Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all Egyptian and Arab mothers all over the globe celebrating this day today , even if it was late. 

Happy Mother Day to all the martyrs’ mothers from all parties who lost their children especially in last year because of a disgusting fight over power. Happy Mother Day to the Mothers of the detainees who are waiting for the return of their children back home safe. 

Happy Mother Day to all the fantastic women and mothers working hardly to provide their children a better life. 

Happy Mother Day to all mothers in the world. 

'The Square' Film On Egypt's Revolution Will Not Be Shown In #Egypt #Tahrir #25jan

There’s a lot anyone can learn from Jehane Noujaim’s Oscar-nominated documentary “The Square,” an examination of the 18-day uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

But Egyptians may be least able to benefit from its lessons. So far, the film has not been approved for screening here.

On the third anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, which falls on Tuesday (Feb. 11), Egypt is more polarized than ever, largely between those who are sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and those who support the military. The film is a reminder of what Egyptians share, regardless of religious or political beliefs.

“The Square” depicts the uprising through the eyes of six revolutionaries who lived in Tahrir Square during those historic weeks and follows them as Egyptians struggled to redefine themselves. Mubarak’s ouster ushered in a tumultuous period that saw clashes with the military, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the return to the streets to demand the deposal of the Muslim Brotherhood’s President Mohammed Morsi, and the sit-ins that followed Morsi’s overthrow by the army.

The film, available to American audiences on Netflix and in theaters, ends with the clearing of the Morsi supporters’ encampment, which resulted in nearly 1,000 deaths. Since then, the Brotherhood has been outlawed and people have been arrested for simply possessing Brotherhood materials, now a crime.

Noujaim, 39, is an accomplished documentarian and TED Prize winner whose credits include “Startup.com” and “Control Room,” a film about the Al-Jazeera network. “The Square,” though, is not a film that intends to accurately and journalistically represent all factions. Noujaim, an Egyptian-American who spent much of her childhood in Egypt, lived on Tahrir Square with her characters during the revolution. In many ways, she is one of them, and “The Square” is her contribution to the revolution.

The film depicts those historic events from the revolutionary’s point of view. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the square; Noujaim chose to follow the ones she was intrigued by, trusting that viewers would do the same.

Two of the most captivating characters are Ahmed Hassan, a young street revolutionary, and Magdy Ashour, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a father of four who, under Mubarak, was imprisoned and tortured. Despite their differing backgrounds and perspectives, the two become fast friends, and the exchanges between them provide some of the film’s most compelling moments.

Through Ashour viewers get a nuanced view of the Brotherhood and its army of foot soldiers, a stark contrast to the heavy-handed, black-and-white demonization of them in Egyptian media of late. Ashour had been a loyal member of the Brotherhood for decades, attracted to its religiosity and benefiting from its financial support. After it seized power, he began to question some of its decisions, which left him conflicted.

When Morsi was first elected, many Egyptians opted for Muslim rule. But that feeling didn’t last long. Only 150 days into his presidency, Morsi made a power grab that gave him even more authority than Mubarak.

The revolutionaries were upset with his autocratic maneuvers and with the new constitution that the Islamist-dominated parliament drafted, which they considered a betrayal of the ideals they had fought for. Noujaim said she spoke to many ordinary Egyptians during that time — many of them practicing Muslims — who were “deeply disturbed” that the ruling party was now determining who constituted a good Muslim.

Ashour is visibly torn in the film between the revolutionaries, whose principles he, too, had stood for, and the Brotherhood. He found himself increasingly at odds with Hassan and his other friends from the square.

“If there were an alternative, I wouldn’t want Morsi,” he says at one point in the film. “We’re afraid that if Morsi falls we’ll be taken back to prisons,” Ashour said.

One of the film’s most poignant moments comes a short time later when British-Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla sits with Ashour and his son and shows them video of Muslim Brotherhood members attacking protesters outside the presidential palace, some of the very same people who had been in Tahrir with Ashour.

Ashour’s son had gone to the presidential palace that day, and was on the side of the Brotherhood throwing rocks at their opponents. Ashour looks mournful, and chastises his son for his actions: “You have to stand as an individual,” Ashour tells the boy. “You have to think for yourself.”

It is Ashour and his conflict that resonated most strongly with some of the film’s most conservative and religious audiences in the United States.

When Noujaim took the film to Sundance, some of the screenings were in downtown Salt Lake City and attended by Mormons and ex-Mormons. They, as well as evangelicals, came up to the filmmakers after showings and said that, despite initially thinking they had the least in common with Ashour, it was he whom they related to the most. They identified with his deep faith, his trust in the fledgling government, and his ultimate disillusionment. Those feelings transcended culture and creed.

“We are all confused sometimes, and we question our beliefs,” Noujaim said.

Once Morsi was overthrown and the Brotherhood was again the victim of state oppression, that changed.

“Once they were persecuted, Ashour was immediately back on their side,” she said.

His rueful words all those months ago now seem prescient. Authorities recently raided his house, and he is reportedly in hiding.

Noujaim said she is not one of those filmmakers who believes her work can change the world. Perhaps, though, it can make a difference in what’s happening in Egypt today. Noujaim, who is currently in the U.S., hopes to be able to bring the movie to Egypt.

