How "the other" sees us!!

This is an article from the "independent", I won't comment, I will leave that for you! January 1, 2009 Robert Fisk: The rotten state of Egypt is too powerless and corrupt to act There was a day when we worried about the "Arab masses" – the millions of "ordinary" Arabs on the streets of Cairo, Kuwait, Amman, Beirut – and their reaction to the constant bloodbaths in the Middle East. Could Anwar Sadat restrain the anger of his people? And now – after three decades of Hosni Mubarak – can Mubarak (or "La Vache Qui Rit", as he is still called in Cairo) restrain the anger of his people? The answer, of course, is that Egyptians and Kuwaitis and Jordanians will be allowed to shout in the streets of their capitals – but then they will be shut down, with the help of the tens of thousands of secret policemen and government militiamen who serve the princes and kings and elderly rulers of the Arab world. Egyptians demand that Mubarak open the Rafah crossing-point into Gaza, break off diplomatic relations with Israel, even send weapons to Hamas. And there is a kind of perverse beauty in listening to the response of the Egyptian government: why not complain about the three gates which the Israelis refuse to open? And anyway, the Rafah crossing-point is politically controlled by the four powers that produced the "road map" for peace, including Britain and the US. Why blame Mubarak? To admit that Egypt can't even open its sovereign border without permission from Washington tells you all you need to know about the powerlessness of the satraps that run the Middle East for us. Open the Rafah gate – or break off relations with Israel – and Egypt's economic foundations crumble. Any Arab leader who took that kind of step will find that the West's economic and military support is withdrawn. Without subventions, Egypt is bankrupt. Of course, it works both ways. Individual Arab leaders are no longer going to make emotional gestures for anyone. When Sadat flew to Jerusalem – "I am tired of the dwarves," he said of his fellow Arab leaders – he paid the price with his own blood at the Cairo reviewing-stand where one of his own soldiers called him a "Pharaoh" before shooting him dead. The true disgrace of Egypt, however, is not in its response to the slaughter in Gaza. It is the corruption that has become embedded in an Egyptian society where the idea of service – health, education, genuine security for ordinary people – has simply ceased to exist. It's a land where the first duty of the police is to protect the regime, where protesters are beaten up by the security police, where young women objecting to Mubarak's endless regime – likely to be passed on caliph-like to his son Gamal, whatever we may be told – are sexually molested by plain-clothes agents, where prisoners in the Tora-Tora complex are forced to rape each other by their guards. There has developed in Egypt a kind of religious facade in which the meaning of Islam has become effaced by its physical representation. Egyptian civil "servants" and government officials are often scrupulous in their religious observances – yet they tolerate and connive in rigged elections, violations of the law and prison torture. A young American doctor described to me recently how in a Cairo hospital busy doctors merely blocked doors with plastic chairs to prevent access to patients. In November, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm reported how doctors abandoned their patients to attend prayers during Ramadan. And amid all this, Egyptians have to live amid daily slaughter by their own shabby infrastructure. Alaa al-Aswani wrote eloquently in the Cairo paper Al-Dastour that the regime's "martyrs" outnumber all the dead of Egypt's wars against Israel – victims of railway accidents, ferry sinking, the collapse of city buildings, sickness, cancers and pesticide poisonings – all victims, as Aswani says, "of the corruption and abuse of power". Opening the Rafah border-crossing for wounded Palestinians – the Palestinian medical staff being pushed back into their Gaza prison once the bloodied survivors of air raids have been dumped on Egyptian territory – is not going to change the midden in which Egyptians themselves live. Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah secretary general in Lebanon, felt able to call on Egyptians to "rise in their millions" to open the border with Gaza, but they will not do so. Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the feeble Egyptian Foreign Minister, could only taunt the Hizbollah leaders by accusing them of trying to provoke anarchy similar to the one they created in their own country." But he is well-protected. So is President Mubarak. Egypt's malaise is in many ways as dark as that of the Palestinians. Its impotence in the face of Gaza's suffering is a symbol of its own political sickness.

رحماك

بعد ساعات من الجهود المكثفة التي بذلتها مصر خلال الساعات الأخيرة والمحادثات التي اجراها الرئيس حسني مبارك مع وزيرة الخارجية الاسرائيلية تسيبي ليفني في القاهرة،‮ ‬اعلنت اسرائيل اعادة فتح ثلاثة معابر الي قطاع‮ ‬غزة،‮ ‬هي كارني وناحال عوز وكرم سالم،‮ ‬للسماح بدخول المساعدات الانسانية والوقود للفلسطينيين المحاصرين في القطاع‮.‬

