Magdi Abdelhadi | Cairo | June 23

BBC -

Nearly 60 years since the Egyptian army overthrew the monarchy, some Egyptians may be looking to the army again for a successor to 80-year-old head of state and former air force chief Hosni Mubarak.

Not far from the podium where President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 while watching a military parade stands a huge frieze.

The gilded triptych glorifies the military and places it at the heart of Egyptian society from the time of the Pharaohs.

The central scene portrays soldiers, together with farmers, workers and students, carrying a plaque inscribed with 1952 - the year a group of army officers overthrew King Farouk and declared Egypt a republic.

The message is clear: the military injects dignity and pride into Egypt and deserves its privileged status - a status the officers have enjoyed since 1952.

The military has also been transformed into a veritable business empire, whose exact size, turnover and profit no-one is allowed to know. Not even parliament can scrutinise its affairs.

In May, Mali and Algeria began preparing to get tough on AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). For much of the past six weeks, however, AQIM appeared to be on the offensive. In Mali, an AQIM affiliate executed a kidnapped British citizen, Edwin Dyer, and appeared to be behind the assassination of Colonel Lamana Ould Cheikh, an army officer with responsibility for hunting militants. Meanwhile, militants claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Algeria.

Cairo | June 16

Reuters -
Libyan authorities have reported an outbreak of bubonic plague in the Mediterranean coastal town of Tubruq(Tobruk), and the World Health Organisation was sending a team to investigate, a WHO official said Tuesday.

The cases -- approximately 16 to 18 have been reported -- would be the first in more than two decades in Libya of the disease known in medieval times as the Black Death, according to John Jabbour, a Cairo-based emerging diseases specialist at WHO.

"It is reported as bubonic plague," Jabbour said, adding WHO still didn't have "a full picture" of the situation.

"It is officially reported by Libya... Tomorrow, WHO is deploying a mission to Libya to investigate the whole situation, to see how many of the cases are confirmed, or not confirmed."

He said preliminary information from Libyan authorities showed 16 to 18 reported cases including one death, and that Tripoli had asked for assistance from the global health body.

Bubonic plague, noticeable by black bumps that sometimes develop on victims' bodies, causes severe vomiting and fever and still kills around 100 to 200 people annually worldwide. It can kill within days if not treated with antibiotics.

A plague epidemic of 1347 to 1351 was one of the deadliest recorded in human history, killing about 75 million people, according to some estimates, including more than a third of Europe's population.

That pandemic was thought to have begun in Asia, then spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Michael Day | Milan | June 10

The Independent -

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi flies into Rome today on his first visit to Italy, celebrating the end of decades of animosity between his country and its former colonial power.

Since the countries signed a treaty in August last year, in which Italy agreed to pay £4.5bn over 20 years as compensation for Italy's colonisation of the North African country, business ties have flourished. Successive Italian governments have bent over backwards to accommodate the mercurial Col Gaddafi, who for decades was seen as a terrorist-sponsoring international pariah.

Roman authorities are making plans for the unexpected this week as he prepares to pitch his Bedouin tent, together with a possible planeload of camels and stallions, in the grounds of the Eternal City's sumptuous 17th-century Villa Doria Pamphili palace. As ever, his female bodyguards in green fatigues and red berets are expected to guard him round the clock.

During his visit, Col Gaddafi will meet the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the President, Giorgio Napolitano, and the heads of both houses of parliament. He has also asked for a meeting with 700 Italian women achievers. The encounter will take place in a city concert hall on 12 June.

If you didn't watch Obama's speech in Cairo yet--and if, like me, you sort of feel like you "should," but omg it's so long and it'll probably be dry and can't I just catch someone's 200-word summary somewhere, please?--well, no. You really want to see this speech. Not just read it, either.

Seriously, it's that good.

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING

Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt

1:10 P.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. And together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I'm grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. And I'm also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: Assalaamu alaykum. (Applause.)

MIchael Slackman | Cairo | May 26

NYT - The garbage collectors of Cairo live in neighborhoods spilling over with trash. The children play with the trash and in the trash, when they are not helping to sort or collect the trash. The women sit right in the trash, picking out rotten food with their hands and tossing it to their pigs, which live right there in the neighborhood with them.

