It’s a wonderful thing when poets write prose. Their perceptions are so acute, clarity of expression so exquisite, and images so fresh that reading their prose awakens the mind and refreshes the spirit. When poets write, they restore the act of reading as active engagement and appreciation, like listening to ...

A long time ago in Baghdad, under the reign of Haroun al-Rashid, there lived a moderately wealthy trader named Ali Cogia. One night, Cogia had a portentous dream in which a shaykh exhorted him to make the pilgrimage to Makka forthwith. When the dream recurred the following two nights, Ali ...

An elderly couple get on each other’s nerves, bicker, and occasionally enjoy simple moments like eating homemade ta’amiyya together. Their quiet lives revolve around fleeting visits by their two grown sons, trips to the hospital or to collect the pension, and mundane daily tasks like folding laundry, having breakfast, and ...

Five years ago today, when Hosni Mubarak made his big announcement about direct, multicandidate presidential elections, he couldn’t have dreamed that five years down the line, he’d face a most unexpected challenger. Someone who is everything that Mubarak and his son aren’t: internationally respected, intellectually nimble, and domestically popular.Who knows ...

Perhaps the most important refugee ever to have entered Egypt, seeking shelter from Roman oppression was the child Jesus and his family. The four-year old little girl who died in the early hours on December 30th 2005 at the Mustafa Mahmoud Square in front of the UN headquarters was not as lucky, she was ...

Do you remember the bread crisis last year ?? Do you remember how the bread queues turned in to battle zones and the president saved the day by ordering the army to open its bakeries for the civilians ?? This was so 2009 , now in 2010 we have a new ...

I went to our family home in Maadi the other day to see the tenants. As I waited in the hallway for Jane, I looked carefully around the house. We lived there for about 8 years. I did some very significant renovations in the house before our tenants moved in, ...

Every summer, Egyptians ritualistically reflect on the July 23 revolution, going through the motions of enumerating its failures and accomplishments. This year is different, as Egypt faces an impending power transition that ironically may bring Egyptian politics back full circle. The ‘Free Officers’ replaced monarchical with military rule, but Mubarak ...

Yesterday, A & I took a day trip up to Coptic Cairo. It's just off the Metro's Mar Girgis stop--literally. I have taken the Metro north to Sadat station dozens of times, and each time I have seen the domed Church of St. George looming over the stop. First things ...

A young friend of my daughter's recently sent me a link to a webpage started by one of her friends to encourage carpooling in Egypt. Cairo reputedly has 20 million inhabitants and I'm willing to bet about 10 million cars. These days any errand at all can take hours. I ...

Former UN chief nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei has accused Egypt's government of being behind a smear campaign targeting his family. ...

5 (UPI) -- Egypt has canceled a visit by Iran's foreign minister who criticized President Hosni Mubarak for attending the Washington summit last week, ...

In what became known as the posters/cyber war among supporters of potential candidates for the 2011 presidential elections in Egypt, the chief of ...

Egypt's economic growth may accelerate to 5.7 percent in the current fiscal year through June, with a “strong investment recovery” helping consumer spending ...

The Egyptian Co. for Mobile Services, the country's biggest cellular phone operator by users, may issue bonds ...

5 (Xinhua) -- Egypt will close its borders with the Gaza Strip for three days as of Friday marking the end of Ramadan fasting month, the deposed Hamas' ...

CAIRO — A prominent opposition journalist is to go on trial for allegedly libelling Egypt's foreign minister in a newspaper, a judicial source said on ...

5 (Bloomberg) -- Dana Gas PJSC, a United Arab Emirates energy company, said it made a gas discovery in the Nile Delta, Egypt, the company's fourth this year ...

Egypt will host the next segment of the direct round of Middle East peace talks Sep 14, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday, confirming earlier reports ...

At its core is the stalemate in Egypt-Hamas relations. Cairo's pro-Fatah leaning and clearly anti-Hamas stance has cast a shadow over the utility of Egypt's ...