
High growth "will put Egypt back on foreign investors' maps," Egyptian Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid was quoted saying in Davos.
Egypt was protected somewhat from outside shock by a largely isolated economy, especially when it comes to the country's conservative banking industry. But modest reforms also played a role. Prof. Assaad applauds the previous privatization efforts and the new campaign to boost tax income and rein in spending, particularly subsidies. Still, he says, "The underlying structural problems in the Egyptian economy remain. The big problem has always been the growth trickling down."
March 10, 2010
BBC News
Egypt's foremost Muslim cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, has died, aged 81, while on a trip to Saudi Arabia.
Sheikh Tantawi was the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar mosque and head of the al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam's centre of learning and scholarship.
He died of a heart attack in the Saudi capital Riyadh, where he was attending a prize-giving ceremony.
Sheikh Tantawi had infuriated radical Islamists with his moderate views on women wearing the veil.
His body will be taken to the Saudi city of Medina, the burial place of the Prophet Muhammad, for burial, Egyptian authorities said.
An adviser to the Sheikh told Egyptian television Sheikh Tantawi's death was a shock, as before leaving for Saudi Arabia he had seemed in "excellent shape and health".
A member of Sheikh Tantawi's office, Ashraf Hassan, told news agency Reuters that Mohamed Wasel, Sheikh Tantawi's deputy, was expected to temporarily take over leading the institution until the Egyptian president appointed a new head for the body.
Moderate views
Sheikh Tantawi was appointed to his position by Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak in 1996.
But as a government appointee, he was always forced to negotiate a careful path between his religious imperatives and his government position, the BBC's Christian Fraser in Cairo says.
He was vocal in his opposition to female circumcision, which is common in Egypt, calling it "un-Islamic".
Last year, Sheikh Tantawi barred female students at the university from wearing the full-face covering niqab veil.
He also caused upset other Muslim scholars by saying that French Muslims should obey any law that France might enact banning the veil.
His views on the veil prompted Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to accuse him of "harming the interests of Islam".
He has also condemned suicide attacks, saying extremists had hijacked Islamic principles for their own ends.
"I do not subscribe to the idea of a clash among civilizations. People of different beliefs should co-operate and not get into senseless conflicts and animosity," he told a conference in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in 2003.
"Extremism is the enemy of Islam. Whereas, jihad is allowed in Islam to defend one's land, to help the oppressed. The difference between jihad in Islam and extremism is like the earth and the sky," Sheikh Tantawi said.
March 8, 2010
Daily News Egypt
Egyptian researcher Rashika El Ridi received the UNESCO-L’Oréal Foundation award for Women in Science “for paving the way towards the development of a vaccine against the tropical parasitic disease bilharzia, which affects over 200 million people.”
El Ridi received the award at a ceremony in Paris last week. The annual L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science honors five eminent women scientists, one from each region, for excellence in research.
“The ceremony was amazing, it gave an opportunity to show the world that Egypt, the land of civilization, is progressing,” El Ridi told Daily News Egypt.
“This award is extremely important as it also sheds light on countries such as Egypt, the Philippines and Mexico and shows their contribution to science,” she added.
The annual program aims at recognizing and promoting exceptional women throughout the world for their careers in scientific research, it also works on encouraging vocations in science among young women and supporting the creation of role models for current and future generations.
“A career in science requires energy spent on excellent work and taking excellent care of one’s children and spouse,” says El Ridi. “Dedication and hard work will lead to fulfillment, a secure and respectable position, financial independence, happiness and peace,” explained El Ridi.
The program wants to distinguish exceptional women in science who are helping change the world.
Each recipient is granted $100,000.
“In my eyes the UNESCO-L’Oréal for Women in Science partnership is an innovative alliance capable of making a concrete contribution to the quest of gender inequality,” said UNESCO Secretary General Irina Bokova.
“This partnership promotes not only women. By highlighting the role women must play in scientific research, the program emphasizes the importance of science as a source of progress,” she added.
The award’s recipients are chosen by a jury of leading scientist, it is headed by Nobel Prize winner in Medicine in 1999, Gunter Blobel, and the Founding President of the Awards, Professor Christian de Duve. She also won a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1974.
“The recognition that comes with the UNESCO- L’Oréal Award is important, especially for women in developing countries; clearly it’s much easier to do science if you have wonderful labs and tremendous support,” said Blobel.
The partnership also includes the UNESCO-L’Oréal International Fellowships in which 15 fellowships are granted to young women researchers, three from each of five geo-cultural regions of UNESCO.
L’Oréal subsidiaries around the world also developed the National Fellowship Programs, with the support of the National Commissions for UNESCO.
This year, Ain Shams physics professor Hadeer El Dakhakhani was one of the fellowship’s recipients. She will study at the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of Materials in Strasbourg, France.
“Continuing my research in different countries means a lot to me. It exposes me to different cultures and points of views. I hope I will be able to give something back one day,” she said.
For the UNESCO-L’Oréal Fellowship, young women submit a doctorate or post-doctorate research project to the UNESCO National Commission that they propose to pursue in the life sciences at an institution outside their country of origin. The National Commission nominates the two most deserving candidates from its country to the Selection Committee in Paris, which makes a final choice of fellowship beneficiaries.
The value of the fellowship is up to $40,000 granted to each beneficiary over a two-year period.
This year marks the 12th year of the partnership, which began in 1998 and so far has awarded over 900 women from more than 80 countries.
L’Oréal says it is committed to recognizing the importance of the role of female researchers and their innovations and, to meet this challenge, it developed the For Women in Science partnership with UNESCO.
March 8, 2010
Daily News Egypt
“This is the most interesting stock market in the region,” Vera Trojan, senior vice president, partner, and equity portfolio manager for Wellington Management Company, said Sunday
“We are impressed with the efforts of the leading companies on the stock exchange, and [their] progress in transparency, disclosure and investor relations efforts,” she added.
Trojan expressed admiration for the “strong economic fundamentals of the country,” speaking at a conference with Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin.
Following meetings with potential investors in Singapore and the annual Euromoney Egypt Investor Conference in Hong Kong, Mohieldin addressed the question “Is Egypt Attractive for Investment?” before the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Cairo.
Representatives from Boston-based wealth management association Russell 20-20 joined the minister to convey how Egypt appears to large institutional investors such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, also represented.
The chairman of the Russell 20-20 Association and Chairman of Altaira Wealth Management Michael Phillips, explained that his company’s role was to “help our hosts get a better understanding of what’s important to global institutional investors.”
“We are particularly impressed with how the country [Egypt] has evolved after the reforms of 2003 and 2004,” Trojan said, adding that Egyptian companies expanding within the region serve as useful bellwethers for foreign investors.
Meanwhile, Trojan articulated the specifics of Egypt’s précis. Listing Egypt’s solid record of growth, its positive current account balance and positive sources of foreign exchange as assets, she emphasized the large population’s potential both for consumption and building a productive labor force.
She applauded Egypt’s “strong banks” on their potential for consumer lending, before addressing Egypt’s cons: inflation, fiscal deficit, high stock of government debt and risks posed by a high unemployment rate.
Donald Raymond, senior vice president of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) investment board, spoke as an institutional investor. Although his data demonstrated that the largest share of CCP’s investments reside in foreign developed market equities at 22 percent, he said that investing in emerging markets is a growing priority.
Room for reform
Mohieldin acknowledged that many of the reforms that attract investors “would have been difficult to introduce a few years ago.”
He explained that efforts have been made in “fiscal reforms in particular, to generate sustainable funds, to work for reform of taxes implemented to generate required funding for development and growth. [Egypt is] working on…gaining credibility for maintaining the discipline required for the monetary sector.”
He spoke further about Egypt’s strengths, listing the latest inflation figures as “close to single digit” and the core inflation measure as close to the target range of 6 to 8 percent.
He addressed fears that foreign investors exploit emerging markets without offering long-term benefits in return; because Egypt is “not resource rich, investors aren’t after extraction, we have some natural gas and oil, but China and India…are mainly after the capacity of Egypt as a well-diversified economy…to be a gateway to region.”
Disappointments include Egypt’s delayed optimization of its “unique location” by not developing its ports, resulting in transaction costs remaining high.
Mohieldin lauded the financial services industry that “as a sector is growing at 8 to 12 percent, while communications and information technology is growing at 14 percent in real terms.”
“[Egypt has seen] 55 percent recovery last year after the crisis year…it is a liquid and vibrant market in general…[and has seen an] increase in net trading by 1.2 to 1.5 billion every year in the last five years.”
In his only reference to his meetings in Asia, he mentioned, “Many people I met in Hong Kong said, ‘Egypt has been there for 5,000 years. We know the history but were not interested in doing business there because of its sluggish growth in the 80s and early 90s. But with [pre-crisis] growth of 7 percent, we’re now keen to get into the country’.”
He finished by admitting, “Many of the measures are not pleasant; reforms mean bearing the pain of gains enjoyed today and in the future.”
The minister and panel responded to questions, first fielding an inquiry on whether the People’s Assembly had successfully halted the privatization process.
Mohieldin said, “We’re working on a draft law introduce to parliament to rely on the stock exchange for flotation of publicly owned companies.”
The panel was asked to give their opinions of rating companies, following the crisis and the on-going challenges in Dubai and Greece.
Phillips of Russell 20-20 answered, “Rating agencies… have a lot to answer for. I do not put the same credence to them as before the crisis.”
Vera suggested that ratings serve as a “report card,” where “you get a good grade for good performance.” In her opinion they “still have an important role to play… serve as an incentive for improving performance. The problem is not the idea, but with the rigor of the analysis.”
In response to a question about the determination of American regulators to oversee investment banks to avoid another global financial meltdown, Phillips explained the intention to “move to a new regulatory structure [of] activity-based regulation, not entity-based. Instead of bank regulators and investment bank regulators, you’d have some looking at credit, debt or derivatives, across entity barriers.”
Mohieldin expounded on the subject from an Egyptian perspective, saying “the issue of regulation is sensitive, because whatever is being said by leading countries impacts emerging markets. [We are] very much concerned… need effective regulation… [to] not micro-manage and prevent growth and mobilization of savings.
“[We] need to listen to the market and lawmakers at the same time, then develop an accurate framework of regulation that is not subject to the reaction of the general public.”
The decision to feature only Canadian and American representatives on a panel of this nature, only days after his return from Asia, seemed perhaps intended to reassure Egypt’s traditional investors in North America and Europe that Egypt has not completely given up on their slow rate of recovery in favor of Asian money.
However, the lack of dialogue on the changing landscape of foreign investors seemed pointedly west-biased, although the market itself has shifted decidedly eastward.
March 5, 2010
Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States, H.E. Sameh Shoukry, visited the US Naval Academy on March 4, 2010, to address the Academy’s midshipmen on Egypt-US relations and recent developments in the Middle East.
In his lecture at the Academy’s Chauvenet 100 Hall, Ambassador Shoukry reiterated Egypt’s commitment to further strengthening its strategic partnership with the US, adding that Egypt brings unique strengths to this partnership with its large valuable human resources, its diverse well-known political and cultural impact on the Middle East, as well as its geo-strategic location and control of the most important waterways in the world. Ambassador Shoukry said that the chances of increasing areas of cooperation and understanding between the two countries were extremely high given the Obama Administration’s efforts to deal with global issues on the basis of dialogue, cooperation and mutual respect.
Ambassador Shoukry highlighted the military-to-military aspects of the Egypt-US relationship, stressing that bilateral military cooperation is strong and diverse. “Being a key partner to the US in the Middle East, Egypt is capable of promoting effectively the shared goals of peace and stability, not only in the immediate region but also in Southwest Asia, the horn of Africa and beyond.” Shoukry concluded that it was therefore natural that Egypt maintain a strong military force to carry out regional responsibilities and assist in defending shared interests.”
