Apologies from blogger

 I apologize sincerely and honestly and ...you name it for not posting anything on the blog for days now. I have just returned from an amazing small tour in Luxor and Aswan where I had spent 4 days in the amazing Nile with poor Internet access "to be honest I tried to avoid any contact with politics from near or far in these days". The good news is that I got my Aswan and Luxor chronicles with loads and loads of photos and videos "Coming soon insh Allah"

Now after returning to Cairo , I found out that my internet router "TE Data" is completely dead with no power access which means I have to visit the nearest "TE Data" branch to see what the problem is with my router that is still in the warranty !!! 

There are lots of things now I want to speak about but I am stuck as you can see so please forgive me and wait for more chronicles insh Allah.

EU Small arms sale to Egypt in 2011

I found this infograph at one of the Egyptian military Facebook page "Oh yes we began to have tons of this pages and most of them are pro-Egyptian army , we did not used to have them till 2011".
This infograph is about the EU small arms sale to Egypt in 201. These are huge loads of money we spent on arms from January to September 2011. I wonder how the economy was suffering then !?

Click it to read it carefully

France , Germany and Cyprus are on the top of list. France sold to Egypt parts of the ammunitions and parts of arms which in other words mainly to government , arms factories and arms calibars importers. Germany, Cyprus and Italy are among the main exporters of gunshots to Egypt and without doubt the ministry of interior is main importer in Egypt.

We do not know how much we spent in arms we bought from UK or Austria or even type of arms because of confidentiality, I am surprised already of Austria's name in the report in the first place.

Poland deals with the army of course since the 1950s when it comes to military weapons part , we have not got rid from Eastern weaponary and actually strategically speaking when it comes to army , I support the diversification of arms sources aside from local production.

I wonder if the national security committee in the parliament will take this report and investigate it.

It is worth to mention that there is an increase on demand for the small guns among Egyptians especially the wealthy Egyptians who want more protection with the lack of security and can afford buying German guns with its expensive license or even without license in most cases.

In October 2011 I found that the MOI announced the terms and conditions for licensing a gun and strangely I do not feel that they are tough like in the past despite of course you have to be trained and qualified enough in some training center as well to give a good reason for owning a gun other than "I want to defend myself". Interestingly enough then licensing fees are not that expensive. These are the new terms and conditions after the revolution.

Here is also the Egyptian arms and ammunition law that some human rights organizations believe it is unfair , well I do not Egypt to be like the States when it comes to carrying guns because one look to Upper Egypt and the arms problem there tells you need even strong implementation for the law.

You need that license before you buy a gun from legal arms store and to carry it legally.

Before the revolution the price of the gun , the real gun you can buy from arms store like Fathallah can range from LE 3000 to LE 30,000. Now after the revolution with the booming black market supplied from Libya and the lack of secuirty ,prices have dropped as well you can get now a variety of choices from birdshots to automatic guns to AK-47
Believe or not I know someone sells on Facebook electric shock and teasers for people and despite it is a dangerous and illegal it seems that it is a booming business especially in the Women's shopping Facebook pages !!!
I just wonder why nobody made a report in the Egyptian media , a real report about the official trade of arms in Egypt in this year , I will not say the unofficial trade because we know that the unofficial arms trade has hit the ceiling in 2011
Here is another website with outdated numbers of guns' figures in Egypt , I found it interesting. We need more updated numbers.

And there are no gunshots after all !!

The minister of interior Mohamed Ibrahim claimed yesterday in a press conference at his ministry that the CSF and security forces are only using tear gas against the protesters at the ministry of interior and nearby streets.

Ibrahim denied that the security forces were not using gunshots or birdshots despite the evidence mounted in the past days. Today some members of the Egyptian parliament claimed that the ministry of interior did not use gunshots against the protesters based on the statements of the minister of interior who spoke to the

Anyhow here is an evidence in the body of the human rights activist Salma Said who got over 100 birdshots pellets from head to toe in her body !! “Photos by Nazly Hussein and Mosireen Campaign”

Salma was filming the clashes when she was shot 3 times , 2 times after she was hit already !!!

#Syrian Revolution : #SOSHoms again and again “+18 Graphic”

It seems that what Obeida El Nahas said that there will be a military operation against the Homs will continue for days is true as since early morning , the city of Homs is witnessing another bombardment. From the beginning there is an extreme graphic material in this graphic. 
The Baba Amr area now is being under mortar attack for hours now. There has been live stream from the city but it seems that it was cut again anyhow there are videos allegedly shot this morning from the city while it is being shelled.