Slideshow

Really interesting article about the zabaleen and the slaughtering of pigs in Eygpt

Maggie Michael | May 21

The Independent - A prominent Egyptian real state mogul and lawmaker was found guilty and sentenced to death today by an Egyptian court for ordering the slaying of Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim, a case that sparked a media frenzy in a country where the elite is often perceived as above the law.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, who is close to President Hosni Mubarak's eldest son, Gamal, was accused of paying a former Egyptian police officer $2 million to kill Tamim in Dubai. Authorities say Moustafa and Tamim were lovers.

The former officer, Mohsen el-Sukkary, was also sentenced to death Thursday in a court session that quickly descended into chaos. Police and Moustafa's relatives clashed with reporters after the verdict was read, smashing cameras to prevent photographers from capturing the former Talaat Moustafo Group chairman's reaction.

Dione Nissenbaum | El Arish, Egypt | May 16

McClatchy Newspapers - When Egyptian police pounded on the door before dawn and took her husband Nimr away, Sahar Zibawi had no idea that her partner was about to become a pivotal player in a convoluted political plot involving gun running to Gaza, a notorious African smuggling route once used by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, an Iranian-backed Hezbollah cell and an attempt by Egypt's aging president to reclaim his waning regional influence.

"We've been put in a whirlwind and we don't know why," Zibawi said nervously while she met surreptitiously with a McClatchy reporter in this Mediterranean coast town that's a gateway for smuggling to Palestinian-controlled Gaza.

Cam McGrath | Cairo | May 5

IPA - It is a health crisis of alarming proportions. Up to nine million Egyptians have been exposed to hepatitis C, and tens of thousands will die each year unless they receive a liver transplant.

Health authorities are taking steps to stop the spread of the blood-borne virus, but must also contend with higher liver failure mortality rates as the disease advances in those infected decades ago.

"The prevalence of hepatitis C is not growing, but the impact of an outbreak in the 1960s and 70s is appearing now as a clinical outcome," says Dr. Mostafa Kamal Mohamed, professor of community medicine at Ain Shams University in Cairo. "Liver disease has become the number one healthcare priority for the country and will continue to be so for the next decade. About 70 percent of all liver deaths here are due to hepatitis C."

Xan Rice/Nairobi & Robert Booth | Apr 27

The Guardian - • Deadline of 20 days issued for release of radical cleric
• Briton seized in Africa by group linked to Bin Laden

Al-Qaida's North African wing has threatened to kill a British tourist taken hostage in the Sahara unless the radical cleric and terrorism suspect Abu Qatada is released within 20 days.

The kidnapped man was among four Europeans seized in January after their convoy was ambushed near the border of Niger and Mali, where they had been after attending a Tuareg festival. The Foreign Office has not released the man's name.

Qatada, once described by a Spanish judge as "Osama bin Laden's righthand man in Europe", is being held in Britain pending deportation to his native Jordan, where in 1999 he was convicted in his absence of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to life imprisonment. The charges related to bombings at the American school and the Jerusalem hotel in Jordan. He was convicted a second time in 2000 over a plot to bomb tourists.

"We demand that Britain release Sheikh Abu Qatada, who is unjustly [held], for the release of its British citizen. We give it 20 days as of the issuance of this statement," the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a posting on an Islamist website yesterday. "When this period expires, the mujahideen will kill the British hostage."

Josh Marshall has a historical take on global piracy:

1. Piracy in the eastern Mediterranean, spreading to the whole Mediterranean, in the first century BC -- largely ascribed to the fact that Rome had destroyed the Hellenistic Successor states that had controlled region without as yet asserting a policing authority of their own in the same era. See, bang-up mopping up operation by Pompey.

2. Piracy in the Caribbean and Spanish America generally from the 16th through the late 17th century. The reasons, broadly speaking, overextended and deteriorating Spanish naval power and indulged rival powers England, Dutch and French until the English decided that it was no longer in their long term interests.

Neither historical example is precisely on point. But piracy is usually about failed states, or failing or over-extended imperial powers.

In this instance I think we're dealing with both causes.

Algiers | April 9

Al Jazeera - Voting is under way in Algeria in presidential elections predicted to hand another five-year term to incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Traditional opposition groups are boycotting Thursday's poll - calling it a charade.

Voter turnout is expected to be low and is being seen as a referendum on Bouteflika's policies.

Sebastian Rotella & Borzou Daragahi | Beirut & Madrid | Apr 1

LA Times -

Hundreds of migrants are feared drowned in the Mediterranean Sea near Libya, migrant advocates and Italian officials said Tuesday, a grim result of a wave of desperate maritime human smuggling to Italy.

