At least 32 people and 100 injured after collision between two trains in Sohag province
At least 32 people were killed and more than a hundred injured when two trains collided in southern Egypt. Authorities blamed a passenger activating the emergency brakes.
Two passenger cars flipped on their side from the force of the collision, the latest in a series of deadly accidents along Egypt’s troubled rail system, plagued by poor maintenance and management.
Continue reading...Efforts to dislodge the stricken container ship blocking the Suez canal continue as fears mount that the operation could take weeks. The 400-metre-long Ever Given ran aground on Tuesday and has blocked traffic through one of the world's busiest shipping routes
Salvage teams from Netherlands and Japan called in to help refloat Ever Given, which is blocking canal
Salvage teams from the Netherlands and Japan have been enlisted to redraw plans to free a giant container ship blocking the Suez canal, as fears grew that the operation could take weeks.
Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp, which leased the vessel, said the Dutch firm Smit Salvage and Japan’s Nippon Salvage had been appointed by the ship’s owner and would work alongside its captain and the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) on a plan to refloat the ship and let traffic resume on one of the world’s key trade routes.
Continue reading...Big ship getting stuck in a too-narrow waterway has spawned invocations of poetry, the pandemic and Austin Powers
It is the David and Goliath story of our times: one of biggest container ships in the world got stuck in the Suez canal, blocking a route through which 12% of the world’s trade passes – and sent to rescue it was a very small bulldozer.
2 guys and a bulldozer on site to dislodge a ship stuck in the Suez Canal. pic.twitter.com/APAIU7sCv6
Continue reading...Efforts to free the giant container ship are continuing after the 400m-long vessel became stuck in the Suez canal. Local authorities attempted to dislodge the 220,000 ton vessel from the banks of the canal using tug boats, but the megaship remains stuck more than one day after it ran aground. The blockage has caused an extensive traffic jam, with more than 100 ships laden with cargo including oil, automotive parts and consumer goods waiting to get through one of the world’s key trade arteries
The Ever Given, a 220,000-ton, ‘megaship’, became lodged in sand on eastern bank of canal on Tuesday
A container ship nearly 100 metres longer than the height of London’s Shard ran aground on Tuesday morning in the Suez canal, blocking one of the most vital arteries of the global economy.
Continue reading...Tugboats work to free 400-metre ‘megaship’ Ever Given as vessels gather at either end of key waterway
One of the largest container ships in the world has been partially refloated after it ran aground in the Suez canal, causing a huge jam of vessels at either end of the vital international trade artery.
The 220,000-ton, 400-metre-long Ever Given – a so-called megaship operated by the Taiwan-based firm Evergreen – became stuck near the southern end of the canal on Tuesday. The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said it had lost the ability to steer amid high winds and a dust storm.
Continue reading...Analysis: blockage of route through Egypt provides a reminder of its importance to global trade
The impressive span of Al Salam Bridge at El Qantara in Egypt gives a unique view over the Suez canal.
On a normal day a procession of bulk carriers in convoys can be seen for miles creeping into the hazy distance on both sides.
Continue reading...A container ship heading to Rotterdam has run aground in the Suez canal, blocking other vessels from passing through one of the world’s most important waterways. Video posted to social media showed a traffic jam of ships. The 200,000-tonne ship, the Ever Given, is 400 metres long (1,312ft) and 59 metres wide (193ft)
Continue reading...Award-winning feminist author of more than 55 books was a resolute challenger to Egyptian governments
Egypt’s trailblazing writer Nawal El Saadawi died on Sunday at the age of 89, after a lifetime spent fighting for women’s rights and equality.
The feminist author of more than 55 books first spotlighted the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM) with The Hidden Face of Eve in 1980. A trained doctor, El Saadawi also campaigned against women wearing the veil, polygamy and inequality in Islamic inheritance rights between men and women.
Continue reading...In China, scientists have turned vast swathes of arid land into a lush oasis. Now a team of maverick engineers want to do the same to the Sinai
Flying into Egypt in early February to make the most important presentation of his life, Ties van der Hoeven prepared by listening to the podcast 13 Minutes To The Moon – the story of how Nasa accomplished the lunar landings. The mission he was discussing with the Egyptian government was more earthbound in nature, but every bit as ambitious. It could even represent a giant leap for mankind.
Van der Hoeven is a co-founder of the Weather Makers, a Dutch firm of “holistic engineers” with a plan to regreen the Sinai peninsula – the small triangle of land that connects Egypt to Asia. Within a couple of decades, the Weather Makers believe, the Sinai could be transformed from a hot, dry, barren desert into a green haven teeming with life: forests, wetlands, farming land, wild flora and fauna. A regreened Sinai would alter local weather patterns and even change the direction of the winds, bringing more rain, the Weather Makers believe – hence their name.
Continue reading...Though a hundred thousand people have died, initial predictions were far worse, giving rise to many theories on ‘the African paradox’
As Africa emerges from its second wave of Covid-19, one thing is clear: having officially clocked up more than 3.8m cases and more than 100,000 deaths, it hasn’t been spared. But the death toll is still lower than experts predicted when the first cases were reported in Egypt just over a year ago. The relative youth of African populations compared with those in the global north – while a major contributing factor – may not entirely explain the discrepancy. So what is really going on in Africa, and what does that continent’s experience of Covid-19 teach us about the disease and ourselves?