في عدوان إسرائيلي همجي علي قطاع غزة‏,‏ سمته الرصاص المصبوب‏,‏ أطلقت المقاتلات الإسرائيلية من طراز إف ـ‏16‏ ما يزيد علي‏30‏ صاروخا في هجمات مفاجئة ومكثفة ومتزامنة علي ما زعمت أنها المقار الأمنية لحركة حماس‏,‏ التي تقع في مناطق مأهولة بالسكان‏,‏ ووقت خروج أطفال المدارس‏,‏ مما أسفر عن مجزرة‏,‏ راح ضحيتها‏205‏ شهداء‏,‏ وسقوط أكثر من‏310‏ مصابين‏

قال فوزي برهوم الناطق باسم حماس ان الغارات الاسرائيلية تأتي بعد ان ذهبت ليفني الى القاهرة والتقت بالرئيس المصري حسني مبارك واضاف انه من الغريب ان في الامس التقت قيادات بالقاهرة وقالت انه سيكون هدوء كبير في قطاع غزة وان الاحتلال وعد بوقف كافة اشكال العدوان ووعد بفتح المعابر

طول عمر الناس دي من أيام السادات ييجوا يقابلونا و يضربوا فلسطين تاني يوم!! لو مش قادرين نعمل حاجة يبقى عالأقل مانديهمش فرصة!! ليه بنقابلهم أصلا مادام مافيش فايدة و هم عمرهم ماحيسمعونا؟؟ ليه؟؟

I need an answer here

Can a grown up person expresses what he feels in a sentence & he totally doesn't mean what he said, in fact he says that the opposite thing was meant?? Is this possible?

7aram 3alekom

I can't imagine!! 2 dead girls, 2 murdered girls, they were killed in such a terrible way, they left 2 sad families behind them, those rascals in the media started to make up stories since minute 1 after the crime!! Villa, no it's just a flat. 23 years old, no she was just 19 The killer was someone they used to know, no he is just a damn robber. He killed them as a revenge, no he killed them because he saw them in front of him. He cut her tongue, no he did not. He put whatever substance in her uterus!!, no, of course he did not. Drugs, wine,...............nothing was there in their place. What is it people??? what is it?? how dare you? how dare you do this to those innocents when their bodies were still warm!! What on earth was you aiming for? Where you after Laila Ghofran?? who on earth is this lady?? even if she is something, does this give you the right to do that to 2 victims? And can anyone tell me from where did they invent all those things?? no no really I am asking here, from where did you all get those lies? and how come that you had all settled on the same things?? Have you seen the father? the poor guy forgot his main tragedy and was thanking those people who got his late daughter's right!! those who cleared the reputation of the 19 years old murdered girl. Oh GOD, is this possible? can a victim be treated in this way?? I can't find words, really, I am speechless here,.................ya rab,7'odhom kolohom

A nice e-mail that I received!!

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I will marry you.' One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend. He asked her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him. Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.'

The bucket list tag

My dear gjoez tagged me, She wants a bucket list for my goals in the next 8 - 10 years, Here are the things that I have in my mind currently: 1- Obtaining my MD as soon as possible. 2- Being still healthy by then!!! 3- Having a post-doctor position in the U.K for about two years. 4- Perform Pilgrimage with my mother. 5- Work in a CDC project in the USA. 6- Releasing my first book in my speciality 7- Setting new policies and regulations that allow the younger staff to have their own thinking & acting spaces without getting frustrated at any time. 8- Hope I still have this desire then and I won't turn into a character resembling one of those whom I keep criticising all the time!! (ya rab) 9- Opening my own lab with my best friend Rania. 10- Getting Nobel!! And now I am passing the tag to: insomniac geddo iskandar evaluna Epitaph 1987 مجداوية

But mot importantly, tag others to do the same when you are done :)

Still trying in Alexandria!!

Well, after my last post, unfortunately I couldn't make it!! I couldn't have my fresh start. In fact last week was one of the toughest weeks I had ever had. I had a lot of problems at work that had a bad effect on me. I actually crashed by the end of the week!! But, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I have a real desire here, I will try again and again till things get back to their right track isA. So, trying again, I had a lovely morning yesterday. I waked up in the early morning, I went out with two of my friends. We started the morning by having breakfast at Mohammed Ahmed's (for non-Alexandrians, this is a famous restaurant that serves fool & ta3meia since ever). After that nice breakfast, we sat in the Brazilian coffee store (a famous coffee shop that was opened in Sa3d Za3'lool street since 1929 or something), we had hazel flavored cappuccino & talked a lot. After that we had a long walk by the lovely sea from El-mansheia to the castle. We sat there for sometime then we returned back the same way while enjoying the incredible seen and the fascinating weather. Alexandria is very beautiful guys!! it is really beautiful. GOD, I do really love it:) So, today was the first day in the second - trial fresh start week. Things were not bad. I had a long tiring working day, with the regular daily problems, but over all, I can say that it was a good start. I am writing this post now & I will try to stay studying for few hours. If I manage to do this, then I can say that things will improve!! otherwise, I have no idea!! Da3awatkom:)