But “The Square” has already thawed some icy relations in the places it’s been shown. Noujaim said she spoke to an Egyptian woman in the United States who had seen “The Square” on Netflix, and decided to bring her family to a screening.

Like many other Egyptian families, they were so divided over events that relatives weren’t talking to one another. Seeing the film together enabled them to find enough understanding for one another’s viewpoints to enable them to begin to communicate once again, the woman told Noujaim.

And therein lies perhaps the most salient lesson of the film, particularly for Egyptians.

“We are all human beings,” Noujaim said. “Reminding ourselves of our humanity is a very simple idea, but I think it couldn’t be more important right now.”

As #Egypt 's Tourism Industry Crumbles, Business Owners Look To Military General To Restore Security

When Egyptians rose up against their government three years ago, it wasn’t just dictator Hosni Mubarak’s reign that crumbled. The mass protests, political instability, and now, increasingly frequent terrorist attacks, have devastated Egypt’s once-thriving tourism sector.

For many Egyptians still working in the industry today, there is only one answer to their problems: Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who is gearing up for a likely presidential bid and is seen as a leader who will bring back security to businesses.

"Sissi is the only man who can solve Egypt’s problems," said Emad Nour, a third-generation shopkeeper in Cairo’s sprawling Khan el-Khalili bazaar, where tourists used to flock before the unrest began. "He can fix the security problem here."

Nour once made a decent living making intricate tables, traditional lamps and other handmade items that often attract tourists. But nowadays he, like many other vendors, has barely anyone coming to his shop.

"We depend on tourism," he said with dismay. "If there are no tourists, our lives are not good." Lots of stores around him have closed down, he said, adding that many shop owners have given up and changed professions entirely.

At Cairo’s ancient Giza Pyramids, which used to be swarming with foreigners, desperate vendors and guides with skinny horses now harass the occasional straggling tourists. Buses carrying tourists from the capital to resort towns along the Red Sea now travel in armed convoys through the restive Sinai, where hardline militants have launched a campaign against security forces. Once bustling hotels and youth hostels are eerily quiet.

From 2009 to 2010, before the revolution, Egypt took in $11.6 billion from tourism,according to Reuters. But 2012 to 2013 were marked by a devastating dip in tourism, with Egypt only earning $9.75 billion from the industry. Following the military's ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last year, tourism fell by a whopping 45 percent, Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou told Reuters.

Under the military-backed government, unrest has surged. In recent weeks alone,gunmen assassinated a top government figure, a jihadist group targeted security forces in Cairo with four bombs, and dozens of anti-government protesters have been killed in clashes with police.

On Jan. 29, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo urged its citizens to "limit their movements to the near vicinity of their neighborhoods," warning against traveling outside of Egypt’s cities by car. And many governments, like the United States and the United Kingdom, have issued travel alerts for Egypt.

Thousands of dissidents have been imprisoned, and rights groups and critics have slammed the interim government as repressive and increasingly authoritarian. Yet despite a heavy-handed crackdown on what the state has labeled a "war on terrorism," many Egyptians, especially those working in tourism, say forceful rule is the only way to restore security.

"We need a man who can stabilize everything," said Abdel Rahman Aly, a tourism company owner. "I’m against a man with a military background, but there is no one else."

In Egypt, Sissi is portrayed as a national hero. Posters bearing his face are plastered everywhere. Pro-government protesters who rallied on Jan. 25, the three-year anniversary of the revolution, didn’t chant revolutionary slogans of "bread, freedom, and social justice." Instead, they wore Sissi masks and praised the military leader for cracking down on violence.

"This man is an idol," Aly said. "If that works for everyone else, that works for me."

Aly says the only reason his company is still afloat is because he has started coordinating international trips for Egyptians, having largely given up on foreigners coming to the country. But with military checkpoints everywhere and a very real fear of terrorist attacks, the success of even this venture seems improbable.

Unlike Aly, some have their doubts that Sissi can up live to the expectations of his cult-like followers.

"The notion that Sissi can curb terrorist attacks is odd in my view," said Shadi Hamid, a Middle East analyst and fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center. "Under Sissi, over the last seven months, terrorist attacks have increased significantly. Brute force seems to be his approach to dealing with things -- but that’s not how you defeat terrorism."

Dr. Kareem Eltamamy, the owner of Dahab Hostel, a once bustling youth hostel just a short walk from Tahrir Square, agrees with that sentiment.

"If Sissi became president, the Muslim Brotherhood or whoever is making these explosions will just become more angry," he said, mirroring popular consensus that the Islamist group is behind the attacks, even though a Sinai-based jihadist group has claimed responsibility for most of the recent terrorist attacks across Egypt.

Eltamamy said his hostel, which is widely known among backpackers and budget travelers in Egypt, doesn't come close to reaching capacity on a good day. He describes the past few months in a single word: "hell." Unlike many Egyptians who wholly believe in Sissi’s promise to quell the violence, he doesn’t think the current security situation, or the tourism sector, will turn around anytime soon.

But after three years of tumult, he said he doesn’t know how it could get much worse.

