Category: Egypt

Top Secondary School student in Egypt ignored by Government

26/7/2016

Amira Ibrahim Iraqi, is a 17-year-old girl who ranked first at the national level among thousands of students who received their secondary school results for 2015-2016. Amira scored 409.5 out of 410 or 99.87 percent. You would think such an outstanding result would lead to recognition by and praise from the government. There has been a long tradition in Egypt of the top student being congratulated by the Minister of Education. It won't happen for Amira.

Amira's achievements are being deliberately ignored because she is the daughter of a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, designated as a terrorist organization in Egypt.

The deposed former President Morsi was a member of the Brotherhood as well. Many who protested his overthrow lost their lives as protests were put down, others were jailed. Amira's father was given a life sentence. Her father is a doctor who specialized in kidney disease and had been serving for many years before being imprisoned.

It seems exceedingly narrow-minded to punish the child just because her father belongs to what used to be the main political group in Egypt but now is a banned organization.

The education system in Egypt is notorious for its corruption. There are constant problems being caused by exam questions being leaked. However, there are other problems. Mariam Malak, had been all along been doing quite well in her courses but when she got her final results found that not only had she failed all her exams but did not manage to score even a single mark. In previous exams she had scored near perfection. She had hoped to go to medical school.

Thousands have rallied behind Maria and over 30,000 people have liked a social media page titled "I believe Mariam". Mariam told the CBC: 'I was completely shocked. I couldn't hear anyone, I couldn't speak. I thought how can that happen? How can I get zero?'

Her brother thinks that the school or the examination board swapped her papers with a pupil who was obviously doing badly. Some were spreading rumours that Mariam had been discriminated against because she is a Coptic Chrisitian a minority in mostly Muslim Egypt. However, her family think that she was more likely just caught up in the corruption of the system.

Many have called for an investigation of Miriam's case. Her sister said: 'We believe in God's justice and the law and watching the support and solidarity we've been receiving from people gives us a bit of reassurance. We want an impartial and transparent committee to re-open the investigation and redo her handwriting test... we will continue until we do justice by Mariam.'

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Militant attacks kill at least 14 in Sinai Egypt

14/4/2015

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Map of Sinai Peninsula Egypt

Most of the casualties were Egyptian police in two separate bombings in the northern Sinai region of Egypt. At least 45 were also reported wounded in one attack.

The jihadist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, who recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, took responsibility for the attacks via a Twitter account associated with the group. The group calls itself the Sinai Province of the Islamic State.

The larger attack was on a police station in el-Arish the capital of North Sinai province. The attacker blew up his vehicle at the gate to the station killing eight police.

Health Ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar reported on the casualties from Cairo and noted that some of the injured were in critical condition. Officials said that a huge crater was created by the blast and several nearby homes were damaged.

Rescue crews were still searching for survivors in bodies in the rubble as night fell. In another attack just south of the capital a roadside bomb was detonated against an armoured vehicle that was passing killing six soldiers.

There was also a third attack on a checkpoint near Rafah, the border crossing to the Gaza strip, that wounded three more soldiers. These attacks are just one of several lately that continue in spite of a severe military crackdown and creation of a buffer zone between the Sinai and the Gaza Strip.

Attacks have increased since former president Mohammed Morsi was ousted in 2013 in a coup led by now president Abdel el-Sisi. Hundreds of members of the security forces have been killed since then.

Earlier in the month the IS-allied group killed at least 16 soldiers and three civilians while kidnapping a conscript. Just last Friday they posted a video of the conscript pleading with Egyptians not to join the army just before he was shot to death.

Sources:
Fox News
AntiWar
Reuters

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Egypt and Russia strengthen relations

1/4/2015

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Egyptian president el-Sisi

Op-Ed: President el-Sisi came to power in Egypt after leading a coup that overthrew former president Morsi. He later was elected president.

Throughout this period, Putin gave strong support for Sisi. Since then, relations between the two countries have strengthened.

In 2014 Russia and Egypt signed a $3.5 billion arms deal. Recently, the two countries signed a further military cooperation agreement that will see Egyptian officers and troops trained in Russian military academies. Putin also had a successful visit to Cairo back in February this year.

These moves by Egypt will provide the Egyptian government more leverage in dealing with the US which provides not only substantial military aid to Egypt but also trains many of its armed forces. In response to Egypt's horrible human rights record and suppression of opposition, the US had suspended some military aid. Egypt's response was to show the US that it could also find military aid elsewhere.

The US counter-move was announced by Obama just yesterday. He is renewing all suspended aid to Egypt. Egypt will now receive $1.3 billion in aid that was suspended after the overthrow of elected president Morsi and the subsequent crackdown on opposition.

The situation in Egypt has not changed in terms of the crackdown but no doubt the Russian aid showed the US that it was not a good idea to try to use arms aid as leverage to improve the political situation within Egypt.

The announced reason for the change in policy is the typical one that can justify anything these days, the danger of the Islamic State. The problem is that Sisi supports General Haftar in Libya. Haftar is armed forces commander of the internationally-recognized Tobruk government.

Haftar is battling not just the Islamic State but the competing government based in Tripoli which is also being attacked by the Islamic State. In other words, SIsi can use his weapons to turn the tide in Haftar's battle to retake territory from the Tripoli government.

The US and other western countries have supported the UN peace process. Haftar has sabotaged the process whenever he could. With renewed arms supplied by Egypt ostensibly to help fight the Islamic State, Haftar can carry out his mission to defeat the forces of the competing government in Tripoli.

With the release of the suspended military aid to Egypt, Sisi will receive 12 F-16 fighter jets, replacements kits for 125 Abrams tanks, 20 Harpoon missiles, and the $1.3 billion that had been suspended.

Egypt's improving relationships with Russia have also caused some tension with Saudi Arabia although on many issues such as military action against Yemen the two agree completely. At the Arab League meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el_Sheik, the two states however disagreed on the issue of Syria. Sisi urged a political solution to the conflict. Saudi Arabia insists that Assad must go, but el-Sisi stressed the need to battle terrorism and prevent the collapse of Syrian state institutions.

He is planning to host a conference of the Syrian opposition to form a unified political position on talks. This is the type of action that Russia would prefer as well.

While Egypt does not outright give support for Assad, an Egyptian official told AP that the Assad regime "must be part of the negotiations and the transitional period." The opposition members who would agree to this are no doubt few in number and any political agreement might have very little effect on the battles taking place in Syria. The tightly controlled press in Egypt and Saudi Arabia lambasted each other for their respective positions on Syria.

Egypt is obviously trying to develop its own more independent foreign policy that is distressing not just to the US but US ally Saudi Arabia as well.

Sources:
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_306481/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=DjjE3NsH
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-and-egypt-military-agreement-2015-3
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/moscow-cairo-relations-sisi-putin-egypt-visit.html
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/31/obama-restores-us-military-aid-to-egypt
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/how-to-judge-putins-trip-to-egypt

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Top Secondary School student in Egypt ignored by Government

Militant attacks kill at least 14 in Sinai Egypt

Egypt and Russia strengthen relations

Ken Hanly

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Top Secondary School student in Egypt ignored by Government

Militant attacks kill at least 14 in Sinai Egypt

E﻿gypt and Russia strengthen relations

Ken Hanly

Archives

Categories

Egypt and Russia strengthen relations