At least 200 migrants are missing after an overloaded boat sank about 30 miles off Libya's coast, where Libyan rescuers recovered at least 23 survivors and 20 corpses Monday, according to the International Organization for Migration in Geneva.

"The rescue operation has ended," said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the organization. "It doesn't look good."

In another incident, an Italian oil freighter rescued 356 people crammed aboard a boat that was in distress in strong wind and choppy water, Italian officials said.

Other boats may be in trouble. Libyan authorities lost radio contact Saturday night with two vessels, according to migrant advocates, who said it was not clear whether the two were fishing or smuggling boats. The incidents were reported Tuesday morning.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva said Tuesday that "details were still sketchy" and that "at least" one boat had sunk.

There were reports that a second boat packed with migrants had gone down, said a Red Cross official based in Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island near Tunisia that is a major illegal gateway to Europe.

Tony Paterson | Apr 1

The Independent -
The latest medical scanning technology reveals that the Egyptian queen Nefertiti was given an ancient facelift.

Her name means "a beautiful woman has arrived" and for almost a century the 3,400-year-old bust of the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti has been regarded as a true likeness. Now it seems that in the flesh, she wasn't that good looking after all. The delicately featured bust of the wife of the King Akhenaten has been one of the highlights of Berlin's museum collection ever since it was excavated by German archaeologists and first put on display in 1923. It will shortly take pride of place in the city's recently revamped Neues Museum. But scientific researchers say they have established that her limestone bust appears to have been given a facelift. Call it ancient world Botox.

Using the latest computer tomography techniques developed for medicine, the researchers from Berlin's Imaging Science Institute took a series of scans of the bust and discovered that the sculpture was made up of a limestone core covered in layers of stucco of varying thickness.

Advances in CT technology meant that they were able to probe deeper than a previous scan carried out in 1992. They found that the inner facial cast, which would have been taken directly from the queen's face, differed significantly from the outside of the bust. It had less prominent cheekbones; a slight bump on the ridge of the nose; marked wrinkles around the corner of the mouth and cheeks; and less depth at the corners of the eyelids.

Will Rasmussen | Cairo | Mar 25

Reuters - Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Cairo on Wednesday on his second trip abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted him on charges of war crimes in Darfur, airport sources said.

Bashir, who risks arrest when he leaves Sudan because of the warrant issued for him by the Hague-based court this month, is expected to discuss developments surrounding the ICC ruling with Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak.

Bashir is unlikely to face arrest in Egypt, which has close ties with its Sudanese neighbour and has called on the U.N. Security Council to suspend the ICC w

Ian Cobain | Mar 16

The Guardian - Allegations of British collusion in torture have widened to Egypt, where a young British man says he suffered appalling mistreatment during a week of illegal detention while being interrogated on the basis of information that he says can only have come from the UK.

The development comes after the Conservative leader, David Cameron, said there needed to be a full inquiry, not just to discover whether crimes had been committed by British officials but to establish whether the government's "moral authority" has been maintained.

Azhar Khan, a 26-year-old who has seen a number of friends jailed for terrorist offences, says Egyptian intelligence officers who detained him when he flew into the country last July forced him to stand on the same spot for five days, with little rest, while beating him and subjecting him to electric shocks. Throughout this time, he says, he was asked detailed questions about his friends and associates in the UK.

The Foreign Office has confirmed that Khan was detained in Egypt for a week last July and, after being pressed repeatedly, admitted that it knew that Khan had subsequently complained that he had been tortured. The Guardian understands that Khan's allegations of mistreatment are supported by medical evidence.

Nouakchott | Mar 6

Reuters - Mauritania has ordered staff at Israel's embassy to leave the country within 48 hours after freezing ties with the Jewish state over its invasion of Gaza, a senior Mauritanian official said on Friday.

Diplomatic relations between Mauritania, one of only three Arab countries to have full ties with the Jewish state, have been strained since Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip in December.

"The Mauritanian authorities have given staff at the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott 48 hours to leave the country," the official said.

Cairo | February 19

AFP - Egypt's public prosecutor has freed the country's best-known political dissident, Ayman Nur, on health grounds, a judicial official told AFP on Wednesday.

"The public prosecutor decided to free Ayman Nur for health reasons," the official said, requesting anonymity. A security official said Nur, a 44-year-old diabetic, was already at his Cairo home with his wife Gamila, who has fought relentlessly for his release.

Nur, a lawyer, mounted an unprecedented challenge against veteran leader President Hosni Mubarak during the 2005 presidential election before being jailed on forgery charges many saw as trumped up...

