Port Said death toll is 71, says health ministry
CAIRO: The Ministry of Health denied Wednesday that the death toll from the Port Said massacre had increased, contrary to what was reported by members of Al-Ahly fans, Ultras Ahlawy,…
Art world mourns Spanish great Antoni Tapies
Spanish leaders and the entire art world mourned Tuesday the death of the great avant-garde painter and sculptor Antoni Tapies. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sent a message of condolences to…
George Clooney: Coming of age on the road to ‘The Descendants’
George Clooney plays the kind of man he isn't in "The Descendants" — ambivalent about life, uncertain about his role as father and husband, a passive link in a long…
Britain marks Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday
He wrote about life in the modern city, with its lawyers and criminals, bankers and urchins, dreamers and clerks. He created characters still known to millions — Ebeneezer Scrooge and…
Don’t shoot the messenger
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match, Cleopatra was told by a hapless messenger conveying the news that her beloved Antony had…
Real battle in Egypt is not on the streets
By Maria Golia CAIRO: On Feb. 3 I walked around my downtown Cairo neighborhood to see how the latest street battles were proceeding. They began again (for the third time in…
American funk
By Ian Buruma NEW YORK: The eccentric Bengali intellectual Nirad C. Chaudhuri once explained the end of the British Raj in India as a case of “funk,” or loss of nerve.…
Austerity vs. Europe
By Javier Solana MADRID: It is now increasingly clear that what started in late 2008 is no ordinary economic slump. Almost four years after the beginning of the crisis, developed economies…
Lavrov says Syrians should decide Assad’s fate
MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, back from talks with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, pointedly declined to say Wednesday whether Moscow asked the embattled leader to go, stressing that Syrians…
Violence in Bahrain escalates ahead of Feb. 14 anniversary
MANAMA: The funeral march for Mohammed Yaacoub had barely ended last week when police and protesters faced off in the town of Sitra, an impoverished district of Bahrain that has…