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 An Iranian film dismissing former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as a "traitor" has elicited a storm of anger in Egyptian circles, a development that further reduces prospects of rapprochement between the two countries.
The Egyptian press quoted the Iranian newspaper Jomhuri Islami as saying that the recent movie "Assassination of the Pharaoh" rejected Sadat as a "traitor" for his 1979 peace accord with Israel. The film, which has has been screened in Iran, praises the assassination of Sadat and calls his radical Islamist killer a "martyr," according to the Egyptian press.
The film comes at a critical juncture as Iran is seeking to resume diplomatic relations with Egypt in an attempt to penetrate the lines of U.S. allies in the region. Diplomatic relations between Iran and Egypt have been broken since 1980 after Egypt had recognized the state of Israel and hosted the ousted Iranian shah. Egypt remains averse to any hasty rapprochement with the Shiite state that still names one of its streets after Sadat's main assassin.
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 The Egyptian interior ministry called on Sunni religious leaders to train state security officers on how to fight the proliferation of Shiite doctrines, according to a news report that appeared Thursday in the well-respected El-Masry El-Youm daily .
The report quoted a prominent scholar at Al-Azhar University as saying that the state security apparatus is concerned about the creeping influence of Shiite Islam since the influx of thousands of Shiite Iraqis to Egypt.
Egypt has been one of the major destinations of Iraqis who fled the violence at home. About 150,000 Iraqis are believed to have moved to Egypt since the 2003 outbreak of the war in Iraq and last year, when Egypt closed its borders.
Sheikh Mohamed Abdel Moneim El-Berry told the paper that his lectures to police officers focused on the dangerous nature of Shiite beliefs and the dire need to protect Egypt’s national security against such a threat. Several Shiite groups have already settled in a number of Egyptian provinces and have filed requests with the government to build their own mosques, added El-Berry.
Egypt has predominantly Sunni Muslims; however, the number of Shiites is estimated at 1% of the country’s 76 million inhabitants. Like other minorities in Egypt, Shiites are usually discriminated against and their loyalty is often questioned.
However, the Sunni-Shiite animosity has recently become more of a sensitive issue in most Sunni Arab countries due to the rising regional influence of Shiite Iran and the growing popularity of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group.
-- Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Shiite pilgrims visit shrines in Karbala, Iraq. Credit: Getty Images
 Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe flew into the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik nattily dressed and unapologetic, and left the same way, avoiding censure last night by the 53 nations attending the African Union summit.
Some of his peers chastised him for violently stealing the June 27 election that silenced opposition parties and won Mugabe his sixth term. But many African leaders remained publicly quiet, reacting to the 84-year-old former guerrilla the way one winces at a friend who shows up with trouble behind his smile.
Perhaps it was a desire to avoid comparison. Egypt and Libya, for example, have also been criticized repeatedly over the years for repression, torture and jailing political opposition figures. Washington has vilified Mugabe and is seeking broader U.N. sanctions against Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, the Bush administration gives about $2 billion in annual military and economic aid to the government of President Hosni Mubarak, a strategic ally in the region.
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 Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been sued by a citizens group over his government’s deal to sell natural gas to Israel at bargain prices. The suit is the latest in a national protest by the succinctly, if long-windedly, named Popular Campaign for Stopping the Export of Egyptian Natural Gas to Israel.
The group’s campaign includes a petition drive, mock trials of government officials and attempts to persuade clerics to issue fatwas against the deal. Since its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Egypt has had strained relations with its Jewish neighbor, especially over the Palestinian question. Many Egyptians would prefer to tear up the accord rather than carry on with what they regard as a peace that exists on paper, but not in their hearts.
The gas deal, an attempt to further normalize relations with Israel, has become an embarrassment to the Mubarak regime at a time of widening public anger over corruption, low wages and inflation. One of those leading the opposition to the sale is Anwar Esmat Sadat, the nephew of former President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated by Islamic radicals two years after making peace with Israel during the 1979 Camp David talks.
The energy agreement reportedly calls for Egypt to annually sell 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas to the Jewish state at a much cheaper rate than it could charge on the world market.
“Banning the export of natural gas to Israel has become an issue which concerns all Egyptians,” reformist judge Mahmoud El-Khodeiri told Al-Ahram Weekly. “You can hardly find an Egyptian who approves selling gas to Israel or dealing with such a state in any way or form.”
— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Egyptian Oil Minister Sameh Fahmi, left, and the Israeli Minister of Infrastructure Binyamin Ben Eliezer as posted on citizens group's blog.
 The school exam season in Egypt has turned to scenes of suicide and privilege.
Worried that he bombed his math final, 16-year-old Hassan Mohamed Youssry recently hanged himself in Cairo. Mirhan Hany Salem, 18, jumped from a sixth-floor balcony in Port Said the morning she was to take her mechanics exam. Both students were poor, and their families claim the stress of exams overwhelmed them amid accusations that wealthy parents were buying leaked copies of tests to help their children cheat.
“He was a wreck the past few days,” Youssry’s mother told Al-Masry Al-Youm. “He told me that proctors at the exam hall told them that the exam was leaked [to students in the Menya region] because ‘they are rich people but you are poor.’ ”
The Egyptian Ministry of Education has denied that students in Menya were given an edge, but those accusations are circulating on a high school Internet forum. Corruption has long been a part of university placement exams, and the publicity around the Menya case and the suicides has further damaged the system's reputation.
“Why are they doing this to us?” reads a student's post from the Internet forum quoted by Daily News Egypt. “We study all year round and at the end we can’t answer any of the questions, while other people whose parents are important get the exam questions beforehand. They don’t even need the good grades to get into university because their parents will pay their way through it too.”
