Let’s sign this UN agreement if we do not have cases of forced disappearance in Egypt

I won’t comment on the going BBC report by veteran correspondent Orla Guerin about the crackdown on dissidents in Egypt or the crusade declared by the Egyptian regime and its media arms especially the State Information service especially with its Short bitter recent history with the BBC because it is getting sillier by the minute.

The only thing I can say that Guerin should not have focused on the case of Zubeida especially Egyptian human rights activists working on the forced disappearance file questioned it before and Amr Adeeb should not have accepted to conduct a very odd interview with traumatized Zubeida  and her strange husband at the headquarter of the Egyptian Ministry of interior after claiming it was at her house a day earlier !!!!!!!!!!

Poor Zubeida for real as she appeared on TV earlier this week 

By the way, Zubeida’s mother has been arrested and some concerned lawyer sued her in front the criminal court for spreading lies against Egypt and no journalist was able to reach Zubeida and her husband so far except Adeeb.

Updated on 2/3: Mrs. Mona Ahmed, Zubeida's mother is detained 15 days pending investigation in Egypt for a number of charges above them spreading false news or as commonly known in the world as fake news. Human rights activists report that her lawyer has gone missing since Thursday.  

P.S There are other cases in the BBC World’s report by the way.
All that I can say about that ongoing debate about the forced disappearance is the following.

If we do not have cases of forced disappearance in Egypt according to what the Egyptian president as well the Egyptian government say and that those all disappeared people have joined ISIS “ several cases indeed joined that death cult group” , why does not Egypt sign the United Nations' International Convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance !??

Former vice president and Nobel prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei reminded us with that on Twitter on Wednesday.

رأى : فى ضوء مايثار بشأن وجود حالات اختفاء قسرى، قد يكون من الملائم الانضمام الى "الاتفاقية الدولية لحماية جميع الأشخاص من الاختفاء القسرى" والتى لم نوقع حتى عليها، لنؤكد التزامنا بأحكام القانون الدولى فى هذا الشأن ولدرء الشبهات . https://t.co/YZ4Wm6weuC

— Mohamed ElBaradei (@ElBaradei) February 28, 2018

Already signing this agreement will make the Egyptian state looks more committed to the universal human rights internationally.
It is better than thousand PR campaigns that cost the country millions of dollars.
The agreement goes with our constitution and our laws.
This is a very important question and I believe that we should call for signing the International Convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearances.

More bad news for Abou El-Fotouh and his party :Officially on terror list

Egypt’s ministry of interior announced on Wednesday that it arrested 6 fugitives from the banned Muslim Brotherhood at a ranch in El-Behaira’s Wadi Al-Natron allegedly owned by Abdel Moneim Abou El-Fotouh in the latest bad news for the former Presidential candidate following his arrest last week !!

In a quick reaction, Abou El-Fotouh’s family issued an official statement denying that he owns a ranch or an agricultural land in El-Behaira governorate or any other place.
The statement added that his wife Dr. Aliya Khalil was the one that owned an agricultural land in El-Bahaira governorate but not in Wadi Al-Natron and that she had leased it for a farmer for 9 years since 2013.

Abdel Moneim and his supporters at the registeration
of his party in Cairo in 2012 

Abou El-Fotouh’s family made it clear that his wife had no knowledge about what was happening in that land since 2013.

Abou El-Fotouhs have been very active in defending the leader of Strong Egypt Party refuting the interior ministry’s statements since his arrest like the first statement accusing him of meeting MB leaders in London early February.

His family released a statement stating that he traveled to London to participate in a lecture organized by former leading MB figure Kamel El-Hellbawy “who is currently a member in Egypt’s quasi-official National Council for human rights and a big Sisi supporter” about the current situation in Egypt and he already announced on his official FB page.
The statement interestingly reminded the government that Abou El-Fotouh defected unofficially from the brotherhood in 2009 and that defection became official in 2011.

There is more bad news coming for Egyptian former Presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abou El-Fotouh and his party “Strong Egypt” after his arrest on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, a Cairo criminal court designated him as a terrorist per a request of High State security prosecution.
Four university students from Strong Egypt movement in the Universities are reportedly on the list.
Accordingly, all his assets will be frozen. The court ruling is appealable.

After exporting gas, Egypt to import gas from Israel worth $15 billion : What’s really happening !!

