Word: egypts
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...Such a scene may have be more reminiscent of Saddam Hussein than of Thomas Jefferson, but Egypt's presidential election on Wednesday may yet signal the twilight of the country's age of dynasties. Nobody expects Mubarak to lose the vote, whether the balloting is honest or has to be rigged in his favor. Despite the inevitability of the result, however, many Egyptians feel the election has breathed new life into Egyptian politics after decades of autocratic rule...
...Mubarak's Abdeen speech was not another lecture from a dictator, but an appeal from a politician for the votes of citizens. For the first time in Egypt's history, the President faced not a yes-no referendum on his presidency, in which he'd be assured of 99% or so of the tally, but a contest in which he had to defend his record before the citizenry against rival candidates. Mubarak has been hop-scotching around the country, telling crowds, "I stand before you asking for your endorsement." Close on his heels, nine challengers have been giving raucous speeches...
Sawiris is no bootstrap entrepreneur. He comes from a wealthy Coptic Christian family. His father Onsi made his fortune in Egypt in the 1950s in the construction industry but then lost it all when President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the business in the early '60s. After living in Libya, the family moved back to Egypt a decade later. There Sawiris Sr. built his fortune anew. He has since divided his empire among his three sons: Naguib, the eldest, took telecommunications; Nassef, the youngest, runs the construction business; and Samih, the middle brother, has a tourism and travel company...
Naguib seems to have inherited his father's golden touch. Over the past six years, Cairo-based Orascom Telecom Holding has grown into an increasingly profitable company, with more than $4 billion in revenue and 17.1 million subscribers in Muslim countries, including Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia...
...discussions turned more scholarly recently when an article in al-Sharq al-Awsat, the Arabic international daily, complained about Penguin paperback books 70th anniversary publication of excerpts from Gustave Flaubert's letters from Egypt. The article's author, Susan Bashir, complained about the provocative new title, "The Desert and the Dancing Girls" and the cover's "half naked girls." Abu Aardvark echoed Bashir: "Is this what Penguin thinks the Arab world really is...empty deserts and exotic dancing girls?" Meanwhile, as the genre's 51 million readers pump gas this summer, will they be dreaming of oil sheikhs in exotic...