Exams have become a torment to students in a country where schools are under-funded. And many teachers, who earn as little as $40 a month, spend less energy in classrooms than they do making extra money tutoring in the evenings. Rich and poor families are forced to pay for tutoring or risk the likelihood their children will score low on the exams, known as Thanaweya Amma.
--Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Egyptian classroom. Credit: www.unv.org
 The legendary Muslim movie star Adel Imam has been accused of apostasy by Facebook activists over his role as a Coptic Christian priest in the upcoming production "Hassan and Marcos," according to news reports.
Under the slogan "A call to all Muslims, boycott Christian Adel Imam," a Facebook group has recently launched a smear campaign against the actor. The group accuses him of promoting Christianity and discourages Muslims from attending the big-budget movie, which is expected to be released in early July, according to a report posted on the website of the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya.
“This man is promoting conversion to Christianity and I am calling upon you to boycott him,” read the group’s mission statement. Another group was also created for the same purpose under the slogan “Boycott Imam’s new movie.”
The film, ironically, promotes national unity between Coptic Christians and Muslims through the relationship between a Coptic priest (Marcos), played by Imam, and a Muslim cleric (Hassan), played by Academy-Award nominated Omar Sharif. The criticism of Imam comes in a tense atmosphere marked by violent clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt.
-- Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Actor Adel Imam (center) dresses for his part in "Hassan and Marcos." He is flanked by two Coptic Christian priests. Credit: Al Arabiya
In the midst of continuing sectarian tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt, the Coptic diaspora has recently called for demonstrations in the U.S. and European cities.
Hundreds of Coptic migrants took to the streets in the Netherlands, France and the U.S., raising banners reading "Save Christians in Egypt," "Stop Islamic Terrorism" and "Help! Christians of Egypt are under attack."
The protests follow an eruption of violence between Muslims and Copts in several parts of Egypt. Last month a land dispute involving a Coptic monastery left one Muslim man killed in the southern province of Menya. Four Copts, including two monks, were injured. The clash arose after the monastery began building a wall around neighboring farming land, saying it belonged to the church. Days earlier in Cairo, four Copts were shot dead in a jewelry shop by two gunmen who fled without stealing anything.
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In a stunning display of religious rigidity, the Saudi owner of a five-star hotel in Cairo recently banned the serving of liquor by reportedly dumping more than $1 million of beer, wine and whiskey into the Nile River.
Sheikh Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, a relative of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, has ordered that no more cocktails will be mixed or stirred at his Grand Hyatt Cairo. Goodbye, martini; hello, fruit punch. The move is a gesture to bring his business into conformity with Islamic standards. That may be so, but the Egyptian Hotel Assn. has its own rules.
The organization has given Ibrahim an ultimatum: Either put the liquor back by July 2 or have his hotel demoted from five to two stars, according to Agence France-Presse. Although alcohol is forbidden in Islam, Egyptian law allows the consumption of booze in hotels and other tourist haunts. Tourism is one of this nation's biggest industries, and Cairo doesn't want to give the impression that conservative Islam is spreading.
"If he doesn't want to serve alcohol, it's his choice. If that doesn't comply with our regulations, he has to bear the consequences," Tourism Minister Zoheir Garranah said.
However, Ibrahim has found support for his decision. In an online forum hosted by the popular Islam Online Website (a Qatari-funded and Cairo-based Islamic website that covers religion, news, society and culture), some visitors hailed the move as "great news."
"Thank you Grand Hyatt, this is a great step and I hope that all hotels in Egypt and Muslim countries do the same," wrote a visitor of the same forum.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Grant Hyatt Cairo. Credit: Cris Bouroncle AFP/Getty Images
An inflammatory new book has raised the question on the minds of many Egyptians: What will happen when aging President Hosni Mubarak is no longer in power? "The Last Days," by activist Abdel Halim Qandil, is far from an impartial analytical study. It is a scathing dissident's attack on Mubarak's 26-year rule.
"How will the end be? Destiny and time are in a race, and the countdown of Mubarak's regime started long ago. The regime has died clinically and we should be only waiting for its funeral," wrote Qandil. The author does not mince his words or images, criticizing Mubarak as a dictator and using the book's cover to depict the 80-year-old president as a cartoonish figure with a flabby, wrinkled face.
Meanwhile, the book examines the scenarios that await Egypt after the disappearance of the former air force officer who became the lackluster figurehead for the ruling National Democratic Party. "Would the army take over? Or the Muslim Brotherhood? Or Mubarak's son, Gamal? Is a peaceful transfer of power possible?" wonders the author.
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 Inas El Degheidy is as unflinching as her camera work. The Egyptian director has been exploring women's rights and evoking Western-style bluntness in her films long before the first half-naked pop diva wriggled across the Arab consciousness.
She has been criticized as a sensationalist and praised as a fearless auteur, exposing the sins and lies gnawing beneath the facades. Her movies, such as "Teenager Diary," about a girl's sexual freedom, and "Cheap Flesh," about families prostituting their daughters to rich men in the Gulf, drew her threats of assassination from Islamic fundamentalists. El Degheidy and other Middle East artists, writers and actors recently spoke about the impact Western culture has had on their work.
