The Completely Forgotten #Rohingya Suffering

Dear friend Jenan Moussa , the amazing Al Aan TV channel has traveled to Burma and filmed there the suffering of the Rohingya Muslim minority after it was almost forgotten in our Arabic media.
Jenan went there to the city of Sittwe to find out that there are 5000 Muslim Rohingya living in a ghetto not allowed to leave it surrounded by radical nationalists Burmese Buddhists. They do not work anymore living in one kilometer ghetto in fear. The people there demand the UN to help them.

5000 Muslim Rohingya stuck in one kilometer “Arabic”

She found out that  Rohinigya people are also banned from receiving any proper health care from any kind. They are not allowed to use the hospitals or clinics in Sittwe.

Muslims are not allowed to check in hospitals in Sittwe “Arabic”

In that Muslim ghetto , the people turned a coffee shop in to a very poor field clinic on Monday and Tuesday only.
They do not receive polio vaccination for a year now and it began to spread among young children. I think the UNHCR and UNICEF should do their job and head to this ghetto ASAP.

The two days clinic in a cafe !!

Of course the Islamists in the Middle East whether in Egypt or Gulf or in Turkey have completely forgotten the Rohingya. I understand the reasons for our Islamists in Egypt but I can not understand this silence in the Gulf or Turkey anymore.
Needless to say I am not waiting any of the governments in the Arab world or the Islamic world to do anything in order to stop the agony of those people. There is no big difference already between the governments and regimes in the Middle East and that corrupted junta in Burma , they are all playing on the sectarian nationalist game in a way or another.
Even Aung San Suu Kyi is just as hypocrite as our political elite especially in Egypt now.

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Look to the bright side We Manage to be the first in something !!!!

The Washington Post published a report about the best and worst countries for expats from 34 countries

yesterday. The WP is based upon the Expats report of HSBC. According to this report Egypt shamelessly is the worst country to expats , oh yes thanks to our increasing lethal mix of xenophobia and populist nationalism.
From optimistic point of view , We are the first in being worst when it comes to expats in our country !! Yeah the first for being worst !!
Here is Egypt's profile in the report , it only lacks the criteria of "Rising Children abroad".
This is how I started my day.
You know one of my dreams after the 25 January revolution was to restore the cosmopolitan nature of Egypt because I believe Modern Egypt was not only built and flourished by Egyptians but also by fantastic expats who came to our country and found more than a safe asylum starting with those who built the modern Egyptian army that shocked the throne of Ottoman Empire.
I hope that those radical right wing nationalists are happy with that report. I hope that populist nationalist sensational media is happy.
 If you add this report to the WEF report , you will have a sad vision about Egypt that we do not want to see or live. 

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Links and Notes 10/28/2013

• 22 Epic Places You Didn't Know Existed

  All those places are on my bucket list , I wish to visit them before I die with my camera and my beloved ones too.

  tags: #DWC #LN Photos World Earth

• ''القلل القناوي'' تراث يتمسك بالبقاء | بوابة المندرة من صعيد مصر

  Al Mandara, Upper Egypt's citizen journalism portal has a very nice small feature about thet beautiful tradition pottery industry in Qena

  tags: #DWC #LN Egypt Upper Egypt Folklore Pottery Qena

• Aung San Suu Kyi: falling from grace | World News Blog | World News Blog

  Once a hero of freedoms , Aung San Suu Kyi proves to be another radical nationalist if I dare to say. Ironically and sadly I am not that shocked anymore because we have lots San Su Kyis in Egypt nowadays. Amazingly the Muslim and Arab world have forgotten the Rohingya Muslims suffering. Still the foreign western human rights organizations and media have not.

  tags: world Burma #DWC #LN

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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And This is Why #Egypt Needs A Real Revolution

The world economic forum issued its annual Global Competitiveness index for year 2013 –2014 . Read it and you will know how Egypt needs a real revolution in every aspect in order to survive this ongoing world race.

First here is the ranking of the Middle East countries arranged  “as well other countries I found interesting in the report” as they appear in the report.

Country	Rank “Out of 148”	Score “1-7”	Rank among “2012-2013” economies	GCI “2012-2013”
Qatar	13	5.24	13	11
UAE	19	5.11	19	24
KSA	20	5.10	20	18
Israel	27	4.94	27	26
Oman	33	4.64	33	32
Kuwait	36	4.56	36	37
Bahrain	43	4.45	43	35
Turkey	44	4.45	44	43
Jordan	68	4.20	68	64
Iran	82	4.07	81	66
Tunisia	83	4.06	n/a	n/a
Algeria	100	3.79	98	110
Lebanon	103	3.77	101	91
Libya	108	3.73	106	113
Egypt	118	3.63	115	107
Mauritania	141	3.19	137	134
Yemen	145	2.98	140	140
Chad	148	2.85	143	139

Here is an info graph for the top ten Arab countries in the report. Of course all of them are rich oil gulf states.

