The Richest Arabs in 2024: Egypt and Lebanon Still Have the Most Billionaires in the Region Again “Despite shitty economy”

This post should have been published but here I am rushing to get it online before the end of 2024.

I could not publish then because of the ongoing genocide in Gaza but I think I was wrong. I should have published it on time and not let depression due to the news cycle get me.

Now to the annual disclaimers: Forbes Middle East has not included Saudi billionaires on its list since 2018. The list is based on published information and assets.

As Arabs, we are aware that there is another unofficial list of the Richest Arabs whose fortunes remain secret and unknown.

This secret list includes Arab rulers except for Lebanese PM Mikati and ex-Lebanese PM Saad El-Hariri who already come from filthy rich families with multi-billion business empires.

For the third year in a row, Lebanon and Egypt have the highest number of billionaires in the region, with six and five.

It's worth noting that the same individuals from last year are present, though their rankings have shifted. However, one has left the list due to his passing: Mohamed El-Fayed.

Published in May, here is Forbes 2024 World's Richest Arabs and Africans aka billionaires subsequently the Richest Egyptians. 

According to Forbes, Nassef Sawiris of Egypt is still maintaining his position as the richest Egyptian in the world, with a net worth of US $8.8 billion. He also ranks as the fourth richest African. This year, his global rank on the Forbes World's Billionaires list is 287th, a notable rise from his 2023 position of 305th.

His wealth has risen by $1.4 billion compared to 2023.

Nevertheless, Nassef Sawiris has been dethroned as the richest Arab in the world by none other than Pavel Durov. Originally from Russia, Durov, the only tech CEO on the list, obtained Emirati citizenship, ironically earning him the leading spot in the Arab billionaires club.

Durov is not the only non-Arab to make it to the list. A group of Indian tycoons residing in the UAE also joined, including Renuka Jagtiani, the first businesswoman to make the list. These foreign entries have pushed Arab billionaires down the rankings.

Kodak Agfa presents : Christmas 2024 in Cairo's Korba

"Tis the season" because it is one of the annual posts Egyptian Chronicles: The Christmas in Egypt post.

Despite the genocides in Palestine and Sudan as well as the developments in Syria and Yemen, I am trying to keep those posts so I would not fall into that dark hole of a depressing news cycle without any hope.

There is always hope

Also, in solidarity with Egypt’s Mohamed Salah and the annual controversial photo of his Christmas tree, I share those photos from Cairo.

God knows I am not a Mo Salah fangirl, but I got bored from the annual attack on Egypt’s national team captain and Liverpool right winger for the wrong reasons.

You can attack and criticize lots of issues, like for instance the lack of true and real support to Gaza and its people. “Salah is said to donate a big sum of money to the Gaza relief but that’s not enough when we are speaking about a true genocide just like other stars like Sam Morsy and Gary Linker”

This year I want to visit the famous Korba area in the Heliopolis district to see its famous Christmas decorations.

Christmas decorations in Korba 

This year, the Korba’s Christmas decorations became the talk of Egypt on social media, specifically that one building.

Christmas decorations in Korba 

This building is on Baghdad Street, which is about two blocks away from the Presidential Palace ala Al-Ittihadiya Palace.

Christmas 2024 Palestine edition: Baby Jesus is still in the rubble

No words better capture the spirit of Christmas in Palestine this year than those of Rev. Munther Isaac of the Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, who said in his sermon earlier this week, “Christ is still under the rubble in Gaza.”

Christmas celebrations are canceled in the city of Jesus Christ's birth for the second year in a row.

On Friday in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, Reverend Munther Isaac of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church delivered a sermon titled "Christ is still in the rubble.” pic.twitter.com/EJLs3jGack

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) December 23, 2024

Last year Isaac said his famous words “Baby Jesus is under the rubble” and this year he repeats it to the world but there is no use.

This year , 2024 the Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem kept its 2023 Christmas Nativity Scene's Baby Jesus in th rubble.

Baby Jesus in rubble nativity scene 

Merry Christmas “25th December edition” From Egyptian Chronicles

Merry Christmas to all the world who celebrate it according to the Gregorian calendar/Western churches.

Generated via Midjourney AI

For the second year in a row, Christmas does not feel like Christmas because of what is happening in the land of Palestine but still, there is always hope. 

I got many photos and videos from Egypt for the Christmas decorations and celebrations like every year wait for it inshallah. 

Thursday Rants and Rave: #S02EP03 Amira Amir’s Oedipus

Hello, and welcome back to a special episode of the Thursday Rants and Rave Podcast. This episode was recorded and edited before the war in Gaza in September 2023. 

I had to upload it now as I found that some people are still sharing the claims about the late Egyptian actor Amira Amir. 

Tonight, this is what I ranted about in Arabic.

This episode is dedicated to old Egyptian cinema fans and lovers. 

Oedipus: An Egyptian Take

According to YouTube and TikTok videos, Saadia Abdel Rahman Abu Al-Ala was born on 17 January 1920 in a Sharqia Governorate village to a butcher father.

Amira Amir on the cover of 
"Monday" Magazine in 1949

One day, a health inspector came to inspect his butchery, only to find he was violating the legal selling prices. A fight broke out between them, and it ended when the butcher killed the inspector with his cleaver.