"Western influence comes with pros and cons," El Degheidy said. "The Western media has brought freedom of thought and freedom of expression to the Muslim world. But the West has different perceptions of human relations that go against our traditions. The eastern society refuses to see sexual freedom as a right. So now we're seeing more Islamic fundamentalist TV shows trying to counter the West. But I'm not trying to imitate the West. I'm trying to change this closed society." She added: "It's not only men who are criticizing me, but the women in their hijabs are becoming more conservative too. ... The spread of the hijab is a contamination, but many women are pressured to wear it as a sign of religious decency. This conservatism has been happening for a while, and the atmosphere is not as liberal as when I started making films decades ago. New women directors are not taking my path. They are afraid they won't be able to withstand all the attacks I have encountered."
— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Director Inas El Degheidy. Credit: arabianbeauties.blogspot.com
 A former Egyptian cop who recently wrote a book on how to survive police abuse is on the lam himself. Omar Afifi fled to the U.S. after penning an insider's guide on how to avoid bumps, bruises and false allegations when encountering police in a country with a poor human-rights record.
“I heard from some former colleagues that a decision had already been taken by authorities to get rid of me and my book. They even advised me to leave the country," Afifi said in a phone interview from California, where he fled shortly after the release of his book.
Afifi said the warning was preceded by a ban of his book from all bookstores and newspaper stands. But before the ban, the book (whose title translates roughly to “So You Don’t Get Hit on the Back of Your Head”) had sold thousands of copies. The title resonates with many Egyptians, who believe that whoever sets foot in a police station gets smacked on the nape of the neck.
“The police violate human rights in a systemic manner in order to terrify the people and prevent them from claiming their basic rights and their usurped political rights,” said Afifi, who served in several departments at the interior ministry until he retired in 2003. He added that, as far as torture is concerned, "what happens in reality is much more serious than what gets disclosed to the public."
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 It’s been a time of prayer and angst for Egypt’s Coptic Christians.
The leader of the nation’s Coptic Church, Pope Shenouda III, was reportedly flown this week to a U.S. hospital after breaking his leg in a fall at his residence. The 85-year-old patriarch has been in frail health for years, and his latest travail comes during rising tension in this predominantly Muslim nation over the murders and kidnappings of Copts.
On Monday, the pope “slipped on a carpet in his home and fell, breaking his thigh bone," Tharwat Bassily, a member of the church’s lay council, told Agenece France-Presse. He added that Shenouda was unable to reach the telephone and remained alone on the floor from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak arranged for the pope to be transported in his state jet to a hospital in Cleveland.
The Coptic church and the Mubarak government have been attempting to defuse a resurgence of sectarian animosity. In May, four Copts were shot dead in a Cairo jewelry shop by a man firing an automatic weapon who fled without stealing anything. Days later, armed Muslims attacked a monastery in the southern town of Malawi; one Muslim was killed and several Coptic priests were briefly taken hostage.
Egypt has prided itself on peaceful coexistence among its religious groups, but Copts, who make up about 10% of the country’s population of 78 million, have often complained of discrimination. Coptic protesters in Malawi recently chanted: “With our blood and soul, we will defend the cross.... Coptic hearts are on fire.”
-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Coptic Pope Shenouda III. Credit: freecopts.net
 After weeks of heated deliberations, the Egyptian parliament on Saturday passed new pieces of legislation that impose relatively harsh legal restrictions on female circumcision and allow women for the first time to register their babies even if the father’s identity is unknown.
One law imposes a sentence of a maximum of two years and a fine of a maximum of $1,000 for performing female genital mutilation. This issue has caused much stir in the people’s assembly, especially among the Muslim Brotherhood, which holds one-fifth of the parliamentary seats. Conservatives maintain that Islam condones the removal of a girl’s clitoris to tame her sexual desires and condemn the amendment as a western import.
Attention-getting opposition to the bill came from an ostensibly secular MP a couple of weeks ago. Mohamed El-Omda, a member of a marginal opposition party, appeared before the people's assembly with his three daughters to protest the ban. One of his young daughters raised a banner reading: “No to any attempt to forbid what is divinely allowed. No to any attempt to allow what is divinely forbidden.” El-Omda said that two of his daughters were already circumcised.
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 The call to prayer is a pervasive, comforting echo across the Middle East, but a fatwa by a prominent Islamic cleric urges Muslims to spend less time prostrating and more time working. Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi said worshippers often use prayer to slip away from their jobs longer then they should.
“Praying is a good thing . . . 10 minutes should be enough,” according to an edict posted on Qaradawi’s website. The sheikh’s opinion is shared by many clerics and highlights the dilemma between economic productivity and religious devotion in a part of the world where piety is prized.
Devout Muslims pray five times a day, two of which fall during working hours. They kneel in mosques or unfurl prayer mats and recite the Koran in offices, clogging aisles and bringing work to a halt. The time between ablution -– washing hands and feet -– and a prayer can take 10 minutes, but many Muslim spend as many as 30 minutes on the ritual.
Companies and store owners have been complaining for years about lost labor minutes and inefficiency. The problem goes well beyond prayer time. A recent government study found that Egypt’s 6 million government employees, a massive platoon of bureaucracy, are each estimated to spend only 27 minutes a day working.
If frustrated citizens or customers ask to speed things up, they are met with a sigh, a roll of the eyes and the centuries-old reply: "Inshallah" (God willing).
--Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Muslims at prayer. Credit: Associated Press, Hasan Sarbakhshian
 He was grabbing a cup of coffee at the factory cafeteria less than two years ago when he heard the call for a strike. “I wondered then what the term strike meant,” recalls Karim El-Beheiry. On his way out of the factory, he heard a fellow tell the press: “I don’t have enough money to satisfy the needs of my son.”
“I cried when I heard that,” remembers El-Beheiry, “and eventually decided to join the strike.”
