A rant about Egypt’s latest crime wave with couple of photos of late August Full Moon

Egyptians have been witnessing a strange wave of crimes in the past two weeks that made us wonder if there was added to the Nile River that would the society even more violent and madder than it is.

Just in the two weeks, We found a man killed on Alexandria’s public beach by a machete as he defended his wife against sexual harassment and the officials are saying that they can’t stop “knives” from entering the beach because people use it to eat watermelon !!

Then we found a father who killed his two toddlers sons in North Delta giving the authorities at least three different insane motives for his inexplicable crime whereas his town people protest for his release saying he is innocent.

We also got that girl who dragged her boyfriend-to-be-fiancé to his own death on the hands of her fugitive father after discovering her old man’s criminal past. The young man’s body was found under the bathroom of the father’s villa in Upscale “Rehab” compound.

That’s the second violent crime committed in the gated community, from several months we found a businessman allegedly killed his family and then himself according to authorities “He shot himself three times in the head !!” in another mysterious murder-suicide that we are not used to for in Egypt.

People are amazed and do not know if the press is enlarging that wave of crime or what but it is scary.

I feel sociologists and criminologists are repeating the old talk of how the society is sick because we do not have family values anymore bringing up that Galal Amin’s classical question “Whatever happened to the Egyptians ?”

You know by checking the history of our true top serial killers like Raya and Sakina as well as the serial killer of Karmooz, they were living in that golden era of social and family values !!

Anyhow I escaped from all that and found solace in the beautiful late August’s full moon.

The August full moon 

Late Egyptian Sci-Fi author Ahmed Khaled Tawfik always spoke about the superstition myths of the full moon in Europe, I wonder what he would say if he saw crime page in our newspapers those two weeks !!

As Sexual harassment victims are sued , Al-Azhar becomes their unexpected ally

The On the Run guy aka Mahmoud Soliman is back with vengeance.
On Sunday, the man who became famous for being filmed while sexually harassing a young lady in New Cairo from two weeks ago is going to sue that girl, Menna Gobran for defame !!!
I can’t even believe that he has got the nerve to do that.
Lawyer Tarek Gamil Saeed who represents Soliman made rounds in the country’s most popular talk shows declaring that he would report Gobran to the Prosecutor general soon.

Menna Goubran "L" with her friend media figure
Sally Abdel Salem last Cairo in her first public appearance

Tarek Saeed who made headlines last week with his beach wedding to socialite Menna Hussein Fahmy “Nobody spoke about her Wedding Tankini dress” dared and questioned what Menna Goubran in clear double standards.
I am angry and furious.

Anyhow just as I am wondering what Goubran will do, it seems that the girl who avoided publicity as much as she can “unlike Soliman” got to herself the most unexpected strongest ally in her back at the perfect time.

I am not speaking about the National Council for Woman “NCW” which declared its readiness to give Menna all the legal support she needs but I am speaking about the one and only AL-AZHAR
Yes, the World’s biggest Islamic Institution AL-AZHAR declared its support to sexual harassments victims like Menna in the most powerful and unexpected way.

Alexandria’s big black sarcophagus saga : What was inside the big black box

I am trying to keep things light in the blog as much as I can.

Egypt’s Ministry of antiquities declared last week that the initial analysis of skeletons found in that big black sarcophagus unearthed in Alexandria in July was for two men and a woman from the Ptolemaic era.
Gold panels were also found inside the sarcophagus.

There are no further clues revealed publicly on who those people were and where they were buried like that.

What is known from the initial examination of the sarcophagus that the skull of the woman indicated that she was between 20 to 25 years old and a height of around 160 to 164 cm when she died.

The woman's skeleton or remainings of the skeleton to be accurate "Ahram Online" 

One of the other two skeletons goes back to a man who was 35 to 39 years old and a height of 160 to 165.5 cm while the other skeleton goes back to a man who was 40 to 44 years old and a height of 179 to 184.5 cm when he died.

The skeleton of the 35-39 years old man "Ahram Online" 

Interestingly, the team of researchers headed by Zeinab Hashish, director of the Department of Skeleton Remains Studies at the Antiquities Ministry found that there was 17cm-wide round cavity in the skull of the third skeleton, the older man.

