CAIRO — One woman called for a new revolution. A man called for former President Hosni Mubarak to be executed. An angry crowd in an auditorium here on Thursday night listened to stories of protesters injured or killed during Egypt’s revolution and in demonstrations since, and stood and applauded when a mother spoke of loss. One of her sons was killed by a policeman’s bullet in January, and another son sits in a military prison, after he was beaten and arrested in a protest last week. “I’ve grown tired,” the mother, Amal Zine al Abadeen, told dozens who had gathered as a prelude to a rally of tens of thousands on Friday in Tahrir Square, where the uprising began.“This revolution has done nothing for us,” she said. “I don’t want money. I don’t want anything at all. All I’m asking for is justice.” Read Morehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/world/middleeast/09egypt.html
A new survey finds that Egyptians are less satisfied with their lives than they have been in recent years, but they also have more hope for their futures than they did during the days of ousted President Hosni Mubarak's government.There is no question that it has been a tumultuous year in Egypt. In January, Egyptians took to the streets to protest against the government, corruption and human rights abuses. In February, President Mubarak stepped down, ending his nearly 30 years in office.And in late March and early April, Egyptians were less satisfied with their standard of living than they had been in years. That is a finding in a new report from the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, based on face-to-face interviews with about 1,000 Egyptian adults. In the wake of the popular uprising, Egyptians reported that they felt their communities had become less safe, and they said it was hard to find jobs, healthcare and housing.Read More
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Study-Egyptians-Less-Satisfied-More-Hopeful-123398908.html
CAIRO—Thank God for the Dutch.If it weren’t for the Dutch, there would have been no foreign tourists here at all on Sunday, strolling among the vast shadows of the legendary pyramids of Giza or gazing in wonder at the aloof, leonine profile of the Sphinx.Well, that isn’t quite true.A three-member contingent of Chinese adventurers also was visiting the famed tourist site, and they briefly crossed paths in the desert with a Dutch tour group of 27 intrepid travelers.Along with a smattering of Egyptians, these doughty international wayfarers pretty much had the place all to themselves, as tourism continues to implode in the land of the pharaohs, nearly a month after hundreds of thousands of Egyptians first took to the streets, demanding the removal of octogenarian ruler Hosni Mubarak.Mubarak finally got the message and left town more than a week ago, but most of Egypt’s hotels are still all but deserted, not to mention its Nile cruise boats, its casinos, and the cool, stone-walled corridors of its ancient monuments.Meanwhile, Egypt itself is once again largely at peace.“It’s wonderful here,” enthused Sietse Plantinga of Amsterdam, who refused to let a little thing like a popular insurrection interfere with her Middle East travel plans. “Nice people. Not many tourists.”Like other foreign travellers here, they are enjoying a rare opportunity — full access to Egypt’s vaunted ancient wonders with almost nobody else around, apart from Egyptians, of course.In a normal year, this country attracts nearly 13 million foreign visitors, but you wouldn’t know it now.By one estimate, roughly a million foreigners fled the country after unrest broke out on Jan. 25. And the tourists have yet to return.Their absence imperils the livelihood of the one in every eight Egyptian workers who depends directly upon tourism to get by.In a normal year, the industry contributes as much as 10 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. Now, however, air carrier EgyptAir is offering to lease some 25 of its newest airplanes, along with their crews, because of a continuing dearth of passengers.“Things are dead,” said Mohamed Ali, who should know.Aged 31, he’s a typically ebullient Egyptian camel handler, who normally rents out his four-year-old male dromedary, named “Michael Jordan,” more than 10 times a day.His clients are foreign visitors with a romantic streak, people who hanker to experience the pyramids in something vaguely approaching the traditional fashion, balanced upon an ornate saddle atop a lofty and compliant ungulate that, in this case, just happens to be named after a former U.S. basketball star.Nowadays, Ali is hard-pressed to find any takers at all.“About $20 is the normal price,” he said, before switching to a practised, beseeching tone. “It’s not too much, my brother.”In fact, it probably is too much, considering there is nowadays almost zero demand for camel rides at Giza or for anything else in Egypt that normally appeals to foreigners.