Mummies and up to 40 gilded statues found in a vast Pharaonic necropolis south of Cairo
Egyptian antiquities officials have announced the discovery of at least 100 ancient coffins, some with mummies inside, and about 40 gilded statues in a vast Pharaonic necropolis south of Cairo.
Sealed sarcophagi and statues that were buried more than 2,500 years ago were displayed in a makeshift exhibit at the feet of the famed Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.
Continue reading...Six Americans, one Czech and one French citizen killed and only survivor in critical state
A helicopter carrying members of a multinational peacekeeping force has crashed near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, killing six Americans, a Czech and a French citizen.
The US-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) said in a statement that all but one of the nine people onboard were killed when the aircraft went down “during a routine operation”.
Continue reading...The killing of a 12-year-old boy sparked calls for justice and action to counter human rights violations of black African refugees in Egypt
Dozens of Sudanese refugees and migrants have been arrested after protests over the murder of a young boy in Cairo.
Amnesty International said about 70 people, including children, were arrested by Egyptian security forces after what it said were two peaceful protests on 29 October.
Continue reading...Andrea Riseborough stars as a war-zone medic going through a low-key mid-life crisis as she tries to recover by visiting the famous archaeological site
Slow, delicate and sparse, Luxor is coming out on digital this week just as all the cinemas close down again. If you have a chance to see it, try to view it in the dark, without distractions, on the biggest screen you can in order to approximate a cinema setting and to best appreciate its deep-breath pacing and dry-heat beauty.
Writer-director Zeina Durra’s feature, her second after the evocatively titled The Imperialists Are Still Alive!, follows English surgeon Hana (an unusually subdued Andrea Riseborough, giving a great, slow-burn performance) as she recovers from the horrors of working in a Syrian war zone for an aid organisation. As she rests up at a plush hotel in Luxor, the open-air museum of a town in Egypt she used to live in years 20 before, she passes the time visiting the sights and having polite interactions with other guests and tourists, all the while considering what may be an even more traumatic assignment in Yemen.
Continue reading...Amnesty International says two killed in unrest over law demanding residents pay fines to legalise homes
Rights groups say two Egyptians have been killed and hundreds more detained in a recent wave of protests as anger mounts against a law some of those hit hardest by the economic fallout from coronavirus say now threatens their homes.
The protests, mostly in impoverished remote areas, were spurred on by a growth in anti-government sentiment, in particular over a law demanding residents pay fines to legalise homes built on agricultural land. Many say they cannot afford the fine, despite government threats to demolish the homes of those who can’t pay.
Continue reading...Anti-democratic attitudes in America helped to scrub our election, while US-Nile geopolitics could become a powder keg
When US presidents comment on events in other countries, their remarks have impact.
When, for example, President Barack Obama congratulated the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) on an apparent landslide election victory in 2015, it signalled to some Ethiopians that the world’s most powerful country would not favour a legal challenge to the election results.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Thomas Young used cut-up method to treat translation of Egyptian relic as mathematical problem, papers show
Nobody knew how to read hieroglyphs when two 19th-century scholars set out to decipher the inscribed texts on the ancient Egyptian Rosetta Stone, one of the British Museum’s most famous treasures.
Now notes have been discovered among one of the scholars’ papers in the British Library that reveal the extent to which the translation was treated as though it was a mathematical problem.
Continue reading...Survivors who say alleged assailants go unpunished have begun publicly shaming them online
Egypt is witnessing a wave of online outrage targeting rape culture and sexual assault, as survivors use social media to shame alleged abusers and demand change.
A growing number of social media accounts gather survivors’ testimony and attempt to shame alleged attackers, angry at elite perpetrators they say routinely go unpunished.
Continue reading...Egypt fears hydroelectric project will restrict limited waters on which its population depends
Ethiopia has allowed a controversial dam built across the headwaters of the Nile to fill with rain water, raising tensions with Egypt and Sudan.
The huge hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, known as the Grand Renaissance dam, is at the centre of Ethiopia’s plan to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, but Egypt fears already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million people depends, might be restricted.
Continue reading...Overwhelmed staff detained by state security agency after voicing concerns about lack of PPE
Overwhelmed and ill-equipped medical staff in Egypt are being threatened for speaking out about poor working conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic, with increasing numbers detained by a domestic security agency.
Doctors recounted threats delivered via WhatsApp, official letters or in person. They said hospital managers and government officials told them failing to attend shifts, posting on social media or voicing objections would result in complaints to the National Security Agency, Egypt’s primary internal security body, which rights groups say has arrested multiple healthcare workers.
Continue reading...Exclusive: discovery of two ancient mummies filmed for Channel 5 documentary
She was the fabled queen of ancient Egypt, immortalised over thousands of years as a beautiful seductress. But, despite her fame, Cleopatra’s tomb is one of the great unsolved mysteries.