Homs : Baba Amr buildings shelled this morning

Homs : Baba Amr shelled on Monday’s morning

#Feb11 General Strike in Universities "Updated"

A number of universities or rather students unions in several universities across the country have announced that they are going on a general strike starting from next February 11st , 2012  till SCAF hands over powers to civilians as an escalation of protesting.
The murder of several university students during the Port Said stadium clashes created a great anger among these students as many of the victims especially the martyrs are students in these universities and schools.

The students and instructors in the following universities and faculties are participating in the strike :

•  AIn Shams university Students union "Public"  { They got their share from martyrs already , they announced that they will have 3 days strike from 11-13 February 2012}
• The Faculty of economics and Political science, Cairo university "Public"
• AUC students union statement. "Private"
• GUC students union statement. "Private" { The first university to declare this strike} 
• GUC instructors statement  { Not all the instructors in the GUC signed this statement }
• Zagzig university students union statement. "Public"
• AAST Cairo students council statement " Private" 
• Port Said university student union statement "Public" 
• Alexandria university students union statement. "Public" { Of course I can't ignore the genius who wrote this statement as he believes the casualties of the Port Said massacre were more than the casualties of the October war in 1973 !!!!!!!!!!!!!! High education indeed } 
• The Tanta university faculty of medicine student union statement "Public"
• BUE students union or "Private" { Despite I know that they have not reached to final decision according to a dear friend there }
•  The Revolutionary students movement in BUE statement  {Which has nothing to do with the administration which they despise }
• MSA Students union "Private" 
• CIC Students union "Private" 
• Nile University students Union 
• Nahda University students "Private" 
• Egyptian Russian university students union "Private"

And The Gas pipeline was blown up Again For the.. I have lost counting

The Egyptian Gas pipeline in North Sinai has been blown up once again from short time ago.
Here couple photos from tweep Shady Ahmed who took snap shot for the explosion and described the explosion this time as huge and big.

By Shady Ahmed

By Shady Ahmed

This pipeline is used to export natural gas to both Israel and Jordan. I do not need to speak how people in Egypt do not want the government to export gas to Israel because of political reasons as well economic reasons.
I have lost counting when it comes to how many this pipeline has been blown up by anonymous masked group since the beginning of the revolution but I think it is the first time this year.
I wonder if the parliament will press the government to re-negotiate the price of the gas with Israel if not to cancel the deal till all the Egyptian houses especially those in Upper Egypt get access to gas.
By the way there have been reports today that one of the suspects arrested and accused of blowing up this pipeline has been found dead in his prison cell in the weekend in mysterious circumstances. Human rights organizations in Egypt suspect that he was tortured till death.
Whether he was tortured till death or not , his arrest did not stop those anonymous masked group from blowing up the bloody pipeline once again. 

Update :

According to Ahram SMS the authorities have managed at last to put off the fire resulted from the explosion. We are speaking about SMS in 11 AM CLT. According to eye witnesses the explosion was indeed huge and big.

According to those who follow the gas pipeline file , this is the 11th time the pipeline is blown up.

RNN has published on its official Facebook page scans for a statement allegedly was found near the blown up pipeline. The Statement speaks about why that anonymous group ‘which I do not see its signature in these scans’ blew up the the pipeline. The statement did not mention that this operation is for the murder or the death of late suspect Mohamed Eid in custody.

Some tweep claimed online that some anonymous group in North Sinai called “Ansar El Jihad” stood behind the explosion. It is worth to mention that this group claimed responsibility for blowing up the pipeline in December 2011. The group's first statement was issued last October responisbility for that operation at the Egyptian Israeli borders where 8 IDF soldiers in August 2011. The group issued a third statement on January 25,2012 “interesting date” announcing the Islamic principality of Sinai and endorsing Ayman El Zawahiri to the end of the Jihadi classic styles phrases attacking those who cooperate with the infidel government.. etc. 

The #Ultras Anger that we do not understand

What happened in Port Said is not only about politics and those who are trying to stick in to the the political part and turn in to another confrontation against SCAF and the MOI whom from their side do not want things to calm down are ignoring very aspect in the whole issue. 
It is not only about politics unfortunately because there is an important social part of the story that nobody wants to speak about or even confront it for fear that it would overshadow the revolution and the battle for civilian rule or for fear it it would defame the image of Ultras and the image of Port Said in the Public.
It is so easy to put the blame on SCAF and to use this disaster to force it it leave as it is incompetent ruler for the country , well for sure it proved it is incompetent to rule this country and to solve its problems and crises  it resulted in but it is hard to stand in front of a problem called “Sports’ violence” or rather to be accurate Hooliganism that the veteran Ultras members warned of months ago.
Just like religious sectarianism problem,  we know it is there yet we act like it is not there till a new disaster happens and we act as if we are surprised !!