Happy Eid Adha 2019 from Egyptian Chronicles

The Family Park Mosque in New Cairo 

Happy Eid Adha to all the Muslim world celebrating it today “as well as tomorrow like Oman”. Here is a New Cairo modern architecture mosque that caught my eyes in Family park in the upscale East of Cairo suburb Egypt. I tried to find any extra information about it but I have failed so far. 

Seen in Cairo : Transferring an obelisk "Updated"

During its dismantling in Zamalek  

This was a photo taken last week for the attempt to transfer King Ramses II obelisk from Zamalek island to New Alamein city.

On Wednesday, the ministry of antiquities announced that the obelisk arrived New Alamein city.

It reportedly took 20 days just to lift it from its place in the public garden named after it “Obelisk garden” and put it horizontally on a big track.

Now there is a problem regarding its weight "90 tonnes" and whether it can be carried over 15 May bridge till it reaches the desert highway 😬🙈🙈. 

This is the only time that less known the Ancient Egyptian obelisk makes headline in both social media and mainstream media.

According to the ministry of antiquities, it was decided to transfer that obelisk from its place in Zamalek because it did not attract anybody and it was hidden.

National Cancer Institute tragedy : The red wedding

On Sunday, Egypt stayed awake till the early hours of the morning watching a fire that erupted outside the National Cancer Institute “NCI” in Cairo’s Al-Manial island.
It started with big bang and huge fire that was seen from Giza and Garden City.
For several hours, the cause of the huge explosion and fire was not unknown and many news websites close to the current administration reported different contradicting causes of the explosion.

Outside the NCI, the fire following the explosion by Ahmed El-Sheikh

The only information we had then was that not less 18 people were killed and 20 others were injured. The number was increasing while the patients of the NCI were being evacuated.

One of the cancer patients evacuated from NCI in Cairo after the explosion "Getty images" 

By the morning, the death toll increased to 22 and 47 others injured.

It took 18 hours till the Egyptian ministry of interior declared that a car carrying explosive involved in a traffic collision that caused this deadly blast.
The collision and the explosion that rocked happened when that car full of explosive went in the wrong way of the street colliding with other cars, the MOI statement read.

Official Numbers : 32.5% of the Egyptians are under the Egyptian poverty line

On Monday, Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics “CAPMAS” announced that 32.5% of Egyptians are living under the Egyptian poverty line currently according to the results of its 2017/2018 income survey.
Yes, you read it right 1/3 of the Egyptian population are currently living under the Egyptian poverty line.

Egyptian Poverty Line from 1999/2000 to 2017/2018
Infogram

We are currently 101,333,931 people according to the latest numbers of the UN, one-third of them are living under poverty officially.
According to CAPMAS, the Egyptian poverty line is estimated to be LE 735.7 a month (USD 44.47)
There is a 4.7% increase in the number of Egyptians living in poverty line in 2017/18 comparing to 27.8% in 2015.
In its 69-pages-survey, CAPMAS stated the extreme poverty line is estimated to be LE 490 a month in Egypt in 2017/18 and that are 6.2 million Egyptians living beneath that line.

Stranger Things Egyptian version : Alaa Mubarak is accused of solidarity with the MB

It is a strange time when you find Alaa Mubarak is being reported to the High State prosecution for “solidarity with Muslim Brotherhood” !! 

Yes, notorious lawyer Samir Sabry has just done the impossible and accused Hosni Mubarak’s eldest son of “inciting the public opinion against the state in solidarity with the MB” because of a tweet.

It comes at the same time when Alaa Mubarak is facing a huge attack in Egyptian Media Group’s various publications especially Youm 7 that reminds him of his corruption during his father’s reign.

Alaa and his father ousted President Mubarak in one of their
retrials "Getty images" 

It is truly strange times because now we found a news website like Youm 7 attacking Alaa Mubarak reminding him how “ The 25th January revolution” erupted against his father and his own financial corruption!!
Usually, the Egyptian Media-owned Youm 7 considers the #25Jan revolution as a foreign plot to destroy the “Egyptian state” so seeing it recognizing it because of Alaa Mubarak is truly strange.

Already the founders of Youm 7 were NDP members close to Gamal Mubarak whom it used to promote as the upcoming leader of Egypt and since the first call to protest on 25 January 2011 emerged online, the website took the side of the regime. 

Again all this because a single tweet Alaa Mubarak posted it last week: a tweet where he criticized Egypt’s minister of immigration Nabila Makram after her infamous incident in Canada. “She tried to downplay it as expected” 

From what I understood, the son of the former president said that what Makram did and said in Canada was an irresponsible action which is actually true.
On Sunday, Alaa Mubarak deleted the tweet and said that he was raised to respect the “State institutions” and that he rejected to find his name “used in insulting the Egyptian state” as MB-channels-based in Turkey began to highlight his tweet.

RIP Essebsi : Some men play an important role more than they think or you think

Earlier Saturday late Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi was buried in his family cemetery after a respectable funeral for an Arab leader.

Since I was child, I have seen lots Arab presidents and kings’ funerals and one thing I noticed in Essebsi’s funeral that I did not feel or notice in those funerals: People’s true respect.

Vice president of Nahda Party "Islamist" Abdel Fattah El-Mourou walking behind the coffin of
late President Essebsi

The people did not show hypocritic hysterical sadness that we are used to in our part of the world.
That populist culture about the death of that leader/father figure did not exist despite Essebsi’s old age and despite his long political life.

After all the 92-years-old veteran stateman was Tunisia’s first democratically elected president and the man met and dealt with true opposition, not a fake one.
This is the most important role the veteran stateman played since Tunisia’s independence for real in a very critical time.
I do not think that he would have imagined that he would end his life as the President of Democratic Tunisia.

Some Non-Tunisian Islamists are cursing him for enforcing more secular laws when it comes to inheritance and marriage laws as well as their constitution-related articles.
It is up to the Tunisian people to change those laws as well as their constitution at the end of the day at any time.

For me, Essebsi and another man called Rached Ghannouchi made a historical choice to protect Tunisia and its young democracy from the collapse of the Democratic Arab Spring in 2013.
This is how I will remember Beji Caid Essebsi. He was not the most revolutionary nor he represented the youth of Tunisia.