The words stuck with El-Beheiry until they turned him from a disengaged lay worker into a prominent blogger and labor activist. But he did not know that his dedication to workers’ rights would cost him more than 50 days of imprisonment and torture for allegedly instigating a riot in April, at Mahalla town, the site of Egypt’s biggest spinning and textile factory and the stronghold of the nation’s labor force.
Upon his release, El-Beheiry affirmed to The Times that his experience behind bars, though painful, made him more determined about his cause. “Jail never changes ideas. Coercion and torture makes the person stronger. I love this country and I refuse to give up my rights,” El-Beheiry told The Times over the phone from Mahalla, about 75 miles north of Cairo.
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Egyptian culture minister Farouq Hosni has thrown himself into a fierce confrontation with Israel when he allegedly vowed to burn Israeli books if found in Egyptian libraries.
The minister made the comment last month in parliament after an MP accused him of normalizing relations with Israel by allowing Israeli books in Egyptian libraries. Hosni's rebuttal was as follows: "[I] would burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries."
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel in the late 1970's.
Hosni is known for his opposition of cultural normalization with the Jewish State. His comment came to add more fuel to fire.
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Makram Azer was sitting in his jewelry shop this week in the El Zeitoun neighborhood in Cairo when two gunmen stormed in, killing him and three workers and injuring two. Nothing was stolen.
The murder is far from being seen as a mere crime. The victims were Copts, and that struck a nerve with the Christian community that constitutes about 10% of Egypt's predominantly Sunni Muslim population.
The prosecutor reportedly announced that preliminary investigations showed that no sectarian or terrorist motivations stood behind the crime.
Copts have long complained of religious discrimination, and sensitivities between Muslims and Copts have erupted in violence. In 2006, for example, a knife-wielding assailant attacked three churches in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing one and wounding at least 12. The government announced then that the perpetrator was mentally sick, a finding that fell short of convincing Christians.
With this week's killing, those in the Coptic diaspora have seized the opportunity to shed light on the conditions of their co-religionists at home. Their websites have been following closely the murder and displaying plenty of incendiary comments. Most commentators have accused the government of neglecting violence against Christians, expecting it to put the blame on some sick-minded gangster, as it has done with similar incidents in the past.
"There will be no punishment for the criminals. Christians are slaves in their own country. All these killings happen with the full blessing and planning of Habib Adli [Egypt's interior minister] and his gangsters," read a comment on the United Copts website, which represents a group of hard-line Copts in the diaspora.
"God willing, the perpetrators will be arrested by the police and they will not turn out to be mentally retarded," read a comment on another Coptic website maintained by Copts living in the U.S.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: A cartoon commenting on the murder on a Copts website. The officer tells the prosecutor: "Here are the pictures of some mentally retarded men. Your highness can choose one or two of them for this case." Credit: Shafiq Botros / United Copts website
 The Egyptian parliament on Monday renewed the 27-year-old state of emergency for two more years, dashing the hopes of the nation's human rights activists.
In all, 305 of the Parliament's 454 members voted in favor of the renewal after President Hosni Mubarak issued a decree a day earlier calling on the nation’s representatives to extend the notorious state of emergency. One hundred three MPs did not heed Mubarak's call.
Under the emergency law, the police are authorized to detain people indefinitely without charges, refer civilians to military courts, close dissident publications and thwart demonstrations.
In 2005 Mubarak promised to lift the state of emergency and pass an anti-terror act instead, but he has yet to deliver on his pledges. The act has not been passed, and Mubarak's regime has used that fact to justify the extension of the emergency law. The state of emergency was due to expire May 31.
"It is sad that Egypt remains under state of emergency for more than 27 years," said Bahey Eddin Hassan, general director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. "We fear that the extension of the state of emergency aims at crushing the peaceful political opposition, which has recently increased."
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 Egypt is using a new media law to prosecute the owner of a satellite TV company for his role in broadcasting violent anti-government street protests. The law, passed by the Arab League in February, is the latest attempt by regimes in the region to silence independent satellite channels.
Charges have been filed against Nader Gohar, owner of the Cairo News Co., which provides links and equipment to Al Jazeera, BBC and other international networks. Police raided Cairo News in April after Al Jazeera broadcast images of riot police battling with protesters in Mahalla, a Nile Delta town where 27,000 textile workers have been protesting inflation and low salaries.
Gohar is expected to be tried later this month for broadcasting without permission. His company has been shut down and he faces fines and up to one year in prison. Human Rights Watch has called the charges part of a campaign by the government of President Hosni Mubarak to “stifle freedom of the press.”
The Arab League law, sponsored Saudi Arabia and Egypt, pressures channels from broadcasting transmissions that “negatively affect social peace, national unity, public order and public morals” or “defame leaders, or national and religious symbols [of other Arab states].”
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Cairo's rooftops are a sea of TV satellite dishes. (BBC)
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In less than 10 days, Egypt’s 27-year-old state of emergency, which gives the police absolute authority to arrest and detain, is expected to expire.
The state of emergency dates to the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat. Human rights advocates complain that the emergency law has become a convenient tool for crushing political opponents. However, President Hosni Mubarak’s regime insists that it is only there to fight terrorists and drug dealers.
A hot debate is going on: If the government allows the law to expire, will Egypt’s record on human rights improve? Human rights activists are skeptical.
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 No more letters home for Ayman Nour. An Egyptian court has ruled that the jailed political dissident and leader of the Tomorrow Party can no longer write to his wife. The reason: Nour has angered officials by mailing home essays critical of the government that ended up in the nation’s independent newspapers.