Dr. Zeinab Hashish told Ahram Online that that cavity could be the result of “a trepanation” which she explained as “the scraping or drilling of a hole in the skull, and is the oldest surgical intervention in history, found in prehistoric human remains.”
What is even more interesting “at least for me” that form of surgery was rare in Ancient Egypt despite some skulls were found before in the country with that sort of surgery and currently are exhibited in the Kasr Al-Aini hospital museum “another local and less known museum to be on my list”.

Concerning The On The Run guy Or How the Egyptian society supports rich sexual harassers

Sorry for the shocking the headline but honestly I can’t think about anything better than this headline.

On the first day of Eid Al-Adha, the hashtag “#I_support_Menna_Gobran” led the top Twitter trends with over one thousand tweets in no time in Egypt. Many Egyptian tweeps expressed their support to a young lady called Menna Gobran as well their anger and disgust for what happened to her in those two weeks because of sexual harassment.

The story of Menna Gobran started on 15 August when she uploaded a video that she recorded earlier while waiting for her work’s bus in a busy street in New Cairo.

That video titled “Does this happen in the Fifth Settlement too ??” showed a part of a conversation with a man who was reportedly sexually harassing her from his car.

The video showed him coming off his Dodge pick up track “it is expensive in Egypt” asking Gobran if she wanted to drink coffee at “On the Run”Convenience store in Exxon Mobile fuel station where she was standing.

Filming him, she said no and he said “I am so sorry” in a very bad tacky artificial accent and as he went back to his car, she filmed its license plate.
Recently Egyptian girls film or photograph the license plates of sexual harassers in the streets to mark them and also to expose them socially on social media to fight back the sexual harassment epidemic in the country.

Happy Eid al-Adha everybody

Happy Eid al-Adha to all Muslims around the globe as well Happy Eid to all the World too from Egyptian Chronicles.
On Monday, over 2 Million Muslim Pilgrim descended from Mount Arafat in the climax of Muslim Pilgrimage “Hajj” while Million of Muslims fasted from dawn to sunset the day praying for whatever they wanted. Thankfully the Weather was stable in the Holy Land after two days of strong wind and rains.
Here are beautiful photos from the Holy Land.

Muslim pilgrims in the Holy Land on Arafat Day  "Reuters"

Muslim pilgrims in the Holy Land on Arafat Day  "Reuters"

Media Empires of Egypt : More shake ups , More layoffs

There is currently a complete reshuffle that is taking place in the Media City West of Cairo where once-successful TV channels have been shut down and once-famous TV hosts are forced to stay in their homes.
It is a reshuffle that nobody has cared to speak about or discuss or even follow. It started to happen in July during Ramadan and the World Cup.
Then as soon as the holy month ended and the World Cup was over, that media reshuffle began to began to be louder.

From Left to Right: Azmy Meghad, Amr El-Llissy and Tamer Abdel Moneim

On 27 July, Egyptian Media announced that it was restructuring ONTV Network and that it would close down ON Live, the Network News channel while launching a second sports TV channel.
In its statement about the decision, Egyptian Media said that it launched ON Sports 2 to serve the State’s policies to support youth and sports.
The Company also claimed that it saw it was best to close down ON Live giving no real or understandable reason behind that decision. “Its main audience from 25 January revolution supporters no longer watch it because their favorite stars like Liliane Daoud or even Amr Khafagy are not there and are not welcomed anymore”
That decision was accompanied with many layoffs among the network’s staff.
Unfortunately, the closure of ON Live meant for the Egyptian Media removing the channel’s archives on its YouTube channel.
I feel sad that ON Live archives documenting the 25th January revolution have been removed from YouTube.
Thankfully some friends at ONTV have got backup archives and hopefully, they will upload them once again when they are needed.
ON E, the network’s main TV channel also lost several top TV hosts above them Amr Adib who signed a new contract with Saudi-owned MBC.

Corbyn and Rabaa Salute misinformation : The sign's true story

On Tuesday, London-Telegraph published a news article under the title “Jeremy Corbyn condemned after image emerges of him making Muslim Brotherhood Salute” which claims that the leader of Labor in the UK was photographed with a man in an old photo making the famous four-finger Rabaa sign.

