· November, 2008

Stories about Egypt from November, 2008

Egypt: Sawiris Takes on Switzerland

Cairo's Scene & Heard celebrated entrepreneur and hotelier Sameh Sawiris's new project in Switzerland saying: “Now that we're branching out into Europe…do you think we stand a chance next to...

20 November 2008

Egypt: No More Natural Gas to Israel

An Egyptian court has banned the export of natural gas to Israel. Marwa Rakha briefs us about the deal, and what an Egyptian blogger is writing about the court order in this post.

20 November 2008

Egypt: American University in Cairo's New Campus Sparks Debate

Designed to accommodate 5,500 full-time students and 1,500 faculty and staff, the American University in Cairo's new $400 million, 260-acre campus is technologically advanced and environmentally friendly. Students say that it was a premature move as they suffer sexual harassment and expensive food, among many other issues. Marwa Rakha reports.

20 November 2008

Egypt: Convicted for being a Blogger

Is blogging a serious crime? And is speaking up for others something which warrants punishment? Egyptian Marwa Rakha translates a post from Arabic which discusses bloggers and blogging in Egypt.

20 November 2008

Egypt: King Abdullah's Glass of Wine

A rumor has been spreading in the blogosphere, accompanied with a photograph of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia showing him seated beside US President George W Bush while holding a glass of wine in his hand. And as you all know, alcohol is prohibited in Islam, and it is a sin to drink or even stay in a place where it is being served or available. Following are reactions from Egypt.

20 November 2008

Egypt on Fire: The Gloves and The Invisible Hand

On Thursday November 6th when Egyptians were celebrating Obama's Victory, Al Ghad Party went up in flames. You can read about the initial blogosphere reactions here and here. Today I am sharing with you Wael Nawara's statements regarding the incident.

19 November 2008

Egypt: No Sexual Harassment Here, says the First Lady

Sexual harassment is a real threat in Egypt. A study shows that two-thirds of men harass women, and bloggers have repeatedly written about it -- but Egypt's first lady Suzanne Mubarak says it is not a phenomenon and just a few isolated incidents. Bloggers speak out again.

19 November 2008

Egypt Ranks High in Corruption

Egypt ranks 115 in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, which tracks 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. The rankings are in ascending order, with the more corrupt countries scoring higher ranks.

18 November 2008

Egypt: Internet Freedom in Egypt

Tunisian blogger, Sami Ben Gharbia, published a video explaining the role of the Egyptian blogsphere in exposing human rights abuses and the role of the social-networking website Facebook and the micro-blogging platform.

17 November 2008

Egypt for Sale

Word is out that every Egyptian citizen who is over 21 years old will own a part of Egypt's public sector companies and factories. The announcement has been the core topic of talk shows and has made its way to the blogosphere.

17 November 2008

The Egyptian Hospital in Bagram

Egypt operates a small military hospital in Bagram, Afghanistan. The Press has just got wind of it - and a blogger wonders why such inspirational stories take a while for mainstream media to report on.

16 November 2008

Egypt: Blogger Blocks Nawara's Blog

It seems that it is not only third world regimes who block people's blogs. Apparently, Google's Blogspot has decided to join the bandwagon, and has blocked Nawara Negm's Blog (Tahyees [Ar]), without specifying any reasons. Ahmed Shokeir writes here about the incident in Arabic.

16 November 2008

Egypt: No Manhood for the Manhood Drink!

Egypt has launched a fierce campaign against sexual harassment in the aftermath of the recent events written about here on Global Voices. But people working in the media industry do not seem to get the idea as evidenced by a recent ad campaign.

14 November 2008

Egypt: Lawsuit calling for the devalidation of 25,000 Muslim Hadiths

Marwa Rakha translates for us today a post about an unusual lawsuit against Al Azhar University in Egypt calling for devalidation of 25,000 Muslim Hadiths. "Does Al Azhar have the right to “delete” these hadiths? Did they invent them and now they decided to negate them? So what will they do now with those 25,000 Hadiths? Burn them? Burn the books they are in? Do they have that right?"

14 November 2008

MENA: Blogs and a social revolution

Saudi blogger, Esam Mudeer, clipped from CNN Arabic, an article asking -in light of last week's major events in the Arab world- if Arab blogs might lead a social revolution in the region.

11 November 2008

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