The Egyptian Ambassador expressed Egypt’s appreciation for the US military assistance it receives. He stressed that this assistance contributes to the pursuit of a suitable and modernized Egyptian military and bolsters Egypt’s ability to modernize its armed forces, thereby continuing to serve the ultimate goals of peace and stability.
Turning to regional issues, Ambassador Shoukry reaffirmed Egypt’s commitment to achieving comprehensive peace in the Middle East. “We have consistently upheld our peace accord with Israel, and we are re-doubling our efforts to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for all peoples of the Middle East,” he added. The Ambassador clarified that what Egypt is advocating, through its talks with all the relevant parties, is the need to demonstrate a political will committed to achieving peace, rather than aimless tactical maneuvering that prolongs the suffering of both peoples and forces Palestinians to continue to live under occupation. In Egypt’s view, “the human suffering in Gaza is enormous and unacceptable.”
On the Iranian nuclear issue, the Egyptian Ambassador said that while Egypt supports the international community’s efforts to fully verify the nature of Iran’s nuclear ventures, the question of Israel’s nuclear capabilities and its continuing rejection to accede to the NPT comes to light and needs to be properly addressed. “One standard must apply to all. Israel must adhere fully to the NPT, Iran must cooperate fully with the IAEA; hence a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East becomes a reality.”
Ambassador Shoukry ended his speech by repeating that the US and Egypt are an asset to each other, adding “we will exert our utmost not only to safeguard it, but to lift it to elevated levels for the sake of our nations and peoples.”
The Egyptian Ambassador, who was accompanied by the Egyptian military attaché and Embassy staff, met with the Academy’s Superintendent Vice Admiral Jeffrey Fowler and political science professors at the Academy. All parties expressed a genuine interest in strengthening relations between the Egyptian and US Naval Academies. Ambassador Shoukry invited Vice Admiral Fowler to visit Egypt to explore means of enhancing this cooperation in the near future.
Address by H.E. Sameh Shoukry, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt at the U.S. Naval Academy
"Egypt - U.S. Relations and Recent Developments in the Middel East"
March 4, 2010
Good evening,
It is my distinct pleasure to be here today among the officers, servicemen and cadets of the United States Navy. Naval forces are traditionally at the front lines in defense of national security, in countering any impending threats and pursuing global security. This is definitely amplified in the case of a global actor like the United States with its most impressive naval capability, not only in terms of hardware but certainly also in the quality, training and commitment that all personnel of the Navy continue to demonstrate.
The young cadets here today are surely the seeds of future American pride, and an addition to the long history of U.S. dedication to realizing global peace and security. I salute you all; and I would like to thank in particular Professor Brannon Wheeler for organizing this wonderful visit.
Let me start by stressing that we are committed to our two countries’ strategic partnership. We have consistently worked on sustaining Egyptian-American relations and remain adamant in our efforts aimed at strengthening it even further. The shared conviction of the central role this relationship plays in our continuing efforts to stabilize the Middle East region has been the main engine behind increased cooperation.
Egypt brings unique strengths to this partnership, with its large valuable human resources, along with its diverse well known political and cultural impact on the Middle East. It’s geo-strategic location and control of one of the most important waterways in the world is also another testament to its value added contribution. In short, the role we continue to assume in the task of addressing tensions and promoting peace indeed provides the U.S. a strong proponent to advance common policies and objectives in the region.
This long-standing relationship has undoubtedly over the years witnessed times of converging views and approaches as regards the necessary means to achieve our common objectives. It also, at other times, had to deal with discrepancies in view or approaches. It is to the benefit of both our countries to have been able to deal with such situations on the basis of mutual respect and a common commitment to the strategic nature of our partnership, and its equally beneficial nature. It is this resilience and depth of our relations that guarantees that we will remain steadfast in our efforts to continue to develop and strengthen the bonds between us.
As the current administration strives to deal with global issues on the basis of dialogue, cooperation and mutual respect, we are greatly optimistic of increasing areas of understanding. In fact, clear indications of an improved bilateral relationship have been evident, with numerous diplomatic exchanges. President’s Obama’s visit to Cairo in June 2009 was a key milestone, along with President Mubarak’s trip to Washington last August, a first in over five years. More recently, the two governments held their annual strategic dialogue.
The choice of Cairo by President Obama to deliver his historic speech to the Arab and Muslim world is highly appreciated. It is a further demonstration of the special relationship that exists between us; as well as a recognition of Egypt’s unique political, economic, social and cultural role in the regional context and beyond. The speech brought enormous hope to the region, and granted a long-awaited desire for a restoration of the historical and deep ties between the two societies. It was also a message that reached out to all arenas of conflict with dialogue and reconciliation from a perspective of moral strength.
We view American interests in the Middle East and beyond as not being limited to the pursuit of securing global energy needs, combating radicalism that may impact the American homeland, or mere economic interests. But, as reflected in President Obama’s Cairo speech, these interests are well grounded in a genuine refocusing of efforts towards a more collaborative world order based on the rule of law and justice. Such policies and objectives are wholeheartedly supported by us.
There is indeed an abundance of common incentives for our two countries to double cooperation and strengthen dialogue in the future. Together, we will both remain engaged in developing relations with a focused eye on safeguarding the long term interests of the region.
I must stress that an essential element in this relationship is the military-to-military cooperation which I would like to briefly address.
As we both face many of the same challenges, it is imperative that cooperation between a world leader and the region’s largest state will contribute in attaining our shared objectives. Being a key partner to the U.S. in the Middle East, Egypt is capable of promoting effectively the shared goals of peace and stability, not only in the immediate region but also in Southwest Asia, the horn of Africa and beyond. It is therefore natural that Egypt should maintain a strong military force to carry out regional responsibilities and assist in defending shared interests.
In that context, U.S. military assistance is highly appreciated, something that contributes to pursuing a suitable, modernized and balanced military. It, in turn, boosts our effectiveness in continuing to serve the ultimate goals of peace and stability. And speaking of modernizing Egyptian forces, it is worthy to note that we are already more than half-way through the modernization plan, continuing to integrate U.S. military equipment as aging weapons are retired. This is a recognized priority so as to increase the synergy between our armed forces there by providing greater effectiveness in fields of cooperation.
Furthermore, an integral part of our military cooperation is training. In preparing our military personnel to operate and maintain U.S. systems, Egypt has sent officers to train at U.S. military institutions. This is definitely key to the professional development of the Egyptian military. In addition, it has created strong ties of personal friendships and mutual understanding of our respective cultures and the commonalities that exist in our value systems.
In addition to that, periodic joint training exercises that have continued for years have enhanced the interoperability and coordination between Egyptian and American armed forces. In that regard, the successive multinational “Bright Star” exercises are very beneficial to all participants as well as the US CENTCOM; as all parties train and learn to operate under challenging circumstances.
Another subset of this military cooperation is the security dimension, with continued intelligence cooperation and a coordinated approach to combating the threat of extremism in the Middle East.
Furthermore, the United States is provided access to vital air and sea routes through Egypt. For example, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Egypt expedited about 1300 U.S. Naval transits through the Suez Canal, and provided security support for the U.S. ships passing. This, in addition to providing over flight permission to approximately 45,000 military aircrafts.
Indeed, Egypt’s importance is further accentuated as it has a coastline that extends on the Mediterranean and Red seas for almost 4,000 kilometers and controls a strategic waterway, namely the Suez Canal, being of crucial importance to international trade movement as well as strategic sea lifts.
Furthermore, on another field of cooperation to promote mutual security, Egypt and the U.S. are active participants in international peacekeeping operations. Egypt has contributed to peacekeeping operations throughout the world, including Sudan, Mozambique, Angola, Liberia, Rwanda and East Timor; in addition to deploying peacekeeping forces to Somalia and Bosnia to support UN troops and NATO forces.
I must also mention that with regard to Sudan, Egypt is the largest contributor to peacekeeping forces in the UN African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) as it participates with over 2300 peace keepers in two mechanized infantry battalions, a transportation company, a military engineers company and one signal company.
Military partnership is only one main dimension of our cooperation that revolves around a mutual interest in guaranteeing development and prosperity for the Egyptian population, while ensuring the U.S. an effective partner striving to achieve our common objectives. We are certain that continuing to promote U.S.-Egyptian relations in all its avenues of cooperation will contribute positively to Egypt’s efforts towards political, economic and social development.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me to turn now to provide you with more insight on developments in Egypt. I believe it’s important in a relationship of the magnitude that exists between us that both sides are well aware of achievements, challenges and aspirations that motivate their respective societies. Greater mutual awareness of our distinct circumstances will necessarily contribute to greater levels of understanding, and our ability to define more accurately areas of cooperation.
Egypt has been through tremendous political, economic and social turbulences and volatility during the second half of the last century. Despite having taken both courageous decisions of going to war and making peace to regain our sovereignty over every inch of our land, we have adopted a consistent course so as to provide the Egyptian people the prosperity and advancement they rightly deserve. Indeed, the government has, for more than twenty years now, been applying an ambitious reform program in all fields of life.
We are committed to political pluralism, democratization, freedom of expression, and promoting and protecting human rights. There are currently two dozen political parties in Egypt; and though most have not yet impacted the public, one must note that one-fourth of the Egyptian Parliament is comprised of independent and opposition representatives contributing to a healthy debate and oversight of government policies.
Egypt recognizes the value of the application of the principle of freedom of expression and its positive impact on societal development. It has, therefore, striven to reinforce its position as a major player in the region when it comes to the media with a Press that’s one of the most influential and widely-read.
Over half of Egypt’s 500 newspapers, journals and magazines are privately owned. It is also worthy to note that, unlike some other countries in the region, Egypt does not apply media censorship; hence promoting a wider space for freedom of expression. Egyptian satellite channels reaching out locally as well as to the region and beyond also attest to embracing the value of projecting divergent views in the process of developing national consensus. More than 162,000 of Egyptian citizens are bloggers, comprising 30% of the Arab world’s blogger community. And, the number of Egyptians with access to the internet has been growing at a remarkable pace.
There is also a rising recognition of the importance of promoting and protecting human rights from a governmental and non-governmental perspective. Legislation has been enacted in support of this objective. Enhancing national capacity building is key, raising greater public awareness and enforcing accountability. It is also noteworthy to mention the creation of the National Human Rights Council, headed by the former UN Secretary General Dr. Boutros Ghali, as one non-governmental watchdog, among many others, in the field of human rights that has had a definite impact on policy and public awareness.
Similarly, our commitment to empowering women in all walks of life is clear and have made leaps from the beginning of the 20th century. We are also committed to supporting civil society organizations as important tools for promoting the development of our people.
Having said that, it is important to understand that while political and social reform in Egypt is an ongoing process, it is our belief that dealing with such challenges must be derived from within, from the desire to reform and improve. Such actions are based on each country’s priorities and the value structure defined by each nation’s particular cultural and historical experiences.
Egypt has also developed ambitious economic agendas. U.S. assistance in this area is a source of appreciation having had a very direct impact in improving our economic potential. Continued interest in the promotion of foreign direct investment will provide for the crucially needed economic development, especially in light of the rising challenges to alleviate poverty, cope with a rapidly growing population and compete globally. The socio-economic well-being of our society can be greatly elevated through investing in education, technology and know-how transfer that would upgrade the platform of our human resources. This will ultimately prepare our nations’ youth for the future, helping them to integrate into, rather than be isolated from, a globalized world.