"This decision shows a determination to deny him every right as a prisoner," Nour's wife, Gamila Ismail, told AFP.
The ruling is the latest attempt to silence Nour, a lawyer who ran against President Hosni Mubarak in 2005 and was later sentenced to five years in prison for forging political documents. His cause was quickly taken up by human rights organizations that frequently criticize Egypt for political repression, torture and the jailing of activists, especially members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Nour was on the minds Egyptians on Sunday, when President Bush, speaking in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, criticized Middle East governments for silencing their opponents: "Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail," he said.
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Ayman Nour ran against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2005 and was later sentenced to five years in prison for forging political documents. (AFP)
 “A duel with discourses.” “A war of words in Sharm el Sheik.” Today's local press chose those headlines to describe the dichotomous contents of the speeches delivered Sunday by U.S. President Bush and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak at the World Economic Forum.
Mubarak started off by saying: “We are proceeding with the tenets of democracy to instate pluralism and promote our political life. ...[Reforms] emanate from inside and take into consideration the conditions and the peculiarities of our society.”
Soon afterward, Bush gave a rebuttal. “Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail. ... America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organizations that are shut down and dissidents whose voices are stifled."
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 U.S. President George Bush arrived today in Sharm El-Sheikh for peace talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
Yet, no warm welcome should be expected, especially when it is believed that he mainly came to the region to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary. Earlier this week, demonstrators in downtown Cairo protested his visit, accusing him of siding with Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.
Egypt is the final stop in Bush’s Middle East tour after Israel and Saudi Arabia. He first landed in the Jewish state, where he addressed the Knesset to congratulate the Israelis on their country's anniversary.
“Masada will not fall again,” Bush said in his speech Thursday, referring to the Jewish desert fortress that was attacked by troops of the Roman Empire. While the speech was hailed as “historic” by some Israeli papers, it elicited stir in Egypt. The state-owned daily paper Al-Ahram dismissed the speech as inspired by the Torah.
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 Their technology is beyond placards and clenched fists; their strategies are sketched out in cyberspace, they communicate in acronyms and SMS's. But Egypt’s bloggers and Facebook activists receive the same harsh treatment by police as the country’s less -technically savvy dissidents: interrogation rooms and alleged beatings.
Ahmed Maher has accused police of torturing him after he was arrested for using his Facebook network to rally support for a nationwide strike against low wages, inflation and the failures of President Hosni Mubarak’s 26-year-old regime. Maher told Human Rights Watch that he was blindfolded and handcuffed and taken to a police station on May 7.
He claims he was stripped to his underwear, kicked and beaten. He said a blow to his head damaged his hearing. Human Rights Watch reported that the ordeal lasted about 12 hours and that Maher, a civil engineer, was released by alleged assailants who “applied lotion to his back between beatings in an apparent attempt to reduce bruising.”
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 A number of opposition MPs and independent activists have recently launched a campaign to pressure President Hosni Mubarak’s regime to stop exporting natural gas to Israel. Under the Slogan “No to the Gas Setback”, the opposition gave the government an ultimatum of 30 days to go back on a deal that obliges Egypt to provide Israel with gas for 15 years.
Under the contract, Egypt is committed to pump 1.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year into Israel. For the opposition, the deal is another blow similar to the “1967 setback” under which Israeli forces occupied Egypt’s Sinai, among other Arab territories. If the government does not heed the opposition’s call, campaigners are threatening to take to the streets.
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 You can cross-dress, but you can’t hide without the right shoes.
The Egypt Daily News reported that a man was arrested when he crashed the wedding of his lover wearing a niqab, a face veil, and the full-length robe worn by many conservative Muslim women. The man and the bride-to-be had apparently fallen in love at work, but the woman had been promised to another suitor in an arranged marriage.
The jilted 26-year-old man, whose identity was not disclosed, rounded up his cousin for some help. They donned niqabs and robes and tried to sneak into the reception. The rest reads like a desperate, if not dashing, attempt (think Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate" and "Tootsie") by a man trying to win back his sweetheart. The jig was up when police noticed a fashion no-no.
The first suspect disguised himself, but he forgot to wear women’s shoes, according to the newspaper. “Outside the club stood the security men who suspected the confused lover. . . . The man confessed that he wore the niqab to be able to bid farewell to his beloved on her wedding night.”
The postscript: “A note on the incident was filed, the clothes were seized.”
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Muslim women in Egypt wearing the niqab, or full face veil, walk to Friday prayers at a mosque in Cairo. Credit: Amr Nabil /AFP
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Will the real Abu Hamza al-Muhajir please stand up? No, not the one detained Thursday near the northern city of Mosul who convinced Iraqi officials that Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is his name. It's another Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who heads the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, who U.S. and Iraqi officials want. 
For a few hours late Thursday and early today, it seemed the Al Qaeda in Iraq chief might actually be in custody. The Defense Ministry spokesman, Mohammed Askari, was convinced enough that he announced al-Muhajir's arrest and said he had been assured by security officials in the Mosul region that they had their man.
But U.S. military officials, who would be thrilled to announce such a catch, insisted they could not confirm the arrest.
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"This is a very normal incident that could happen in any oral exam," the narrator says. "A student stood in front of the committee. The examiner asked him to list 8 differential diagnoses for big toe tumors. The guy gave an answer, the examiner asked 'what else?', the student gave a second answer, the examiner asked 'what else?', the student gave a third, fourth, fifth… answers until he could not say anything more. So the examiner kicked him out and failed him. I think this is real justice. "Another student walked in. the examiner asked him 'how are you dear?', the student answered 'I am fine,' the examiner asked him 'what else?', the student said: "my father is saying hello,' the examiner asked 'what else?', the student replied: 'My dad is also telling you happy new year,' the examiner asked 'what else?', the student said 'My mum is saying hello as well.'
