CAIRO - Different local TV stations have almost pulled the plug on their political talk shows during the Muslim month of Ramadan when viewing rates usually reach the climax in Egypt. Instead, many star-studded serials, produced especially for the (...)
CAIRO - Egypt's violent political crisis is rooted in street politics. The Muslim Brotherhood, from which ousted president Mohamed Morsi hails, pins a lot of hopes on its grassroots base to place pressure on the military after its overthrow of the (...)
CAIRO - Mohanad Abdel Karim is a young Syrian filmmaker who came to Egypt in October last year to escape a ruthless crackdown by the regime of President Bashar el-Assad on the opposition. Abdel Karim, who is an opposition activist, has since been (...)
CAIRO - The sight has been seen several times in the past week. Followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, staging street protests against the military's overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, have been repeatedly hit by tomatoes and eggs from (...)
CAIRO - Morsi will not be reinstated. This fact has yet to dawn on the majority of his Muslim Brotherhood's followers—although the group's leaders seem to have come to terms with it.
Almost two weeks after the army's ouster of Morsi following (...)
CAIRO - After a short pause for rejoicing over Mohamed Morsi's overthrow, Egypt's politicians have relapsed to their crippling infighting. The wrangling is reminiscent of the political upheaval that followed the 2011 ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
At the (...)
CAIRO - For millions of Egyptians who took to the streets last week to demand Morsi's removal, it is no longer relevant that some Western commentators label the army's overthrow of the democratically elected president a coup d'etat.
Apart from the (...)
CAIRO - The post-Morsi turmoil should not eclipse the fact that Egypt has a big chance to put its fraught democratic transition back on the right track. A key step to do this is to avoid elbowing any political faction, mainly Islamists, into the (...)
CAIRO - "Tamarod or Tagarod?" This is one of two questions dominating Egypt at the moment. The names, Arabic for rebellion and objectivity respectively, refer to two rival petition campaigns opposing and supporting President Morsi.
They also expose (...)
CAIRO - Very few people could see logic in naming a follower of a militant Islamist group as governor of the popular tourist haven Luxor.
Giving the post to Adel el-Khayat, a member of the one-time terror group Gama'a Islamiyya, which was implicated (...)
CAIRO - "Hey everyone! First say peace be upon the Prophet," starts a vendor, carrying a frayed bag, as he steps aboard the Cairo Underground.
"I have a four-in-one set coming from China to our smart customers in Cairo," adds the seller, displaying (...)
CAIRO - On three consecutive days last week, Islamists, led by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, organised three rallies in support of Syria, where a deadly war has been raging for more than two years.
On Thursday, Sunni Muslim clerics from Egypt and (...)
Former presidential contender Amr Moussa, a prominent opposition leader, has raised the hackles among the secular opposition for recently meeting with Khayrat el-Shater, a senior official in the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood, to which (...)
Suheir Mohamed is Egypt's latest reported victim of female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM). The 13-year-old girl died during an FGM operation inside a clinic in her village in the Nile Delta province of Daqahlia.
"Had I (...)
Since taking over as culture minister less than a month ago, Alaa Abdel Aziz has captured local headlines. He has generated massive controversy with a flurry of surprise decisions, which have infuriated the nation's intellectual community.
His (...)
The Egyptian opposition is making a grave mistake by taking advantage of Ethiopia 's decision to divert the Blue Nile as a fresh opportunity to heap criticism on the policy of President Mohamed Morsi.
In the same vein, the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, (...)
President Mohamed Morsi has been at loggerheads with the judiciary, ever since taking office in late June. Resolving these tensions is not in sight.
Days after his inauguration as President, he ordered the reinstatement of the Islamist-dominated (...)
‘Classes are closed indefinitely'. This sign was last week hung on the main gate of Ain Shams University, one of Egypt 's biggest academic institutions, in the aftermath of repeated incidents of violence on campus.
Scores of students were injured in (...)
Luggage handlers at Cairo Airport were in for a surprise last week. While handling the luggage of passengers coming from the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, the workers were struck by strange sounds coming from a large box. Suspicious of the (...)
Nearly ten months since his last public appearance, the ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, showed up at the weekend, looking to be in the rudest of good health. He appeared at the opening of his retrial, waving to his supporters from the defendants' (...)
It was a recent afternoon, when Cairo had a foretaste of what is predicted to be another scorching summer. Three youngsters were noisily kidding among themselves on a Metro platform packed with commuters.
Amidst their boisterous behaviour, one of (...)
More than two years after Hosni Mubarak's fall, the threat of radicalism and even anarchism looms large in Egypt.
Disillusioned at what they see as little change in the country's socio-economic and political landscape since the uprising, more young (...)
A high-profile charity campaign, launched by a famous manufacturer of fizzy drinks, has recently got off the ground with the catchy motto: "If it's crazy that you make somebody you don't know happy, then get crazy!"
The drive, promoting corporate (...)
Shortly after an advisory body at the Higher Administrative Court had last week concluded that the ruling Muslim Brotherhood have no legal status and recommended they be dissolved, the Islamist group dropped a bombshell.
The Brotherhood's lawyer, (...)
I have watched the film, produced in 2010, several times before and after the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Asal Eswed (Black Honey) is still relevant, because very little has changed in post-Mubarak Egypt.
The comedy masterfully captures (...)