WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on Egypt from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Egyptian politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Cairo, Alexandria, and cultural events.
CAIRO — “It’s a hobby, but it’s also more than that,” Ahmed Shaloufa says, as we climb the final ladder to his pigeon coop in the working-class district of Sayeda Zeinab. “It’s a passion.” Once inside the coop, the labyrinthine streets and megalith apartment blocks of the old city disappear from view. If you jump […]
CAIRO — The Egyptian government has blocked access to a total of 21 news and information websites since last Wednesday, including the original publisher of this article, Cairo-based Mada Masr. A security source cited by MENA, the country’s official state news agency, said that the blocked websites were disseminating “content that supports terrorism and extremism […]
The deadly Palm Sunday attacks in Egypt are just the latest example of a steady effort to remove Christianity from the Middle East. It is long past time to take action.
CAIRO — Amazon announced this week that it had acquired Souq.com, the major e-commerce website in the Middle East, in a deal that has long been speculated over and whose final value came in at $650 million. While Amazon described both companies as “sharing the same DNA,” the question remains as to how the company’s […]
Restrictive and sometimes contradictory rules continue to govern issues of marriage and — heaven forbid — divorce for Egyptian Christians.
CAIRO — After Asmaa Hamdy’s release from prison, where she spent three years, she began the desperate search for her fiancé who had disappeared shortly before she was let out. A dentistry student at Al-Azhar University, Hamdy was one of the students arrested by police following the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. […]
The promise of the Tahrir Square protests has been largely unfulfilled. Yet there is some progress in how Egypt faces harassment against women.
CAIRO — Strolling through Lisbon’s hilltop alleys in 2008, I came across a shop selling uniquely designed “upcycled” products, things made by reusing material that would otherwise be discarded. The items there included a milk-carton wallet, a liquor-bottle lamp and a cereal-box notebook cover. In my young, hopeful state, I felt right at home. It […]
-Essay- 1988 As usual I sat at the front, close to the blackboard because I’m short-sighted, and to the left, so the teacher’s body wouldn’t hide what he wrote. On that particular day the teacher was absent. I don’t remember what he taught us or even who he was, but I remember the substitute who […]
CAIRO — When one woman was sexually harassed this month in Cairo, she made an unusual move: she came to an informal agreement with her attacker’s family and juvenile prosecutors to drop charges on condition that the boy get therapy and do community service. Having caught the boy who groped her hard from behind, after […]
-Analysis- CAIRO — It’s delusional to believe that simply announcing the names of the perpetrators of the St. Peter and St. Paul Church attack, or that they’ve been sentenced, will prevent a repeat of the massacre. It’s delusional to think campaigns in the media, or an official funeral, will contain the anger that is rising […]
CAIRO — There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet. There are four possible written forms for each letter, depending on whether it stands alone, or comes at the beginning, middle or end of a word. Then there are diacritic symbols, indicating the script’s correct pronunciation, which hover gently above or below each letter’s lines […]
Worshipers at the Coptic Church pray for the dead and lash out at both perpetrators and Egyptian authorities. ‘They always told us to pray for those who hate and kill us. But I can’t do that anymore,’ says one.
CAIRO — Wessam Said, 28, would have liked to breastfeed her child, but something was holding her back that had nothing to do with health or social norms: as the family’s main breadwinner, she was simply working too much. “What could I do, our conditions are dire,” she said. It’s medically advised around the world […]
The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States has prompted several reactions, with those who see his political ascension as the beginning of a new phase of political unrest — of which the Arab world is feared to carry the lion’s share — being gripped by panic. Immediately following the […]
-Essay- CAIRO — I better understood the tendency of the Egyptian state and security agencies to protect themselves after a few hours at the Stasi Museum in Berlin. It was there in the grim, soviet-style offices of the Stasi — the former East German Ministry for State Security — that I remembered another office in […]
CAIRO — Two months ago I set out to reserve a hotel room in the Egyptian city of Minya for a work trip. A quick and easy task, I thought. I called more than 10 hotels but they all told me they were fully booked. I was surprised because Minya is not exactly Egypt’s prime […]
In towns and cities around the Nile delta, fishermen are selling their boats to a local mafia outfit, which controls a burgeoning human trafficking racket.
