In 1981, Operation Bright Star started with two nations, Egypt and the United States. Now, 28 years later, service members from France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Turkey and the United Kingdom train with Americans and Egyptians to build relationships and develop, refine and improve interoperability in this region.
"It may not be intentional racism on the part of the song writer, but it is still highly racist and offensive." - Motez Isaaq, Committee for Nubian Issues
Haifa Wehbe, one of the Arab world's biggest pop stars has provoked outrage after releasing a song that refers to black Egyptians as monkeys.
Wehbe, an award-winning Lebanese diva who has been on People Magazine's list of the world's 50 most beautiful people, and considered by many as the sexiest woman in the Arab world, is facing a lawsuit from Egyptian Nubians who say that the song has fuelled discrimination against them and made some Nubian children afraid to attend school.
The Nubians took issue with a verse in the song "Where is Daddy?" from her newly released album, "Baby Haifa". Wehbe croons: "Where is my teddy bear and my Nubian monkey?"
Nubian community organizers say the phrase "Nubian Monkey" infers that members of the black Egyptian minority are monkeys.
This week representaives of the Nubian community hit Wehbe, her record label and Wehbe's Egyptian song writer with lawsuits.
The row has cast fresh light on the position within Egyptian society of Nubians, who are descended from one of the world's most ancient civilisations but often face marginalisation.
An Egyptian court said it will start hearing an appeal filed by billionaire business tycoon Hesham Talat Mustafa of his death sentence next February.
Earlier this year a Cairo criminal court sentenced Hesham Talat Mustafa, one of Egypt's top real estate developers, to death after finding him guilty of inciting the murder of Lebanese pop singer Suzan Tamim in Dubai in July 2008. Mustafa’s hitman, Mohssen Al Sukkari, was also received a death sentence after the criminal court found him guilty of slaying Tamim in her plush Dubai apartment. Al Sukkari received $2 million from Mustafa to kill Tamim.
The court passed the death sentences in the high-profile case after 27 hearing sessions held over eight months.
The appeal will be heard by the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest court, on February 4, 2010.
Egypt says it has begun registration for the first Arabic languageInternet domain. The move is part of efforts to let users of non-Latin script have better access to the Web.
The new domain name will be "dot.msr" (pronounced either misr or masr), Arabic for Egypt, and promises to open up the Web to millions of Arabic-only readers.
Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel announced the move at the fourth Internet Governance Forum, under way in the Egyptian resort Sharm el-Sheikh.
The U.N.-backed forum is building on a decision by the body responsible for domains, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, to allow Web site addresses in any language.
ICANN says about half the Internet users around the world don't use a Latin-based script as their native language, adding the change will affect billions of potential users.
The group says requests by governments for domain names should be approved and come online next year. Individual Web addresses would then follow.
U.N. Under Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang highlighted the reason for this year's conference, "Creating Opportunities for All," at Sunday's opening session.
"It will allow us to reexamine and reflect upon the main theme of the IGF: access, diversity, openness, security and critical Internet resources," Sha said.
Media rights groups welcome the end of Latin-alphabet Web domination.
But Soazig Dollet of Paris-based Reporters Without Borders says it is laughable that Egypt should be in the front of the movement.
"The fact that Egypt is launching this Arabic domain Monday is ironic, really, regarding the situation of freedom on the Internet today in this country. Egypt is one of the enemies of the Internet. And Internet governance requires regulations," Dollet said.
Reporters Without Borders is one of several media and human rights groups that have expressed concern about Egyptian opposition figures who have been detained for their Internet writings.
Dollet adds that while there are other Arabic-speaking countries that do not control the Internet as much as Egypt, it is not clear how long that relative freedom will last.
Egyptian authorities recently banned opposition leader Ayman Nour from traveling to the United States where he was invited to speak to several organizations. While Egyptian authorities say the ban is lawful, Nour's supporters say it is the latest in a series of moves aimed at marginalizing opposition groups ahead of next year's parliamentary elections.
Ayman Nour, the main challenger to President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential election in 2005, is no stranger to political pressure.
He founded the opposition el Ghad party, created to represent a liberal democratic perspective, with a strong interest in human rights. Nour used the party as a platform to call for constitutional reform, limiting the president's powers and opening presidential elections to multiple candidates.
The opposition leader was recently blocked by Egyptian authorities from traveling to the United States to attend conferences at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and other groups.
The U.S. State Department has called on the Egyptian government to reconsider its ban.
Nour says he has been barred from teaching at any state universities. He says he cannot access his bank accounts and cannot participate as a candidate in any elections. He was also jailed shortly after the 2005 elections on charges of forgery and spent over three years in prison before being released in February in what he describes as a ploy to get him out of politics.
Egyptian authorities say the travel ban was a condition of his early release from prison. Nour disagrees. A lawyer by profession, he says he knows his rights and is not giving up.
He says that opposing political corruption, particularly the kind of corruption he's seen after the elections and since his arrest, is not a choice, but a duty.
Cairo University professor and member of the ruling National Democratic Party's advisory committee Mohamed Kamal rejects Nour's claims and says the politician has plenty of freedom.
