The Pharaos have won the African Nations Cup for a record sixth time.
Congratulations! But is anyone competent enough to explain why the team always screws up when it comes to qualifying for the world cup?

Here’s another chapter in the bizarre relationship between North Korea and Egypt. I understand it all begun when North Korea effectively ran Egypt’s air force (at least in Upper Egypt) around 1970, later sold scud missiles and related services, in 1989 built a war panorama, but also furnished Cairo with some of its best foreign [...]

Here’s Ulrich Ladurner of Die Zeit (one of Germany’s largest and most influential papers) travelling to a remote Iranian province to find out whether Ahmadinejad’s promises to improve life in the country’s regions were fulfilled.
(Which is a laudable intention, as few bother to look at the country beyond nuclear bomb issue.)
The article simply ends [...]

It takes one of EgyptAir’s European offices more than three months to issue a simple refund (including what I thought were attempts to keep the money).
If it continues to refuse improving its services, the airline will be swept away by competition once Egyptian civil aviation is liberalized (which is why that hasn’t happened yet, but [...]

Finally, Nassef Sawiris has moved out of the shadow of his brothers who made a lot of headlines with their emerging markets telecoms empire (Naguib) and Swiss alpine village (Samih), while Nassef’s Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) maintained such a low profile it could (reportedly) do business with the Pentagon and North Korea at the [...]

This is great online activism. Tunisian blogger Astrubal has used data
of plane spotters to track the plane of Tunisia’s Ben Ali on its visits to European cities. Comparing dates and destinations with official
newspaper annoncements, he suggests it could as well serve the First Lady’s shopping endavours.
(Via crisscrossed.net)

German scholar Thomas Demmelhuber recently presented an interesting paper on Egyptian-Chinese economic relationships at the German Orientalists Day in Freiburg, Germany.
These are the main points:
The rise of Egyptian-Chinese economic relations needs to be seen in the context of the Nazif cabinet which took office in 2004 and tries to orientate the Egyptian economy towards foreign [...]

I have this article on qantara.de on the WWII mines and other ammunition left behind on Egypt’s North coast. The Egyptian government wants to re-launch its efforts to clear the zones that are affected, but wants to have it all paid for by its international donors.
As Egypt has brought to perfection the art of [...]

Ashraf Marwan, maybe the most colorful person of London’s Arab community, has died under unclear circumstances. Some believe him to be ‘The Source’ which tipped off Mossad prior to the 1973 war - others say he acted as a double agent misleading the Israelis.
From The Times:

Mr Marwan’s death will send shockwaves across the Middle East [...]

Most of the Gulf countries have made it onto the Tier 3 list (those countries with the worst record in human trafficking, according to the report) of the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report 2007: Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. UAE is on the Tier 2 watch list.
So is Egypt. From the report:
Egypt [...]

Finally, here’s (part of) the story behind the news: The authors Christopher Parker and Pete W. Moore in the latest MERIP issue analyze Iraq’s war economy and see much of the motives behind the insurgency against the US-led occupation in decades-old gray economic structures that are challenged by the new guys in power.
Throughout the 1990s, [...]

This news is a couple of weeks old, but I found telling what German news magazine Der Spiegel discovered in attorney documents which are part of the file on the Siemens corruption scandal (which also extends to bribery in Saudi Arabia – see this excellent WS Journal article):
The documents suggest that a part of the [...]

With Issandr having said ‘Buy land in Sinai now!’ in the discussion of the Saudi plan to build a bridge to Sinai, I think this interesting article on British property buyers which appeared in Business Monthly in a way supports what he added: ‘if you have a well-placed uncle in the army or mukhabarat’.
Property worth [...]

That’s good news for those business men of Egypt’s parallel economy carrying around millions of pounds (khawaga hit men pay in hard currency, I guess?). The capacity of their black suit cases could now double, as Egypt’s Central Bank is to introduce LE200 notes. (And later on even LE 500 notes).
On the lower end of [...]

This is an interesting project:
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah will next week lay the foundation stone for a $1.5 billion bridge project that will link the Kingdom to neighbouring Egypt.
The bridge will link the Sinai region of Egypt, close to the Sharm el-Sheikh resort town, to the northwest of Saudi Arabia near Ras el-Sheikh Humayd.
Two bridges [...]

Half way through the Presidential campaigns, another French champion national is threatened by foreign powers. A study has found out that relics attributed to Jeanne d’Arc are actually bones of an Egyptian mummy.

The charred bones that were long believed to be remains of St. Joan of Arc don’t belong to the French heroine but are [...]

The same black, thick smoke again, as just ten days ago.

Not having checked the source of the smoke, I’m assuming it’s houses burning again. This will serve as another argument to those who claim that the government uses the fires to pursue its relocation plans for parts of Sayyeda Zeinab. But I remember Masr el [...]

After sorting out some technical problems (and coping with traffic much higher then expected), horytna.net is now on air! The internet youth radio aims to promote tolerance in Egyptian society, by discussing topics such as human rights, women issues, education and others.
Good luck with that, of course, but at the very minimum the site [...]

This is not looking good at all, the sky over Sayyeda Zeinab mosque keeps getting darker…I’ve also been hearing blasts with flames shooting up, as if gaz bottles inside that building blew up. Let’s hope that Cairo’s fire fighters are up to it, I start to hear their sirenes, finally.
Update: The smoke is gone.

For those reading German: Der Spiegel has paid a visit to the Alexandria home of Abu Omar, the Egyptian cleric kidnapped by the CIA in Milano, then tortured in Egypt.
The online article also contains lengthy accounts by Abu Omar, of his kidnapping and his arrival in Cairo, the torture he endured in Egypt and his [...]