Eastern Tobacco's push for local cultivation faces resistance
CAIRO: The Eastern Tobacco Company submitted a request to the Ministry of Agriculture to cultivate tobacco in Upper Egypt, according to a board member at the company.The company's motive is…
Shiny, happy urban people
In a passageway linking Mohamed Bassiouny and Qasr El-Nil streets in Downtown Cairo, you might stumble upon the first exhibit of the multi-disciplinary "Meeting Point 5 festival.Not that you would…
What's up Cairo?
There were 10 or 12 females at H-Kayne's outdoor, Nile-side concert at El Sawy Cultural Wheel last Monday. I was one of those females and the bathroom attendant was another.…
Wust El Balad frontman unleashes "The Unseen Beatles"
We're not here to show you how we sing the Beatles, we're here because of the Beatles, said Hany Adel on Wednesday evening at the first of a series of…
The road to Israel
In a closely packed hall at the Goethe Institute in Downtown Cairo, the second screening of Nadia Kamel's highly controversial directorial debut "Salata Baladi (Oriental Salad) was held last Wednesday.…
Hamas plans to build Hollywood-style media city, despite isolation
It's a tale worthy of its own movie script: The Gaza Strip's isolated and cash-strapped Hamas rulers plan to build a $200 million media city and movie production house that…
THOUGHTS ABOUT EGYPT: . But not the Egyptians!
I can think of a hundred ways of how a high rate of growth of the Egyptian economy may not bring any benefit to the majority of the citizens. I…
The dilemma of democracy in Lebanon
WASHINGTON, DC: In the history of US-Lebanese relations, no American president has pledged to support Lebanese democracy more than G.W. Bush. No American president has invited Lebanese officials to the…
Islam, inimical to innovation?
LONDON: The names of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and Ibn al-Nafis may be less familiar to many people than those of Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein. But these and other Islamic…
Musharraf's Last Act?
Desperate to hold onto power, Pervez Musharraf has discarded Pakistan's constitutional framework and declared a state of emergency. His goal? To stifle the independent judiciary and free media. Artfully, though…