Archive: egypt

23rd August 2023
By: Brian Whitaker
More information is gradually emerging about the mysterious private jet impounded at Lusaka airport in Zambia after a flight from Cairo, and enough is now known to suggest a possible explanation of what was going on. It appears that the Egyptians on board the jet had flown to Lusaka to buy gold… Read more
21st August 2023
By: Brian Whitaker
Last week Zambian drug enforcement officers searched and impounded a private jet after it landed at Lusaka airport on a flight from Cairo. It turned out there were no drugs on board but what the investigators found instead was startling: $5.7 million in cash and 127kg of what appeared to be gold… Read more
25th August 2022
By: Brian Whitaker
The Egyptian authorities have got themselves in a tangle over photography. They want the country to be seen as an attractive tourist destination and if photographers would just focus on nice things, like feluccas sailing on the Nile and sunsets over the pyramids, all would be well. The problem,… Read more
4th May 2020
By: Brian Whitaker
At the end of March, President Sisi hailed Egypt's efforts to combat the coronavirus epidemic as "good and reassuring". Amid such confidence, his regime even made a show of sending medical aid to worse-hit countries such as Italy and the United States. Now, little more than a month later, the… Read more
12th April 2020
By: Brian Whitaker
Police in Egypt used tear gas on Saturday to disperse protesters who were trying to prevent the burial of a doctor who died after being infected by coronavirus. Ahram Online reports that 23 people were arrested. It was the second attempt to bury the 64-year-old female doctor. Residents in her home… Read more
2nd April 2020
By: Brian Whitaker
The Egyptian authorities have been taking exception to suggestions that there are far more coronavirus cases in the country than official figures reveal. Last week, the Guardian's correspondent in Cairo was forced to leave after writing about a scientific study which said the real numbers probably… Read more
1st April 2020
By: Brian Whitaker
Egypt's efforts to control the spread of coronavirus are "good and reassuring", President Sisi claimed yesterday as the authorities reported 54 new cases and five more deaths. "In light of my following-up around the clock on all efforts and measures taken to confront the spread of coronavirus, I… Read more
18th March 2020
By: Brian Whitaker
The Egyptian government has accused reporters from the Guardian and the New York Times of violating "all the rules of journalistic work" in connection with the country's coronavirus epidemic. The Sisi regime's State Information Service said on Wednesday it was withdrawing the accreditation of the… Read more
22nd September 2019
By: Brian Whitaker
The Egyptian authorities have issued a notice to accredited foreign journalists based in Cairo. Basically it seeks to restrict their reporting of demonstrations by demanding compliance with some rather bizarre "professional standards" -- presumably with the threat of expulsion if they disobey. Here… Read more
13th February 2019
By: Brian Whitaker
Last December Egypt's minister of culture, Ines Abdel-Dayem, went into battle against sectarianism – armed with a flute. The minister, who is a former director of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra and a former chair of the Cairo Opera House, played her favourite instrument at a concert in Minya as part… Read more