Turns out that Bob Dylan dug Oum Kalthoum. Here's a paragraph from Al’ America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots by Jonathan Curiel, excerpted here on alternet.org: Kalsoum, whose last name is often spelled Kalthoum or Khulthum, was Egypt's greatest singer — the equivalent of Barbra Streisand, Billie Holiday, and Maria Callas rolled into […]
A recent online poll by Egyptian opposition paper Al-Dustour revealed that 84% of Egyptians polled (3708 respondents) believe that Barack Obama will not change American policy towards Arabs and Muslims. 16% of those polled (706 respondents) believe that he “will work towards changing the American policy which his predecessor has followed." The commentary on the […]
The Egyptian government has appealed a recent court ruling annulling a 2005 Egyptian-Israeli agreement for the export of natural gas to Israel. The court's ruling called for the freezing of the shipments on the basis that the deal was never approved by the Egyptian parliament. Furthermore, opposition to the deal objects to Egypt selling gas […]
The panel on U.S.-Egypt relations proved the highlight of the annual Middle East Institute conference in DC this past Friday. Graeme Bannerman moderated the panel. He holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern studies, taught at AUB, served as a longtime staffer for Sen Dick Lugar, and most relevantly, for the past decade or longer he […]
A major consideration behind Congressional attempts to condition or reduce Egyptian military aid is the concern that Egypt is preparing for aggressive military action towards Israel. The late Tom Lantos led the initiative in Congress. He had this to say in June 2004 during a subcommittee meeting of the House Committee on International Relations: Cairo […]
IBM is opening the region's first nanotechnology center in Egypt, and some private companies are working to introduce nanotechnology to Egypt's youth.
The new campus of the American University in Cairo is experiencing some growing pains as students and teachers complain of unfinished buildings and incomplete facilities. All this is to be expected as a major institution relocates its entire operation. A decade from now I anticipate a fully functioning university attracting Arab students from all over […]
The International Herald Tribune has posted a rather strange account from the Associated Press about how the hostages were freed. Apparently after ten days of driving around the desert to escape detection from Libyan, Chadian, Sudanese, and Egyptian security forces the kidnappers told the tourists to pile into an SUV and drive. According to some […]
AP is reporting that the Sudanese Military killed six and captured two kidnappers after a high-speed desert chase on Sunday. According to the two captured kidnappers the tourists are being held hostage in Chad. The interesting part of the article is that the Sudanese Government linked the eight kidnappers to a rebel group in Darfur. […]
Absent of any near-term threats to natural security from a land invasion, the Egyptian military continues to strengthen its conventional land forces to deter long-term threats and bolster its reputation as a powerful, or perhaps the most powerful, fighting force in the Middle East and Africa. But Egypt does have a significant national security threat […]
Yesterday's kidnapping of a dozen tourists and their Egyptian guides in southern Egypt raises three important questions whose answers have serious consequences: 1. Who did it and why? Al Jazeera English has compiled a helpful lift of attacks against tourists in Egypt since 1992. The attacks that were not isolated incidents were politically motivated, mostly […]
Most news articles and blog posts deal with Egypt on political terms. Mubaraks’ succession and the role of Islam in politics is no doubt important, but the great attention paid to these issues can sometimes make us forget that Egypt is more than a topic in political science. This is all to say that yesterday […]
Tarek Shahin, a mid-twenties Egyptian graduate from the American University in Cairo, is a financial analyst by trade and a cartoonist by heart. He pens the Al Khan comic strip in Daily News Egypt, the country's leading independent English daily. Tarek excels at showing how different groups in Egypt react to the world around them. […]
Policymakers and opinionmakers in Washington and the Middle East would do well to pay careful attention to today's article in the New York Times about Egyptians and other Arabs not believing claims by the United States that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks of September 11. Some reasoning goes like this: – A […]
The pool of possible successors to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak became smaller today with the death of former minister of defense Abdel-Halim Abu Ghazala. The Associated Press is reporting that Abu Ghazala died late Saturday at age 78 (President Mubarak is 80). Field Marshal Abu Ghazala would not have been a real contender for the […]