Tarek Atia's web log
Find
out how
the world media sees Egypt...
ARCHIVE
2
Snippets from
here and there Dealing with the US occupation...
Egypt appoints new charge
d'affaires in Iraq
Historic
waterway... A review of a book about the history of the
Suez Canal includes an interesting fact -- that the canal is one of
the few man
made structures on earth that can be seen from space
Confusion
in the morgue... Egyptian man was unlucky
in life, unlucky in death: family
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Wednesday, June 18, 10:00 CAIRO
The
headlines says it all...
"Egyptian Mediators Fail
to Persuade Palestinian Militants
," writes the Washington Post.
This
Knight Ridder report claims the Egyptians will be back in 48
hours to see if the Palestinians have changed their minds.
Haaretz,
quoted by Bloomberg,
as well as CBS, were all optimistic
until the last minute...
In
general, Egypt's efforts have been put it in a very good light in the
United States, despite, at least for now, their inability to actually
get the Palestinian factions to cease fire, as this
article in USA Today makes clear.
25
years
More jail
terms for Sohag revenge killings
A different
culture
A straight forward AFP report
on Egypt's new human rights council
Update...
the controversial Nefertiti bust becomes a hot
topic at the Venice Biennale
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Tuesday, June 17, 6:00 CAIRO
Chief
mediators
No details yet on the substance of Egyptian efforts to negotiate a
ceasefire in Palestine. Two assistants to the intelligence chief
visited both Hamas and Fatah on Sunday, with reports
that a joint meeting would be held on Monday. Journalists were not
told anything other than that the Egyptians had made proposals and
that Hamas would consider them.
The Independent,
meanwhile, quotes sources that claim
they are optimistic the Egyptian mediations with Hamas will prove
fruitful.
Reform still
hot topic
AP does a regional survey, finding
reform to be an exercise in one step forward, two steps back....
Small world
Former US ambassador to Egypt (and current US ambassador to Israel)
Daniel Kurtzer's
cousin died in last week's suicide bombing in Jerusalem, reports AP.
Sheikh Omar
Abdel-Rahman's son, his American lawyer, and his advisor are all
embroiled in a complex court case, the current status of which is
outlined by this New
York Times article.
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Monday, June 16, 4:00 CAIRO
Still suffering
The US press is focused on critical analysis of the Justice Department
and the FBI in their treatment of immigrant detainees in the wake of
9-11.
In a similar
vein, a little while back, the Washington Post did an in-depth story
on eight Egyptian men in Indiana who
were mistakenly arrested in connection with 9-11.
A later AP story
is pegged on the fact that -- despite the fact that they were released
and apologized to formally by the FBI for the damage their false
arrest had done to their reputations, business and lives -- their
names have not
yet been removed from federal terror databases, and so they
still suffer harassment and delays at airports and in other normal,
daily situations.
The FBI is working on removing their names,
the article says, but it
takes time, because they are on more than one list and more than one
government agency is involved.
Papers want records
More on the Egyptian in New Jersey who sold
fake IDs to 9-11 suspects.
Expanding
horizons?
Egypt's desire for a Free Trade Agreement with the United States
gets a big boost from pro-trade Democrats.
More Nefertiti
X-rays show mummy is of 16
year old girl while Nefertiti is believed to have died in her 30s
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Sunday, June 15, 4:00 CAIRO
As the peace
process quickly unravels
Egypt is clearly playing a very active role in light of the sudden
escalation of violence between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Strong statements
of condemnation were made by the president, the foreign minister and
the press over the past two days, and the intelligence
chief went over to try to broker a ceasefire.
Another visit is
planned for next week, according to AFP.
But, as this AP
report makes clear, Sharon
has other plans.
Not Nefertiti
after all?
Hawass refutes
the British archaeologist's claims about a Valley of the Kings mummy
being Nefertiti and says "The Supreme Council will not allow any
foreign archeological mission to make such announcements which are unsubstantiated
with solid evidence." AFP also quotes Hawass saying the British
archaeologist is inexperienced.
Note...
AFP calling the SCA chief "General Zahi Hawass"
that I mentioned in the June 9 entry makes
sense now -- looks like they just forgot to put in
"Secretary" -- since he is Supreme Council of Antiquities
Secretary-General.
Better odds?
In the bid to
host the 2010 world cup, will Nigeria's poor
performance against Brazil be Egypt's gain?
Big contract?
Forbes lets us
know that Sawiris and OT Telecom want to bid
for telecommunications work in Iraq.
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Friday, June 13, 1:00 CAIRO
Cultural battle
looms? Matrix
Reloaded has been banned
in Egypt. The censor's office will not allow the film to be screened
because of its overly explicit religious theme, and horrifying levels
of violence. It wasn't one particular scene or two, but the overall
feeling of the production, that the censors had a problem with --
despite what they called "the high technology and fabulous
effects of the movie..."
The two sides
of Nefertiti Now
that the hysteria of the Sharm El-Sheikh summit has died down, the
media are jumping at anything that moves. The controversy over whether
or not a mummy in Luxor really belonged to Nefertiti was suddenly
being covered by everybody, in their own way: the BBC
seems to want the mummy to really be Nefertiti, Time
tells a long and winding queen's story, USA
Today does a straight forward rendering of the evidence proving the
mummy really is Nefertiti, and AP
talks to the skeptics, who include Zahi Hawass.