The girl’s father was sentenced to life in prison and died during his sentence. 

At 16 years old, Saadia was forced to work as a seamstress to support herself and her family. She was gorgeous, and the village mayor proposed to her, even though he was older than her. She married him and gave birth to her eldest son, Khalid. 

However, after years of marriage, she decided to leave her husband and son and flee to Cairo, due to her husband's alcoholism.

After Saadia escaped to Cairo, her husband fell into a deep depression that drove him to suicide. As a result, his sister took in the child Khalid to raise him after his mother's escape. 

In Cairo, Saadia Abdel Rahman began looking for work. She saw an ad in the newspaper for a new film called "My Daughter" seeking new faces. She immediately went to audition for the role, and her striking beauty was enough to convince the director to give her the lead role. 

Amira Amir on the cover of
"Studio" Magazine "April 1950"

Aziza Amir, a famous actress, was also impressed with Saadia and agreed to give her the role. 

She gave Saadia the stage name "Amira Amir." From that moment on, she became famous and was the talk of the town.

Amira Amir's career took off. She met the director Kamal Selim, and they fell in love and got married. After several years, Kamal Selim passed away. 

Amira Amir continued her career in cinema, and then she married Mohamed Abdel Jawad, the assistant of her late husband. 

However, the marriage was short-lived and ended in divorce. Later, she married the Palestinian-Jordanian singer Gharam Shima.

Amir had a daughter from her Palestinian-Jordanian husband. However, after a while, they divorced, and she left her daughter with him. 

She then married an Armenian man who lived in Egypt, but they divorced as well because he wanted to move to America, and she refused to go with him.

Amira's fourth marriage was to an Egyptian army officer named Ibrahim Fayez Sabry. They had two children but divorced after six years of marriage. The famous actress then immigrated to America to start a new chapter in her life.

Tal al-Mallohi is free in Syria’s Homs

Here are the first photos of Syrian blogger Tal al-Mallohi free, healthy and alive in Syria’s Homs.

Tal al-Mallohi in Homs on Monday

Those photos were taken on Monday in her hometown.

Tal al-Mallohi was among the first batch of female detainees freed from the notorious Adra prison on the outskirts of North Damascus on Saturday hours before declaring Bashar Al-Assad and his direct family fled the country to Moscow.

Her relatives in Homs took her back home. 

Tal al-Mallohi was only 19 years old, a young blogger, when she was detained in December 2009 by security personnel at the Syrian embassy in Cairo. Her family had moved to Cairo at the time for her safety.

Tal al-Mallohi became a celebrity and icon in Syria already

People think that al-Mallohi was detained for the first time when she was 19 years old but actually, her ordeal began when she was 16 years.

During this, the Syrian state security interrogated her Syria for something she wrote about Syria on one of her bloggers. Tal did not usually speak about Syria or criticise Bashar Al-Assad. Her blogs in Arabic were all about Palestine and Jerusalem.

After being enlisted on the security watch list she was not able to join high school, thus her family had to move to Cairo so she could study in high school. 

But in December 2009 Tal was detained at the Syrian embassy and was sent back home for outrageous charges involving espionage for the United States.

During the opposition activists revealed had to do how she rejected the sexual advances of a Syrian prominent security officer at the embassy in Cairo.

Tal was the youngest Prisoner of conscience to be arrested in the Arab world. The young blogger was sentenced on February 15, 2011, to five years in prison.

Being the granddaughter of a former state minister for parliamentary affairs Mohamed Diaa al-Mallohi during Hafez Al-Assad’s administration did not help her.

Tal's mother Ahed al-Mallohi wrote a letter that appealed to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad himself, asking him to intervene and order the release of her daughter but that letter did not help her daughter either.

Back in Egypt, upon learning about her arrest months later, the Egyptian blogging and journalism community demanded her release and protested against her detention, both in person and online.

Tal was to be released in 2014, but she did not, and we all know why. It was during the peak of the war between the rebels and El-Assad. More people were arrested than released during then.

Tal spent an extra ten years, a whole decade in prison.

That photo was taken by a mobile phone secretly and
was smuggled to her family during her time in prison 

Before 8 December 2024, I had the unfortunate feeling that she was not alive, but God’s mercy is above all.

Tal entered Al-Assad's prison when she was only 19 years old and left it at 33 years old. I can’t image what she has been through but I know that nightmare is over.

Now I have a side question as I read more and more about the Adra prison: What kind of a sick mind names a prison that is more of a concertation camp Adra which means in slang Levantine and Egyptian Arabic virgin aka the Virgin Mary.”

It Happened: Syria is Al-Assad-Free—Bashar Flees Damascus

I have been glued in front of Al-Jazeera and social media in the past 48 hours to see the unbelievable accelerating end of Al-Assad Baath regime

Al-Assad dynasty rule ended in Damascus, Syria after 54 years. I can’t believe that I am blogging about it at last.

Damascus without Bashar Al-Assad 
The headline of Syria TV 

I can’t believe it, I still can’t.

Al-Assad has escaped along with his family to Dubai or God knows where.

I am just realizing that Al-Assad has become the last Arab Spring despot to lose his chair, I read that amazing news that I could not believe that it was happening.