Eltamamy recently poured money into remodeling his hostel, hoping to draw in tourists from the "adventurous" crowd he says now occasionally comes through. But so far, it hasn’t helped.

"Nobody wants to go to a country that is exploding," he said with a sigh.

The first stone calendar #egypt

The first stone calendar

In the Sahara Desert in Egypt lie the oldest known astronomically aligned stones in the world: Nabta. Over one thousand years before the creation of Stonehenge, people built a stone circle and other structures on the shoreline of a lake that has long since dried up. Over 6,000 years ago, stone slabs three meters high were dragged over a kilometer to create the site. Shown above is one of the stones that remains. Although at present the western Egyptian desert is totally dry, this was not the case in the past. There is good evidence that there were several humid periods in the past (when up to 500 mm of rain would fall per year) the most recent one during the last interglacial and early last glaciation periods which stretched between 130,000 and 70,000 years ago.
During this time, the area was a savanna and supported numerous animals such as extinct buffalo and large giraffes, varieties of antelope and gazelle. Beginning around the 10th millennium BC, this region of the Nubian Desert began to receive more rainfall, filling a lake. Early people may have been attracted to the region due to the source of water. Archaeological findings may indicate human occupation in the region dating to at least somewhere around the 10th and 8th millennia BC.

Tomb of ancient #Egyp t's beer maker to gods of the dead discovered

Imagine a warm brew of lager so heady you had to plunge a straw through the thick surface scum to get to the fermented liquor a.

Welcome to the favored brew of ancient Egypt's New Kingdom; a 3,200-year-old barley beer that a new archaeological find this month is shedding new light on.

A Japanese team headed by Jiro Kondo of Waseda University stumbled on the tomb of ancient beer-maker Khonso Em Heb while cleaning the courtyard of another tomb at the Thebes necropolis in the Egyptian city of Luxor.

The tomb, replete with highly colored frescoes, is being hailed as one of the most significant finds of recent times.

Egypt's antiquities minister Mohamed Ibrahim described Khonso Em Heb as the chief "maker of beer for gods of the dead" adding that the tomb's chambers contain "fabulous designs and colors, reflecting details of daily life... along with their religious rituals."

One fresco shows Khonso Em Heb -- who apart from being a brewer, headed the royal storehouses during the pharaonic Ramesside period (1,292--1,069 BC) -- making offerings to the gods along with his wife and daughter.

The newly discovered tomb is to be placed under tight security until the excavation work is completed, the ministry said in a press statement.

According to Professor Poo Mun Chou, a leading Egyptologist at Hong Kong's Chinese University, the discovery is not only significant in terms of what it tells archaeologists about life during the New Kingdom period of Ancient Egypt, but marks a new direction for Egypt's beleaguered antiquities ministry.

Still reeling from a disastrous break-in at the Cairo Museum in 2011 --- when looters smashed two mummies and made off with more than 50 artifacts --- Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities had slapped stringent restrictions on archaeological digs.

For Professor Poo, the latest discovery is a sign that archeology in Egypt may be returning to normal.

"The significance in this find is that for quite some time archaeologists haven't been able to excavate an intact tomb," he said.

This is a new find and is quite unexpected.
Poo Man Chou, Egyptologist

"An intact tomb will give us a more complete view of the funerary customs which can be compared with other tomb paintings."

He said the frescoes were well preserved.

"The Supreme Council of Antiquities has for some time had a policy of not excavating new tombs but preserving those tombs that have already been excavated.

"This is a new find and is quite unexpected."

Apart from the recent political turmoil in Egypt, which has led to a surge in the number of illegal digs and antiquities damaged by looters, Professor Poo said the sheer speed with which new discoveries were being made had meant the government was having difficulty keeping up with logging and preserving the finds.

Excavation around Thebes could be returning to normal.

Add to this the problem of protecting ancient tombs, which begin to degrade the moment they are opened, and Egypt's antiquities authorities have their work cut out for them.

"In Egypt, of course, the dry weather means the danger of this is less, but still after some time the color of the painting begins to fade away.

"That is why Egypt now has a stricter policy."

While foreign archaeological teams are still operating in Egypt, the political climate has made it more difficult for them to do their work.

Even the International Association of Egyptologists (IAE) was told late last year that Egypt --- because of the political situation --- was unable to host the 2014 International Congress of Egyptologists.

The IAE is currently seeking bids for a second country to host the prestigious congress.

Meanwhile, historians and archaeologists are making use of the latest find while it is still available to be studied.

"Alcohol in ancient Egypt was very important -- not just in terms of daily consumption but also as an offering to deities. Beer, in particular was very important," said Poo.

"Beer during the New Kingdom period was probably one-fifth or even one-tenth the price of wine making it a very popular drink for people of all social strata."

While the appeal of beer across all social classes remains to this day, Professor Poo says the modern drinker might struggle to recognize the barley or millet-based beverage of ancient times.

"While it's a close cousin to modern beer, it's manufacture was more primitive and they had to use a tube to extract the liquid from below which would have had a fermented layer of substance floating on the top of the jar," he said.

"It would have had bubbles," he added.