Worldcrunch
CAIRO — Trapped in the ordinary life of waking up early to get on with daily housework or visiting with extended family, a group of young upper Egyptian girls had a simple dream: to play soccer. But they were uncertain whether the traditional society in which they live would allow them to realize their goal. […]
They have their differences, of course, but the interests of Egypt and Israel have increasingly aligned since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2014.
Alaa was taken away by the Egyptian state. Mohamed al-Baqer, a human rights lawyer, was also detained when he showed up to attend Alaa’s interrogation.
CAIRO — Something big — that we do not yet fully understand — is happening in Egypt’s halls of power. Maybe we know some of it, and will get to know more with time. Perhaps we won’t learn more at any time in the near future. What we do know is that the build-up to […]
There are plenty of reasons for pessimism. But we also need to keep trying — and hoping — for ways to cooperate across continents.
CAIRO — “Take care and hopefully see you soon. :)” I end the short letter to my family with a few requests for items to bring on their next visit, then hand it to one of my cellmates to give to his wife, who will pass it on to my mother the day after her […]
Hany Rashed’s Facebook-based Baba Museum displays personal objects of dead people and plays with nostalgic idea of the past.
CAIRO — Some people prefer working in the shadows. Egypt“s vast informal economy has drawn the focus of government officials in recent years. Authorities have been looking to merge the informal economy with the formal economy as quickly as possible in order to boost official economic figures, which have been marked by low rates of […]
After the death in prison of deposed President Mohammed Morsi, rights organizations accuse again Egypt’s authorities of medical negligence within prisons.
Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Salah has been turned into a symbol of pride, modesty, and good morals. But what is at the heart of the hero worship?
CAIRO — If Egypt’s daily newspapers are your only source of news, you might have woken up Tuesday to discover that a citizen by the name of Mohamed Morsi al-Ayat died yesterday during a court hearing on espionage charges. In actuality, the seemingly unremarkable 67-year-old was the first democratically elected, civilian president of Egypt. A […]
CAIRO — Using sign language, Aya Mohamed, an ambitious secretary in a government-owned institution, explains that she is verbally bullied when she pursues simple daily activities, such as buying something. Mute and deaf, the 29-year-old has only her lips and hands to use to communicate her needs to a seller, and is often met with […]
Long before Uber’s multi-billion-dollar IPO, the ride-hailing app has been shaking the economic and legal foundations of the dozens of countries around the world where it’s landed. Not only has it disrupted the transportation sector, but the San Francisco-based digital taxi service has introduced a whole new way for companies to deliver their services and […]
CAIRO — Two years after Egypt joined other nations as a signatory of the 2016 Paris Agreement, many questions remain over what the Egyptian government is planning to do in order to adapt to some of the inevitable consequences of climate change. Egypt contributes only about 0.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions (the biggest contributors […]
Proposed changes to the Constitution could reshape the role of the Armed Forces, even giving them authority to annul unfavorable election results, experts warn.
After more than five years in prison, Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, a.k.a. Shawkan, is finally free. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/FMEXMgd3AnU expand=1] © Mohamed El Raai/DPA/ZUMA – March 4, 2019 OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
CAIRO — On Oct. 1, 2017, the submarine S-42 set sail from the ThyssenKrupp shipyard in Kiel, northern Germany. The fourth of four submarines ordered by the Egyptian government since the start of the Arab spring — at a cost of 1.4 billion euros — quietly passed through the Kiel Canal to the port city […]
With its abundance of sunshine and adequate wind, Egypt is well suited to embrace green-energy alternatives. Instead it’s opting for old-fashioned coal.
Family and friends waited for incarcerated Egyptian blogger Shady Abu Zeid to be able to arrive at his father’s funeral.
Dubbed ‘the International,’ a young Egyptian computer programmer had built a program to scrape user data from Facebook. But the same practice is routinely done by the government and large corporations.