In all these areas, the U.S. has been a valuable partner supporting our capacity-building efforts.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Moving on to the regional situation, one must note that the dynamic relationship between Egypt and the United States is surely not divorced from the regional setting that constitutes an important component in the challenges we both face. So, a demonstration of how our bilateral partnership feeds into the accomplishment of shared regional objectives is warranted.
Egypt is steadfast in its commitment towards peace. It has continued to advocate the benefits that are derived from peace and also prove by example that cooperation and coexistence are the preferred course serving the peoples of the region. We have consistently upheld our peace accord with Israel, and we are re-doubling our efforts to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for all peoples of the Middle East.
The first issue that starkly confronts us in any analysis of the regional strife is undoubtedly its central core conflict: the Palestinian question. This unresolved issue has been festering for decades, deteriorating to greater and more dangerous magnitudes, adversely influencing other open conflicts in the region today. Whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, the situation in Lebanon or Iran, along with the challenges posed by extremism, the numerous crises in the Middle East are related to the Palestinian quest for justice and peace.
One may wonder how this one issue can be of such impact, yet the undeniable reality is that this conflict shapes the perception of Arabs and Muslims towards the West, and the U.S in particular. Without extracting a comprehensive just peace, this conflict will continue to serve the interests of those who seek to incite many around the region and the globe.
To that end, Egypt remains committed to pursuing a final lasting viable peace for both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The framework of such peace leading to a Palestinian state is not new, as the general structure of the solution is well known to the parties. Following many years of peace talks and negotiations, the main outline of a final settlement revolves around the following: that the border of the Palestinian state will be the June 1967 line, with minor land swaps agreed between both sides. Certain arrangements will have to be made on the Palestinian side to accommodate Israel’s security concerns and provide the security guarantees needed. Jerusalem will be the capital of both states; and finally there has to be a just settlement to the plight of the Palestinian refugees.
We are committed to the two-state solution as the political horizon of peace negotiations. The international community, including the U.S., fully supports this as the only credible means to bringing about peace and justice to the region. Nevertheless, the window of opportunity to fulfill this aspiration is continuing to close. The consequences will certainly adversely affect both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, in addition to the states of the region and beyond.
Continued Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories along with the separation wall, with its consumption of vast Palestinian land, erodes the very essence of the two-state solution.
What Egypt is advocating, through its talks with all the relevant parties, is the need to demonstrate a political will committed to achieving peace rather than aimless tactical maneuvering that prolongs the suffering of both people and forces Palestinians to continue to live under occupation.
We are well aware of the intricate and complicated nature of the political situation as relates to the pursuit of peace. This can only be overcome by the mutual recognition of both parties – Israelis and Palestinians – that the courageous compromises and flexibilities necessary to make peace contribute equally in providing a brighter future for generations to come.
And, though we believe that the political resolution of the conflict should be achieved today before tomorrow, we recognize that further efforts must continue by Egypt, the U.S. and the international community to assist the parties. Yet, at the same time, the tragic humanitarian conditions faced by the Palestinian population under occupation must be immediately addressed.
Conditions in the West bank are still bleak, despite recent relative improvement, which is limited in view of the low base of comparison. The human suffering in Gaza is enormous and unacceptable.
We remain cognizant of the far-reaching effects of this conflict, and continue to place it at the forefront of our dialogue with the US, which we look to its leadership and ability to assist the parties in undertaking the necessary courageous steps to achieve the needed peace.
As to the other regional hurdles, it is our belief that these are a reflection of a wider conflict among a number of regional and international actors and their conflicting interests. An open dialogue and cooperation in defining a course of action with this Administration continues on all these issues:
In Iraq, territorial integrity and stability is key. On our part, we are pursuing momentum in Egyptian-Iraqi bilateral relations. And, as the U.S. continues to complete its withdrawal plan, it is vital that every effort is exerted to avoid any deterioration of security in Iraq. The prime challenge is to deflect any political vacuum, rising sectarian strife and disintegration; all of which would have direct adverse consequences on the overall stability of the region and beyond.
Also, in Afghanistan, Egypt is closely engaged with the US and many other international partners to assist in alleviating the dire economic and social conditions there, and in confronting the roots of extremism.
Along with the challenge of the Iranian nuclear issue, the efforts by Tehran to expand its influence over the region is of great concern to us. Let me make this clear: while supporting the international community’s efforts to verify fully the nature of Iran’s nuclear ventures, the question of Israel’s nuclear capabilities and its continuing rejection to accede to the NPT comes to light and needs to be properly addressed, for one standard must apply to all. Israel must adhere fully to the NPT, Iran must cooperate fully with the IAEA; hence a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East becomes a reality.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To conclude, I would like to say that our aim, through cooperating with the United States, is to create a peaceful regional and international environment focusing on achieving stability and the prosperity of the people. We will continue to work to create a platform of mutual cooperation that involves Egypt and like-minded countries of the region, in order to confront all challenges.
The pivotal role that Egypt assumes as a regional leader grants the U.S. an effective partner able to deliver; one that would move forward with it. Through embarking on all avenues of cooperation, I am confident that the true potential of the Middle East will be realized, especially that we see many positive elements which can be harnessed towards creating what the region deserves.
Each — the U.S. and Egypt — is an asset to the other. We are proud of this relationship, and will exert our utmost not only to safeguard it, but to lift it to elevated levels for the sake of our nations and peoples.
Thank you…
March 4, 2010
Daily News Egypt
Jehan Sadat is a woman whose name is synonymous with a vital part of Egypt’s modern history. As the first lady of Egypt for 11 years that shaped the country as we know it now, she has been portrayed in different lights: from a loving mother, a pioneer in women’s rights movements, a philanthropist and a lecturer to the loved and misunderstood widow of an unforgettable leader.
Of the many she assumed over the past four decades, the last one the general public would expect the former first lady to take up is that of an artist.
Already a published writer and established teacher, Jehan Sadat is about to inaugurate her first exhibition, titled “Landscapes of the Heart 1986-2009,” at the Margo Veillon Gallery at AUC’s Tahrir campus this Sunday, March 7.
The nature of the event automatically raises a number of questions, the most obvious being: Why painting? There’s an element of curiosity that the artworks of a woman so heavily involved in society and politics incite: What would they portray and how would they be perceived. All of these queries were eloquently tackled and answered by the former first lady herself in an interview with Daily News Egypt last Tuesday.
When I asked her about her personal artistic history, Sadat laughed, stating that her first painting was made long before I was born.
“I painted for the first time about 55 years ago. I had just gotten married and without children or much else to do, I had an Italian art teacher give my sister and I painting classes. I was always interested in painting so I gave it a try,” Sadat said.
However, with responsibilities of being a mother and the first lady of a country in turmoil, the luxury of having free time to paint was soon over. Sadat was to go through some of the most difficult episodes of her lifetime, both as an Egyptian citizen as well as a wife and mother of four.
With the consequent assassination of president Anwar Sadat and his country and family’s strife to move forward, Mrs Sadat was determined not to stay idle.
“I hate not having anything to do; I always need to be busy. At first, I was always busy with my home and children. But as they grew and had their own children, I started to teach, write; make myself busy.”
It was 10 years ago when Mrs Sadat found herself facing a long weekend during a semester of teaching at the University of South Carolina in the US without much to do.
“I had five whole days of no teaching, no going to campus or seeing students. So I went out to an art supply store and bought paint and canvas.” Since then, she has been painting regularly whenever she has the time.
Her artwork is not what you’d expect from such a political icon. The paintings are calm, innocent and untainted landscapes; some depict Egyptian sceneries, others from the US. They’re surprisingly uncomplicated; with neat and controlled brushstrokes that closely mimic Sadat’s tranquil mannerisms. The words that best describe the paintings are sensible and temperate.
“I’m generally a calm person,” explains Sadat, “I deal with things in a matter of fact [way] and that includes my paintings. I paint what I miss: In the US I long for Egypt so I paint her landscapes, and while I’m in Egypt I miss the views I saw in the US so I paint those. It’s really very simple.”
It is that simplicity that catches the viewer off-guard. It becomes apparent that these paintings are the personal and intimate self-expressions of Jehan Safwat Raouf, a woman who has a myriad of titles and stigmas attached to her but who is ultimately a woman with an interest in art she desired to express.
The intriguing element about the work is that it negates expectations of what it would look like; it is an exact mirror of Jehan Sadat the woman, not the icon. The colors are childlike in their optimism, both bright and clear. No muddied waters appear in these landscapes, not even those of our muddied Nile.
“I’m a morning person,” she states with a sure smile, “I like to face the day, and I’m optimistic. I always felt that there’s something to look forward to no matter what one goes through. Perhaps that affects my choice of color.”
The most refreshing aspect of the paintings is how frank the former first lady seems to be of their conception. She refuses to add any deeper or complex attributes to her productions; asserting that they are simply personal self-expressions of nostalgia. She speaks of her decision to exhibit her work with the transparency of a fleeting thought.
“I showed my paintings to my neighbors and friends in the US and they liked them very much and were terribly excited. They said I should hold an exhibit to show my work. I thought it was a great idea, but I had to do it in Egypt first.”
On Egypt’s approach to the arts, Jehan Sadat is once again optimistic. “There are endless amounts of talented artists in our country, and many are still in the making. I believe that we have a lot of potential in getting ourselves international acclaim because we have the skill and creativity to do so.”
She proposes more gallery spaces for artists, and the inclusion of these gallery spaces in guided tours of Cairo and Egypt in general. “Just as we show the ancient Egyptian art, we should also show modern Egyptian art. It’s very important to people around the world to know about our talents today.”
She may not know it, but Jehan Sadat’s first artistic efforts might as well bring that objective into fruition: “Landscapes of the Heart’s” next display will naturally be in the US. However, and while it’s still in Cairo, it would be a shame not to go and view a side rarely revealed of the woman and icon whose public life and image has concealed so much of her own personal and intimate expression.
“Landscapes of the Heart 1986-2009” opens on Sunday, March 7, at the American University in Cairo’s Margo Veillon Gallery of Modern Egyptian Art, Downtown. The gallery is open daily from 4-8 pm.
March 4, 2010
Business Today
Loula Zaklama, a highly sought after advertising pioneer, Neveen El Tahri, chairperson and managing director of Delta Holding for Financial Investments, Sisters Hind and Nadia Wassef and Nihal Schawky, founding partners of successful bookstore chain Diwan, are five of the most prominent entrepreneurial women in Egypt. In an interview with Business Today, they reflect on their success and discuss why more women haven’t reached the upper echelons of the corporate world.
“It was very, very hard but it never occurred to me that I was going to be able to work or succeed,” says Zaklama. Five decades after she got started in advertising, Zaklama is still an outlier. Only 15% of private sector workers are female. Women make up just one in five small-or medium-sized business owners; in Western countries, the ratio is close to half. In Egypt, women need not look far to be reminded of their traditional roles. In the business community, the gender contrasts are emphasized even further.
El Safar explains that the stigma facing women manifests itself in unexpected ways. She cites difficulties getting loans for business start-ups as a prime example. Pressure on ambitious women is different than on their male counterparts, she says, and there are psychological barriers that need to be overcome along with more tangible obstacles. The gravity associated with requesting large loans often leads women to ask for less than their male colleagues might, she says.
But these entrepreneurial women do not seem phased by the things that set them apart from the men; in fact, they see them as an advantage. El Tahri believes that such differences are what make women more dedicated and eager to prove themselves. “I think it is part of our DNA and how we were brought up,” she says, explaining that from childhood girls are accustomed to gender disparities and that instills in them a drive to prove their capacity for success.
To read the entire article please click here.
