Toxic brown cloud expected to appear in Egypt’s sky

Daily News
By Yasmine Saleh
First Published: November 19, 2008

CAIRO: The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) warned of the passing of the “brown” cloud, which is full of toxic chemical material, over the Middle East.

The cloud is around three kilometers long.

According to the UNEP report, which was first released on Nov. 13, the cloud would pass over the Middle East within three to seven days. Some suspect that the fog that has engulfed the city on Wednesday is part of the cloud. No reports have confirmed such claims.

When contacted by Daily News Egypt, officials at the Ministry of Environmental Affairs were unavailable for comment by press time.
According to the report, “the cloud center is in South Korea and is called brown because of its brown color.”

The report also indicated that the cloud is considered to be of great danger to the international environment.

“The cloud will have a serious reaction that might lead to the death of thousands of people and harm agricultural products,” read the report.
According to Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and executive director of UNEP, the cloud started to move from Asia to Africa and the Middle East.

The report also stated that the cloud had serious impacts on air quality and agriculture in Asia “increasing risks to human health and food production for three billion people.”

“Cities from Beijing to New Delhi are getting darker, glaciers in ranges like the Himalayas are melting faster and weather systems are becoming more extreme, in part, due to the combined effects of human-made Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs) and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” stated the UNEP report.

The report has also identified 13 cities as ABC hotpots. Those cities are: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran, where soot levels are 10 percent of the total mass of all human-made particles.

According to the report, cities with large concentrations of ABCs may be getting cloudier which might lead to a 25 percent decrease in visibility.
According to Steiner, the clouds can lead to serious respiratory problems and complications in blood vessels.

As for the agricultural products, the cloud might lead to a decrease in the productivity and the quality of products like rice, wheat and Soya beans.
The report also explained that the brown cloud resulted from burning of fossil fuels and biomass in some cases and regions aggravating the impacts of greenhouse gas-induced climate change.

“Globally, however, brown clouds may be countering or ‘masking’ the warming impacts of climate change by between 20 and up to 80 percent, the researchers suggest,” the report indicated.

On the other hand, Sabri Abdel Hadi, manager of the health department at Egypt’s Ministry for Environmental Affairs, said that “he did not receive any information about this cloud” and added that “South Korea is tens of thousands kilometers away from Egypt which makes it unreasonable for the cloud to reach Egypt,” according to his statement to Amal Al Omah news website, that is run by the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria.

Dr Ahmed Aboul Seoud, manager of the quality of air department at the Ministry for Environmental Affairs, also told the website that the arrival of this cloud to Egypt is “far-fetched” but added that the ministry will issue a special warning to all citizens not to leave their houses in the unlikely case of its appearance.

Aboul Seoud has also indicated that the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs will be able to monitor this cloud by satellites if it appeared in the Egyptian sky and will find solutions to eliminate it by water.

Paradox?

Its amazing how sometimes we don't look beyond the obvious, well, at least I did not..

My car is usually fuelled by the driver, and, the only cognizant memory I have of the fuel is that its cheap. A 100 le goes a long way, and I don't have to fill up petrol every other day, despite the fact that I move around quite a bit.

Two days ago, the driver called in sick, and, I had to drive, and, fill petrol. It was then that the penny dropped! Well, high time it did!

Petrol costs 1.80 le per gallon (1 gallon = approx 4 litres) while water costs 1.50 le for a litre bottle. The difference was so stark that it caught me by surprise. Well, it should not, cos this is dessert land, where water is at a premium. Plus in a sense, water is essential to life, and, petrol is not, so there should be a premium for it!

But coming from a country where the petrol cost is some 10 times the cost of water, this seems such a paradox!

Or is it really? Every situation, every circumstance warrants its own set of peculiarities, and, we need to learn to make the most of them. I guess that's true of everything in life, isn't it?

A 4,300- year-old pyramid discovered in Sakkara desert

Daily News Egypt
By Marwa Al-A’sar
First Published: November 11, 2008

CAIRO: A 4,300-year-old pyramid of a Pharaonic queen was discovered in Sakkara desert, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass told reporters in a press conference on site Tuesday.
“The pyramid is believed to belong to Queen Sesheshet, the mother of King Titi (2323 – 2291 BC), the founder of ancient Egypt‘s Sixth Dynasty,” Hawass said.

The pyramid is part of the cemetery associated with King Titi, who had his funerary complex built north-east to that of King Djoser (2630 – 2611 BC). It is 4.5 meters high with a square base of 22 meters on each side. The original height is estimated to be about 14 meters.

“We are about to reach the burial area, yet I don’t think we will find much because we found traces of robbery there,” Hawass said.
Sesheshet’s pyramid is located near those of Titi’s two wives, Khuit and Iputi. The three pyramids were designed similarly.

Though Sesheshet was recognized from inscriptions on a medical papyrus, no identified tomb for her has ever been discovered in the Sakkara necropolis, according to Hawass.

He pointed out that the Egyptian excavation in the Titi cemetery has added a lot to the understanding of the beginning of the sixth Dynasty.

An Egyptian archeological team has been excavating the site since 1988. But the discovery was made a few months ago when it appeared that the structure unveiled under the sand was a pyramid.

The Sesheshet pyramid is the 118th discovered so far in Egypt. There are 20 pyramids more found out but with only the bases remaining.
“The newly discovered pyramid is expected to be unveiled after two months,” Hawass concluded.

The queen mother played an important role in the establishment of the sixth dynasty at a time when two branches of the former ruling family were in conflict.

For many years, scholars believed that Iputi was the primary wife of King Titi. Recently, however, Hawass excavated the pyramid of Khuit, discovering that her pyramid was built before Iputi’s, which indicates she was the chief wife.

