photos: Ayman Barayez The glamorous wedding of former Al-Ahram Weekly regional editor and Al-Jazeera New York correspondent Khaled Dawoud and his beautiful Moroccan bride Hasnaa Al-Badawi featured performances by both pop musician Essam Karika and, notably, the bridegroom. A meeting of Mashreq and Maghreb, this cheerful event -- enlivened by a Sudanese ensemble and much Moroccan ululation -- will likely be the talk of Cairo for weeks to come. Among those high-profile figures who attended were Moroccan Ambassador Mohamed Farag Al-Dokali, former chairman and editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Ibrahim Nafie, editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram's monthly Al-Siyasa Al-Dawliya Osama El-Ghazali Harb, head of Al-Jazeera Office in Cairo Hussein Abdel-Ghani, Editor-in-Chief of the left-wing newspaper Al-Ahali Farida El-Naqqash, her husband senior Tagammu Party figure Hussein Abdel-Raziq, Al-Ahram society page editor Mona Ragab, TV presenters Moataz El-Demerdash and Lamis El-Hadidi, Al-Ahram columnist Gamal Zaida and his wife, our former treasured colleagues Aziza Sami. The American Embassy in Cairo Press Attaché Margeret White, her assistant information officer Robert Greenan and Manal Rizqallah from the press office, among many others, were also present. The Weekly staff who were present included Galal Nassar, Gamal Nkrumah, Nevine Khalil, Jailan Halawi, Khaled El-Ghamri, Ayman George, Nesmahar Sayed, Mohamed El-Sayed, Enjy El-Naggar and Eric Walberg. Worth noting is that the bride's father is veteran Moroccan playwright Abdel-Qader Al-Badawi and her stunning sister is the budding actress Karima, while the bridegroom's, Ismail Dawoud, is a distinguished journalist in his own right. The Dani Pannullo Dance Theatre Company will present "Desordances 3" at the Small Hall of the Cairo Opera House, 25 and 27 October 2007 (See Listings p.5). The show -- a heady mix of urban elements -- involves dervishes and b-boys from Spain and Cairo drawing on Mediterranean continuity. Part of Dani Pannullo 's Break to Dervish Madrid-Cairo project, conceived while he was the Egyptian International Festival of Modern Dance's guest of honour in May 2006, capitalises on the connection between Spanish, Egyptian and dervish dancing traditions -- the result of several, subsequent journeys to Cairo. To help combat poverty, Al-Sawy Culture Wheel is participating in the UN "Stand Up Speak Out: Against Poverty and For the Millennium Goals" campaign. For 24 hours from 9pm on 16 October, representatives of the entire world remained standing to drive home their concern with poverty, development and awareness. An annual event, last year the campaign saw 23.5 million standing and found its way into the Guinness Book of Records. On the occasion, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Egypt James W Rawley, Director of UN Information Centre in Cairo Maher Nasser, Goodwill Ambassador charismatic actress Youssra and Wheel director Mohamed El-Sawy addressed a large number of people, who signed their names on the wall. The event ended with a concert to which singers Ali El-Haggar, Rania Shaalan and Shafiq Qatari as well as guitarist Wael Khedr and the Flamenca band all contributed. Under the auspices of the General Organisation of Culture Palaces, organisation head Ahmed Nawwar inaugurated a seminar and a children's art exhibit celebrating the 6 October 1973 victory at the Child Culture Palace in Garden City. For the event, some 30 children, 8-14 years old, listened to war veterans recount their experiences and recreated them on paper. photo: Sherif Sonbol Under the auspices of Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, the German Saint Charles Borronaer Nuns School (dsb) celebrated the reopening of the school's newly refurbished library, where Nesmahar Sayed brushed shoulders with Walter Ritter, school director, the Egyptian representative of the school Magda Tantawi and Chairman of the Parents' Council Azza Qandil. With help from the council -- mainly the proceeds of a concert they organised -- the LE100,00 renovations took two months to complete. The library now contains 10,000 volumes in Arabic, German and English. The budget of the renovation was gathered out of the revenues of a concert held at the German ambassador's residence. The opening included a programme of students' performances: some girls played the flute while Hana Walid recited Goethe's poetry Natur and Kunst (Nature and Art). They also mesmerised all present by chanting "Darling Stand by Me" song. The best end of the programme was a song by Fatma Said titled "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Jean Welti has been appointed general manager of the Nile Hilton Hotel -- an announcement made by Simon Hasdell, Hilton's vice-president of operations for Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and North Africa. Welti, a Swiss national with 35 years experience, is a graduate of Management Hotel School of Lausanne; he joined the staff of the Hilton Brussels in 1973, and has since moved through Hiltons in Addis Ababa, Abidjan, Cannes, London, Paris, Abu Dhabi and Geneva. Married with two children, he succeeds Jean-Pierre Mainardi, who after nearly six years at the Nile Hilton has now moved to China to open the new Conrad Shanghai.