March 4, 2010
Washington Post
For Muslims, peaceful coexistence is an obligation rather than a matter of choice. Prophet Muhammad was not only encouraged to engage the followers of Islam, Judaism and Christianity — the three monotheistic religions - in meaningful dialogue; he was commanded to do so.
This week in Washington, leaders of different Muslim and Christian faiths came together to discuss reconciliation between Islam and the Christian West at the Christian-Muslim Summit. I was honored to be a part of this dialogue and to join a myriad voices, from eminent religious leaders to the general public, to discuss ways to work together to promote peace efforts worldwide.
The 2007 open letter signed by 138 Muslim leaders, "A Common Word," has paved the way towards better understanding of religious diversity amongst Muslims. It opens with a line that best summarizes the Islamic position on interfaith dialogue: "Call unto the way of your Lord with wisdom and fair exhortation, and contend with them in the fairest way." (Ayah 125 of Surat Al-Nahl).
The Qur'anic command is also very clear on this topic: "Say: O People of the Book: Come to an agreement between us and you, that we worship none but God, and that we shall ascribe no partners to Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside God. And if they decline (your invitation for dialogue), then say: Bear witness that we shall (continue to) submit to God in Islam" (Al-Imran: 64). According to the Qur'an, interfaith dialogue should be proactively initiated by Muslims.
There are two important tenets to emphasize about the Islamic viewpoint on interfaith dialogue:
• The purpose of interfaith dialogue is not to necessarily conclude with a winner and a loser or to convert others, but rather to share one's principles. Sincere dialogue should strengthen a person's faith and at the same time break down barriers.
• Dialogue must not be confined to academic and intellectual circles. Its purpose is to demystify religious differences to everyday people and to uncover the words of truth that frequently get buried under human biases and tendencies to follow that which is convenient. Dialogue can only lead people to examine their religious identities more deeply.
With regard to interfaith dialogue and understanding taking place on an institutional level, al-Azhar University, the oldest, most respected and influential Sunni institution of higher education in the world, has long been active in reaching out to other religious communities, both within the Islamic world and on the international stage. This spirit of dialogue is evident in the fatwas, or rulings, of Al-Azhar Sheikhs, as well as in the activities of its scholars.
For example, in 1959, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mahmud Shaltut issued a fatwa proclaiming that the school of thought followed by Shiite Muslims is acceptable to Sunnis, bringing about a new era of dialogue and cooperation between the sects. Pope John Paul II visited Al-Azhar in 2000 after which a Muslim Catholic commission for dialogue that continues to meet regularly was founded.
More recently, in 2007, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, the head of Dar al-Ifta, one of the world's leading centers of Islamic authority, was a primary signatory of the "A Common Word" initiative which called for dialogue between Muslims and Christians based on the principles of love of God and love of neighbor. In a series of conferences based on this initiative, the Grand Mufti and other Muslim scholars from around the world have met with Christian leaders in the U.S, the UK, and with the Pope at the Vatican, where they discussed the importance of interfaith dialogue based on authentic scholarship and brotherly love.
Moreover, Al-Azhar University does not limit its involvement on the issue of interfaith dialogue to members of different faiths, but engages those within the Muslim community itself. Last year, Al-Azhar University devoted its annual international alumni conference to the theme of interfaith dialogue. The conference, which brought together former students from Egypt and around the Muslim World, explored the sources of inter-communal tension around the globe and stressed the importance of awareness of the common values shared by all the great faiths of the world.
It is not religion that is the root cause of world problems, as some people may want to assert, but rather the misunderstanding of religion that ends up plaguing the world. Interfaith dialogue can certainly serve to bring about a higher level of understanding of different religions on a global level, which will also hopefully lead to more tolerance, acceptance of others, and appreciation for all humanity.
Dr. Ahmad Mohamed El Tayeb is president of Cairo's Al-Azhar University and served as one of the principals in the Christian-Muslim Summit in Washington on March 1-3, 2010.
March 3, 2010
Voice of America
Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo have agreed to support a U.S. proposal for indirect peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told reporters Wednesday that members of the Arab League will back the talks for a period of four months.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is attending the Cairo meeting, has said he would abide by the Arab League's decision.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also welcomed the decision.
The announcement follows a U.S. offer to mediate discussions between the two sides in an effort to revive the stalled peace process.
On Tuesday, a U.S. State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said Washington believes Israel and the Palestinians are "getting closer" to starting a dialogue.
Talks broke down over a year ago. One of the biggest disputes is Israel's continued settlement activity in territory that Palestinians claim for a future state.
March 1, 2010
Daily News Egypt
Speaking at her alma mater, the American University in Cairo (AUC), Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan called for reigniting the spark of civic engagement, calling it an “indispensible part” of social progress in the region.
“Social progress doesn’t come from governments looking down, directing change. It comes from communities, families and individuals looking up, driving society forward themselves, fuelled by nothing more than an idea or instinct to do good … It comes from civic engagement,” were the strong words her majesty began with as she addressed students, alumni and educators.
She noted that students need to recognize the importance of civic engagement, a principal that is rooted in our culture.
“We need to accept responsibility to our society and become part of the social web, as citizenship is the sense of duty and pride and doing social good,” she said, adding that that lately citizenship has been spelt with a ‘s’ for “sit back and sit still.”
“A man demonstrates his true worthiness when he participates in community,” Queen Rania pointed out.
She referred to two role models for civic engagement within the Arab World. The first is AUC alumnus, Raghda El Ebrahsi, who founded Alashanek Ya Baladi, which started off as a community service club at AUC in 2002 and after graduation she turned it into an active NGO that caters to the society as a whole, regardless of financial class.
“For me the story is symbolic to the spark needed to ignite civic engagement … there is more to life than just possessions …the true value [of life] lies in people,” said Queen Rania.
The second is Sweilem Rihani, who, at the age of 15, was diagnosed with cancer. But instead of giving in to the illness, he defeated it and volunteered his time and effort to help other cancer patients.
“Raghda and Sweilam saw no ceilings and they made a difference … we need more of them,” she said, adding that the region is drowning in problems so we need to “look up to the open sky for possibilities.”
Queen Rania told the hundreds of students in the audience that they are the force that will decide the future of the region.
“No one can change everything but each one can do something, you can be the spark that sets the chain of motion…and together be a generation that looks up, reaches out and lifts our region,” she said.
In addition, students will also learn from these experiences in a way that would help them in their careers, she explained. “You learn team work, leadership, communication, problem solving, adaptability and open mindedness.”
Questions from the student body were brought forward by Student Union President Omar Kandil, who first asked about the ways to motivate students to participate in civic engagement.
“Improve the quality of teachers as they shape the next generation,” replied Queen Rania. “They also need to take the students out of the classrooms and onto the streets, teaching them what’s relevant to what is going on outside,” she added.
Citizens, she explained, can’t wait for governments to make the change.
“There needs to be more activism and less passiveness in our society. We need to realize that civic engagement is a path to development and a symptom of it.”
She also spoke of Islam and how outside the region it has been associated with aggression, violence and oppression of women and within the region became associated with political play.
“We have become preoccupied with just the technical aspects of the religion [leaving] the spiritual side and the actual values of our religion,” she said, adding that “Civic engagement is a central part of our religion.”
She noted that, “Civic engagement alone cannot elevate the country’s standard but it is an indispensible part.”
March 1, 2010
Egyptian State Information Service
Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif said on 28/2/2010 during the annual meeting with the members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt that Egypt succeeded to overcome global economic crisis repercussions as attested by the global economic institutions.
The Prime Minister called on the members of the chamber to highlight the strength of the Egyptian economy and its success in withstanding the effects of the global financial crisis. He said the Egyptian economy had achieved a growth rate of 5 per cent, in spite of the crisis.
Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Magdy Radi said the assignment of the door- knocking mission comes within the framework of efforts by the American Chambers of Commerce to interact with the US market.
He said the meeting addressed a number of important issues, such as the state of the Egyptian economy and the global economic crisis impact.
Radi said the Prime Minister asked the members of the chamber to convey to the US side a number of messages: that the Egyptian economy had overcome the global financial crisis, and that investors were confident in the Egyptian economic performance. The Prime Minister told the members of the chamber that the Egyptian government was keen to bring about a qualitative development of relations between Egypt and the US administration.
February 28, 2010
Daily News Egypt
Morgan Stanley upgraded its rating of the Egyptian stock market to “overweight”, adding Egypt to the ranks of China, Russia, Brazil, India, Malaysia and Poland as markets in which investors should acquire stock.
Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Barra calculates global stock market ratings for every country in its All Country World Index (ACWI), and includes Egypt in MSCI’s Emerging Market (EM) Index. The MSCI EM Index is a free-float weighted equity index; its 0.9 percent rise on Friday compared to only 0.4 percent increase seen by the MSCI World Index of securities from 23 developed countries.
Egypt’s upgrade follows a streak of optimism for emerging markets, although Michael Ganske, head of emerging-market research at Commerzbank AG in London, advised caution.
“Emerging markets are a strong, structural story… [But] today’s movement is a reaction to the market being quite depressed over the past couple of days. We are facing a period of higher volatility rather than a long-term, sustained rally,” Bloomberg quoted Ganske.
“There could be further to go in terms of a reversal in sentiment toward emerging markets,” said analysts Shanthi Nair and Rishav Dev at Nomura International Plc. “Valuations for emerging markets have still not moved into attractive territory,” stated the London-based analysts, according to Bloomberg, which added that “valuations in emerging markets remain expensive.”
Alarm that global recovery in 2010 remains slow has contributed to volatile markets worldwide. However, expectations for Egypt in 2010 remain robust.
Reham El Desoki, chief economist at investment bank Beltone Financial, commented on MSCI’s bullishness on Egypt. She told Daily News Egypt, “Most international organizations have been reporting positively on Egypt’s economy and its financial market, with the better than expected growth and the better financial performance compared to other emerging markets. We believe this could serve to attract more investors to Egypt in the short term, especially as organizations like the IMF and ratings agencies release positive views on Egypt.”
MSCI’s upgraded rating of Egyptian stock follows similar confidence expressed by Credit Suisse, which had upgraded its Egypt rating to “overweight” in September. In a report released at the time, Credit Suisse credited Egypt’s “attractive static and historic valuation levels relative to other emerging markets; third highest GDP growth rate for 2009 among emerging markets; expectations for the continuation of an expansionary money cycle.”
Credit Suisse’s preferred stock picks were Orascom Telecom, Orascom Construction, Telecom Egypt and EFG Hermes. In February Credit Suisse’s EMEA strategist Alex Redman maintained his ‘overweight’ stance.
Credit Suisse also cited Moody’s positive assessment of Egypt’s investment outlook. Although rising inflation in 2008 had caused the investor’s service to lower Egypt to a “negative” rating, as early as August 2009, Moody’s had upgraded Egypt to “stable.”
Although rampant inflation has been assuaged, according to Tristan Cooper, Moody’s Head Analyst for Middle East Sovereigns, inflationary pressure remains a concern. "This, combined with slower growth and rising unemployment, continues to present challenges in light of the country's poor social indicators," he explained following the release of Moody’s improved rating.
Moody’s listed the government’s ability to contain its deficit despite stimulus measures as a motivating factor for confidence in Egypt. Furthermore, Egypt was able to come through the global economic crisis due to a “moderate level of economic openness, a solid external position a well-diversified economy, and stable banking system with limited foreign exposure.”
However, on-going deficits and public debt burdens, credit concerns, and weak public finances are among the anxieties that prevent Moody’s from appearing as bullish on Egypt as some other rating agencies.
A note released Feb. 25 by investment bank EFG Hermes reported, “Having been the best stock market performer globally (up 12 percent) in the first seven weeks of 2010 … the market has fallen over the past week.” This recent downslide was attributable to local factors, “rising valuations, lower local cash positions, and worsening retail investor sentiment.”
