Latest in Politics Highlight
Latest in Politics
The films which should win at the Cairo film fest
CAIRO: After 10 days, more than 70 films, various heated press conferences and one strange seminar, the festival has finally come to an end with the little matter of the awards still to be announced. Throughout the history of the festival, a certain number of criteria have always guided different juries to choose the Golden …
Cairo International Film Festival: Today's Highlights
The Tiger and the Snow (Italy)A love-struck Italian poet is stuck in Iraq at the onset of an American invasion. The director Roberto Benigni mixes tragedy with light comedy, so the movie is both humorous and touchingGood News6:30 pm Raval . Raval (Spain)This story takes place in Raval, Barcelona, where an old man called Aurelio …
Sinking relics, hidden treasures
Underwater archaeology in the spotlight CAIRO: The Supreme Council of Antiquities decision to set up an underwater museum to showcase artifacts discovered at the old eastern port of Alexandria, has boosted the importance of underwater archaeology in Egypt. Once complete, the underwater project will be the fruit of nearly two decades of sub-marine archaeology which …
So much garbage
Don’t bin it, rehabilitate it CAIRO: At a workshop on Sunday a group of young people from three poor Cairo districts – Bolaq El Dakroor, Manshiet Nasser and Al-Darb El-Ahmar – took their first steps into the world of recycling and the economic opportunities it could offer.”The workshop is about finding ways and developing job …
Three's quite the crowd
CAIRO: A woman who married two men at the same time was reported to the police by her second husband, who had tied the knot without prior knowledge that she was still officially married to another man, Al-Gomhuria newspaper reported. Mohamed Al Ghandor, 37, of Banha, Qalub, complained that his wife Sabra Abdel Salam, 35, …
Truck crash kills 10 in southern Cairo
CAIRO: Ten people died and seven were seriously injured when a truck crashed into a microbus cab on the Quraimat Road, Al Saf in the southern parts of the capital. One of the truck’s tires had suddenly burst, causing the driver to lose control of the huge vehicle as the microbus sped in the opposite …
Car with no brakes kills six pedestrians
CAIRO: A truck carrying fuel for Misr petroleum ran amuck in Al Sayeda Aisha district of Old Cairo killing six people, including two infants. Police investigations indicated that the car s breaks were not working. Egyptian law dictates that drivers who commit road accidents are to be sentenced to six months in prison, in addition …
Russian Gazprom mulls exploration for gas in Egypt
CAIRO: Chairman of Gazprom s Management Committee Alexey Miller has expressed his company’s interest in exploration for oil and natural gas in Egypt, according to Egyptian Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmy. Fahmy explained that during his meeting with Miller on Monday they agreed on the need for mutual cooperation in the oil and gas industry, …
Egyptian textiles challenged by China and Turkey
Local textile industry faces tough competition for slice of European market CAIRO: Egyptian textiles are on the right track in penetrating the European market, but must find a way past Chinese and Turkish competition, Christian Bartel, General Manager of Turkey-based textile consulting company Systain, told the press at the German Arab Chamber of Industry and …
Lost and Found in Cairo
CAIRO: The life of a rabbit in reverse. Cairo sunsets. The haunting 1920s music of Na’ima Al-Misriyya. A distressed man wandering through Zurich. In most galleries, these disparate images would never be displayed together. But “Lost and Found exhibits are known for bringing together unusual combinations of images. The show’s Cairo debut at Townhouse on …
Losing the game of "Hide & Seek"
Last Egyptian competition film is a major disappointment CAIRO: First touted as the winning horse of the Golden Pyramid race, Egyptian director Emad El-Bahhat s feature film Hide & Seek might not even make to the finish line. Everything about the film looked promising: a young amateur cast, a small budget and an original story. …
Insults, foul language traded at film festival conference
CAIRO: A question about the involvement of businessman Naguib Sawiris in the funding of the Egyptian film Istughomaya (“Hide and Seek ) torpedoed the film’s premiere into a cussing session between producer Hany Gerges and film critic Yehia Zakaria. Screened at The Cairo International Film Festival, the movie is one of three competing for awards …
Cairo International Film Festival: Today's highlights
The Road (China)The ticket controller Li is a little ray of sunshine to the passengers of the rural bus line, for with every ticket she also sells a smile, which outshines some mishaps and shortcomings. Everybody loves her; including the much older bus driver Master Cui in his own silent, reserved way. When it almost …
The pluses of uncovering pornography
A Sydney-based Muslim cleric, Sheikh Hilaly, recently made headlines in Australia when he publicly reflected that immodest women invite rape because they are like “uncovered meat. More unfortunate still was his implication that this was the cause of a series of gang rapes in Sydney in 2000, in which the attackers’ legal defense was that …