Jeremy Corbyn doing the famous Rabaa sign in 2017 "Telegraph" 

The Telegraph says in the report that Corbyn is under fire because he was doing the Salute of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group linked to terrorism in Egypt and the Middle East.
The news article is currently viral on main news websites and newspapers that can’t stomach the Labour leader like The Sun and The Metro.
That photo is making rounds on alt-rights and Islamophobia fanatics on social media.

Now there is a little misinformation here that needs to be corrected.

Jeremy Corbyn was doing Rabaa the sign which is not an MB salute.
The four-finger sign of Rabaa was made in 2014 by a Turkish graphic designer to commemorate the victims of Pro-Islamist president Mohamed Morsi’s sit-in's forcible dispersal in Rabaa and Nahda squares in Egypt on 13 August 2013.

According to the different human rights organizations, whether Egyptian or international, at least 600 human beings were killed on that day.
The numbers of the victims are still disputed but at least 600 victims have been officially confirmed by the semi-official National Council For Human Rights.
The Rabaa sign is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood because its members began to do it in their trials, rallies and protests in Egypt and around the world to commemorate the victims. The group indeed adopted it but it is not *their salute*

That sign is banned in Egypt and some have paid a heavy price because of doing it publicly even accidentally.

Filmed in Cairo : The return of a state-owned Press corporation CEO

A post shared by Zeinobia (@zeinobia) on Aug 13, 2018 at 4:14am PDT

Akhbar Al Youm press corporation is celebrating the return of its CEO and Journalist Yasser Rizk from abroad after having some surgery. Rizk is known to be among the very close journalists to the Egyptian Presidency and current President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi himself as well the army.

The state-owned press corporation had banners with his face with the cheesiest slogans ever all over its buildings in Downtown Cairo and even hired a DJ blasting songs since early morning.

When famous Journalist and Akhbar Al Youm founder Mostafa Amin was exonerated of espionage charges and was released from jail in 1974, he was not received like that !!!!!

Why does the Evangelical Right Wing in the United States support Israel so blindly ?

Why does the US Bible belt support the State of Israel ??
Why does the US right-wing support Israel as the Jewish nation when many of its followers believe that Jewish people control the world media and harass Jewish journalists online who do not have their same beliefs ??

Why do the US right wing’s super racists who support Neo-Nazis like Steven Bannon and Sebastian Gorka support Israel and consider themselves as “Christian Zionists” ?? 
The answer goes simply back to their understanding of their Evangelical Church’s beliefs.
Yes, religion plays a role here just like everything else related to the Middle East and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, unfortunately.

A Christian Zionist parade in Jerusalem in March 2012
"Activestills.org"

Originated in the 17th century as part of the Puritan movement, Christian Zionism believes that Jews “regardless of their nationality” should return to Palestine as their homeland to restore their kingdom.

Since the 1980s some Evangelical Churches began to adopt that theory based on the Book of the Revelation that when Jews restore their kingdom in Jerusalem, a huge battle aka Armageddon will erupt between them and their Muslim neighbors speeding up the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Now here is a short documentary by Vice presented by Thomas Morton who went on a tour with a group of Christian Zionists to the Holy Land in Palestine explaining all this in a simple way.
It is very important because many people ignore those simple fact whether in the West or the East.

International Cat Day : Meet an Egyptian Museum Cat

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Zeinobia (@zeinobia) on Aug 8, 2018 at 2:52pm PDT

That cat is among the famous cats of the Egyptian Museum of Cairo  One more photo to celebrate the International Cat day and a throwback to my visits to the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.

This was one of its famous cats wandering freely in its corridors and garden. 

Despite many will dislike having cats like that wondering freely in Egypt’s most important museum yet I can’t keep thinking that those cats were once worshipped by our Ancient Egyptian ancestors and the museum got tons of cat statues and mummified cats there.

Catching Mars from Cairo

Last week, Planet Mars was in its closest position to our planet earth for the first time since 2003.
If you had looked to the sky at night then, you may have seen a shining red dot appearing amazingly.
That’s our neighbor Mars and I could not resist the opportunity to capture it in a photo.

I do not have a telescope right now “ I am thinking of getting one” and I do not have a telephoto zoom lens “Lenses’ prices reach Planet Pluto since the Egyptian pound flotation ” so I tried to do it using my zoom lens “55-210mm” despite I know in advance.