Egyptian society simply doesn’t recognize the reality of atheism, and often punishes anyone who declares it publicly.
CAIRO — The Democratic Party chalked up victories across the United States in the midterm elections on November 6, gaining control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years. And even if the Republicans still hold control of the Senate, the outcome of the midterms breaks up the Republican monopoly in […]
The step pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, 30 kilometers south of modern-day Cairo, is the oldest remaining pyramid in the world. I pulled out this slide after reading recently about botched restoration efforts that could threaten the whole structure.
-OpEd- CAIRO — Following last Friday’s attack on two buses and a microbus in Egypt’s Minya governorate, killing at least seven Coptic Christians and injuring 16 others, both domestic and international media have deployed subtle and not-so-subtle examples of “victim-blaming” in their coverage. Egyptian media highlighted the poor condition of the road on which the […]
CAIRO — “Wednesday isn’t blue?” Ayman looked at me like I’d gone mad. “Ok, what about your name. Isn’t it sort of reddish?” “Have you lost it?” he replied with a snort, sure I was joking. I enthusiastically started to explain the phenomenon which I’d just been reading about in a book exploring the secrets […]
Four years ago, then president Adly Mansour made sexual harassment a criminal offense. And yet, women who report such cases have been publicly shamed, demeaned and even fired.
Peace with Israel, signed in 1978, was never widely popular, but the context of a poor, war-torn nation made feelings vary widely.
Abdelrahman al-Gendy, a standout student and Harry Potter aficionado, was just 17 when he was arrested in Cairo, charged with multiple crimes, and given a 15-year prison sentence.
CAIRO — A friend of mine lived alone in downtown Cairo. She was single when she moved in but after getting into a relationship, her boyfriend joined her. One day in 2012, her neighbors saw her heading to the apartment with her boyfriend and two friends, a man and a woman. Once they were inside, […]
BERLIN — On the bus I now take to university in Berlin every day, I reach compulsively for my phone to check Facebook for updates from Egypt. I see that someone else has been arrested, this time a PhD student like me, who was also doing his fieldwork in Egypt. I get flustered and feel […]
GOTHENBURG — I’m often asked: “Where do Yemenis escape to?” Syrians largely flee to Lebanon and Turkey, but where do Yemenis go? “The majority cannot afford to flee,” I respond. “For those who can afford it, their destination always depends on which country hasn’t closed its borders to Yemenis.” Often, they head west, across the […]
Egypt’s Finance Minister says the country is actually benefiting from the Turkish crisis, but so-called ‘hot money’ can burn long-term prospects.
Is religion numbing Egyptians into acquiescence amid a number of merciless austerity measures?
Egypt’s ‘operating system,’ to borrow a tech-world term, needs replacing — and the military must relinquish power. It looks impossible today, but is inevitable in the long run.
The two-year-old housing project is clean and orderly, unlike the makeshift dwellings its thousands of relocated residents left behind. But it’s also isolated and dull.
RAFAH — It has been one month since the Rafah Border Crossing was opened, marking the longest window in which Gaza residents have been permitted to leave and reenter their besieged territory since 2013. What was initially purported to be a four-day opening was extended on May 17, when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that […]
CAIRO — In the year of Mohamed Salah’s rise to fame as one of the world’s best soccer players, his every move and success has been well documented across the globe, no more so than in his native Egypt. Here, the cult of personality around him runs much deeper, hitting at the heart of struggles […]
Low wages, government censorship and even arbitrary detentions. Practicing journalism has become an increasingly risky business in Egypt.
Beirut-based contemporary artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan uses sounds to shine a light, so to speak, on some of the darkest places on earth.
CAIRO — On a hot summer day in 2012, two smartly clad Filipina women arrived at the JW Marriott Hotel on Cairo’s ring road, toting handbags in the crooks of their arms as they had often observed their female employers doing. They lingered in the lobby for hours over small cups of coffee as they […]