The Cathedral of St Mark as captured by Sherif Sonbol in The Churches of Egypt At the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo -- the perfect setting -- the AUC Press celebrated the launch of The Churches of Egypt: From the Journey of the Holy Family to the Present Day. With over 300 full-colour photographs by Al-Ahram Weekly 's gifted photographer Sherif Sonbol, the book, written by Gawdat Gabra and Gertrud J M Van Loon and edited by Carolyn Ludwig, is the first of its kind. Present at the launch were Ludwig, who flew in especially from California, Sonbol as well as ambassadors, clergymen, media figures and authors: Al-Wafd columnist Abbas El-Tarabili, artist Farid Fadel, the European Association for Economic Media Secretary-General Ali El-Samman, AUC President David Arnold, Mark Linz and Nabila Aql from the AUC Press, Nile Hilton General-Manager Jean Welti and Public Relations Manager Farida Mansour and editor-in-chief of the Al-Ahram magazine Nisf Al-Donia, Afkar El-Kharadli. From the Weekly, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Mona Anis attended, along with Heritage writer Jill Kamil, People's editor Reham El-Adawi, Reem Leila and Fayza Rady. Some of the book's best photographs were shown off in the garden area of the museum in a special exhibition organised by AUC Press author Agnieszka Dobrowolska. The guests were also entertained by mezzo-soprano Gala El-Hadidi, who performed works by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. The book will be available on 13 December. Tunisian Ambassador Abdul-Hafez Al-Herqam gave a reception commemorating the 20th Tunisia National Day where Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, Saudi Ambassador Hisham Al-Nazer, Syrian Ambassador Youssef Al-Ahmed and his Moroccan counterpart Mohamed Farag Al-Dokali as well as Tunisian singer Latifa, poet Farouk Shousha and actor-cum-singer Samir Sabri enjoyed themselves. To launch a book marking the 50th anniversary of the Suez War, British Ambassador Sir Derek Plumbly and his wife Nadia Gohar gave a reception party at their residence where head of the Foreign Relations Committee at the People's Assembly Mustafa El-Feki, artist Farghali Abdel-Hafez, Al-Ahram writers Mona Ragab and Hala Mustafa, the Weekly 's Gamal Nkrumah and Gamal Essam El-Din as well as Director of the Cairo Opera House Cultural Salon Osama Heikal were all present. The book includes a number of the war- related articles written by Egyptian and British authors. At the Cairo Opera House Open-Air Theatre, the closing ceremony of the second Female Stage Director Festival saw Al-Ahram theatre critic Amal Bakir, actresses Samiha Ayoub, Fardous Abdel-Hamid, author Fathiya El-Assal, director of Al-Hanager Arts Centre Hoda Wasfi and the name of late comedian Mary Moneib honoured. The Arab Boy-scouting Organisation (ABO) honoured Al-Ahram Weekly 's Environment writer Mahmoud Bakr for supporting the boy-scouting movement at the 25th conference of the organisation sponsored by Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa, under the presidency of Secretary- General of the ABO Atef Abdel-Meguid. On the occasion the media trustee at the National Democratic Party Alieddin Helal presented a paper on "Boy-scouting and Future Horizons". Entitled "The Millennium and Future Vision", the celebration drew in some 200 people from 18 Arab countries. Al-Ahram Weekly 's very own music critic Amal Choukri will celebrate tonight the opening of her exhibition "Down Memory Lane" at the Cairo Opera House Gallery. The exhibit showcases 90 paintings depicting scenes from daily life, celebrations and traditions that took place in ancient Egypt. After she returned from Austria where she studied, Choukri held her first exhibition titled "Life in Ancient Egypt" in 1980. Since then, she has had several exhibitions in Egypt and her works toured Brussels, New York and Dèsseldorf. Choukri has also contributed to several newspapers including the prestigious French-language dailies Le Journal d'Egypte and Le Progrès Egyptien as art critic. (see Listings p.9) Our dear friend Mona Makram Ebeid, former parliamentarian and distinguished lecturer at the American University in Cairo, has just been elected to the Board of the Club of Rome, a highly reputed international think-tank which brings together parliamentarians, businessmen, ministers and academics from around the world. Most recently, on the invitation of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Horst Kohler, the members of the Executive Committee of the Club of Rome met at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin for an exchange of views with the president on the policy challenges in the next phase of globalisation. Danone, the French dairy products company, is hosting the star footballer Zeinédine Zidane at Grand Hyatt Cairo during his visit to Egypt. The purpose of the visit is to open a home for handicapped street children as part of a worldwide programme aiming to help disadvantaged youngsters. Egypt's National Council for Childhood and Motherhood signed a protocol with Danone, for which Zidane is world ambassador, to provide handicapped and homeless children with shelter, healthcare and education. Zidane was welcomed by the hotel's Resident Manager Rady Mamdouh Rady and Marketing Communications Coordinator Emy El-Shourbagi. Meeting Points is a multidisciplinary contemporary arts festival, organised in collaboration with the Young Arab Theatre Fund, presenting a broad range of art forms spanning visual arts, film, theatre, performance, dance and music. It runs through 28 November in nine cities in the Middle East and North Africa: Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Ramallah, Alexandria, Cairo, Minya, Tunis and Rabat. It aims to provide a platform for the support, creation and circulation of contemporary art coming out of this area and beyond. Previously focussed on Arab artists only, with the aim to increase their as yet limited opportunities of exhibiting and sharing their work in their countries of origin and region, the fifth edition of Meeting Points (MP5) now opens up to include non-Arab artists. The festival presents around 40 artists, both emerging and established, with a combination of new and existing works. The central programme of MP5 will not travel in its entirety to each of the participating cities, rather each city will present a slightly different selection of artistic projects from the central programme, with common threads running throughout. Among the participating artists at the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art are Wael Shawqi, Yto Barrada, Roy Samaha, Rami Sabbagh (Video), Rabih Mroue, Amal Kenawy (Performance), Hiroaki Umeda, Selma and Sofiane (Dance), Sherif El Azma, Ali Essafi and Akram Zaatari (Films Night).
