Latest in Politics Highlight
Latest in Politics
Interest rate hike draws mixed reactions
Capmas: Inflation rate reaches 10 percent in October CAIRO: The Central Bank s (CB) Thursday decision to raise overnight interest rates by 0.5 percent to help curb inflation has drawn mixed responses from local analysts. Meanwhile, a new Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (Capmas) report shows the annual inflation rate has reached a …
CIB says eyes Middle East expansion
CAIRO: Commercial International Bank (CIB), one of Egypt s top three private-sector banks, said on Monday it was eyeing potential expansion in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Gulf. The bank said in a conference call it also expected to announce the shareholding structure and exact start-up date for its Algerian subsidiary by year-end. It said …
Reel Estate: Shadows of a missing world
Stone’s latest film misses the mark As odd as this may sound, World Trade Center isn t really about 9/11. WTC is, for the most part, a Hollywood disaster movie marketed, and branded, as the first major film about the most important incident of the new century from Hollywood s most controversial director who, alas, …
Honoring Hussein Fahmy
US key to solving Palestinian-Israeli conflict
The words we use and the statements we make define who we are, what we believe. The more accurate our pronouncements are, the closer we are to the truth and to understanding each other. The better the understanding, the more engaged we become when the opportunity avails itself. In her keynote address to the American …
Saving Iraq's justice: move Saddam's trial abroad
So Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death. This does not come as a surprise. If one person were to be singled out in the world today for the ultimate sentence, Saddam would be the one. He is personally responsible for the death of about two million people through his rule between 1968 and 2003. With …
No negotiations, no peace
The Israeli-Palestinian political arena has never looked worse. This is a reflection of the negative political situation internally in both areas. It seems that the main political agenda of the Israeli government today is survival, and once that becomes apparent to the people of Israel, the government’s days are numbered. On the Palestinian side, the …
Rebuild Africa by funding the African Union Mission in Darfur
Last April, in the delegate’s lounge of the United Nations’ headquarters in New York, this columnist met with the Organization of Islamic Conference’s (OIC) permanent observer to the UN, Ambassador Abdul Wahab, to discuss ways in which Arab, Islamic, or African nation-states might assist in ending the genocide in Darfur. At that time, Qatar, Tanzania, …
Canvassing the wisdom of the desert
Renaissance man captures a different side of Egypt With camera and sketchbook in hand, Dr. Farid Fadel headed to the Siwa Oasis on what he calls his first artistic mission. The result is the collection Desert, Oasis, and Valley currently showing at El-Hanager Art Center. Fadel s popularity as an artist is a combination of …
Artistic expression
Student union elections marred by violence, controversy on Egypt campuses
The chants have become familiar: National Security, out, this is our university and it will remain free; who runs the university, the dean or Internal Affairs, shouted protesting university students on campuses throughout Cairo and the governorates. In the latest such protest, students at Helwan University demonstrated against the arrest of 28 of their colleagues …
Government proposes poultry legislation to eliminate live poultry market by 2010
National production 1.7 million chickens per day; 2.6 million projected for mid-2007 CAIRO: A new law to eliminate the sale of live poultry by 2010 is now being drafted for presentation to parliament in its upcoming session, Minister of Finance (MOF) Youssef Boutros-Ghali and Minister of Agriculture (MOA) Amin Abaza announced Saturday. Under the proposed …
Analyzing a quarter century under Mubarak
Widely touted 25th anniversary under the microscope CAIRO: In the wake of celebrations marking the “25th anniversary of Mubarak (a tag used by national newspapers) last October, analyst and political veteran Osama Al-Ghazali Harb, says President Hosni Mubarak’s “peace years have saved the country from war and conflict but not from poverty and underdevelopment. Harb, …
What's so Egyptian about being Egyptian anymore?