CAIRO — “Everyone wants a tattoo now in Egypt,” says 23-year-old Kareem Shaheen as he sits on his bed sketching the outline of a flash of lightning. Shaheen started to tattoo less than a year ago under the name “Monkey Tattoo,” and hopes to open the first street tattoo studio in Cairo. “People relate getting […]
SHEIKH ZUWAYED — In front of a house located in this bedouin town in the North Sinai, a masked man sits next to his companions, each of whom are holding a weapon. The man proudly speaks about their “Death Squad,” the name they have given to their armed civilian troop. The residents of the area […]
Libya is where refugees now gather to attempt the perilous crossing to Europe. But Egypt is often the source of both crafts and crews. Only economic solutions can stop human smuggling.
Pokemon Go isn’t even available in Egypt. That hasn’t stopped young hunters from tracking down the creatures.
As battlefield losses pile up for the Islamic State terror group, al-Qaeda eyes both the Sinai and Cairo for new attacks — and new recruits.
FUWWAH — Stepping off a small boat as it docks along the Nile, Ahmed Khaled, a 22-year-old fisherman, looks dissatisfied. For the fifth time in just three weeks, he had carefully prepared the lures and rigs of his fishing equipment and set out in his sick father’s sailboat — only to come back empty-handed. “The […]
As much as freedom of expression, the Atfal al-Shawrea (Street Children) troupe challenged the Sisi regime’s control over freedom of assembly.
In the absence of a professional industry, amateur sex videos pose legal, ethical problems in a country that’s among the world’s biggest consumers of online porn.
The sixth-century Saint Catherine’s Monastery is a treasured Christian pilgrimage site in a region increasingly controlled by ISIS.
Though the Earth is covered with water, 95% of it is undrinkable, and water scarcity threatens millions of people. But researchers in Egypt have found an inexpensive way to turn salt water into drinkable water, and its implications could be enormous.
-Essay- CAIRO — They did not expect the joy and the despair, the potential and the tribulations that have spanned six long years. They were allured by calls for freedom and social justice before they were hit hard by authoritarian regimes and objectified by the region’s Salafists in both the East and the West. They […]
The torture killing of an Italian student in Cairo has prompted the European Parliament to cut military lead to Egypt. But the European leaders may not be able to make the break.
CAIRO — International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world on March 8. Egypt celebrates Egyptian Women’s Day on March 16, and March 9 marks the infamous day when members of the Armed Forces performed virginity tests on female protestors detained in Tahrir Square in 2011 — a crime no one has been held accountable […]
SUEZ CANAL — In Port Said, Egypt, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, three private guards, one from Romania and two from Ukraine, board the Monte Rosa, a 20,000-ton Swiss tanker captained by Viacheslav Gavrilov. Their destination is Sri Lanka by way of the Gulf of Aden, a 12-day journey. The captain, a 44-year-old […]
-Essay- CAIRO — I did not know Giulio Regeni, but I could have. The earnest, affable face staring out of his photographs is reminiscent of any number of the trickle of European researchers and activists who pass through Cairo and want to meet in downtown dive bars to talk about the condition of the workers […]
-Essay- CAIRO — Every year, on Jan. 25, I have the same thought: I don’t have any memories to share. Every time I’m with friends who nostalgically remember moments of happiness and triumph, I stay silent, because I have no memories to share. During the 18 days of the revolution, I was in Gambia, watching […]
Five years after the revolution that overthrew the Mubarak regime, Egypt’s security forces raided apartments and closed public space to send a very clear message
CAIRO — “I wanted to live through the military coup. Now, after all I’ve seen, I think I must have been mad.” Thus Youssef — not his real name — began our interview. For him, everything changed on the dawn of Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2013, the day the Rabea al-Adaweyya sit-in was dispersed when several […]
The popular U.S. streaming service has finally made it into the biggest Arabic-speaking market. Some of the normal content (House of Cards, for example) is missing. But for Egyptian viewers, it’s a big step up from dubbed Turk
LUXOR — It’s hot in the minibus that takes us to a village about 10 kilometers from Luxor’s city center. We ask the driver to drop us off at the house of Hajj Tarek* on the main street. Dotted with farmland, sugar cane and modest concrete houses, the village looks like many other Upper Egyptian […]