"I think there is some exaggeration in these accusations," Kamal said. "Ayman Nour is free to engage in whatever campaign he wants to engage in. He has access to the people. He has access to the media. Maybe the question he doesn't ask himself is whether this cause that he carries the flag (for) is popular among Egyptians or not."
Other opposition groups say they, too, are hampered in their attempts to participate openly in Egyptian political life. Not far from Kamal's office, Muslim Brotherhood students at Cairo University protest moves they say are aimed at keeping them out of the student union elections.
On the national level, the Muslim Brotherhood are banned from officially putting forth candidates for election. The Egyptian constitution forbids political parties based on religion. The group has done well despite the law, with 88 members who ran as independents now in parliament.
According to Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker Akram Shaar, there are concerted efforts by the ruling party to keep opposition groups at bay.
He says everyone ranging from opposition groups, the mainstream and everyday honest citizens who love their country are prevented from taking part in a true and open dialogue. He said they are also prevented from taking part in elections and from having their opinions heard.
In a wider effort to keep up pressure on Egypt's ruling party, Nour joined forces with the Muslim Brotherhood and several other opposition groups to launch a campaign called Did Al-Wirasa, meaning "against inheritance." Its name is a reference to the president's son, Gamal Mubarak, head of the National Democratic Party's policies committee, who is widely seen as being groomed to take over from his father.
Nour says that it is every citizen's right to choose and to be a part of the country's decision-making process. He says the new campaign is aimed at curbing any decisions taken without the people's vote. Nour says people want to choose who rules them.
81-year-old President Mubarak, who has been in power for 28 years, has yet to say if he will seek another six-year term in office. Likewise, his son has not announced his plans.But many believe that what takes place in next year's parliamentary elections will set the tone for what happens in the 2011 presidential vote.
CAIRO, 7 October 2009, IRIN With about five million inhabitants, Alexandria is Egypt's second biggest city. A rise in sea levels of 50cm could lead to the loss of about 194,000 jobs and the displacement of about 1.5 million people.
Egypt’s Delta region faces a natural disaster of massive proportions by 2020 unless urgent action is taken to better manage scarce fresh water resources and come up with solutions to mitigate the effects of rising sea levels, according to government officials. The country is facing the dual threat of water needs surpassing resources by 2017, and rising sea levels in the decades ahead inundating much of the fertile Delta region, home to 60 percent of Egypt’s 78 million people, it added.
“Many of the towns and urban areas in the north of the Delta will suffer from the rise in the level of the Mediterranean with effect from 2020, and about 15 percent of Delta land is [currently] under threat from the rising sea level and the seepage [of salt water] into ground water,” Environment Minister George Maged told a parliamentary committee earlier this year. Mohamed al-Raey of Alexandria University told IRIN in Cairo that flooding had already begun with the Mediterranean rising an average of 2 centimetres annually over the past decade. “It has already flooded parts of Egypt’s shoreline,” he said, predicting an increase in sandstorms and longer periods of drought followed by flooding.
Researchers predict the Mediterranean will rise by 30-100cm by the end of the century. A one-metre sea-level rise would submerge Alexandria.
Egypt's antiquities chief says Egypt is suspending ties with the Louvre, saying the French museum has not returned what he says are stolen artifacts.
Zahi Hawass on Wednesday said the Louvre has repeatedly ignored requests to return steles, or large reliefs, that date back to the time of the Pharaohs. Hawass said the Louvre purchased the four archeological reliefs that were stolen from a tomb in Luxor in the 1980s.
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said Wednesday that France is willing to return the relics if they were indeed stolen from the tomb site. He says he has asked a special commission to meet Friday to discuss the situation and rule on the matter.
Egypt has launched an extensive campaign to recover its antiquities abroad, including some objects currently exhibited in well-known museums.
In 2002, Egypt's Supreme Council ruled that all international museums must return antiquities that were stolen or smuggled from Egypt, including pieces that were purchased by museums but were ultimately proved to be stolen.
This is not the first time Egypt has cut cooperation with foreign art museums. Mr. Hawass severed ties with St Louis Art Museum in 2006 when it failed to return an ancient Egyptian burial mask. He took similar steps against the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels.
The Egyptian capital of Cairo is the biggest city in the Arab world and Africa.Many of the city's 17 million people live below the poverty line trying to survive in satellite shanty towns while nearby, estate agents sell dream homes for the rich trying to escape Cairo's notorious pollution and traffic.
With hotel reservations, revenues, and the number of tourists in Egypt all down in 2009, merchants in Cairo's Khan el-Khalili are starting to feel the crunch of the world economic crisis
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead meets with Egyptian army Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi Soliman in Cairo, Egypt, Nov. 11, 2009. Tantawi is the Egyptian minister of defense and military production and commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tiffini Jones Vanderwyst, U.S. Navy/Released)
Egypt’s 134 year-old AL-AHRAM newspaper's viewpoint on Al Aqsa conflict
Speaking in Cairo, President Barack Obama proposed a new beginning for the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. (View Mr. Obama's address and reaction to the speech)
President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt
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