From Egyptian Chronicles : Happy Mother Day 2018

Happy fantastic Mother Day to all the fantastic and strong ladies in Egypt and around the globe. 

Egyptian woman giving birth with the help of Tefnut 

Here is a beautiful depiction showing a pregnant woman from ancient Egypt giving birth with the help of ancient Egyptian goddess Tefnut at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo.  

Filfan.com joins Egypt’s Blocked sites : Even Showbiz is not spared

Earlier Tuesday , many Egyptians were shocked to know that popular entertainment and showbiz website “Filfan.com” has been blocked in Egypt joining a long list of blocked websites that has been getting longer since May 2017.

Interestingly Filfan.com is owned and ran by digital publishing Sarmady , which is a Vodafone subsidiary.
Yes, Filfan.com is officially Egypt’s first website to be owned by a major ISP to be blocked in that wave.
There is no official explanation on why the famous non-political website has been blocked and Sarmday has not issued anything so far.

A better guess that Vodafone is working to lift that sudden block that hit its popular website.
People are referring to a small news that it published on Monday abut how Egyptian singer Amal Maher allegedly reported the head of General Sports Authority  in Saudi Arabia Turki al-Sheikh to the police in Cairo for assaulting her in front of her house in Maadi earlier that day. 
Allegedly al-Sheikh was Maher’s ex-fiancé an they had some sort of fight.

Turki Al-Sheikh 

The Saudi official who is officially Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman “MBS” ‘s special adviser for sports issues as well childhood friend has been causing controversy in Egypt for the past two weeks mostly in the world of sports.
Earlier Tuesday , the famous singer issued a statement denying that she had a fight with him or that he had assaulted.
Few hours later, Filfan.com was completely blocked.

Seen in Giza : Mo Salah Christ appeared in Spring Flowers Show 2018

Mo Salah at Spring Flowers Show 

  Egyptian Liverpool FC football player Mohamed Salah aka Mo Salah appeared on Saturday in Egypt's Spring Flowers Show 2018 as a Christ figure made of grass.

Later that evening he made football history when he scored four goals in the Liverpool Vs. Walford game in England's Primer League. 

Where have Mohamed Ali Royal Family’s treasures gone ? or the curious case of King Farouk's bedroom

And as Egyptians were watching the current Presidential elections race in early January to see who is going to the king for the next four years whom they know very well, they got busy unexpectedly with something from the bygone true Royal era.

In early January, someone shared on Twitter photos which Flickr user Islam Taha uploaded to his photostream in April 2011 showing a bedroom reportedly owned by King Farouk of Egypt. That bedroom is up for sale at a famous U.S based antiquities gallery.(1,  2, 3, 4,5, 6 )

The bed and the two night stands "Rau antiquities" 

A group of friends who launched #MasrZaman’s active hashtag about Egypt’s history and heritage began to discuss that tweet and photos remembering how the furniture and jewels of Mohamed Ali Royal were smuggled outside Egypt illegally.

That discussion brought to the attention that news from September 2013 about how King Farouk’s bedroom at his Royal Rest house in Giza zoo disappeared and was replaced by a cheap bedroom.

On 15 January, Cairo-based Al-Molid website published a news report reporting about that royal bedroom that appeared in the United States concluding that it was the same bedroom that disappeared in 2013.

In no time, the story went viral online and shared across the Egyptian social media universe to the level that the U.S antiquities company had to remove its King Farouk’s bedroom website page from its official website and its special video from its official YouTube Channel.

It was the talk of the town that soon faded like any other thing despite it opened a file that pop-ups in 2018: Where have Mohamed Ali Royal Family’s treasures gone?

A King in exile reminds the government of its role

The matter reached that former King Ahmed Fouad II of Egypt and Sudan issued a short official statement about the bedroom suite that hit hard in January

Happy International Women’s Day 2018 From Egypt

Happy International women’s Day From Egypt to the fabulous and strong women around the globe especially in Africa, the Arab world, Muslim world and  Mideast ... not to mention Egypt itself.

