Geography Archives: Egypt

I can almost swear this is the first time I hear the Muslim Brothers chanting publicly, “Down with Mubarak!” Nyahahaha . . . the cowards.  During the evening Palestine protest in Ramses, whenever the Socialists chanted “Down with Mubarak,” followed by young MBs, you can see in the video MB organizers waving “No,” trying to […]

Bahaa Saber holds up a loaf of bread Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian socialist, journalist, and photographer.  Visit his blog: .  The photographs above were first published on his blog on 3 May 2010 under a Creative Commons license.  Note: the minimum wage in Egypt has not been raised since 1984. | | Print

Under Egyptian law, people found guilty of inciting or organizing demonstrations without permission face jail terms of up to one year and hefty fines.  However, hundreds have gathered in downtown Cairo to protest against Egypt’s high unemployment rate and the government’s failure to increase the national minimum wage.  Workers’ groups say the government’s eagerness to […]

  Maged Abdel-Fattah is Egypt’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Ezzat Ibrahim: Egypt is president of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and New Agenda Coalition (NAC).  What kind of contribution are NAM and NAC expected to offer during the NPT revision conference? Maged Abdel-Fattah: First of all, NAM (118 member states) is a major player in […]

“Hundreds of workers have showed up in order to demonstrate, calling for raising the national minimum wage, which remains unchanged from 1984 and stands at 35 Egyptian pounds [$7 per month], which is bloody pathetic to be honest.  And workers today are calling for raising it to 1,200 Egyptian pounds, which is a very reasonable […]

After the new Qatari administration announced that 250 employees in the widely read IslamOnline news website (IOL) would be laid off, hundreds of employees, editors, and journalists started an angry sit-in.  The situation escalated rapidly when the administration threatened to call state security to break the sit-in, but employees confirmed they will continue their open […]

  In 2005 the Tanta Flax & Oils Company was privatized and subsequently bought by Saudi investor Abdellah El-Ka’aky.  In May 2009, workers launched a five-month strike backed by the state-controlled Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU).  An agreement was reached but workers went back on strike in December to protest the deteriorating conditions in […]

Click here to send a letter to the Egyptian government using our web form! A year after Israel’s vicious “Operation Cast Lead” assault against the Gaza Strip, which left over 1,400 Palestinians — including 355 children — dead, thousands more wounded and tens of thousands of homes destroyed while devastating Palestinian health care, educational and […]

Egyptian security forces have detained approximately 25 American citizens inside and 7 or 8 American citizens outside the US embassy compound in Cairo, Egypt. Gathered in Cairo as part of the Gaza Freedom March, a coalition of over 1400 internationals from over 40 countries, the US marchers went to the American embassy to beseech their […]

The government of Egypt is taking a spectacularly hard line against international solidarity efforts in support of civilians in Gaza on the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion, blocking peace marchers from the U.S., Canada, and Europe from even approaching the Egyptian border with Gaza and blocking an aid convoy that has the support of […]

Sunday, December 27 — The Egyptian security forces detained a group of 30 internationals in their hotel in el-Arish and another group of 8 at the bus station.  They also broke up a memorial action commemorating the Cast Lead massacre at the Kasr al Nil Bridge. At noon on 27 December, Egyptian security forces detained […]

URGENT UPDATE  December 21, 2009 We are determined to break the siege We all will continue to do whatever we can to make it happen Using the pretext of escalating tensions on the Gaza-Egypt border, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry informed us yesterday that the Rafah border will be closed over the coming weeks, into January. […]

  Dina A. Amin.  Alfred Farag and Egyptian Theater: The Poetics of Disguise, With Four Short Plays and a Monologue.  Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008. xxx + 321 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8156-3163-7. This urgently needed book is an investigation of Egyptian theatre through the works of the preeminent Egyptian playwright Alfred Farag (1929-2005), during […]

Despite a number of positive economic indicators, Egypt has a hunger problem: Nearly a third of all children are malnourished, according to a new report compiled by the Ministry of Health and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The Egyptian Demographic Health Survey (EDHS) 2008, published in March 2009, recorded a 6 percent increase in undernourishment […]

June 3, 2009 Questionnaire/methodology (PDF) A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds Egyptians continue to view US foreign policy quite negatively and see President Obama as closely aligned with it.  At the same time, Obama has much better ratings than Bush had, and there are signs of thawing feelings toward the US. Asked how much confidence they […]

  Ashraf Omar is a socialist cartoonist from Egypt.  This cartoon was published by Revolutionary Socialism, an Egyptian Web site, under a Creative Commons license.  The title given by Revolutionary Socialism reads: “Caricature: Welcome, Obama” (Caricature: Marhaba Obama).

  Kamal abu Eita. Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy. The first time I participated in a discussion about independent unions, and about the idea of pluralism, was at a conference organized by the Al-Tagammu party — back in the days when Al-Tagammu was really “united” — when one of the veteran unionists, Atiyah Al-Sirafi, explained the […]

Jamal Dajani: A war of words between the Egyptian government and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah has escalated after Egypt’s public prosecutor recently ordered 49 people held for plotting attacks on behalf of Hezbollah be kept in custody for an additional 15 days. The 49 suspects include Egyptians, Palestinians, and Lebanese.  They were reportedly arrested […]

Like 2008, this year is witnessing waves of strikes and demonstrations by Egyptian workers in various sectors and organizations.  Students, pharmacists, lawyers, railway drivers, media people, and even microbus drivers and street cleaners are all demanding more just rights, protesting against their decreasing incentives or trying to rebel against their poor economic status. And as […]

  In an unprecedented action, the first following the recent Israeli war on Gaza, workers of the Egyptian Fertilizers Company in Suez protested on Saturday, 7 February against the export of fertilizers to Israel. The Egyptian Fertilizers Company is owned by Onsi and Nassef Sawiris under the umbrella of Orascom Construction Industries.  The Egyptian Fertilizers […]