Terrorists are criminals, not Muslim activists
CAMBRIDGE, UK: The rise of extremism in the Muslim world has led to the widespread view of Islam as a religion of violence, retribution and war. This is in complete opposition to the truth of our religion and, on behalf of the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Muslims who are ordinary, peace-loving, decent people, …
The EU and Turkey are in a wrestling match, where neither side can afford to let go
The Istanbul professor who is a leading character in “Bliss, a lyrical novel by Zulfu Livaneli, imagines the Turkish intellectual as an acrobat swinging through the air. He lets go of his trapeze, sure in the belief that his European partner and inspiration waits on the other side, ready to catch him. Too late, he …
Smooth cruise
UN's WFP positively impacting Egypt
CAIRO: A delegation of executive board members from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) headquarters in Rome spent a week in Egypt to evaluate the aid agency’s projects in some of the country’s poorest regions. The delegation, consisting of board members from a wide range of donor countries, including the US, Canada, China, and …
Building expectations at Marrakech film fest
In Egypt, you're better off Jewish than Bahai
CAIRO: At the heart of every bureaucratic function of government in Egypt is the National Identity card. Whether access to education, employment, financial services, health care or assorted government dealings the bitaqa is an absolute necessity. Egyptian law decrees that every citizen should carry the ID on their person at all times. Police are allowed …
Local producers mount fight against consumer protection laws
CAIRO: The Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI) called on the government Sunday to rescind the recently ratified Consumer Protection Law, until significant amendments are made, to protect local producers from going out of business. FEI s lobbying comes a week after its Food Industries Division said that, if fully implemented, certain clauses in the law …
Sexual harassment needs to be addressed by authorities
CAIRO: While sexual harassment in Egypt, particularly Cairo, was widely reported in the media in recent weeks, very little on the topic has been heard from the authorities, said participants at the Sexual Harassment Forum organized by the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) Cynthia Nelson Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies on Monday. On Oct. …
Oracle Marks Ten Years of Support for Egypt's IT Economy
Contributions to the eGovernment program and the Egyptian Educational Initiative CAIRO: Sergio Giacoletto is executive vice president of Oracle Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) and recently highlighted a number of milestones marking Oracle’s contribution to enabling Egyptian citizens and organizations to build a competitive and successful digital economy. “Oracle has been committed to delivering …
Conference aims at boosting Egyptian exports to Europe
CAIRO: Global Trade Matters (GTM) is set to launch its 2006-7 Egypt sessions through a string of conferences which will revolve around improving multi-lateral and bi-lateral trade in the region, focusing on how to increase Egyptian exports and promote the country’s attractiveness towards Foreign Direct Investors from different parts of the world. In 2004 bi-lateral …
Now in America, he keeps on pushing his cart
American film revives Italian neo-realism CAIRO: Beyond the polished skyscrapers of Manhattan, the glamour of Broadway and the capitalist empire of Wall Street, stories from other side of the city ? poverty, filth and the broken dreams of marginalized immigrants ? slowly comes into focus. Man Push Cart is one such story about an immigrant’s …
Cairo International Film Festival: Today's highlights
Civic Duty (US) On the surface, Terry Allen (Peter Krause) appears to be a model American citizen. But after he loses his job and his mortgage application falls through, he quickly sinks into a media-fueled obsession with his country s war on terrorism. When a Muslim student named Gabe Hassan unexpectedly moves in next door, …
A last chance to stabilize the broader Middle East
The political and security situation in the vast region between the Indus Valley and the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean is a cause for grave concern. When the US intervened militarily in Iraq in 1991, the intention was to effect fundamental change in the region. Today it is clear that hardly any aspect of this …
Which way will it go in Beirut?
There is something at once both historic and frightening about the open-ended mass street protest that was launched in Beirut Friday by Hezbollah and its allies, aiming to topple the government headed by Prime Minister Fouad Seniora. The historic element is that this is a rare instance of mass political action that is declared to …
In Iraq, there is no graceful exit for the US
“This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all, President George W. Bush said Thursday after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. And that’s probably the right headline as the administration reviews its options for Iraq: No graceful exit. That doesn’t mean there won’t be significant changes ahead in …