The note explained that foreign investors bought heavily in early 2010, and therefore EFG Hermes anticipated short-term weakness while profits are taken.
Regarding the lack of retail investors, EFG Hermes gave two reasons: “ongoing and pending rights issues have reduced retail investors’ available cash positions … and retail investor sentiment has soured due to regulatory investigations into a number of local brokerages and small-cap stocks.”
EFG Hermes corroborated optimism in Telecom Egypt and Orascom Telecom, though admitted to possible high volatility especially for Orascom Telecom, which is still embroiled in an ownership dispute with France Telecom over mobile subscriber Mobinil. EFG Hermes recommends companies engaged in the government’s plans for infrastructure development. El Sewedy Cables and Orascom Construction are recommended, despite their relatively low upside potential, or likely stock price increase.
Analysis of Egypt’s 2010 forecast continues to call for GDP growth of 5 percent, with the caveat that internal consumption and government strategies will become unsustainable, should international investment fail to pick up.
February 23, 2010
Ahmed el-Beheri
President Hosni Mubarak criticized conferences on inter-religious dialogue in other countries, saying that because such conferences take place "behind closed doors, they don't reach the hearts and minds of the public."
The president's comments were part of a speech given on his behalf by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif at the inaugural session of the 22nd International Islamic Conference of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, entitled "The Objectives of the Islamic Sharia and Contemporary Issues."
In his speech, Nazif mentioned several thoughts by President Mubarak on the subject of religious extremism and tolerance:
People from other religions misunderstand Islam, so Islamic scholars must double their efforts to promote the real image of Islam and Muslims;
The president renews calls for "an enlightened religious discourse based on tolerance and acceptance of others;”
Muslims are in need of an educational system and media outlets that embody these values;
Waves of fanaticism and extremism among youth hinder development efforts in the Islamic world and prevent Muslims from taking serious steps toward development and progress.
Egyptian Minister of Endowments Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzoq attended the conference and said that all prejudice concerning Islam should be addressed. He criticized movements in the Islamic world that seek to instill false religious concepts among youth and push some of them to carry out foolish acts.
Pope Shenouda III, also present at the conference, focused his speech on the freedom of religion called for by Islam, citing a verse from the Quran that states that there should be no compulsion in religion. He also described religion as a private relationship between an individual and God.
To read the original article, please click here.
February 22, 2010
Egypt Today
Though problems persist, NGOs are starting to make headway
By Jessica Gray and John Prosser
Before the Alwan wa Awtar (Colors and Strings) center opened in 2006, nine-year-old Hoda Moustafa had never held a crayon. Like most of her peers living in the shanty towns around the Moqattam Hills, Moustafa grew up in by abject poverty. Her parents, unable to afford basic school supplies, did the best they could to provide for her but were more concerned with where their next meal would come from than teaching their children to sing or draw. All that changed the day she was taken under the wing of Alwan wa Awtar founder Azza Kamel.
“Moustafa was a very shy and insecure child. Most of the children that come in are the same. They’re not used to speaking or thinking for themselves,” says Kamel. She remembers Moustafa’s fear of her first drawing lesson. “She kept saying, ‘I don’t know how to draw. I’m hopeless!’” Undaunted, staff continued to encourage Moustafa, refusing to allow the girl’s self-doubt to prevent her from reaching her potential.
Four years later, Moustafa, now 14, has become a role model in her community. She joined a choir, has been featured in television interviews about the center and even placed second in a national peace poster contest.
For Kamel, there is no greater reward than seeing these children conquer their fears and express themselves through art and performance. The center, which began with just 30 students, now caters to over 4,000 and employs over 40 staff members, volunteers and teachers dedicated to giving children a safe haven to escape the streets.
Alwan wa Awtar is just one of thousands of grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) nationwide that have flourished in recent years. Born out of a public desire to improve peoples’ lives — from basic education, health and social services to poverty alleviation efforts, infrastructure development and environmental awareness — community development leaders say reduced bureaucracy and a steady supply of willing volunteers have given them a fertile environment in which to grow and prosper.
But it doesn’t stop there. The trend toward greater civil engagement has extended to big business through corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and domestic involvement from international NGOs, establishing a new environment for public-private partnerships and innovation. While there are still concerns about Egypt’s seemingly insurmountable poverty rates and government reluctance to embrace change, social entrepreneurs aren’t prepared to let the challenges ahead keep them from making a difference.
Cutting Through Red Tape
Ministry of Social Solidarity figures show that the number of NGOs has risen substantially in recent years, from 15,000 in 1999 to over 27,000 as of 2008. Current estimates put that number at around 28,000. The ministry attributes the jump to Law 84/2002, which standardized registration procedures and revamped the rules and regulations governing NGOs. The law also exempted NGOs from certain fees and taxes, freeing up cash that could be better used to serve people in need. The government has also allotted LE 100 million in additional funds that NGOs can apply for through the NGOs Assistance Fund.
Wael El-Zoghby, executive director of the Baladna (Our Country) Foundation for Civil Society Development, says the 2002 law was instrumental to the growth of development organizations like his own. Baladna has trained more than 100 social entrepreneurs since it began operations in 2008. Currently finishing coursework in NGO management at Cairo University, El-Zoghby says his organization would never have gotten off the ground under the old law issued under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
“Law 84/2002 was implemented around 40 years after its predecessor. [] The [previous] law did not promote civil society or NGO work,” says El-Zoghby. “It let the government control everything and appoint each NGO’s board of trustees.”
Motaz Mahmoud Elewa is the community programs coordinator of Ofok Systems, an NGO providing information technology-based training to help individuals find employment and develop professionally. He agrees that government reins on NGOs have been loosened.
“In the last 10 years no NGO in Egypt could do anything without the government knowing exactly what it was,” says Elewa. “There’s no pressure anymore. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that?’ There’s more flexibility. Not because they don’t care but because they [recognize] NGOs are doing something positive.”
The ministry intends to further streamline the process and has created a committee supervised by the General Federation of NGOs and Civil Organizations, but the committee has yet to make any recommendations.
Dr. Adli Bishay, executive director and co-founder of the Friends of Environment and Development Association, says there is still too much red tape for NGOs that receive funding from international donors like the Egyptian Swiss Development Fund. In 2009, only 312 NGOs were allowed to accept international donations. His organization depends on funds from several global groups and would be unable to continue to support infrastructure development projects in Gamalia without access to that money.
“Once you get support, most of which comes from different international organizations, then you find another problem. The Ministry of Social Solidarity [examines] every small amount of support you get, in the name of security,” he says. “Every program that is foreign supported has to go through a number of security agencies before you get to use any of the money.”
He adds that the lengthy wait for funding approval can strain relationships with donors. Despite that, he admits that running an NGO is much easier than when he started in 1992.
Bishay says the constant requirement of documents and approvals at every stage before, during and after construction, was one of the main reasons that three buildings his organization built or renovated in Gamalia were finished years behind schedule. The most recent project, the establishment of an electrical and maintenance training center, officially opened at the beginning of 2008, long after Friends of Environment and Development Association had hoped it would.
Overlapping Enthusiasm
Despite some of the issues still facing NGOs, there is no shortage of willing volunteers looking to get involved — be they fresh university graduates or captains of industry. Many pioneers behind grassroots movements are young graduates, according to Ofok’s Elewa, but NGOs increasingly resemble big businesses in the way they are run.
“In the very beginning, civil society began by charity. People took care of each other [ by] making donations to each other,” says Elewa. “But this developed [and people began] to take this kind of charity to a bigger scale.”
A typical example is the Egyptian Food Bank (EFB), founded by a group of successful businessmen — with backgrounds as diverse as real estate and textiles — with the goal of utilizing their combined experience and connections to give something back to the community.
“God gave us a lot,” says Moez El Shohdi, CEO of the EFB, “and we thought we have to return some of that to the community — poor people especially.” He points out that this mentality is not necessarily limited to the wealthy, but manifests in anyone who wants to see an improvement in their surroundings. “It’s very easy [to find volunteers,]” says Shohdi, “but it’s a recent trend.”
Such eagerness to get involved with NGOs, however, needs to be better focused to avoid redundancy of organizations, says Iman Bibars, Ashoka Arab World’s MENA regional director. Instead of simply starting a new charity or development organization, people interested in civic duty should first see if there are any established groups that have similar programs in place.
“Some people have so much distrust of NGOs that they start their own, reinventing the wheel. This means they are competing with traditional NGOs. Very few business people from the private sector get involved in established NGOs,” she says.
Ashoka encourages this attitude by allowing established social entrepreneurs to access endowments worth LE 250,000 over the course of two years. The money is provided by private businesses and donors. Ashoka has so far awarded more than 50 such grants to Arab social entrepreneurs, many of them hailing from Egypt.
The future for NGOs in Egypt depends on a large number of factors, according to Ashoka’s Bibars, such as the political and economic stability of the region and how quickly donor money returns in the wake of the global economic slowdown.
There is also the question of how effective the majority of the country’s 27,000-plus NGOs are. That said, nobody can deny there are thousands of NGOs genuinely changing the lives of Egypt’s poorest citizens.
An attentive student and community activist in her own right, young Hoda Moustafa now wants to be a medical doctor; a dream she never would have pursued without the guidance of Kamel and her team at Alwan wa Awtar. Though Kamel has her doubts as to whether the government has made enough of an effort to promote social entrepreneurship here, she believes community leaders can still have a long-lasting effect on younger generations.
“Once youth actually get working with their communities they become really passionate about it,” she says. “We work with a lot of youth. I see a trend in that youth are leaving the private sector and high paid positions to work in development.” et
Egyptian Food Bank
F ormed four years ago by a group of successful businessman, the Egyptian Food Bank (EFB) has set itself the lofty aim of eradicating hunger in Egypt. Funded by commercial sponsors and private donations, the organization distributes food to underprivileged citizens — orphans, widows, the elderly and those unable to work — through 891 partner NGOs spread throughout the country.
A distinguishing feature of the EFB is its business-minded approach to non-profit work. Although it accepts all kinds of donations, the organization insists on funding any promotional campaigns itself and produces branded food products and distribution containers at its own factories operated at a profit — all benefits get put to good use elsewhere.
The breadth of experience garnered by EFB board members gives them diverse contacts through which innovative collaborations with the private sector can be established. Just one example: The EFB provides more than 17 million meals per month by redistributing leftover food from hotels and resorts — a scheme championed by the EFB CEO Moez El Shohdi, a former hotelier.
Friends of Environment and Development Association
Friends of Environment and Development Association was established in 1992 to bring attention to the importance of environmental issues and extreme poverty in Egypt. The association began its work by spending two years researching these issues, only to find that few cared when the paper was published and distributed. Undaunted, the association’s members decided to take matters into their own hands and rebuild and/or renovate three buildings in the Gamalia district of Cairo, one of the city’s poorest areas, best-known as the neighborhood of Naguib Mahfouz’s youth. The final building of the project, which houses a training center for electricians and appliance mechanics, was completed in 2008. The association operates thanks to international donors.
Alwan wa Awtar
A lwan wa Awtar began connecting impoverished children in Moqattam with art in February 2006. Starting with just 30 students, the center now serves over 4,000. The aim is to develop soft skills through performance art, music and drawing. The center also promotes education and has a community library. The goal for Alwan wa Awtar is getting youth off the streets and into an environment where they are free to express themselves and grow without fear of being discriminated against because of their poverty. Azza Kamel, the center’s founder, hopes to expand on the center’s course offerings with the help of over 40 staff members, volunteers and teachers with whom she collaborates.
