Special to WorldTribune.com Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Sisi on Jan. 6 apologized for the torching of Christian churches during the Morsi regime and vowed “the churches will be fully restored this year.” Sisi made the remarks as he, for the second consecutive year, attended the Coptic Christmas mass at Saint Mark’s Orthodox Cathedral. Last year, […]
Sol W. Sanders It’s impossible to tell whether it is infection from the hysterical Mideast Arabic and English commentaries on radio and TV. Or does the twaddle result from misunderstanding the complexity of the issues? Whatever, our talking heads are befuddled more than usually about events in Egypt. And they are lending further confusion […]
Special to WorldTribune.com CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood has targeted Christian communities in its insurgency campaign against Egypt’s military-backed regime. Christian groups said Islamist fighters, many of whom linked to the Brotherhood, were attacking churches and Christian-owned businesses throughout Egypt. The Christian groups said the Brotherhood torched at least 40 churches in eight provinces. “It’s […]
Sol W. Sanders Fleeting memory – and perhaps proof that if there are lessons of history, they are never learned – is that there is almost no mention of “Nasserism” or “Pan-Arabism” in the current reporting on Egyptian chaos. Yet for two decades a young army officer out of nowhere, Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, […]
John J. Metzler BENNINGTON, VT — Tumultuous events have swept Egypt as a passionate, but polarized, population took to the streets to press for political change or to support the elected but increasingly authoritarian rule of President Mohammed Morsi. The culmination of the protests came with a massive turnout of millions of anti-Morsi Egyptians in […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — The winds of change continue to swirl throughout the Middle East as the region enters the third year of the socio/political phenomenon optimistically dubbed as the Arab Spring. While political scientists debate the ebb and flow of freedoms and anarchy in the region ranging from Egypt to Libya and […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Global Information System The announcement on June 24, 2012, of the election to the Egyptian presidency of the pro-Muslim Brothers (Ikhwan al-Muslimin) Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) (Hizb al-Hurriya wa al-’Adala) candidate Mohammed Mursi, began to hint at the impact of the United States’ effective withdrawal in the past three years from […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — America’s political standing has dipped so low in Egypt, that in a recent Gallup poll, more than eighty percent of respondents said they neither want military aid nor economic assistance from the United States. Moreover as many shades of Islamic political parties dominate the landscape, many people in this […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — When the government of erstwhile U.S. ally Egypt shut down seventeen Western pro-democracy groups, trashed their Cairo offices, and slapped travel bans on some of their staff, political relations between Washington and Cairo hit a new and unexpected low. Just a year after a tumultuous political uprising topped the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com CAIRO — The powerful Salafist movement, a partner of the Muslim Brotherhood, has formed a militia in Egypt. The Salafists have established a so-called religious police based on the model in Saudi Arabia. They said the force, called the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Authority, consists of hundreds of volunteers […]