As this year’s theme according to the United Nations is the rural woman  “which actually is the true mother of human civilization if you think about it”, I would like to share with this beautiful photo I took for a beautiful statue at the Egyptian Museum of Cairo depicting an ancient Egyptian lady graining some grains.

A beautiful statue indeed 

It was not a statue of a royal figure or public figure.
I do know if it was made based on a real model that lived from thousands of years ago on the banks of the Nile or not but I know that we should celebrate her and her granddaughters from rural women whom we should help in many ways especially economically in those hard days in Egypt.

Egyptian women farmers in the harvest of wheat in Sharkia, Nile Delta 

Here I am not speaking the rural areas in Nile Delta and Upper Egypt countryside but also rural border areas especially in North Sinai which witnesses currently a big scale military operation to purge terrorism.
The military operation is causing a huge shortage in supplies in North Sinai’s towns like Al-Arish and Sheikh Zowaid yet our ladies are standing there as much as they can with all force and strength as they have always down in those hard times.

I also cannot forget Egyptian video journalist Mai El-Sabbagh who found herself accused of many charges and detained 15 days pending investigation for doing a simple video report about newly renovated tram in Alexandria as well other journalists currently behind bars.

Happy International Women’s Day.

Tiran and Sanafir Saga : The end of a chapter in a long tale

MBS is in Cairo right now and we are reading on Monday that Egypt and Saudi Arabia have agreed to create a $10 billion joint fund to develop a 1000 square-kilometers mega-city in South Sinai governorate as part of MBS’ futuristic NEOM project.

The new deal comes 48 hours following Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional court rule’s on Saturday to void all previous court orders of Red Sea islands deal.

The court also stated that it recognized the Parliament’s decision to pass the deal as a law “despite the parliament depended on the Court for urgent matter’s rule to go on with the so-quick vote in June 2017”.

In other simple words, the deal is on legally “as if they need a court order”. We lost, those who believe that the islands are true and genuine part of Egypt.

An Egyptian flag overlooking

Tiran island "Instagram

Now according to law and constitution experts, this verdict is considered the end of the road for that path in that particular case but it is not the end for the legal path for Tiran and Sanafir island.

This lawsuit was about the other lawsuits in front of the different courts but not about the deal itself and whether the islands are Egyptian or Saudi or whether the law issued by the parliament in June 2017 is constitutional or not.
Now the legal procedures say that a group of brave lawyers should file a lawsuit in front of the High Administrative court regarding the constitutionality of that deal and the High Administrative court should transfer it to the Supreme Constitutional court. I do not if there are any brave lawyers in this country or not.

Needless to say that there is a complete silence at the front of Khaled Ali and co.
Khaled Ali has not commented a single comment about the verdict to explain its legal meaning to his followers and supporters.
I know that he has been busy with the presidential elections which we all knew how it ended as well that #MeToo scandal that shattered his leftist party.
He also got his own finger trial on Tuesday or Wednesday.

That Tiran and Sanafir issue created a judicial mess like no other besides the political and strategic mess it created for Egypt.
I know that officially Egypt and Saudi Arabia presented to the United Nations the new borders deal which means it will be very hard now to restore the two islands but it is not impossible.
It is just an end of a sad chapter in a long tale in the life of Egypt and its Sinai.

Seen in Cairo : Ancient Mosque needs better care

Sultan Abu Ela Mosque in Cairo 

 It seems that there is some negative water effect on the ancient mosque and shrine of Sufi Sheikh Sultan Abu Ela in Cairo and noonday is paying attention.

The Mamluk-era Mosque is already neglected according to heritage activists for reasons beyond me. Already I do not understand how to ignore such beautiful old mosque when it is behind the headquarter of Egypt's Ministry of foreign affairs "You can see it in the back".

It is also near the Royal carriages Museum !!