"As the student answered all questions, the examiner gave him the full mark. Unfortunately, some people use such incidents to claim that there is nepotism in Cairo University’s medical school," continues the narrator.
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 In a sudden move, the Egyptian parliament voted Monday in favor of a package of price hikes and tax surges in order to pay a recently-announced 30% wage raise.
The new package increased primarily fuel prices and imposed higher license fees on cars with high-capacity engines. The diesel prices were raised by 47%; Octane 90 by 35%; Octane 92 by 32%; Octane 95 by 57%. The new hikes are expected to generate extra revenue of US$ 2.25 billion to pay for the pay raise that President Mubarak announced last week. The government claims that the package would affect the haves for the sake of the have-nots, as only car owners would be the ones mostly affected.
“We could not provide the big wage raise that the President asked for without having real revenues. Otherwise, the wage raise would lead to inflation,” Prime minister Ahmed Nazif told reporters shortly after the endorsement of the new increases in parliament.
Nazif claimed that his government’s package would not trump Mubarak’s wage raise.
While the increase of fuel prices are expected to elicit more public outrage, the government insists that the poor have nothing to worry about. “The citizen should not feel frustrated because I simply took money from the financially capable to give to the less capable,” Nazif said.
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The “wanna-b-a-bride” blog has recently elicited a storm of controversy on Babylon and beyond for its unconventional content that mocks Egyptian patriarchal norms.
Since a piece was posted about the blog last month, more than 40 comments carrying divergent views have been sent to the author Ghada Abdel Aal. Some hailed the blog as a daring exposure of an unjust reality while many dismissed it as a sham.
“Ghada u r really a wonderfull gilr, go ahead allah with u and always remember every sucessfull person has many difficulties & critics and please belive in your opinion, it's yours :),” Wafaa wrote on Babylon and Beyond
Yet, Abdel Aal’s detractors had a different say on her blog which was turned earlier this year into a book. “To the worst example of unmarried girls. To the person who only represents herself and sick people, enough dissoluteness. Where are decency and purity?” wondered a respondent.
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This one is not for readers with delicate stomachs. Consider yourselves warned.
Much has rightly been made of the myriad deprivations suffered by residents of the Gaza Strip because of the 10-month-long economic siege of the territory imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took control last summer.
Merchants have run short of everything, from auto parts to diapers; an alarming percentage of the population now lives on international aid; and all but emergency surgical procedures are put on the back burner because of shortages of most medical supplies.
Now comes a new sign of Gaza's desperate state — one that should disturb fans of the Mediterranean beaches in Israel and Egypt.
A new United Nations report states that public utilities officials in Gaza have pumped millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Mediterranean over the last three months.The shortage of fuel and constant power cuts make it impossible to treat the sewage, the report states: Full sewage treatment requires 14 continuous days of uninterrupted power supply which cannot occur due to daily power cuts and insufficient fuel to operate power-supplying and back-up generators."
According to the report, the sewage flows northward toward the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.
— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
Photo: Coming soon to a beach near you. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
 Cyberspace activists calling for nationwide protests to upset Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s 80th birthday found sparse turnout and little passion.
Few took to the streets, few boycotted work and few wore black. It was another setback for opposition groups and bloggers who have been unable to ignite sustained protests against low wages, rising food prices and political repression.
As word of the protest circulated in recent days over the Internet and in cellphone text messages, the Mubarak government countered with old-school, low-tech politics: Police and security forces were mobilized and the president announced a 30% pay raise for all public employees.
Many Egyptians were temporarily satisfied; others were scared to cross a regime that in April had put down similar protests.
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Egyptians ruefully ponder the traffic on their streets and the chaos in their hearts. They seek, especially in rattling, boisterous Cairo, anecdotes and asides to describe their exasperating predicaments. Here’s a sobering assessment from writer Suleiman Gouda, who recently mused in the newspaper Al-Wafd: What’s really strange is that when an Egyptian is in a capital other than Cairo, he/she behaves well every step they take and turns from a chaotic creature, who is used to unlimited chaos in his home country, into a civilized person.
Gouda goes on to say that he was startled by a glimpse at traffic statistics: When a recent report says that the number of those killed (and injured) in accidents in Egypt hit 73,000 in a single year, this only means what is happening in our streets is a war, not an ordinary movement of traffic. The U.S. has been fighting in Iraq for five years, and the number of its soldiers killed did not exceed 4,000!
Yet, somehow, Egyptian friendliness and a wry sense of humor overcome the din of horns and the screech of brakes in a tangle of rolling eyes and shared, knowing smiles.
— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Cairo gridlock. Credit: auto.howstuffworks.com
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 Al Qaeda increasingly faces sharp criticism from once-loyal sympathizers who openly question its ideology and tactics, including attacks that kill innocent Muslims, according to U.S. intelligence officials, counter-terrorism experts and the group's own communications.
A litany of complaints target Osama bin Laden's network and its affiliates for their actions in Iraq and North Africa, emphasis on suicide bombings instead of political action and tepid support for, or outright antagonism toward, militant groups pressing the Palestinian cause.
The criticism apparently has grown serious enough that Al Qaeda's chief strategist, Ayman Zawahiri, felt compelled to solicit online questions. He responded in an audio message released this month. For more than 90 minutes, Bin Laden's second-in-command tried to defuse the anger.
Click here to read more.
