Riches to move permanently to new Grand Museum, so London show is being milked by country’s PR department
In the manner of an ageing rock star with a faltering voice but a hefty tax bill, King Tutankhamun and his entourage rolled into London this weekend for the latest stop in what his handlers insist will be absolutely, without question, his last world tour.
Related: Tutankhamun review – thrills and fun as King Tut gets the Hollywood treatment
Continue reading...In interview in Spain, businessman says he is in fear of contract killing and that he has new plan to topple President Sisi
The Egyptian whistleblower who prompted rare street protests against President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi from exile in Spain has said he is in a “state of shock” and feels a deep sense of personal responsibility for those jailed for answering his call to demonstrate. But he insisted his fight to topple Sisi will enter a new phase, claiming many junior officers in the army support his call for an end to corruption.
In an interview with the Guardian in Barcelona, where he says he lives in fear of a contract killing, Mohamed Ali, called for the US Congress to investigate how decades of US economic and military aid amounting to more than $70bn had been spent by the Egyptian state. “Trump has let Sisi steal as much of America’s money as he wants,” Ali said. “It is like a comedy film.”
Continue reading...Intricately carved coffins with mummies from 1000BC ‘biggest such find in over a century’
Egypt has revealed details of 30 ancient wooden coffins with mummies inside, which were discovered in the southern city of Luxor in the biggest find of its kind in more than a century.
A team of Egyptian archaeologists found a “distinctive group of 30 coloured wooden coffins for men, women and children” in a cache at Al-Asasif cemetery on Luxor’s west bank, the ministry of antiquities said in a statement on Saturday.
Continue reading...Security forces stop minors at checkpoints and check phones for ‘political’ material
More than 100 children are among thousands of people detained in Egypt in an effort to prevent further protests against the rule of Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi.
At least 3,120 people have been arrested since hundreds of people took to the streets on 20 September, according to the Cairo-based NGO the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. Amnesty International said at least 111 children were arrested in the crackdown, “some as young as 11, with several detained on their way home from school”.
Continue reading...Security forces patrol Cairo, a week after rare rallies appeared to catch Sisi regime off guard
Egyptian security forces have blocked access to Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the highly symbolic focal point of the 2011 revolution, as part of a wide-ranging crackdown aimed at heading off planned protests against the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
Barricades and checkpoints on surrounding streets and the Qasr al-Nil Bridge diverted traffic on Friday afternoon, and three metro stations underneath the square were closed. Security officials stopped and searched pedestrians in the vicinity.
Continue reading...Even before Egyptian authorities warned that they would “decisively confront” any protests that take place on Friday, it was evident that it would require extraordinary courage to answer the call to the streets. Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s regime has repeatedly shown its utter ruthlessness since seizing power six years ago in a coup. Security forces killed thousands of people protesting against the takeover. The country has locked up 60,000 political prisoners. Executions have soared this year.
Yet hundreds of people did demonstrate in cities including Cairo, Suez and Alexandria last week. The authorities responded with teargas, rubber bullets, beatings and live ammunition. Almost 2,000 people have since been arrested – more than are thought to have taken part. They include several prominent figures who do not appear to have been involved in any way, including the internationally recognised rights lawyer Mahienour el-Massry, who was defending protesters; the journalist and opposition politician Khaled Dawoud; and Hazem Hosny, a former spokesperson for Sami Anan, the former military chief of staff detained since he tried to challenge Mr Sisi for the presidency last year.
Continue reading...Demonstrations planned for Friday against rule of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi
More than 1,900 people have been arrested in Egypt in the last week, as the country braces for further demonstrations on Friday against the rule of president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
The figures were compiled by the Cairo-based NGO the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights. Bystanders and others who had little to do with the protests were reportedly detained along with the demonstrators, and those arrested were being held across the country.
Continue reading...Banning of BBC and crackdown on protests seemingly not on agenda at PM’s talks with Sisi
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, lavished praise on Egypt at a bilateral meeting with its president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, in New York, hours before the UK hosted a global media freedom conference with Amal Clooney, the UK’s special envoy on media freedom.
Sisi has just instigated a fresh massive crackdown on journalists following the outbreak of protests against corruption in Egypt.
Continue reading...Mohamed Ali is unlikely source of viral videos about corruption that have stirred resentment
Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets across Egypt since Friday in a rare show of public dissent against Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi’s rule. But the call for demonstrations came from an unlikely source: a contractor and part-time actor living in exile in Barcelona, who has made bold corruption claims in a string of viral videos.
Mohamed Ali is a former military contractor who addresses Egyptians from his apartment, shirt often unbuttoned and cigarette in hand. His colloquial style of speech, sometimes swearing in an accent more working class than his own, is intended to present a man-of-the-people appeal. Ali has called for a million Egyptians to march on Friday.
Continue reading...Younger generation takes to the streets in defiance of six-year ban on demonstrations
Hundreds of Egyptians have been swept up in a campaign of arrests targeting protesters, as demonstrations against Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi’s rule continue.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), a Cairo-based NGO, reported on Sunday that at least 220 people had been arrested since protests began on Friday night. The organisation said it had set up an “emergency room” to deal with the spike in arrests, and that at least 100 more people were likely to have been detained after protests in Suez, Alexandria and Giza. Another NGO, the Egyptian Centre for Economic & Social Rights, stated it had recorded at least 274 arrests since the demonstrations began.