Click in to zoom in "World economic forum"

Nevertheless you will find Israel after Qatar, UAE and KSA in the ranking when it has no oil.

Here is also an info graph about top ten Sub Saharan African countries.

Click to zoom in

Shamelessly Egypt comes in the 118th rank. It went down from 115 in 2012-2013 to 118 in 2013-2014. We used to be in the 94th rank in 2011-2012.

Here is what is written about Egypt in the report itself :

Egypt drops by 11 positions to reach 118th place  in this year’s GCI. This assessment is likely influenced by the country’s continued transition since the events of the Arab Spring. The deteriorating security situation and tenacious political instability are undermining the country’s competitiveness and its growth potential going forward. Although resolving political friction needs to remain the priority as this Report goes to print, many of the underlying factors that will be decisive about the sustainability of the country and the cohesion of the society over the medium to longer term are economic in nature. Establishing confidence through a credible and far-reaching reform program will be vital to the country’s future and to realizing the considerable potential of the country’s large market size and proximity to key global markets. According to the GCI, three areas are of particular importance. First, the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated over recent years to reach 140th position mainly because of widening
fiscal deficit, rising public indebtedness, and persisting inflationary pressures. A credible fiscal consolidation plan, accompanied by structural reforms, will be necessary in order to maintain macroeconomic stability in the country. This may prove difficult in times of rising energy prices, as energy subsidies account for a considerable share of public expenditure. However, better targeting of subsidies could allow for fiscal
consolidation while protecting the most vulnerable. Second, measures to intensify domestic competition would result in efficiency gains and contribute to energizing the economy by providing access to new entrants. This, in turn, would make the country’s private sector more dynamic, thereby contributing to job creation. And third, making labor markets flexible (141st) and more efficient (145th) would allow the country to increase employment in the medium term.

There is no doubt that we are paying the price of the political changes in Egypt as the report says “turmoil”. Still if you think about , we did not reach to this low ranking among other developing and poor countries in the world because of the past three years but rather because of the past 33 years especially when it comes to education.

Here are the scores of Egypt in the report, one thing for sure we are a big market.

Click to zoom in

The original 25 January Revolution erupted from two years ago because of the reasons that lead a country like Egypt to hit rock bottom like that , at least this is my case.

We do not have true political leaders or figures that even have got a vision to see Egypt as true leading power using our capabilities and sources. We are still living in the great slogans that “Egypt is the mother of the world” and “Egypt is the most independent nation in the history of the mankind” not to mention “The world is plotting against us” to the end of those nationalist slogans.

We need a balanced economic policies to ensure social justice and at the same time to improve the economy and encourage investments.

We should not depend only on tourism and Suez canal as main sources of income. I am not an economic expert but I know true economic development will be achieved if we have true political reforms that support transparency and accountability.

Needless to say,I do not know if the people really want democracy , accountability and transparency anymore in Egypt. 

God does not help the fool nor the lazy but we continue to believe that God won’t let us down. Well the problem is that we are the ones who let ourselves down over and over as people with our choices.

Here is the full report in PDF.

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#July26 : The Day started early in #Egypt

The 26 July big has started earlier in Egypt with the news of detaining Mohamed Morsi 15 days pending investigation for espionage and escaping charges.
It has really started earlier.
A storify live coverage after the break.

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The Colonel Finds A Way To #Gaza

Life in Egypt is stranger than fiction without doubt !! On the same day we are speaking about our kidnapped soldiers and the tunnels in Al Arish to find a photo report about KFC delivery to Gaza through tunnels !!!!!! Xinhua published the report today and it is making headlines worldwide. Yes it turns out Gazans buy from KFC in Al Arish and smuggle the orders through the tunnels. It turns out that if you are in Gaza you can order KFC through Ymama Delivery service.

Now Order KFC from Ymama "Ymama FB"

You place the order and they will send its boys to cross the tunnels then go to KFC branch in Al Arish to get the order. The boys then return back through the tunnel with the orders.

KFC orders inside the tunnel "Xinhua"

Ymama delivery boy with KFC meals "Xinhua"

It would take 4 hours to enjoy the colonel's secret recipe in Gaza.I wonder how many Gazans got food poisoning from KFC after all !!
Ymama is extremely happy with the publicity it got today internationally according to its Facebook page.
Of course this is the biggest advertising for KFC after the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir square !!
By the way back to the main news today in Cairo , the kidnap of the conscripts in Sinai ; Hamas announced that it closed the tunnels today from its side. I think today there will be no KFC delivered to the sector !! 