“There is no business,” said Mohamed Ahmed, 28, a clerk at the venerable Lehnert & Landrock bookstore on Sphinx St. in the western Cairo suburb of Haram. The store, which caters to the tourist trade, is located about a five-minute walk from the Sphinx itself. “Before Jan. 25, we saw thousands of tourists a day. Now, nothing.”Gross revenues at the store for the more than three weeks that have passed since Jan. 28, he said, amount to a paltry $500 — far less than the $850 or so he would normally expect to earn, not in a matter of weeks, but on a single February day.He said the collapse in trade is even worse than the vertiginous decline this country’s tourist industry suffered following a 1997 terrorist attack in Luxor, in which 58 foreigners died.Many here expect the trade to recover fairly quickly. By March, they say, the tourists should return.Their arrival can’t come soon enough for Hanan Ragab, 30, an itinerant vendor who supports her husband and their three children by selling stone carvings of the pyramids for five pounds — or 84 cents — apiece. She last sold one of the things more than three weeks ago, and she’s getting desperate.“I’m living on my savings,” she said. “I’m going to run out soon. Send the tourists back, please.”Read Morehttp://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/942613--tourism-in-egypt-struggles-to-recover?bn=1
A detained Google executive who became a rallying symbol for anti-government protesters in Egypt said he was neither a hero nor a traitor in an emotional television interview just hours after his release Monday.Wael Ghonim's comments on Dream TV were translated by Sultan Sooud al Qassemi, a columnist for the National, an English-language publication in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and posted on Qassemi's Twitter account. According to the translation, Ghonim said: “I am not a hero. I only used the keyboard. The real heroes are the ones on the ground.”Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, had traveled to Egypt from his home in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He disappeared Jan. 27 after joining the protests, and his whereabouts were not known until Egyptian television stations reported Sunday that he would be released the next day.Ghonim was quoted as saying in the interview that he had administered a Facebook page that helped rally protesters. He said he was in a taxi when four people surrounded the car, blindfolded him and transferred him to “state security."Although he said he was not mistreated in custody, he said that “nothing justifies kidnapping.”His interrogators wanted to know whether outsiders were involved in organizing the protests, he said. He told them that it was a spontaneous youth movement . “This is the era where people who have good intentions are considered traitors,” he was quoted as saying. “If I was a traitor, I would have stayed by the swimming pool in my house in the UAE.”Ghonim said he also spoke with Egypt’s new interior minister, who treated him “like an equal.”"We are a beautiful people," he said. "Please, everybody, this is not a time to settle scores; this is a time to build our country."Ghonim said he cried when he found out that people had died during the unrest. "I want to tell families who lost their sons this is not our fault," he said. "This is the fault of those clinging to power."Read Morehttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/02/egypt-released-google-executive-says-he-is-neither-hero-nor-traitor.html
Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa has gone missing after joining protests against the Egyptian government, according to report citing the exec's brother.The Wall Street Journal reports that Wael Ghonim – who joined Google in late 2008 – has not been heard from since Friday at 6pm.It should be noted, however, the Egyptian government has restricted internet and cell phone access within the country.Ghonim attended Cairo University and the American University in Cairo, according to his LinkedIn page. And at Google, the page says, he was charged with "driving the growth of Google B2C/B2B products across MENA" and "evangelizing the Internet in the region, and help growing the Arabic content".Earlier this month, Ghonim tweeted that he was traveled to Qatar for an "internet freedom forum" hosted by Al Jazeera, and last week, in a post to the microblogging site, he said he was joining the Egyptian protests against the wishes of some close to him. "Despite all the warnings I got from my relative and friends, I'll be there on #Jan25 protests. Anyone going to be in Gam'et Dewal protest?" the post reads."The Egyptian government started to take really stupid actions that will result in nothing but encouraging more people to protest," he said on January 26. "A government that is scared from #Facebook and #Twitter should govern a city in Farmville but not a country like #Egypt".His tweets stopped the next day, just after he urged readers to pray for Egypt. "Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people," he said. "We are all ready to die".Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company told the WSJ: "We care deeply about the safety of our employees."Separately, with Egypt in mind, the company has unveiled a service that lets people tweet via a voice connection. Anyone can tweet simply by leaving a voice mail at one of these international numbers: +16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855. No internet connection is required, and the service will automatically add the hash tag "#egypt".Read Morehttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/31/google_exec_missing_in_egypt/
