Last March, the Brotherhood appointed General Prosecutor placed Egyptian billionaires Onsi Sawiris and his son Nasif on the travel ban and arrivals watch lists. The government accused their company, Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), of evading taxes worth $2.1 billion.

“The Egyptian Tax Authority has submitted a tax claim to the company to pay 4.7 billion pounds related to the sale of Orascom Building Materials Holding to Lafarge SA in 2007,” the company said on its website. “To date, the company has received no additional claim with any different tax liability.”

The debate over… ( Read on! )

I will not comment on yesterday’s events in Mokattam near the Brotherhood headquarters. I’ve commented enough on Twitter. In this post I want to share with you yet another dose of long term optimism for this country.

A few days ago I had an interesting discussion with a medical student at Al Azhar University. Al Azhar University is the education branch of Al Azhar. It is far more conservative than Egypt’s “secular” universities. Most of its faculties are religion studies based yet it does have other faculties such as medicine and engineering. Male and female students are segregated… ( Read on! )

In the early 70s, president Sadat was facing fierce opposition from communist and nasserite* students on university campuses around the country. His regime did something somehow reminiscent to what the CIA did in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. To fight the leftists, on campus and elsewhere, Sadat ordered the release of thousands of Islamists from prison and brought hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood leaders from exile. His State Security apparatus aided Islamists on campuses to counter the influence of the leftist students who were extremely powerful back then. Sadat’s plan… ( Read on! )

Do you remember the purple finger? It was the color of the index finger of millions of Iraqis after they voted for the first time in their history. The whole world, including myself, celebrated the purple finger and considered it as sign that finally Iraq was on its path to democracy. President George W. Bush made a speech on that day to boast in front of his critics and tell them that the purple finger proved they were wrong about the war in Iraq.

What happened to the purple finger? It turned into a red finger. Iraq for the past years witnessed the death of thousands and is still mired in… ( Read on! )

On February 16, 1923 one of the greatest events in Egyptology history occurred. Almost three months after Howard Carter ventured into the unknown on November 22, 1922, King Tutankhamen’s burial chamber was unsealed. Today, celebrate this extraordinary discovery and the event that unlocked the secrets of King Tutankhamen’s life, revealed his treasures and uncovered his curse.

King Tutankhamen’s tomb had weathered flash floods, avoided tomb robbers and remained concealed for 3000 years. Many simply did not believe that such a tomb existed in the Valley of the Kings – historians had… ( Read on! )