Continue reading...Teargas and live rounds fired at demonstrators in Suez after crowds call for the removal of president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
Egyptian security forces have clashed with hundreds of anti-government protesters in the port city of Suez in a second day of demonstrations against the Sisi regime, firing tear gas and live rounds.
A heavy security presence was also maintained in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Saturday, the epicentre of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, after protests in several cities on Friday called for the removal of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Continue reading...At least 55 people reported arrested over protests calling for President Sisi to stand down
Hundreds of Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo and other cities in rare protests against the country’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, responding to an online call for a demonstration against government corruption.
Videos shared on social media showed protesters in central Cairo as well as the port cities of Alexandria and Suez, demanding that Sisi leave office. Protests also occurred in the towns of Damietta, Damanhur and Mahalla.
Continue reading...Paris’s Tutankhamun exhibition is a record-breaking hit – but scarabs, pharaohs and man-eating monsters have been thrilling us for centuries
Paris’s current mania for Tutankhamun should come as no surprise. The Grande Halle de la Villette exhibition of 150 objects found in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh is now France’s most-visited exhibition ever, having attracted over 1.3 million visitors. Many of the objects on show – “wonderful things”, in Howard Carter’s words, including mini-coffins, a gilded bed and a calcite vase – have left Egypt for the first time for the Treasures of the Pharaoh exhibition, which will move to London’s Saatchi Gallery in November.
The exhibition’s popularity echoes the wave of “Tut-mania” that swept the west almost 100 years ago when Carter first discovered the boy-king’s tomb. Suddenly everyone seemed interested in Egyptology, evident in the fashions, arts, culture and advertising of the time, and most enduringly in art-deco architecture such as the Chrysler building in New York – especially its distinctive elevator doors – and the Carreras Cigarette Factory in London, with its line of sleek black cats guarding the entrance. US president Herbert Hoover named his dog King Tut, and there were calls for the extension of the London Underground’s Northern Line that linked Tooting and Camden Town to be named Tutancamden.
Continue reading...Interior ministry blames Hasm group for blast that injured dozens near cancer institute
Twenty people have been killed and 47 injured after a car bomb collided with other vehicles, triggering an explosion outside a cancer hospital in central Cairo.
The blast occurred around midnight local time on a road running alongside the Nile River in an area outside Egypt’s National Cancer Institute. Pictures taken just after the incident and published by Egypt’s largest newspaper, Al-Ahram, showed two burnt-out cars, with at least one completely blackened and dented from the force of the explosion.
Continue reading...Airline suspended flights to Egyptian capital last Saturday as a precautionary measure
British Airways said on Thursday it would resume flights to Cairo following a week’s suspension, having reviewed its security measures.
BA flights to and from the Egyptian capital will start again on Friday, it said in a statement.
Continue reading...Services to Egyptian capital halted for seven days to allow for security review, says airline
British Airways has suspended all flights to Cairo for seven days as a security precaution.
The airline made the surprise announcement last night that all flights into the Egyptian capital were halted.
Continue reading...Pharoah Sneferu’s structure marks key step in Egyptian architecture, as builders had to change the angle when it started to crack
Egypt has opened to visitors the “bent” pyramid built for the pharaoh Sneferu, a 101-metre structure south of Cairo that marks a key step in the evolution of pyramid construction.
Tourists will now be able to clamber down a 79-metre long, narrow tunnel from a raised entrance on the pyramid’s northern face, to reach two chambers deep inside the 4,600-year-old structure.
Continue reading...Four decades ago Egypt embarked on the most ambitious new cities building programme in the world. Their boom shows no sign of stopping
Seen from space, Egypt is a vast dusty land with a green Y opening into the Mediterranean Sea – a fertile valley that makes up 5% of the country yet is home to 95% of the population.
This pattern of human occupation had characterised the country for thousands of years, but in the 1970s, as ever more precious green land was eaten up by urban growth, an idea that had been taking shape in the national consciousness for decades was finally put into policy. Egypt would “conquer the desert” and redistribute its burgeoning population across the white sands of the Sahara – an Egyptian version of the 19th-century US “manifest destiny” to move west, no matter how punishing the consequences.
Continue reading...Cairo calls on international police agency to find head sold to unknown buyer for £4.7m
Egypt has called on Interpol to intervene and will sue over the sale at Christie’s auction house in London of a 3,000-year-old Tutankhamun sculpture that may have been looted from a Luxor temple.
The 28.5cm brown quartzite head was part of a statue of the ancient god Amun with the facial features of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt between 1333 and 1323 BC. Similar statues were carved for the Temple of Karnak in the city of Thebes, now Luxor.
Continue reading...The ‘rare and beautiful’ 3,000-year-old sculpture goes under the hammer in defiance of claims it was stolen
A brown quartzite head of young king Tutankhamun has sold at auction in London for more than £4.7m despite Egyptian demands for its return.
The more than 3,000-year-old sculpture, displayed at Christie’s London auction house, shows the boy king taking the form of the ancient Egyptian god Amen.
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