Ashoka
A shoka is a global organization dedicated to supporting social entrepreneurship through endowments. The group’s regional office opened in Cairo in 2004. Since then, Ashoka Arab World has welcomed over 50 Ashoka Fellows, many of whom are from Egypt. Some of last year’s fellows include Azza Kamel from Alwan wa Awtar and Mohamed Sawy of the Sawy Culture Wheel. Ashoka also hosts social entrepreneurship conferences and has initiated several programs of its own to support the community at large, such as the Housing for All program, dedicated to providing affordable housing for low-income families, and the Ashoka Youth Venture to encourage young people to get involved in social entrepreneurship.
Ofok
O fok is a community-focused NGO helping individuals develop skills for the workplace through training in a range of information technology skills. Classes held at their offices in Mohandiseen also offer students business advice so they can optimize their career efforts, either by setting up their own enterprises or through partnership schemes with global IT firms such as Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft.
February 18, 2010
America.Gov
Egypt and the League of Arab States are fighting piracy as part of an international effort that includes nearly 50 nations and seven international organizations. The Contact Group, which utilizes the maritime and justice systems, was established to address piracy in the waters of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, and their initiatives appear to be working. Since 2007, though the number of pirate attacks has increased, their rate of successfulness has decreased. 63 percent of attacks were successful in 2007. In 2008, only 34 percent of attacks were successful and last year that rate dropped to an average of 25 percent. According to officials, the rate of successful attacks has fallen to nearly zero since the summer of 2009.
To read the original article, please click here.
February 17, 2010
Q & A: Egypt's Zahi Hawass on King Tut findings
USA TODAY
Feb 16, 2010
Investigators released a genetic and medical profile of King Tut's family Tuesday, led by Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. We asked Hawass to comment on the Journal of the American Medical Association study findings by email:
1. What do you see as the role of Molecular Egyptology in answering outstanding questions in the field?
A: Molecular Egyptology shows great promise for helping us solve many Egyptological mysteries. We can find out many things about family relationships, and also about some diseases. If this work is done scientifically, it an help Egyptology and can open a new and larger role for forensic science in the reconstruction of history.
2. How do you see these results affecting the view of the 18th dynasty family?
A: The history of the 18th Dynasty has many questions. The Amarna period, to which Tutankhamun belonged, has been especially vague. In the Family of Tutankhamun project, we will continue to work to try to identify both the mother and wife of Tutankhamun, and also study other family relationships.
3. How promising are the prospects for a similar examination of other royal (or other) mummies?
A: Yes, we will also study other family relationships. Next we will study the family of Ramesses II, where there are still a number of questions to be answered.
We hope to be able to put names to some of the other unidentified mummies, as we have done for Akhenaten and Tiye, from caches of royal mummies that were hidden after the end of the New Kingdom (the period when Tutankhamun and Ramesses II lived). You have to know that these mummies were hidden away at night by later priests, and they made some mistakes because they were human beings like us. So it is fascinating for us to try to use science to trace the truth.
4. What other points do you see as important about the study?
A: I am also very proud that we were able to do this work in Egypt, with an Egyptian team. The participation of our international consultants was certainly essential to the process, but our team was Egyptian, and this is very important for the future.
By Dan Vergano
February 12, 2010
The building that houses the office in charge of the nation’s museums at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) downtown is grand but half-finished. With some work, it could be truly magnificent. Whether that work gets done anytime soon is anyone’s guess. The same could be said about the SCA’s colossal undertaking to give the country’s staggering collection of artifacts a new showcase.
Flush with ticket revenue from international exhibitions and local tourist sites, the SCA is in the midst of a project that will see 20 new museums covering every governorate, and long-closed favorites re-opening to the public over the next five years. More than just cash cows feeding on tourist dollars, however, the new museums are also hope to reconnect Egyptians with their own heritage, in their own neighborhoods.
“Ten years ago, we didn’t have any [major] museum, only the Egyptian Museum,” says Mohamed Abdel Fattah, head of the SCA’s Museum Sector.
Indeed, the nation’s most famous museum is also its most infamous, with many visitors complaining about poor lighting and labels, crowded displays and no air conditioning.
Renovation projects have added new display spaces for the royal mummies, temporary exhibitions and a revamped outdoor museum in the back garden. In January, a permanent children’s museum opened on the premises. The fact remains, however, that the nation’s collection of Pharaonic artifacts alone had outgrown the Egyptian Museum almost as soon as it opened in Tahrir Square in 1902.
The Downtown location was also considered a problem. “The people [in other governorates] are not able [] to come to Cairo to see the museum,” says Abdel Fattah. “We have to reach out to these people. We have to tell them about their civilization, about the history of their governorate.”
Until 2002, the museums were focused almost solely on the major tourist centers. Opened in 1892, Alexandria’s Greco-Roman Museum had a similar storehouse feel until it closed for renovation in 2005. The Luxor Museum opened in 1975, with a renovation and new annex completed in 2005. The Nubia Museum in Aswan opened in 1997, after 30 years in the planning.
When Dr. Zahi Hawass was appointed head of the SCA in 2002, he aggressively pushed for the new museums, according to Abdel Fattah. The SCA drafted a plan to build a museum in every governorate, as well as jumpstart stalled renovations on several others, including the Sohag Museum, delayed since 1998 and now set to open within a year.
Since then, the SCA has seen the Alexandria National Museum open in 2003, the Coptic Museum in Cairo reopen in 2006 after a complete makeover; a new site museum about the Pharaonic architect Imhotep open at Saqqara and, in November 2009, the re-opening of Howard Carter’s dig house on Luxor’s West Bank as a museum about the man who discovered King Tut.
Part of the SCA’s plan is to air out the Egyptian Museum, transferring more than 20 percent of the objects, including the famed royal mummies, to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) in El Fustat, due to open in two years. King Tutankhamun’s treasures will be moved to the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) being built at the Giza Plateau, which the Museum Sector head confirms is on schedule to open in five years. Abdel Fattah emphasizes that after an extensive renovation, the Egyptian Museum will still showcase some of the best antiquities.
In the short term, the Suez Museum, focused on the Suez Canal, is the first to be unveiled, expected to open in April this year. The renovation of Alexandria’s Royal Jewelry Museum is also near completion; according to Abdel Fattah, the SCA is “reviewing the labels” on exhibits while preparing for the opening ceremony.
Several other regional museums have already been built and are awaiting the next step. The Aten Museum in Minya — a 25-feddan complex dedicated to Akhenaten, the first monotheist pharaoh — is awaiting only on interior design work. The Sohag Museum, looking at the pre-dynastic period circa 4000 BC, is at a similar stage, as is the regional museum in Sharm El-Sheikh, which, according to Abdel Fattah, will open in a year and a half. The Crocodile Museum, next to the Temple of Kom Ombo, is complete and will open soon.
The SCA sees museums as a self-generating investment. Revenues from existing museums and international exhibitions have padded the SCA’s coffers, according to Abdel Fattah. In 2008, Dr. Hawass told Al Ahram Weekly that the SCA earned nearly $350 million (LE 1.9 billion) from 23 international exhibitions, such as the still-touring Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of the Pharaohs, over the last five years. The money is being funneled back into SCA projects with potential for big returns.
“I think within five years, the whole map [of Egyptian museums] will change,” says Abdel Fattah.
To that end, these new museums represent more than an attractive way to house artifacts: They symbolize a new way of thinking about how the country’s antiquities are preserved and presented to the public, especially to the nation’s youth. In addition to on-site conservation labs to preserve the artifacts, features like the Egyptian Museum’s new children’s exhibit will be a staple at all the new museums.
February 5, 2010
Delivered on January 21, 2010
Egypt’s national security, understood comprehensively, is my primary responsibility, and I will accept neither complacency nor half-measures in regards to it.
We live in an unstable world, and a difficult region. It would be a mistake to ignore the growing ring of instability extending from Afghanistan and Pakistan, through Iran, Iraq and Yemen, and to Somalia and Sudan.
It would be a mistake to ignore the growing tides of sectarianism in the Arab & African regions and the world as a whole, nor attempts to ignite discord between the people of one nation such as demands for quotas, incidents of violence and bloodshed, and attempts to use foreign powers for domestic leverage; and external interferences that fuels fires, and which act according to their own interests and agendas.
The criminal attack in Nagaa Hamaady has shaken the nation’s conscience, shocked our sensibilities, and pained the hearts of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians.
Notwithstanding the execution of my orders to quickly capture the perpetrators, and refer them to the Emergency State Security Court, this horrific incident against the Copts on the Christmas Eve demands that all of us, Muslims and Copts, take a serious and forthright stand with ourselves.
I have received numerous reports from state agencies, and fact finding missions, which lay out the details of this sinful attack, including its background, details, and possible motives.
I, as President of the Republic, and of all Egyptians, warn against the dangers of undermining the unity of our people, and of conflict between its Muslims and Copts, and I state, in the clearest possible terms, that I will not be lenient with those, from either side, who attempt to undermine it or show contempt for it.
I was commander of the Air College in 1968, when Israeli warplanes bombed Nagaa Hammadi, and destroyed the Qena bridge. On that day, there was no difference between the blood of a Muslim and a Christian among the victims of that aggression. When we fought the October War, the people of Egypt, from all sides, sacrificed their blood and lives, and lifted the Egyptian flag over Sinai.
We are witnessing incidents and phenomena that are alien to our society, driving it to ignorance and fanaticism, and fed by the absence of an enlightened religious discourse from the men of Al-Azhar and the Church.
A religious discourse that must be supported by our educational system, our media, and our writers and thinkers; One that confirms the values of citizenship, that religion belongs to God, and the nation belongs to all; One that promotes the understanding that religion is a matter between a human and his Lord, and that Muslim and Christian Egyptians are partners in one nation, and that they are faced with the same difficulties, and that they share the same aspirations for a better future for themselves, their children, and grandchildren.
This is a necessary and vital role that must be played by the wise and the reasoned of our nation from all sides; One that confronts sectarian incitement, contains extremism, and which strives to build an advanced Egyptian society and modern and civil state; One which calls upon Muslims and Copts to strive to build schools and hospitals, assist the poor, and serve the nation.
The normal frictions of the daily lives of citizens, if they should develop a sectarian dimension, become a time bomb that ignites discord, undermines both pillars of the nation, and harms the image of our society, opening the door to foreign attempts, which we refuse, to interfere in purely Egyptian affairs that concern the children of a single family, and single Egyptian society.
To both wings of our society, I say, in the clearest possible terms, that we shall confront any sectarian crimes, acts or behaviors with the force and resolve of the law, with swift and effective justice, and stern sentences that will impose the severest penalties against their perpetrators and inciters, and which will deter those who make light of the security of our nation and the unity of its people.
February 4, 2010
Egypt's antiquities chief on Thursday unveiled the completion of an 8-year, $14.5 million restoration of the world's oldest Christian monastery, touting it as a sign of Christian-Muslim coexistence.
The announcement at the 1,600-year-old St. Anthony's Monastery came a month after Egypt's worst incident of sectarian violence in over a decade, when a shooting on a church on Orthodox Christmas Eve killed seven people.
The attack raised heavy criticism of the Egyptian government abroad and at home, by critics who say it has not done enough to address tensions between the country's Muslim majority and its Christian population, estimated at 10 percent of the 79 million population.
The government insists the shooting was a purely criminal act with no sectarian motives, and officials persistently deny the existence of significant Muslim-Christian frictions.
Top archaeologist Zahi Hawass took the opportunity to reiterate that stance as he showed journalists the work at St. Anthony's, an ancient compound at the foot of the desert mountains near Egypt's Red Sea coast.