A forgotten sense of national pride and obligation to country Ramadan’s come and gone. Not only is it the time of year characterized by the oxymoronic gluttonizing of food after a day of fasting, but it is also the season of an ever-so not entertaining clutter of cliché soap operas peppered with an ever-so-more unentertaining …
Unsafe abortions kill thousands of women, experts say
KUALA LUMPUR: Some 70,000 women worldwide die from unsafe abortions each year while many more suffer serious injuries, especially in poor countries, health experts said Monday. Unsafe abortion is a serious public health problem for women, accounting for 13 percent of all maternal deaths globally each year, said Dorothy Shaw, president-elect of the International Federation …
New public movement against religious discrimination established
Political rights activists rally public support for protection of religious minorities CAIRO: Following the mob attacks on Alexandria’s St. George’s Coptic Church last year, Dr. Mounir Megahed, general manager of feasibility studies at the Nuclear Power Plants Authority and a few of his colleagues decided to take action against attacks on religious minorities in Egypt. …
Egyptians sound off on Saddam Hussein execution verdict
CAIRO: While reaction to the execution verdict handed down to Saddam Hussein has been split along sectarian lines in Iraq, Egyptians had mixed reactions. “I’m for the verdict in essence but I’m against the form, Samer Soliman, assistant professor of political economy at the American University in Cairo said. “I don’t have any doubt that …
Mecca Charter: gap between principles and practice
After the US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, it became clear that sectarian and ethnic identity would be a major principle of post-Saddam politics. With parliament seats and government posts being allocated according to a sectarian-ethnic quota system, powerful Iraqi actors – chiefly the religious Shiite parties and the Kurdish parties – advocated …
Is Washington promoting democracy or comedy?
If you did not hear it, the bell for the second round of the new cold war in the Middle East rang on Wednesday, in the form of the United States and Hezbollah trading accusations against each other about assorted sinister aims. There is much that is interesting and important – indeed, historic – about …
A clash of civilizations in Europe
A year after the wave of violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world protesting the publication of caricatures of Mohammed by a Danish newspaper, frictions between Europe and the Muslim world multiply, threatening to make the “clash of civilizations a self-fulfilling prophecy: Pope Benedict XVI outrages the Muslim world by quoting remarks critical of the Prophet …
Egypt considers buying advanced Russian MiG-29
CAIRO: In what some analysts expect to be a major weapons procurement policy shift, Egypt is considering a Russian offer to sell the advanced MiG-29 fighter jet. Chief of Staff General Hussam Sueweilam told The Daily Star Egypt that Egypt s decision to purchase the MiG-29 fighter planes from Russia should not be considered a …
President Mubarak turns to Russian, Chinese technical assistance
CAIRO: Despite the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear program and with US efforts to isolate Iran over its reactors, several countries in the Arab world are looking to nuclear power to provide energy. And Egypt is leading the pack. According to the Middle East Economic Digest, Egypt’s program – though stalled since 1984 – is more …
Ironing good enough for kings and pashas
Deep in the heart of Masr Al-Qadima an old tradition survives CAIRO: While most professionals make a point of seeking out modern technology to allow them to finish their work in the fastest and easiest ways possible, a few holdouts refuse to bend to modernity and resist the impulse to upgrade. One of these is …
Palestinian-Jordanians still discriminated against, research shows
‘Stateless’ face strict preconditions for receiving UN relief funds CAIRO: While Jordan may be considered one of the leading destinations for asylum-seeking Palestinian refugees in comparison to other Arab states such as Lebanon and Syria, Palestinian-Jordanians still face extensive socio-economic discrimination in the Hashemite kingdom, research fellow Gudrun Kroner said. According to statistics from the …
Egypt says dismayed over Israeli actions in Gaza
CAIRO: Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said on Saturday he was dismayed at what he called Israel s excessive use of force in a four-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed 39 people. Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, including four militants in air strikes and clashes during one of …
Egypt condemns the November 4th Beit Hanoun massacre
Egypt police detain 30 Islamists
CAIRO: Thirty members of Egypt s opposition Muslim Brotherhood, mostly students, have been detained in Cairo s southern suburbs, security sources and the movement s website said Sunday. All detainees are residents of the Helwan neighborhood in southern Cairo and most of them are students, a security official said on condition of anonymity. The arrests …
National census aims to track mental retardation, illiteracy and internal migration
At a cost of LE 150 million, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (Capmas) will send out 120,000 trained surveyors to gather information about internal migration, illiteracy, and mental retardation in Egypt. The information drive is the third stage of the 2006 National Census on Population kicking off on Nov. 20 and lasting …
Seminar on the 25th anniversary of the African Human Rights Protection System opens today
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights, the law department of the American University in Cairo, the International Center for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (Interights), the Open Society Justice Initiative, and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights are holding a joint seminar on …
Muslim Brotherhood says US occupier a greater criminals than Saddam
CAIRO: Saddam Hussein was a despot but his crimes are dwarfed by those of the occupiers, the leader of Egypt s Muslim Brothers said Sunday after the ousted Iraqi leader was sentenced to death in Baghdad. There is no doubt Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and a despot who harmed Iraq and generated the disastrous …