—Josh Meyer in Washington
Photo: Ayman Zawahiri, left, Al Qaeda’s chief strategist, seen here with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998, recently responded on tape to questions, many angry. Credit: Mazhar Ali Khan / Courtesy Paladin InVision/WETA
 Cyber-dissidents and Facebook activists are preparing to give Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a birthday present that is certain to spoil the cake and candles mood. On May 4, when the leader turns 80, opposition groups have called for a national strike to protest low wages, inflation, poverty and political oppression that have led to growing anger against Mubarak.
The dissidents have the Internet, but Mubarak controls the intelligence and security forces. It’s being couched as a battle between technology, and tear gas and batons.
A national strike several weeks ago turned out to be more symbolic than successful. Police shut down most protests before they started and many in this nation, where more than 40% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, couldn’t afford to give up a day of work to punch their fists in the air.
But activists were inspired, rallying around Esra Abdel Fattah, a 27-year-old blogger who was arrested earlier this month while plotting a protest movement on a Facebook network that included an estimated 64,000 members. She was released from prison earlier this week.
The question for the Egyptian opposition, however, is can electronic dissidence lead to placards and marchers in the street? Historically, Egyptians are not known for taking on their leaders in massive public protests, and the Mubarak government is moving swiftly to silence bloggers, satellite TV channels and other contrarian voices. People are angry, but are they determined?
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: President Hosni Mubarak (AFP)
As the rising sounds of oriental percussion and lutes resonated around him, the frail Sufi chanter struck a glass with prayer beads in fast repetitive movements. His vibrant voice sang love for the prophet Mohammed.
The man featured at a cultural center in Cairo was Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tuni, one of Egypt's emblematic figures of Sufism, a school of Islam with mystical dimensions. Al-Tuni represents an old line of performers of musical and singing traditions transmitted orally from generation to generation. Sufis believe they can transcend into a state of altered consciousness and experience closeness to Allah, or God. This is usually achieved through a set of rituals that involve whirling the head or the body to intense rhythmic music and repetitive chanting of divine names.
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Under the headline "Impulse to Lust," one can ponder old men, anxious grooms and the value of cufflinks. Diverse topics to be sure, but not when looked at through the enticing, blue prism that is Viagra. Gamal Nkrumah writes in the Al-Ahram Weekly about Egypt’s 10-year love affair with a pill that has “saved marriages and ruined others.”
Hag Ahmed, a 68-year-old Viagra devotee, gives the pills as presents to his closest associates. “My friends appreciate it far more than a tie or expensive cufflinks,” he says. Nervous grooms have come to rely on it, as well as young men looking to, shall we say, inflate their prowess.
“There are perfectly healthy young men that want to experiment with Viagra to enhance their sexual abilities,” said pharmacist Manal El-Shazli. “Pornographic films have become readily available on satellite television channels and the Internet. An ever-increasing number of young men want to try everything they watch, and they believe that Viagra is their best friend; that is the ideal instrument to realize their dreams."
When it comes to sex and its accoutrements, the world, despite frictions between Islam and the West, is pretty much the same from Cairo to Los Angeles, a landscape of angst, joy, desire, wonderment and pharmaceuticals.
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo credit: viagra-picture.org
The two women struck their drums to a crescendo, swirling their heads, adorned with embroidered veils and bright jewelry. The men in the background followed the rhythm with their flute and oriental percussion instruments, as they all seemed to slip into a trance.
This performance at a small makeshift theater in downtown Cairo was part of a representation of a traditional dwindling Egyptian act of drumming, singing and dancing, called the "Zar." Originally, the Zar is a ritual practiced mainly by women in some African countries to heal the bodies and souls of their community from illness and evil spirits. But because it weaves in magic and mysticism, this practice has been rejected by mainstream Islamic currents. It is only practiced today illicitly in underground places such as cemeteries.
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Former U.S. President Carter whirled into Cairo today with his Middle East roadshow, calling the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza “abominable” while adding that there are “officials in Israel quite willing to meet with Hamas” and that may happen “in the near future.”
 His white eyebrows bright in the spotlight, Carter spoke to students and faculty at the American University here after talks with President Hosni Mubarak and a separate three-hour meeting with Hamas officials. The Bush administration and Israel have set rules not to talk to the militant Palestinian group but, Carter said, “I consider myself immune” from such restrictions.
He added that he wasn’t acting as a negotiator or mediator, but hoped that he “might set an example to be emulated” by others. The former president’s meetings with Hamas officials in recent days have outraged Israelis, but Carter was undeterred, even suggesting that his recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," was aptly named because apartheid “is the exact description of what’s happening in Palestine now.”
He played to a mostly appreciative audience, except for one American student from Amherst who suggested that by meeting with Hamas, Carter was giving legitimacy to terrorists. A murmur went through the crowd. Carter paused, and said: “My daughter was (once) arrested in Amherst.”
Laughter.
The former governor from Georgia said he told Hamas officials that “the worst thing” they’re doing to their cause is firing rockets into Israel, which he called "abominable and an act of terrorism.” Before the college student could grin in agreement, Carter did the mathematics of bloodshed. He said that for every Israeli killed in the conflict, 30 to 40 Palestinians die because of Israel’s superior military and “pinpoint accuracy.”
He then slipped back into diplomatic mode: ‘I’m not blaming one (side) or the other. . .Any side that kills innocent people is guilty of terrorism.”
It was almost 30 years ago that Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin made peace at Camp David. In the current crisis, the former president took a moment to remember those times. He drew applause when, with a jab at the Bush administration, he mentioned that he didn’t wait until his final days in office to try to find a way to peace.