He came a distant second against Mubarak, in power since 1981, and was sentenced to five years in jail on charges of forging affidavits needed to set up his political party.

Tony Paterson | Feb 6

The Independent - The world's most wanted war criminal lived out his days as 'Uncle Tarek' in an Egyptian hotel, his son has revealed. But without a body, his pursuers refuse to be convinced, writes Tony Paterson

Aribert Heim was known, and pursued, the world over as "Dr Death" or the "Butcher of Mauthausen" because of the horrific pseudo-medical experiments he performed on concentration camp prisoners during the Second World War. It emerged yesterday, however, that the world's most wanted Nazi war criminal had lived undetected in Cairo for at least 20 years, until his death from bowel cancer 16 years ago.

He was called "Uncle Tarek" by locals, who knew him as simply an elderly German who read the Koran and gave out sweets to children.

His friends and family disclosed how he watched the 1992 Barcelona Olympics on television from his hotel bed in the Egyptian capital, dying one day after the games ended.

The peaceful end of a Nazi whose crimes against humanity equalled those of the more notorious SS death camp physician Dr Josef Mengele, could hardly have been more banal or in greater contrast to the furious efforts that were still being made to bring him to justice.

Yesterday the Simon Wiesenthal Centre said it was astonished by the reports that Heim had died in Cairo in 1992. It had been planning to increase the reward for information leading to his capture to some $1.3m (£888,000).

The convincing – but not entirely conclusive – evidence of his demise that has emerged indicates thatHeim converted to Islam and lived in Egypt for more than 20 years before dying in 1992.

Joseph Mayton | Cairo | Feb 3

Middle East Times - A Christian woman has won a landmark case in Egypt to retain custody of her children despite the father's conversion to Islam in what activists hope will be a watershed decision to build tolerance among the embattled religious groups. The woman, Camellia, said the victory has "completely changed" her life.

The full impact of Judge Khalil Mostafa's ruling to return the 14-year-old twin boys to their mother were lost in the immediate days of Israel's war on Gaza, which dominated news coverage for three weeks.

Mostafa based his ruling on a newly amended child law in 2008 that gives more weight to the children's opinions. The father had converted to Islam two years ago and according to Egyptian law, all official papers must then change the children's religion as well. This increases the chances of the father maintaining custody.

A number of interpretations of Islamic law argue that when a parent changes religion, the children must then follow Islam. Opponents argue that this "contradicts the citizenship laws" of the Egyptian constitution that are religiously blind.

Algiers | Jan 19

UPI - Anti-terrorism leaders say a number of al-Qaida militants in training have been killed by the "black death, a plague that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages. At least 40 al-Qaida followers have died since the disease swept through a training camp in Algeria, The Sun reported Monday. The deaths became known when security forces found a body beside a road.

"This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease," one security source told the British publication, although it wasn't reported how the deadly outbreak started. "It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaida."The victim was associated with al-Qaida in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb, the largest and most powerful al-Qaida group outside the Middle East, the Sun said.

Independent verification of The Sun's story is needed to confirm this _~graham

Moscow | Jan 16

Reuters - Russia has decided to establish naval bases in Libya, Syria and Yemen within a few years, a Russian military official was quoted as saying Friday by Itar-Tass news agency.

"It is difficult to say how much time it will take to create the bases for our fleet in these countries, but within a few years this will be done without question," the official was quoted as saying.

Shabtai Gold | Geneva | Jan 1

DPA - In July, employees at a Geneva hotel decided to call the police to complain about the treatment of two servants at the hands of their foreign bosses, setting in motion a chain of events that would cast a dark cloud over Switzerland's relations with Libya.

The foreign bosses who were allegedly beating their servants were Hannibal, 32, and his pregnant wife, the son and daughter-in-law of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

A subsequent arrest and two-day detention of the couple, who were released back home on 500,000 dollars bail, angered the Libyan leadership and first family. Hannibal's sister, Aisha, known for her bright blond hair and penchant for occasionally wearing tight outfits, threatened 'eye for an eye' retaliation against the Swiss and demanded an apology.

This was not the young Gaddafi's first run-in with the European law. Hannibal had gotten himself in trouble in both Italy and France for violent and erratic behaviour twice in the last seven years prior to the Geneva incident.

Jeffrey Fleishman & Noha El-Hennawy | Cairo | Dec 17

LA Times - In a society where police are indifferent and relatives fear scandal, the abused have suffered the taunting and groping in silence. A landmark case may change that.