Gorgeous graffitti

Talk about hunting for a needle in a haystack - now I know the feeling! Went around Downtown and Dokki the whole morning in search of some graffitti! Suspect when my hubby hears this, he'll shrug his shoulders in one of those resigned gestures, lol!

However, I think the trek around town was worth the graffitti that I saw. Just check out the pictures below and then go see them in person. To me, it was certainly worth the visit!
Goethe Institute is the headquarters for learning German in Cairo, and, operates as a cultural centre as well, organising numerous events all through the year. This year, the centre completed 50 years of its existence in Cairo, and, decided to celebrate the occassion by rolling out year long celebrations.

Four German artists of the graffiti project “Masala Movement” and two Egyptians came together in the lavish garden surrounding what used to be former East Germany’s embassy in Cairo, and, were allowed to pain the walls of the now defunct East German embassy.

The project tasked the six artists with transforming the walls of the language center (known as ‘the empty space’) into a large piece of art, and, I must admit, they have done a fabulous job.

Bright colours, bold, larger than life figures are beautifully juxtaposed against the brown stone of the walls. There are yet others that been painted at the intersection of two walls, with slatted windows in the middle, lending an interesting perspective to the graffitti!

There is a enormous worm in black and white which resmbles a dragon or an equally wild creature. Painted on the 3 walls of an alcove, its lifelike and really seems like its crawling along the walls!

Then there is a mother and child which seems to represent the connection between the two when the child is born and also when its in the womb or maybe, thats just my hyperactive imagination!

If you’re thinking about checking out their work, make sure to stop by soon.
This one is somewhat remniscent of the work of a famous Indian cartoonist called Mario Miranda.

Just a word of Caution. Goethe Institute seems to be spread all over the place 3-4 buildings. The one that you need to go to is in Dokki at 17 Road.

I, of course, finally got there after seeing practically every Goethe Institute building! The helpful guards/ counter guys at each building, enthusiastically nodded their head and said "aiwa (yes)" when I asked for graffitti. Next time, must remember to check the arabic word for "graffitti" or whatever else it is that I am going looking for!

English news in Cairo

Other than the Daily News/ Egyptian Gazzette or Mail that you normally read with your morning cuppa, I finally managed to find a list of websites which you can go browse for Egypt news, if you want to!

Al-Ahram Weekly
Government affiliated leading Egyptian newspaper, so news / reviews to be read accordingly. However, I find that soem of the articles are very good and most importatly, the travel section in this one is usually good!

AllAfrica.com: Egypt
News reports from African sources.

Cairo Live
News on Egypt from international and Egyptian news outlets.

Cairo Times
Small English language section of Egyptian news magazine.

Caravan
American University in Cairo's student-produced newspaper. Covers campus and regional news in English and Arabic.

Daily News Egypt
The only local independent daily newspaper in the English language, bundled with the International Herald Tribune.

Egypt Daily News
Provides aggregated Egyptian news from various sources.

Egypt Guide
Online magazine featuring information regarding news, business, tourism, travel, and more.

Egypt Information Portal
Official portal providing business and political information and news.

Egypt Today
Leading current affairs magazine in Egypt.

Egyptian Gazette
Middle East's oldest English-language newspaper published in Cairo.

MEMRI: Egypt
Site of US based Middle East Media Research Institute providing analysis and translations of Arabic media reports.

Middle East News Agency (MENA)
Subscription-only news agency.

Middle East Times
Egypt-based regional magazine. Provides more or less objective reporting of Middle East and Egypt news, as well as cultural and business features.

State Information Service
Features official news stories, Cairo press review, and country background information

And while technically not a news site, this does give information of an oft heard name in Egypt.
Ikhwanweb
London-based official web site of the Muslim Brotherhood.

That should be enough for any news / information buff!

Egypt's 1st underwater museum?

Wow!

The European Institute for Underwater Archaeology is currently carrying out a feasibility study for the construction of the first underwater museum for Egyptian antiquities on the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria! Now that would be something really unique! Like the underwater restaurant in Israel?

The museum's design is by the French architect Jacques Rougerie. The design was chosen in an UNESCO-supervised international competition held for this specific purpose. The design envisages a museum which shall be partly above sea level and partly submerged.

However, visitors to Egypt will have a long wait for this, cos the feasibility study alone will be completed only next September. Then there would be the funding, the construction etc.

Hmmm, I think I shall come for my return visit to Egypt once the museum is completed!

Religion over sentiment?

Just read this article in Daily News on the internet, and, was left wondering what should have more value - emotions bound with relationships or religion?

Like in all almost all other countries, laws in Egypt allow for the child to live with the mother till the age of 18, in the event of dissolution of a marriage. I am sure that if lawmakers all over the world recognise and acknowledge the need for the child to be with the mother who typically is an emotional anchor, there must be a justifiable reason for it.

However, came across a rather interesting article in Daily News today. The article (http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=17388) talks about Egyptian men who converted to Islam from Christianity, and, happen to be separated from their wives, and, how they are fighting the custody battle on the grounds of incompatible religions! How can the child of a Muslim father be brought up by a Christian mother, is the argument being used by them.

To me that's such an unfair argument. The child needs its mother for the emotional sustenance that he/she draws from the mother. While a lot of fathers of today's generation are active participants in their children's lives, the reality of the majority, especially in Oriental and Asian cultures, is that the mother plays a larger social, emotional and physical role in the child's life. So how can religion be a consideration, let alone the deciding factor, in determining custody?

As it is, a child, of a marriage that has not worked out, lacks the combined presence of both his natural parents in his life. Unless the mother is physically torturing the children, they tend to turn to their mothers especially the young ones. This is about emotions, feelings, relationships, so where does religion come in?

Or does religion take precedence over the emotional comfort of a child?