You read the headline right !!
Egypt is going to export gas worth USD 15 billion from Israel within the upcoming 10 years according to the Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier Monday.
Monday afternoon, Egyptians and Arabs found out about this deal through PM Netanyahu’s social media accounts especially on Twitter as those accounts aired Bibi’s speech to the Israeli people translated into Arabic.

أرحب باتفاقية تصدير الغاز الإسرائيلي إلى مصر. هذه هي اتفاقية تاريخية ستدخل المليارات إلى خزينة الدولة. هذه الأموال ستصرف لاحقا على التعليم والخدمات الصحية والرفاهية لمصلحة المواطنين.

مخطط الغاز يعزز أمننا واقتصادنا وعلاقاتنا الإقليمية ومواطنينا. هذا هو يوم عيد! pic.twitter.com/CRq5rQFv5B

— بنيامين نتنياهو (@Israelipm_ar) February 19, 2018

Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he welcomed the deal to export Israeli gas to Egypt describing it as a historic agreement. He also said that that “historical agreement” would bring billions to State’s treasury adding that money would be spent on education and medical service for Israeli citizens.
He also said that the gas agreement strengthened Israel’s security, economy and the regional relations.
“Today is a feast,” He said in the video.

Al Masry Al Youm Daily Front Page
"Israel announces that it exports gas to Egypt"

What is the deal?

Israeli Delek Drilling and Texas-based Noble Energy signed 10-year agreement to sell USD15 billion worth of natural gas from Tamar and Leviathan natural gas fields to little-known Egyptian Delphinus.
According to the agreement, Israel is going to sell 3 billion cubic meters a year to Egypt through Delphinus, which did not hear about it before in the country.

Despite several Media outlets have spoken like The Economist in April 2017 about the talks of that agreement, most of the public in Egypt only knew about it Monday afternoon.
Needless to say, it shocked them because just for the past few weeks El-Sisi and his media have repeatedly spoken about his achievement and success in accelerating the production of gigantic Zohr natural gas field.
Egyptian officials have repeatedly claimed that Zohr natural gas field will enable Egypt to be self-sufficient in the production of liquefied gas by the end 2018 or early 2019 yet now we find out that there is an Egyptian company that will import natural gas from Israel !!!!!

What is even more ridiculous is how the Egyptian officials in the ministry of oil and Natural gas Regulatory authority claimed that they did not know anything about the agreement !!!
Already that agreement needs to be approved by the two governments in order to be in effect.

The winter of fury : The arrest of Abou El-Fotouh "Updated"

Egypt's High State security prosecution ordered on Thursday the detention of former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abou El-Fotouh 15 days pending investigations into charges of spreading false news and leading a banned organization. 

Originally I was planning to write this post about the arrest of Egypt’s ex-top auditor Hesham Geneina but I ended up Wednesday night following in disbelief the arrest of the former Presidential candidate and leader of Strong Egypt Abdel Moneim Abou El-Fotouh.

It started with a small yet alarming Facebook post by Hozaifa Abu El-Fotouh at 10:13 PM Wednesday Cairo local time saying that his father Abdel Moneim Abou El-Fotouh and the members of the political bureau of Strong Egypt Party.

At 12:25 AM, Hozaifa Abu El-Fotouh reported that all the of members of the political bureau that were arrested earlier were released while his father remained in custody.

According to news reports, they were arrested at his house in New Cairo while they were having meeting after his return from London two days ago. “several politicians have been arrested nowadays from New Cairo as far as I could tell !!”

Abdel Moneim Abou E-Fotouh in a presser in 2012

At first, there was no obvious reason on why the former MB leading figure and former presidential candidate and it seems that news websites and channels had different reasons.

Later it turned out that he was arrested because “he had a contact with the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Updated "@2:01PM Thursday :
Abou El-Fotouh's lawyers say that they do not know the charges he is facing for real. They were also not allowed to attend his interrogation at the High State security prosecution.   

I think we all know that Abou El-Fotouh left the MB in 2011 after a big fight and till that day the Brotherhood members hate him even more than El-Sisi because they could not forget how he called early presidential elections during the end of Mohamed Morsi’s era.

Earlier this week, Abou El-Fotouh had an interview that was aired on Al-Jazeera Mubshar TV channel that was recorded in London.

He arrived on Friday and recorded on Sunday despite the warnings he got from others not to speak through the Qatari TV channel. You can watch it after the break.