"The announcement we are making today shows to the world how we are keen to restore the monuments of our past, whether Coptic, Jewish or Muslim," he said, referring to the dominant Orthodox Coptic Christian sect in Egypt.
"The incident in Upper Egypt can happen between two brothers," said Hawass when asked if there was any correction between the Dec. 6 shooting and the timing of his announcement at the monastery. "I want everyone to forgot this incident."
Hawass noted that the restoration work at the monastery was carried out by Muslims.
St. Anthony, widely revered as the founder of Christian monasticism, settled in this remote mountainous area at the end of the 3rd century to live in isolation. Upon his death, his followers built the monastery, which was completed around A.D. 350 remains in use to this day.
In the government-sponsored project, workers renovated the fortress-like ancient wall surrounding the monastery and the walls of its two main churches - the 14th century Church of the Apostles and the 6th century Church of St. Anthony. They also renovated monks' quarters and a 6th century tower into which monks would retreat during attacks by marauding Bedouin tribes throughout the Middle Ages.
A modern sewage system was also installed for the monastery, which is home to several dozen monks and is frequently visited by Christian pilgrims.
Amid the renovations, archaeologists from the American Research Center in Egypt discovered the remains of the original monks' cells dating back to the 4th century under the Church of the Apostles. After they were excavated, archeologists in 2008 covered them with thick glass so that visitors to the church can see them below their feet. ARCE also renovated stucco paintings in Church of St. Anthony.
February 4, 2010
The Egyptian national soccer team recently returned from Angola, where it participated in the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations. Egypt was one of sixteen countries to qualify for the tournament. The team, whose nickname is “The Pharaohs,” won its first three matches in the initial group stage to advance to the knockout round.
After securing a 3-1 victory against Cameroon in the quarterfinals, the Pharaohs were set for a semifinal matchup against rival Algeria, which had recently defeated Egypt in a hard-fought World Cup qualifying match. This time, it was the Egyptians who had the upper hand, defeating their rival 4-0 and gaining redemption for their previous loss.
The final game against Ghana saw the Pharaohs score the lone goal of the match to secure a 1-0 victory and the Africa Cup of Nations title.
This was the third championship in a row for Egypt and the seventh overall, more than any other country. Impressively, the Egyptians won their title while going undefeated and only surrendering two goals in the entire tournament. Their effort was enough to vault the Pharaohs into the #10 spot in the FIFA world rankings, the highest ranking in the nation’s history.
The team was welcomed back to their homeland amid widespread celebrations and a special ceremony with President Hosni Mubarak.
December 14, 2009
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has begun making its national archives digitally available on the Internet in Arabic, having last month registered the world's first domain name in Arabic script.
The initiative to boost use of Arabic on the Web was launched on Monday following the domain name registration, which opened the Internet to millions of Arabic speakers put off by a language barrier.
Analysts say Arabic is just 1 per cent of Web content.
Egypt, the first of nine Arab countries to have registered so far, has adopted the domain name .misr -- the Arabic word for Egypt and which will be spelt in Arabic script.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel said both initiatives are part of the country's push to boost Arabic e-content and broaden access to Arabic speakers.
"In the future this (digital processing of Egypt's National Archives) will be very useful when we have the Arabic domain really operational," Communications and Information Technology Minister Tarek Kamel told Reuters.
"We are now preparing the content in Arabic that really reflects the long history of Egypt in digital form," he added.
Internet regulator ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, says the new Arabic domains are expected to start working during 2010.
Technology services firm IBM and Egypt's government led the project for digitally documenting the National Archives to set up a database for the country's cultural heritage.
"Arabic content on the Web will be increased by 25 million records in the National Archive's database," IBM Project Manager Ahmed Amr Ali told Reuters, adding that the National Archives' website had a sample of 1 million documents on the Web so far.
ICANN, which oversees Web addresses and records the names of their sponsors, voted to allow non-Latin script to be used in Web addresses in mid-November.
"Domain names will give millions of users access to Web addresses in their own language," said ICANN's Baher Essam.
"If you go out in rural areas and places outside big cities the majority are much more comfortable using all electronic services in Arabic," he said, adding mobile use would not have risen so fast in Egypt, where about 50 million of its 77 million people are users, without Arabic-language ability on phones.
Analysts said launching Arabic domain names was only a first step and Arab states should do more to help build up content.
"There are about 300 million Arabs and Arab content on the Web is only 1 percent of the global content ... this is abysmal," American University in Cairo assistant professor Rasha Abdulla said.
December 2, 2009
Rayburn House Office Building
9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Come learn about Egypt during an information display at the Rayburn House Office. There will be posters with facts about Egypt, as part of the Egyptian Press & Information Office's 100 Facts campaign. You can also peruse the Press Office's new Web site, www.modernegypt.info, or sign-up to receive updates and e-alerts about Egypt.
The Rayburn House Office Building is located southwest of the Capitol, between Independence Avenue and South Capitol Street and First Street and C Street, S.W. The display will be in the foyer of the first floor.
November 9, 2009
CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt's new ambassador to Iraq has arrived in Baghdad, a diplomatic source said on Saturday of Cairo's first diplomatic representative in the country since its charge d'affaires was killed in 2005.
Sharif Kamal Shahin, a diplomat with 27 years' experience and a former ambassador to Zambia, arrived in Iraq on Friday, the source said.
Egypt's foreign ministry spokesman has described the move as an "important step to promote relations between the two Arab countries."
Shahin's arrival in Baghdad comes just days after a visit to Egypt by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
Cairo has had no official diplomatic representative in Iraq since the July 2005 abduction and murder by Al-Qaeda of its diplomat Ihab al-Sharif in Baghdad.
In October 2008, Ahmed Abul Gheit made the first visit by an Egyptian foreign minister to Iraq in 18 years.
Egyptian oil companies have said they are studying infrastructure and refining operations in Iraq.
November 9, 2009
"I was shocked as any sensible human being did when I learned about the senseless, appalling and cowardly act of violence in Fort Hood. This horrific attack is a complete violation of Islamic law and norms and the perpetrator is no way representative of the Muslim people or the religion of Islam. God upholds the sanctity of life as a universal principle. "and do not kill one another, for God is indeed merciful unto you" says the Quran in (4:29). Islam views murder as both a crime punishable by law in this world and as major sin punishable in the Afterlife as well. Prophet Mohammad said, "The first cases to be decided among the people on the Day of Judgment will be those of blood-shed.
"The Islam that we were taught in our youth is a religion that calls for peace and mercy. The first prophetic saying that is taught to a student of Islam is "Those who show mercy are shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Show mercy to those who are on earth and the One in the heavens will show mercy to you. What we have learnt about Islam has been taken from the clear, pristine, and scholarly understanding of the Quran, "O people we have created you from a single male and female and divided you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another." When God said "to know one another" He did not mean in order to kill one another. All religions have forbidden the killing of innocents. To kill an innocent human being is tantamount to killing the entire humanity.
"Let me be clear by reiterating that Islam is utterly against extremism and terrorism but unless we understand the factors that provide a rationalization for terrorism and extremism we will never be able to eradicate this scourge. This must be understood in order to build a better future that can bring an end to this grave situation that is destroying the world.
"My heart, my thoughts, and my prayers go out to the families who lost their loved ones. We offer our deepest and sincerest condolences to the families of the victims and pray for a speedy recovery of the wounded. We demand the perpetrator to be brought to justice and stand the trial.
Click here to read the rest of the article
October 4, 2009
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit reaffirmed Egypt’s support for the Yemeni government and people during his visit to Sanaa on Saturday.
"We reject... any form of rebellion and any foreign interference (in Yemen). Egypt is supporting its sister state Yemen by all means at its disposal," he told reporters in Sanaa.
The visit comes as Arab governments moved on Sunday to support Sanaa in its bid to crush rebels in northern Yemen, while clashes erupted in the southern city of Dhaleh over the detention of southerners viewed by the authorities as secessionists.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa is due in Sanaa on Tuesday to meet President Ali Abdullah Saleh and discuss efforts to restore calm.
September 28, 2009
Reuters
Egypt's first solar power station will operate at full capacity in 2010, state news agency MENA reported on Monday.
The agency quoted Minister of Electricity Hassan Younes saying the station, located just south of Cairo in Koraymat, would have a capacity of 140 megawatts.
The power station is part of a larger facility that also includes three non-solar units and is expected to generate 2,900 megawatts once it comes on-stream.
Younes said the project was already connected to the national electricity distribution grid, adding that 99 percent of Egypt's population was connected to the grid, the highest rate in Africa.
Egypt aims to generate 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020.
September 27, 2009
Cincinnati Enquirer
A 6,000-square-foot exhibit titled “Lost Egypt: Ancient Secrets, Modern Science” opens in October at the Cincinnati Museum Center. On display will be the mummy of a 4 year old boy, along with real artifacts and hands on activities illustrating Egypt’s culture and people.
The exhibit was created and produced by the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, where it premiered in May, and was built by the Science Museum of Minnesota. It includes human and animal mummies and scans showing what's inside them, a life-size rapid prototype of a mummy in a stage of unwrapping, forensic facial reconstructions and videos and photos showing Egyptology experts in the field.
The mummy of the young boy will appear at the exhibit's stop at the Museum Center, which received it as a gift from the Cincinnati Art Museum earlier this month. Museum Center officials believe Lost Egypt will mark the first time the mummy has been on exhibit. With no hieroglyphs to indicate his real name on the linen wrappings, they have named him Umi, which is pronounced "OO-me" and means "life."
"It hasn't been treated with total care, but it's still in remarkable condition," says Gene Kritsky, a biology professor at the College of Mount St. Joseph and a former Fulbright scholar in Egypt who has studied Egyptian amulets and hieroglyphics extensively.
The 38-inch-long mummy first arrived in Cincinnati in 1950, when the Cincinnati Art Museum acquired it from Edward L. Bernays of New York, a nephew of Sigmund Freud and a public relations pioneer whose clients included Procter & Gamble. In a 1949 letter, Bernays wrote that he obtained the mummy from "a distinguished student of the Near East," according to the Museum Center.
The University of Cincinnati took radiographic scans of the mummy in 1983, which revealed 24 small amulets and that the mummy likely was a 3- or 4-year-old boy based on its teeth and skeleton. The mummy originally had been identified as that of an 8- or 9-year-old princess.
But further investigation conducted this year has revealed much more about the mummy. University of Cincinnati radiologists conducted CT (computerized tomography) scans that produced high-resolution images showing things the 1983 scans could not detect: Molded reliefs of the amulets of Egyptian deities, animals and symbols and a wooden board, painted with hieroglyphs, on which the skeleton rests. With carbon dating, the board could help determine the child's age.
September 24, 2009
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Egypt’s ambassador to the United States told a standingroom-only-crowd at the Clinton School of Public Service on Wednesday that resolving the many challenges in the Middle East, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is in the world’s best interest.
“The Israeli-Palestian conflict remains the most pressing issue in the Middle East,” Sameh Shoukry said during the lunchtime speech in Little Rock.
Shoukry acknowledged that Iran’s nuclear ambitions must be addressed and extremism must be combated, but said reaching a settlement for Mideast peace is vital.
“Resolving the conflict permanently and comprehensively with the goal of establishing ... a viable and sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza would first and foremost put an end to more than six decades of Palestinian suffering and contribute significantly to the security and stability of all the states of the Middle East,” he said.
The United States, he said, has a responsibility to play a key role in brokering an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Shoukry’s speech came a day after President Barack Obama met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to urge them to restart the Middle East peace process.
“Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations - it is time to move forward,” Obama said Tues- day after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
“It is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that’s necessary to achieve our goals. Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon.”