“If anyone had told me one year ago that we would have 100,000 deaths from a new infection by now, I would not have believed them,” says John Nkengasong, the Cameroonian virologist who directs the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Incidentally, he deplores the shocking normalisation of death that this pandemic has driven: “One hundred thousand deaths is a lot of deaths,” he says.
Continue reading...Rollback in women’s rights could spark backlash as Palestinians plan elections later in the year
A Hamas-run Islamic court in the Gaza Strip has ruled that women require the permission of a male guardian to travel, further restricting movement in and out of the territory that has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since the militant group seized power.
The rollback in women’s rights could spark a backlash in Gaza at a time when the Palestinians plan to hold elections later this year. It could also solidify Hamas’s support among its conservative base at a time when it faces criticism over living conditions in the territory it has ruled since 2007.
Continue reading...Ancient Egyptian site in Abydos apparently dates back to beginning of the first dynastic period
American and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed what could be the oldest known beer factory at one of the most prominent archaeological sites of ancient Egypt, a top antiquities official said on Wednesday.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the factory was found in Abydos, an ancient burial ground located in the desert west of the Nile River, more than 450km (280 miles) south of Cairo.
Continue reading...Those who rose up against dictatorship believe their example will inspire another generation
Ten years ago they were overthrowing Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Now they are in exile in Britain, under threat of imprisonment by the military regime. For Cairo’s revolutionaries, it has been a long journey of high hopes and broken dreams.
“I was part of a historical moment,” says Sayed, 39. He was working in the Middle East in December 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in Tunisia, set himself on fire in a protest against his treatment by local officials. Fuelled by social media coverage, the incident sparked protests around the region, including in Egypt, where crowds flocked to Tahrir Square in Cairo demanding the overthrow of Mubarak.
Continue reading...Man also alleges hearing Egyptian security officials discuss tampering with Italian student’s mobile phone
A man who claims to have witnessed the arrest of Giulio Regeni has told the Guardian how he heard and saw the Cambridge PhD student inside a police station in Cairo before he was found dead by a roadside.
The witness, who is regarded as credible by investigators in Rome, said the security officials alleged to have detained the Italian behaved as if they were above the law. “Those people that took Giulio were different,” he said. “Everyone is afraid of [Egypt’s] National Security Agency.”
Continue reading...International community must put pressure on Egypt to prevent prison deaths, warns Amnesty International
A decade after the uprising that overturned politics in Egypt, political prisoners are being targeted inside the country’s overcrowded prison system.
Egypt’s prisons hold at least twice the number of people they were built for, with prisoners of conscience targeted by security forces and denied healthcare, according to Amnesty International. Prisoners of all kinds risk dying in custody because of the profound lack of basic care by the authorities, said the human rights organisation.
Continue reading...An era of uprisings, nascent democracy and civil war in the Arab world started with protests in a small Tunisian city. The unrest grew to engulf the Middle East, shake authoritarian governments and unleash consequences that still shape the world a decade later
A decade ago this month, protests forced Tunisia’s authoritarian president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee his country. It was a quick and relatively peaceful revolution, coming after decades of stagnant but entrenched regimes across the Arab world.
Few at the time understood the power of the images of unrest being broadcast online and into homes across the Middle East. Within weeks, other significant protest movements would emerge, and by the middle of 2011, leaders in Cairo, Tripoli, Sana’a, Damascus and elsewhere were under serious pressure or had been swept away by a tidal wave of peaceful demonstrations and armed resistance.
Continue reading...25 January 2011 marked the start of Hosni Mubarak’s fall but also moves by the military to take over
In the centre of the place where it all began, Mansour Mohammed manned a tarpaulin-covered stall on the only green grass among miles of concrete and asphalt. For 10 days he ate and slept huddled with strangers bound together by burgeoning rage and revolt all around. Enormous crowds heaved and surged – roaring their demands for change in a call that resounded through Tahrir Square in Cairo. “I’ll never forget that sound,” he said. “It was the most powerful noise I’ve ever heard. It was louder than 10 jumbo jets. It was the release of six decades of fear.”
A decade on, the launchpad of Egypt’s revolution – a seminal part of the uprisings which became known as the Arab spring – is a very different place, as is the country. The strip of grass has been concreted over and on it stands a newly erected obelisk, pointing skywards in a trenchant reminder of times of staid certainty. Traffic moves sedately around a roundabout now free of protesters or attempts at defiance. Secret police are positioned, not so secretly, nearby. There is little talk of revolution, and attempts to stir the ghosts of Tahrir Square are met with the heavy hand of the invigorated military state that entrenched itself in the revolution’s wake.
Continue reading...Wooden sarcophagi discovered at site south of Cairo along with funerary temple of Queen Naert
Egypt has announced the discovery of a new trove of treasures at the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, including an ancient funerary temple.
The tourism and antiquities ministry said the “major discoveries” made by a team of archaeologists headed by the Egyptologist Zahi Hawass also included more than 50 sarcophagi.
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