The latest international conspiracy against Egypt:
Scandalously, the France Football editorial team who selected the 30 players for whom their worldwide panel of journalists are allowed to vote overlooked the Al Ahly and Egypt playmaker Mohamed Aboutrika.
Fifa won’t compensate for this offensive anomaly. Their shortlist doesn’t include Aboutrika either. Nor anyone else from Egypt’s recent vintage. [...]

This morning I received an alarming email from my friend Golo, a great French cartoonist who has been living in Egypt since the 1970s. Golo lives in Gurna (Qurna - in Upper Egypt the letter “qaf” is pronounced “gaf”), the small village on the other bank of the Nile from Luxor, where he runs a [...]

Hossam has been following the latest repressive measures being taken against labor activists in Mahalla, one of the center of labor protests in Egypt. He says:

There is a ongoing crackdown on labor activists in Mahalla, since they staged a demonstration last October against the management’s corruption:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahcarr/sets/72157608515197459/
http://arabist.net/arabawy/2008/11/26/renewed-crackdown-on-ghazl-el-mahalla-workers/
http://delicious.com/elhamalawy/MahallaOctoberProtest
Following the [...]

Jonathan Wright of Reuters has a great story on Egypt’s attitude towards the Somali crisis, which is having an impact on Suez Canal income as ships begin to re-route around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the area off Yemen and Somalia where most of ships are being attacked. It covers the parallels between [...]

Completely surreal:
Egyptian police announced Wedneday they had arrested more than 550 teenagers suspected of sexually harassing girls outside schools in several Cairo districts in a single day. The culprits were awaiting interrogation and trial Thursday.
The police launched an extensive clampdown targeting stores and internet cafes near schools. Security forces raided six internet cafes that did [...]

Mama Suzanne says this harassment stuff is all made up:
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak has played down allegations of rampant sexual harassment in her country, accusing the media, and implicitly Islamist militants, of exaggerating the reports.
“Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women,” the pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper on Friday quoted the wife of President [...]

Since the 2004 attack on the Taba Hilton and the subsequent massive round-up of Sinai bedouins by Egypt’s security apparatus, the situation of Sinai’s bedouin population has gone from bad to worse. Already a marginalized group that has been even more left by the wayside by the government than Nile Valley Egyptians, Sinai bedouins have [...]

Chronicles of a Refugee is a 6-part documentary film series looking at the global Palestinian refugee experience over the last 60 years. Through the voices of Palestinian refugees, the first three episodes recount the experiences of Palestinian refugees since 1947. They are more historical and informative, presenting an almost comprehensive review of 60 years of [...]

LAPDOGS OF THE BOURGEOISIE
Featuring the artists
Annika Eriksson
Chris Evans
Dirk Fleischmann / Michele di Menna
San Keller
Hassan Khan
Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Marion von Osten.
Curated by Nav Haq and Tirdad Zolghadr
To what extent does class play a role in the production and dissemination of contemporary art? Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie is a project touring internationally from 2006 to 2009, investigating how [...]

Another new book about Egypt in the twilight of the Mubarak era has come out:
"L’Egypte entre démocratie et islamisme : Le système Moubarak à l’heure de la succession" (Jean-Noël Ferrié)
I haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet, but from the blurb it looks at how the “Mubarak system” works and its success in [...]

For those who missed it, below is a Word file with the transcript of the Gamal Mubarak interview that appeared in the French review Politique Internationale. Nothing amazing but some interesting personal touches.
B. A. et P. D. - Dans quel état d’esprit avez-vous grandi ?  
 
G. M. - Comme beaucoup de mes compatriotes, j’ai su très [...]

Boss Hosni has ordered the release of al-Destour editor Ibrahim Eissa, who was recently jailed for writing this:
The president in Egypt is a god and gods don’t get sick. Thus, President Mubarak, those surrounding him, and the hypocrites hide his illness and leave the country prey to rumors. It is not a serious illness. It’s [...]

Part I:

And part II:

The word is the 19 hostages are now free and healthy.
Update: Reuters says:

I am not a Deadhead, but having no idea until today that the Grateful Dead played at the Pyramids in 1978, I would love to see this new DVD (click on the album cover above to see the Amazon details):
Much has been written about this storied adventure: About the band’s long-standing desire to play in [...]

An unknown gang has kidnapped tourists exploring the Western Desert near Aswan:
 
“Up to 15 people, including 11 foreign tourists, have been abducted in Egypt, according to the Italian foreign ministry and Egyptian security sources. 
The Italian foreign ministry confirmed on Monday that at least five Italian nationals were among those taken near the border with Sudan.
The [...]

Be sure to check out the revamped website of the Arab Reform Bulletin, which now aims to be a continuously updated site with news as well as the monthly analysis we’ve come to know and love.
Of particular interest in the current issue is an article by Hossam Tammam, a leading Egyptian analyst of Islamist [...]

Here’s an interesting piece on the future of US aid to Egypt by Scott Carpenter, who used to run the democracy-promotion office at the State Department until about a year ago. The piece is important because it highlights the little focused on the 2004 MOU between Egypt and the US, which formalized tying aid to [...]

Yesterday the upper house of the Egyptian parliament, the Shura Council, was engulfed in flames. The century-old building, or at least its upper floors, have been completely destroyed and the fire threatened to spread to the lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly. These institutions are among the oldest representative assemblies in the Arab world, [...]