The results are not great but let’s remember that I got a 210mm lens trying to capture a planet that is 225 million kilometers away from me or actually from earth.

Planet Mars

A little small red sparkling ball Mars appeared in the skies of Cairo and Giza that night. At first, I thought it was an airplane passing by at night but it did not move and I know that I was looking at that red planet.

Small red dot 

Al-Assad’s death lists : Over 7000 victims killed in his prisons and the world is still silent "Updated"

In the past two weeks, news came from Syria that the people in the cities Al-Assad regime regained control on recently began to receive official death certificates of their relatives who were forcibly disappeared or arrested by Al-Assad security forces in the past seven years as the Assad regime updates its civil registries.

"Updated": In an Interview with the Pro-Assad regime newspaper Al-Watan {owned by Al-Assad cousin} on Thursday 9/8/2018, the head of the Civil registry directorate in Syria Ahmed Rahal stated that his directorate managed to document 32,000 death cases in 2018 so far and 68,000 death cases in 2017 without clarifying the cause of death. Some Syrian activists say that those 100,000 death cases are actually the cases of Syrian political detainees. I have not found anything supports this assumption but it is interesting by all measures. 

Syrian News website Zaman Al-Wsl received at the end of July a huge list of nearly 7953 deceased Syrian political prisoners arrested from Syria’s 14 governorates from 2011 till 2018
Yes, at least 7953 human beings were killed in Syrian regime’s prisons in those seven years.
The list is confirmed by other news websites, local activists and Syrian human rights organizations.

A photo snapped from a Syrian town last by AFP 

Syria’s Rif Dimashq governorate top the list with 1856 victim followed by the cradle of the Syrian revolution Daraa governorate with 1283 victim and Homs governorate with 1253 victim according to Zaman Al-Wsl database which you can browse if you know Arabic.

The Syrian capital Damascus got alone 870 victims followed by Hama which got 762 victims while Idlib got 585 victims.
Aleppo has got so far 473 victims while Deir ez-Zor has got 450 victims.
The numbers then decline to 154 victims in Latakia and 110 victims in Quneitra to 50 victims in Raqqa and 44 victims in Al-Hasakah governorate.
Tartus governorate got only 28 victims while As-Suwayda which was rocked last week by Daesh attack has got 23 victims in the list.
There are two Syrian victims whose origin could not be identified and there are 10 names from different countries.
There is one Egyptian in the list who was called Youssef Abdel Samad.
I tried to search for more info using his name but I got nothing.
Abdel Samad was executed on 27 September 2016. It is unclear where he was arrested or when or whether he stood a trial at all or not.

Time to support Palestine’s Ola, Dareen and Lama just like we support Ahad

Ahad Tamimi after her release
"Ahmed Arouri" 

Famous Palestinian teen activist Ahad Tamimi was released from Israeli prison on Wednesday.
She was released after serving 8 months in jail for attacking an Israeli soldier or rather slapping an Israeli soldier as her little cousin was shot down by another Israeli soldier.
Ahad was received by camera flashes and TV interview requests as she became a new iconic face of the Palestinians and their struggle.

Needless to say, her mother Nermeen who was also imprisoned with her spoke about the elephant in the room we know and see about her daughter: She got international support, unlike another Palestinian teenager because of her blonde look. 

I am happy she is free "or partially free realistically speaking as she is on the radar of IDF" and I hope she continues staying away from that old Arab nationalism politics of her dad. I hope she succeeds in studying international law so she can help in freeing other Palestinians detainees and also become a political figure in the future.

Ahed Tamimi, 17, was held in an Israeli prison for 8 months. We spoke to her after her release. pic.twitter.com/RzV6vR4fj5

— AJ+ (@ajplus) August 3, 2018

Ahad is free now but there are more than 6500 Palestinian prisoners or POWs as Palestinians describe them in the Israeli prisons for political reasons.
Among them, there are 350 children prisoners. There are too 800 prisoners who have a health condition and need true and better health treatment.
There are also 700 Palestinian detainees who are still in prison with no charge or trial because of the Israeli administrative detention system.
The girl who ate ice cream as soon as she got out of prison and returned back to her village; has not forgotten about them either.