Shoukry lauded Obama’s commitment to making progress in negotiations, especially at a time when Obama is dealing with issues such as a weakened economy and health care in the United States.
He also praised Obama for flying to Egypt in June to address Muslims and Arabs around the world.
In his speech, Obama said that as long as the relationship between Muslims and the West is defined by differences, “we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity.”
Shoukry said Obama has made a commitment to improving those relationships, but he must follow through.
“Although President Obama won the first round in the battle of captivating the hearts and minds, we all understand that one impressive speech will not erase years of mistrust and missed opportunities,” he said. “Deeds will have to follow words.”
September 24, 2009
Former Egyptian Ambassador to the U.S. Nabil Fahmy issued a call to the UN and President Obama to make nuclear non-proliferation a top priority, ahead of today’s Security Council meeting on nuclear nonproliferation chaired by the U.S.
Ambassador Fahmy is the Dean of the School of Public Affairs at the American University in Cairo and Chair of the Center for Nonproliferation studies in the Middle East.
To read the full piece on The Huffington Post website, click here.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A Clear Path Forward for the UN on Nuclear Disarmament
By Nabil Fahmy
This week, President Obama will chair a UN Security Council meeting on nuclear nonproliferation – the first time that a US president has ever done this.
In April, the U.S. president called for a nuclear free world in a keynote speech in Prague. At the time, many dismissed the remarks as the dreamy notions of a young administration with little national security experience. But President Obama's speech was not a lone shot in the dark. Several months earlier, four Cold War era American elder statesmen - Henry Kissinger, William Perry, George Shultz and Sam Nunn - had issued a similar call.
There is a new consensus forming around the nuclear issue and a new willingness for countries to act. For years, the nuclear debate revolved around those few countries that had nuclear weapons and those - equally small in number - trying to get them. Today, the security paradigm for the nuclear world has altered. The imminent threat no longer comes from a handful of superpowers, but the potential for the acquisition of nuclear weapons by unstable regimes and non-state entities. This reality affects us all. This status quo is not acceptable.
To read more, click here.
September 23, 2009
The 17th FIFA U-20 World Cup kicked off on Wednesday September 23 with a match between Egypt and Trinidad and Tobago in the Egyptian Army Stadium in Alexandria.
"We are reassured that everything is in place; no country could have done more than what Egypt achieved in such a period of time," Jack A. Warner, FIFA vice-president and Organizing Committee chairman, said in a press conference Wednesday.
"We are happy that Egypt, a country where football is like a religion, is hosting the second biggest tournament organized by FIFA with all this business and governmental support to the tournament," he added.
While all eyes will be on Egypt, more than 60 talent scouts representing top European clubs will be looking for future talents like Lionel Messi, Ronaldinho and Luis Figo whose launching pad was the U-20 World Cup.
With players like Mohamed Talaat, Ahmed Shokry, Moaz El Henawy and Mohamed Abu Gabal, the Egyptian team is aiming for the top spot and breaking their third place record reached in Argentina in 2001.
September 23, 2009
The Arkansas Star
The most compelling problems in the Middle East, from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran, require full engagement by the United States to solve, Egypt’s ambassador to the U.S. said today.
“We are encouraged by signs of determination by the (Obama) administration,” Ambassador Sameh Shoukry said during a speech to students at the Clinton School of Public Service.
“These challenges have a wide-ranging impact both on the region and beyond,” Shoukry said. “This has led us to an obvious conclusion, in that positive engagement with the U.S. and rallying behind the international community is crucial to address these challenges.”
He said the U.S.-Egyptian partnership is strong, and he encouraged President Obama to move forward in efforts to help negotiate a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Shoukry also said Egypt supports Obama’s desire to “seek a world free of nuclear weapons,” and he warned that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous arms race in the Middle East.
September 9, 2009
CNN
For the beautiful people, Azza Fahmy may be one of the best-known names in Egypt.
A high-end jewelry designer, Fahmy's creations have adorned such beauties as supermodel Naomi Campbell and Queen Rania of Jordan.
Her international luxury brand, Azza Fahmy Jewelries, blends Egyptian motifs and modern design to create high-end pieces. Working with precious metals and stones, Fahmy's work is inspired by the distinctive shapes, colors, textures and calligraphy of the country.
Cairo, the largest city in the Arab world nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets," is Fahmy's home. She thinks she may have lived a previous life in old Cairo, which has now grown into a mega-city of almost 20 million inhabitants.
"It's a strong feeling when I'm walking in the streets going to old houses, churchs and old mosques," Fahmy told CNN. "It's something inside me which I can't describe, as if I've lived before in these places."
In the 1960s, Fahmy was the first woman to apprentice in Cairo's jewelry district. She says she'd whither and die if she ever had to leave Egypt.
She takes us on a personal tour of the beguiling Egyptian capital, where she finds inspiration in almost everything she sees. "Everything in my mind is jewelry," she explains. "I turn it into jewelry."
Ibn Tulun Mosque
The sprawling Ibn Tulun Mosque, the largest mosque in Cairo in terms of land area, is also considered the oldest mosque in the city to have survived in its original form.
"It's one of my favorite mosques in Cairo," Fahmy says. "The beautiful windows of this mosque give me a lot of joy."
Fahmy says she's always fantasized about the windows of Ibn Tulun. "One day I'll do a project called the Ibn Tulun collection, because they have 126 windows, I think, and each one is different. I see them as earrings, hanging earrings," she says, laughing.
"They are geometrical designs each one different from the other, "she explains.
The jewelry designer says Ibn Tulun makes her feel serene, inspires her to "sit and meditate. The mosque is very strong, very discreet and very beautiful at the same time."
The Hanging Church
Fahmy explains that the 7th century Hanging Church, known in Arabic as Al-Muallaqah ("The Suspended"), is the most famous Coptic -- a sect of Christianity native to Egypt and Ethiopia -- church in Cairo. The church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
"Each civilization gives the other civilization something and each civilization takes something from the other civilization," Fahmy explains about the different faiths in the Egyptian capital. "There is a continuity in the art."
"Look at the details of the wood carving!" she exclaims there. "Look how they mix the pattern," she says, gently tracing it with her finger.
"You see this pattern? The cross in the middle and four rectangles around it? I want to do the design of this as a rectangle and then the motifs in metal."
Fahmy says she she's always searching for beautiful text -- inspiring calligraphy -- to use in her work. The Egyptian designer describes calligraphy as an art in itself, "the movement of the lines and the balance of the lines and the meaning in the text."
El Moez Street
"This is one of the oldest streets in Cairo," Fahmy explains as she walks along the colourful street bursting with life. "This street is part of me. It's my history, my life, my youth. This is the real soul of Cairo."
Fahmy stands in front of the Al Aqmar Mosque, known as "the moonlit," and says she's inspired by the details in the architecture. Her eyes are immediately drawn to details throughout the city, she says. "All my life is details, details, details. You become specific about everything."
"Do you notice these black and white stripes?" she asks.
Fahmy says she loves the way black and white are mixed together in Cairo to "create all this balance."
"Art is all about balance. They are perfect in how they balance things."
Workshop
"I used to work in this place, Rabeh El-Selehdar," Fahmy explains as she enters the workshop where she trained as a young jewelry-making apprentice. "It was 40 years ago."
"I went to the workshop, I introduced myself to a man named Hajj Said and then I worked with him for about three years," she said, no small feat for an Egyptian woman in the 1960s.
She warmly greets one of the men working at the workshop.
"He is the nephew of my master. He still remembers me," she explains. "I used to sit on this table and I used to help them file and solder. It was the beginning of my life."
Fahmy's business, which evolved into the first Egyptian designer brand, is a family affair. Her daughters, Fatima and Amina, work with her.
"I love the idea of the family business," she says. "I'd like to give this to my daughters [to] continue. I want to have a design house which can continue with the same message of carrying the Arab culture to the world."
Please click here to read the article on CNN.com.
September 7, 2009
World Squash
Amr Shabana overcame a phenomenal fightback from top seed and fellow Egyptian Ramy Ashour in the final of the Aon US Open final to win the $52,500 5-star PSA World Tour squash title in Chicago.
The three-time world champion raced through the opening two games with some astonishing winners to delight a sell-out crowd around the glass court set up in the open air off Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, known as the Magnificent Mile.
Number two seed Shabana was certainly in magnificent form and a quick finish seemed on the cards as he won the second 11-2. Shabana opened up a 4-0 lead in the third game but Ashour began to work his way into the match, taking control from 4-6 down to win 11-7.
Despite that confidence booster, the 21-year-old reigning world champion made a slow start to the fourth game and Shabana won the first five points and maintained that lead to stand within three points of the title at 8-3.
However, Ashour stepped up the pace and produced a succession of blinding winners as the crowd roared their encouragement. Shabana held match ball at 10-7 but Ashour won five points in a row to force the tiebreak and lead 12-11. Shabana leveled at 12-12 but Ashour maintained his push to clinch the game 14-12.
The crowd, boosted by hundreds of spectators enjoying a free view of the action through the front wall, were delighted that the match was heading for a fifth game. Ashour led 3-1 at the start of the final game but Shabana regained control to lead 9-5. Ashour won the next two points and then sportingly conceded that a backhand drop shot was down as Shabana screamed at the referee.
That gesture gave Shabana match ball at 10-7 and, although Ashour claimed one more point, the 30-year-old closed out an entertaining contest in 57 minutes of spellbinding squash.
“Ramy is such a great player and as a world champion at 21 years old he seems to have been around for years,” said Shabana after his epic 11-7, 11-2, 7-11, 12-14, 11-8 victory.
“He came back very strongly to win the third and fourth games and I was pleased to win the fifth game.
“The players have all enjoyed this tournament in Chicago and it’s great to see such big crowds around the court every night.”
The players earned warm applause for providing an evening of outstanding entertainment and Ashour was given an extra ovation for his sportsmanship.
He said: “As professional players, we have to be honest with each other on court, even though it gave Shabana match ball. Shabana played very well tonight and made it hard for me in large parts of the match.
“I know I should be angry for losing but I am happy that we made the match very entertaining for the crowd.”
The triumph extends Shabana’s tour title tally to 24 – and also endorses the latest September Dunlop PSA World Rankings in which the former world number one leapfrogged younger rival Ashour to take third place.
The win, which also extends his head-to-head count against Ashour to 7-5, will boost Shabana’s hopes in this week’s British Open in Manchester, where the third seed is expected to face compatriot Karim Darwish – his successor as world number one – for a place in the final. Runner-up in 2004, Shabana has yet to win the longest-standing title in world squash.
August 17, 2009
Charlie Rose
In an exclusive interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stressed the need for a holistic and lasting solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He highlighted Egypt’s “laborious efforts” to unify Hamas and Fatah, acknowledging that unity has to occur before there can be peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Defining the borders of a Palestinian state will unlock many of the other issues of a final agreement, Mubarak said, adding that the Israeli government’s recent acceptance of a two-state solution was a positive first step.
“What I can say is that we have to consider the whole issue holistically, to negotiate on the final resolution,” Mubarak said in the interview.
Please click here to watch the entire original interview on Charlie Rose.
August 13, 2009
Dr. Abdel Monem Said Aly is Chairman of the Board of the Al Ahram Newspaper and Publishing House and Director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
June 19, 2009
On June 19, 2009, the following column ran in the Wall Street Journal, authored by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
President Barack Obama's seminal address in Cairo marked a turning point in America's relations with the Muslim world. His message was clear and incontrovertible: It is issues of politics and policy, not a clash of values, that separate the Muslim world and America. It is the resolution of these issues that will heal the divide. Click here to read more