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Is This An American Captialistic Product I see In The Theatrening North Korean Video !?

Of course all the world watched that scary video from Pyongyang where it is threatening
One thing stopped me in that 1960s propaganda video : The Mac Pro used by the Supreme leader Kim Jong Un while planning against the United States !!!
Is not this the product of the enemy !? Is not this a capitalistic product from a capitalistic nation !?

In Egyptian social media people can not stop joking about the North Korea's threats, seriously it is like the joke of the day.

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And #Egypt celebrates the #HarlemShake in its own Way !!

To be honest I do not understand what the Harlem Shake is or what it means except it is universal silly meme but I can not ignore the fact that it is making noise in my country.

Already last week we had our Pyramids Harlem Shake and I believe our tourism board should have used it.

Pyramids Harlem Shake

It is not the first Harlem Shake filmed in Egypt but it was the most famous and organized with public event on Facebook in Egypt. There  have been previous Harlem Shake clips from Egypt to my surprise in the past two weeks in a way I could not understand it !!

Of course internationally we made headline with our Harlem Shake craze as four young students have been arrested yesterday in Agouza area in Giza when they danced in their underwear in the street. Their neighbors reported them to the police and the four students are accused of indecency !!!

By the way my dear friends Ibrahim Gamal El Din aka Hima and Ahmed Naguib aka Hamda did their own Harlem Shake in AUC dorm.

Hamda Harlem Shake

Now Egyptian youth are organizing even bigger and important Harlem Shake event next Thursday … at the Muslim brotherhood HQ in Moktakam. I really love my people , May God bless and protect them.

By the way the people of Harlem do not like and think it is silly and no related to the original Harlem Shake dance.

Original Harlem reacts to Harlem Shake

Now this how the original Harlem Shake goes , watch the video till the end

How to dance the real and original Harlem Shake

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#GlobalProtestFeb12 : The world stands with Egyptian women to #EndSh

I am so happy on how the protesters and activists from around the globe showed support to Egyptian women today. We are not alone indeed. Thank you again for your support. Here is a Storify report on the global protests around the globe. I found it quite easier to compile all the tweets and photos.
You can find it after the break and I will be updating it all night long from images all over the world.

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#EndSh #GlobalProtestFe12 For #Egypt : The world stands with Egyptian women

Tomorrow the women of the world will protest in solidarity with the Egyptian women in front our embassies against the sexual violence and attacks.

There will be protests in Aden , Ramallah, Yaffa, Rabat, Tunis, Beirut, Amman , Copenhagen , Brussels, Milano, New York, Washington, Ottawa , The Hague, Paris, London, Melbourne and Oslo

The global protests is coordinated by the Women Uprising in the Arab world. 

There will be a protest tomorrow in Cairo at 6 PM at Talaat Harb square and I think there will be a rally from there to the Shura council to object the disgusting Shura MPs’ statements today. The Shura MPs in the human rights committee blamed the women for the sexual harassments and rape in shocking statements.

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#Vatican and #Pope ‘s resignation on #Feb11

It seems that February 11 will be marked as the day when world leaders step down !! Mubarak stepped down on February 2011 and Pope Benedict XVI announced that he will step down also on February 2013.

Benedict XVI announced today that he will step down exactly at February 28,2013. A very quick and surprising announcement, the man did not wait for two or three months but for two weeks.

When the news hit the wire , I thought it was some kind of hoax like that rumor yesterday about the Duke of Edinburgh’s death yet what you know !! Soon enough an official statement was posted in the Vatican’s official website and the man himself spoke to the World about it.

Abdication of Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI said that he can not continue in his position because he has no strength. In other words he suffers from some health issues that may affect his ability to continue as the Spiritual leader of the Catholic world. I thought the Popes continue in their position till death regardless of their health condition !! First time to know that they

The 85 years old Pontiff is considered the second Pope in 600 to resign from that extremely important position after Gregory XII. 

Needless to say now the Conspiracy theories websites got nothing to speak about except the Nostradamus’ Prophecy about the Black Pope linking it to Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana. There is good chance that Turkson could be the first African Black Pope of Catholic Church for the first time in history. Now You got people online calling him the Antichrist already !!

This is of course the conspiracy theories on why Benedict had to step down now !!

Anyhow Cardinal Turkson’s views about considering Islam as demographic threat in Europe tells me he is not that different from Benedict XVI , after all we live in times of radicalism and extremism.

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