Happy Valentine’s Day 2018 from EMC’s Royal Couple

Happy Valentine’s Day from Egyptian Chronicles to those who still believe in love on the surface of that big sad planet called earth.
I will seize this opportunity and share a couple of photos for my favorite Royal Egyptian Couple of all times at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo "EMC": Prince Rahotep and his wife Nefret.

Prince Rahotep and his wife Nefret "ignore my shadow" 

I told you before that the Old Kingdom’s statues gave a shock to the workers who discovered them as they thought they were alive.
Prince Rahotep was a prince from the Fourth dynasty.
He is widely believed by most archeologists that he was the son of King Snefru and the brother of King Khufu.
I remember reading at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo that he was an army commander but his Wikipedia page says that he was a high priest of Ra at Heliopolis according to the titles inscribed on his statue.
Maybe he was both.

After the break, there is a close-up photo of the two without my shadow thanks to a tip given by an Egyptian guide who saw me try in vain in taking a photo without my shadow.

Days at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo : Queen Nefertiti , the beautiful who came and stayed for eternity

Last week, that video went viral in the world for a good reason. It gave the world for the first time after nearly 3400 years how legendary beauty Queen Nefertiti may have looked like thanks to 3D imaging and forensic reconstruction.

The @travelchannel's @joshuagates has an exclusive look at the remains of King Tut's mother pic.twitter.com/DAkPOD5T7J

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 5, 2018

Originally produced by Travel channel’s Expedition Unknown, Josh Gates and his team borrowed the skull of Nefertiti from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo where her mummy is.

Queen Nefertiti after 3D reconstruction
Travel Channel 

The mummy of Queen Nefertiti was discovered reportedly in 1898 by French Egyptologist Victor Loret at tomb KV35 in Luxor’s Valley of the King.
Many archeologists and Egyptologists believe that a mummy labeled in the tomb as “The Younger lady” was the famous Queen Nefertiti despite her DNA says that she was the mother of King Tutankhamun.
Queen Nefertiti is said to give birth to six princesses only.
Anyhow the photo of the younger lady mummy’s head made me believe that she was Nefertiti thanks to her elongated head.
Maybe She has a magnificent bust in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin that must return back to Egypt but she also got other beautiful busts in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.

I will seize this opportunity and take a short break from Presidential elections news as well that new Comprehensive Military operation against terrorism in Egypt to post a couple of beautiful photos for beautiful Queen Nefertiti from the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.

Queen Nefertiti's unfinished bust at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo

Egypt’s Presidential Elections 2018 : Last minute presidential candidate

And on that cold afternoon, the middle age man ran in the heart of Downtown Cairo with all the power and speed he got in order to the building on time, he does not have much time.

Lawyer Samir Abdel Azim Runnig
 to the NAE HQ in Downtown Cairo "Samer Abdullah"

The office is going to close in 60 minutes and he must be on time to present his boss’s documents per orders by his higher boss according to the plan. The man arrives the place to find cameras waiting for his boss who will come later, there is no time to media shows now as they will come later. He enters the gate which is heavily guarded with special forces from the army and heads quickly to the office where he should present the documents.

Already they are waiting for him anxiously as well because they do not have much time either.  The man who is also legal representative of his boss represents the documents to the respectable members of the National Elections Authority “NEA” and rests on a chair to get a breath.

Samir Abdel Azim speaking on the Mobile Phone after submitting
the candidacy documents at NEA in Cairo "Reuters"

At last, his boss is an official presidential hopeful in the Egyptian presidential elections. Winning is not important because actually, his boss knows very well that he does not hold a chance, let alone in real elections he won’t be qualified to run.

He and his boss, the last minute Presidential candidate are doing what they were told to do. His boss will save the regime’s face in front of the world and completes the show, the biggest show in town those upcoming 4 months: The Egyptian Presidential Elections 2018.

Moussa Mostafa Moussa leaving the NEA "Reuters"

I am sorry for this long introduction but these words came to my mind when I saw the iconic photo of the legal representative of initial presidential candidate Moussa Mostafa Moussa running on the 29th January 2018 in Downtown Cairo to reach the NEA in order to present the leader of Al-Ghad party ’s presidential candidacy’s documents.

The last-minute presidential candidate

Only very few lines were shared about the background of the man who could be the president of Egypt next April or May by 0.01% chance in the mainstream media.
He was born in April 1952. He speaks Arabic and French fluently as well English. He is a married businessman and got 3 children whom we do not know their names or age or anything.