Halfway across the
world another Nefertiti story is making waves as well. Egypt has
decided to file a formal complaint regarding a German museum's
decision to place a priceless bust of Nefertiti atop a modern-day
statue of a nude woman's body. Zahi Hawass "deemed the display an
"insult to Egypt's history" and a "defacement of
Egyptian antiquities",", reports AFP,
which also quoted the Akhbar Al-Youm headline -- ""Queen
Nefertiti Naked in a Berlin Museum!"
Alonger
AFP story on the same subject also quotes Culture Minister Farouk
Hosny -- "Hosni said he had asked Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher to
send a formal protest to the German government, slamming the fusion of
the bust with a statue by the Egyptian Museum at Berlin-Charlottenburg
as scientifically "unethical."" Interestingly, it also
refers to Hawass as "The head of Egypt's top antiquities body,
the Supreme Council of Antiquities, General Zahi Hawas"... longer
AFP story on the same subject also quotes Culture Minister Farouk
Hosny -- "Hosni said he had asked Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher to
send a formal protest to the German government, slamming the fusion of
the bust with a statue by the Egyptian Museum at Berlin-Charlottenburg
as scientifically "unethical."" Interestingly, it also
refers to Hawass as "The head of Egypt's top antiquities body,
the Supreme Council of Antiquities, General Zahi Hawas"...
In another story,
the head of the Berlin
Museum provides some details about why this happened, trying to clarify
things in the midst of the uproar...
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Wednesday, June 11, 12:00 CAIRO
Shih-Fu
Peng and his team
They're the architects -- an
Irish firm -- that just won the contest for the design of the new $350
million Grand Egyptian Museum near the Pyramids of Giza. Their prize
-- $250,000. The article says "Some 1,557 international
architects and firms from about 83 countries submitted their
conceptual design to the competition..."
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Monday, June 9, 5:00 CAIRO
Which way is it
blowing?
AFP picked up Foreign Minister Ahmed
Maher's remarks to Al-Ahram regarding the gains (of the intifada)
need [ing] to be preserved so that they are not transformed into
losses." Maher was talking about ending the armed intifada, a
pledge Abu Mazen made to Bush and Sharon at Aqaba. Reporters, of
course, asked whether Egypt would soon be sending an ambassador back
to Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, in this
Reuters account of a Maher interview with a Saudi daily, the Foreign
Minister places much of the blame for the failure on the peace process
on Israel. Even after the Aqaba summit, facts
on the ground reveal continuing brutal policies against the
Palestinians, he said.
Taking on another peace
process angle, the Christian Science Monitor reports that the
controversial Arab-Israeli peace movement that began in Copenhagen in
the 90s is reviving
its activities in the midst of current attention on the region's
peace making. A number of Egyptians are involved in the effort,
which this article describes in detail. It also provides an
interesting story about the Israeli ambassador and a downtown art
gallery.
Interesting...
Bulgarian tobacco
in Egyptian cigarettes.
More sad news
Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif recently widowed
from UK poet Ian Hamilton.
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Sunday, June 8, 4:00 CAIRO
More Sharm
BBC Monitoring gathers reactions
of Arab newspapers to the Sharm El-Sheikh summit. Some of the
most interesting include Qatar's Al-Watan, which said "We
should not forget that another Arab country attended the Sharm
el-Sheikh summit without any formal notice. This country is Iraq,
whose president is considered to be the US president, if only for an
interim period."
Jordan's Al-Dustur,
meanwhile, said, "President Bush's statement in Sharm el-Sheikh,
in which he said that the US and himself are committed to achieving a
Palestinian state, does not mean anything."
Meanwhile, the
New York Times looks at the economics
of Sharm El-Sheikh.
More than
belly Shakira-like
belly dance costumes are causing problems... the censor seized
26 flimsy outfits in a spot check on cabarets recently.
Web
posted by Tarek Atia Friday, June 6, 4:00 CAIRO
Summit end notes Click here
for the full text of Mubarak and Bush's remarks at Sharm
El-Sheikh after the meeting between the US president and Arab
leaders in the Red Sea resort on Tuesday.
At
the beginning of his remarks, Bush does good PR for Sharm El-Sheikh,
calling it a "spectacular
location".
Bush's style:
"Pointing directly at Abbas, Bush said, "You,
sir, have got a responsibility, and you've assumed it. I
want to work with you and so do the other leaders here."
The Iranian News
Agency alleges
that "The summit opened two hours later than planned, which could
be the result of differences between its participants."
AFP explains it
off as a case of Bush and the leaders getting to know each other in
private, or, as the White House termed it, a case of "old
fashioned statecraft."
A Washington Post analysis
of the American President's mood as he negotiates in Sharm
El-Sheikh and Aqaba reveals Bush to be a man who -- when it
comes to Middle East peace -- "isn't in the weeds looking at
every issue"... This insider account about how Bush really feels
about the Middle East also includes such gems as Bush saying to
Sharon: "I said you were a man of peace. I
want you to know I took immense crap for that." The
article claims that Bush admires Saudi Arabia's Abdullah for being
blunt with him about the way Israel was treating the Palestinians.
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Hawass 
Matrix
Reloaded has been 
Now
that the hysteria of the Sharm El-Sheikh summit has died down, the
media are jumping at anything that moves. The controversy over whether
or not a mummy in Luxor really belonged to Nefertiti was suddenly
being covered by everybody, in their own way: the 
Interesting...
At
the beginning of his remarks, Bush does good PR for Sharm El-Sheikh,
calling it a "