Some believe she was buried in Alexandria, where she was born and ruled from her royal palace, a city decimated by the tsunami of 365AD. Others suggest her final resting place could be about 30 miles away, in the ancient temple of Taposiris Magna, built by her Ptolemaic ancestors on the Nile Delta.
Continue reading...From grand visions that fail with the departure of a president to everyday buildings knocked down before they can be considered for heritage protection, a new book unpicks what Egypt’s capital might have beenn
Looming above the affluent Zamalek neighbourhood in the centre of Cairo, the Forte Tower has stood as the tallest building in Egypt for the last 30 years – yet it remains unfinished and abandoned. A ring of faintly Islamic pointed-arch windows encircles the uppermost floor of the great cylindrical shaft, creating a forlorn crown on the skyline, like a host awaiting party guests that never arrived.
Begun in the 1970s, the 166-metre tall building was planned to house a glamorous 450-room hotel, with restaurants, shops and a nightclub. It was to be the first part of a “new Manhattan of Egypt”, a cluster of skyscrapers imagined by president Anwar Sadat to rise from Gezira Island in the middle of the Nile, signalling Cairo’s place on the world stage. Following Sadat’s assassination in 1981, the project hit the rocks. Under subsequent president, Hosni Mubarak, the developer faced battles for permits and licences, seeing the project mired in lawsuits that ultimately halted it. The towering carcass has been left empty ever since, a single showroom furnished with bedding, lamps and an old TV providing an eerie relic of the dream.
Continue reading...Families of prisoners at notorious Tora complex concerned publicised efforts to contain virus are purely cosmetic
Fears are mounting over the safety of prisoners in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison, as rights groups say parts of the complex have been cordoned off to quarantine those diagnosed with coronavirus.
Families of those held inside the huge compound south of Cairo, which houses at least eight individual prisons, including two maximum security wings, say the authorities’ attempts to combat the spread of Covid-19 inside Tora are at best cosmetic. “Things have been erratic since they banned visits in March,” said Mona Seif, whose brother, the activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, has been detained in at the prison since September.
Continue reading...As lockdowns linger and economies falter, girls who are out of school are at increased risk of being cut
Covid-19 has exposed just how much work remains to be done to wipe out female genital mutilation (FGM) around the world. Two million girls who would otherwise be safe from the practice are believed to be at risk over the next decade as a direct result of the virus.
As lockdowns linger and economies tumble, many families have been spurred into action over the fate of their daughters, using school closures to cut them and marry them off, campaigners say.
Continue reading...Murdered student’s mother and rights groups condemn $1.2bn deal approved by Giuseppe Conte
Rights groups and the family of the murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni have heavily criticised an arms deal between Italy and Egypt worth an estimated $1.2bn (£960m).
Regeni’s mutilated body was found by the side of a major road on the outskirts of Cairo in early 2016. His murder remains unsolved, but there are widespread suspicions that he was abducted, tortured and killed by Egyptian security forces.
Continue reading...Sisi’s initiative includes peace talks in Geneva and is backed by rebel general Khalifa Haftar
Egypt’s president has announced an initiative to end nearly a decade of civil war in Libya, backed by the main commander in the oil-rich country’s east, whose siege of the capital, Tripoli collapsed this week.
President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said a ceasefire will start on Monday and is meant to pave the way for elections. He called for peace talks in Geneva and the exit of all foreign fighters from Libya.
Continue reading...Girls were allegedly told they were to have Covid-19 vaccinations but were cut by doctor after being sedated
Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the immediate trial of a father on charges of forcing his three young daughters to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), after he told them they were going to be vaccinated against coronavirus. The doctor involved will also go on trial.
The procedure was banned in 2008 and criminalised in 2016.
Continue reading...A US activist arrested as part of a brutal crackdown in Cairo has filed a lawsuit against a former Egyptian prime minister who now lives in Washington DC, arguing he was targeted for assassination, arrest and torture.
Mohamed Soltan was arrested following the violent dispersal of protesters in Cairo in 2013. Court documents chronicle the extensive physical torture Soltan suffered in multiple detention facilities during his 643-day detention, including beatings, denial of medical treatment and cigarette burns to the back of his neck.
Continue reading...Medics increasingly at odds with government that is urging citizens to ‘coexist’ with Covid-19
Egyptian doctors are increasingly at odds with their own government on the country’s coronavirus outbreak, pleading for protections and a full lockdown even as the authorities urge people to learn to “coexist” with Covid-19.
A wave of government propaganda has hailed healthcare workers as the “white army”, a reference to their white coats. But some of them told the Guardian they lacked protective equipment and were struggling to get vital tests for themselves and patients.
Continue reading...As the coronavirus lockdown clamps down on the informal economy and tourism dries up, Egypt’s most vulnerable are left without protection or food security
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