Carter said he had “an almost brotherly love for Anwar Sadat.” But Sadat and Begin didn’t get along. Carter recalled that until the last minute it was uncertain whether there would be a deal. He remembered autographing photographs for Begin’s grandchildren. He delivered them to the prime minister cabin's at Camp David. Begin flicked through the photos and read the names of the children out loud. Carter said Begin had tears in his eyes.
Begin turned to Carter and said: “Let’s try again” to make peace.
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Jimmy Carter with his wife, Rosalynn. Credit: Associated Press.
Palestinian cleric issued a fatwa condoning the killing of Egyptian forces if they prevent Gazans fleeing the Israeli siege from crossing into Egypt. Needless to say, it has elicited quite a stir in Egypt, according to a news report in the Egyptian al-Masry al-Youm daily.
The Grand Sheik of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, dismissed the fatwa as divisive. It came as the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza has driven Palestinians towards the Egyptian border.
Egypt has begun stepping up security measures for fear that its border would be breached again by Gazans.
In January, hundreds of thousands of Gazans broke through the Egyptian border after Hamas militants blew open the wall leading to Egypt.
Egypt is in a tough position. The violence at its doorstep is putting its national security in jeopardy.
Deadly violence erupted Wednesday between Hamas militants and Israel, leaving three Israeli soldiers and at least 20 Palestinians dead The latest confrontations are expected to halt Egyptian efforts aimed at mediating a cease-fire between the two parties.
“There can be no discussion of a truce in the midst of these crimes,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri reportedly said.
—Noha El-Hennawy in Beirut
Photo: Palestinian children take part in a protest against the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip at the Rafah border point between Egypt and Gaza on April 10, 2008. Credit: SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images
Yemen's conservatives are still in control.
After a heated debate in parliament this month, Yemeni women's rights advocates lost their battle to ban female circumcision, according to a report in the Yemen Times.
The parliament in recent days voted against a bill that would have outlawed female genital mutilation, a practice that is believed to affect almost 25% of Yemeni women.
Opponents claimed that the issue remains too sensitive among Yemeni and that no legal measure could be taken as long as there was no consensus among religious scholars against the practice.
Female circumcision is a widespread practice in the Middle East and Africa. Many Muslims believe that removing a girl's clitoris to tame her libido is a religious obligation.
Top Muslim clerics, including the Grand Sheik of al-Azhar Mosque, the world's oldest Sunni Muslim religious institution, have repeatedly decried the practice as purely traditional and without basis in Islamic scriptures.
Yet the scholars’ declarations have not been able to end to the centuries-old practice.
Egyptian lawmakers have been embroiled in a similar debate. A draft bill calling for the criminalization of the practice has been dismissed by Islamic lawmakers in Cairo as a Western ploy to demonize Islamic traditions.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Beirut
Photo: Yemeni women attended ceremonies in the city of Aden marking the anniversary of the British withdrawal from their country. Credit: EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Amid dire warnings of impending attacks, up to 50,000 Israeli tourists are expected to flood into the Sinai Peninsula for Passover vacation, which technically starts Sunday but realistically began about two days ago for many Israelis.
Sinai, which was occupied by Israel from 1967 to 1982, remains close to the hearts of many Israelis, who still frequent the many tranquil huts-on-the-beach campsites and scuba diving hot spots along the western Sinai coast. Depending on how a customer looks, shop owners in Sinai resort towns like Dahab will occasionally bust out some Hebrew, especially during peak Israeli vacation times like this.
The Israeli fondness for Sinai has withstood not only generally hostile feelings toward them on the part of many Egyptians but a series of terrorist attacks in Sinai towns like Sharm El Sheikh and Taba. Even when all the American and European tourists were scared away from Egypt for months at a time, a certain percentage of the Israelis kept on coming.
Which is why the current crop of Sinai attack warnings probably won't derail many Israelis' Sinai vacation plans. Egyptian officials say they are searching for several carloads of armed militants seeking to attack tourists, and Israel issued a travel advisory warning of an "imminent" attack threat on Sinai tourists. Knowing that many people simply won't heed the warnings, some Israeli politicians have even suggested simply sealing the Taba border crossing into Egypt.
—Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
Photo: Sinai's many pristine beach continue to draw Israelis even when their government is warning them to stay away. Credit: Public domain
Men were humming verses from the Koran, gently moving their heads back and forth. Others were murmuring prayers while fumbling with strands of beads to keep count. The scene in Cairo's metro, on my first ride to the office here, was revelatory of the wave of religious fervor that Egypt has known in the last few years.
 The contrast with an Egyptian movie from the 1970s I had seen in Beirut last week was staggering. The film featured women wearing miniskirts and dancing disco extravagantly. It was set at a time when the society in Cairo was embracing modernity and opening up to the West.
But witnessing the crowds of veiled women and bearded men on the metro, that permissive, open Cairo seems a distant recollection. In fact, Cairo does not resemble at all that idyllic image of the glamorous glitzy city we, in the rest of the Arab world, have repeatedly seen on our movie and TV screens.
Another stunning aspect was the characteristic bruise on the forehead of many men here. These marks are supposedly formed by the repeated contact between the forehead and the floor during prayers. These prayer bumps have become like fashion statements and are derisively referred to as "Zebiba," the Arabic word for a raisin.
—Raed Rafei in Cairo
Photo: Man reading the Koran. Credit: AFP
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An Iranian film dismissing former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as a "traitor" has elicited a storm of anger in Egyptian circles, a development that further reduces prospects of rapprochement between the two countries. 
