February 3, 2013 CAIRO // Two years ago, Omar Suleiman hurried out the doors of Egypt’s intelligence headquarters to an armoured Mercedes 350 and a BMW X5 idling on a ramp reserved only for the vehicles of the country’s most powerful men. Instead of sliding into the back seat of the BMW, as he had … Continue reading
January 26, 2013 CAIRO // As the world he knew was overturned during the 2011 uprising against the regime of Hosni Mubarak and the investigations that followed, Farouk Hosny sought solace in painting. Mr Hosny, 73, served as Mubarak’s culture minister for 23 years but says he is now “free as never before”, even though … Continue reading
January 23, 2013 CAIRO // Two carriages of a rusting, decrepit train part from the tracks and collide with a stationary cargo train, killing 19 young security recruits. Another train ploughs into a school bus in a village in Upper Egypt, killing 51, mostly children. An eight-storey building collapses in Alexandria, ending the lives of … Continue reading
January 15, 2013 CAIRO // The decision to retry Hosni Mubarak has prompted fears that the former president may never be held legally accountable for his alleged role in the deaths of more than 800 Egyptian protesters nearly two years ago. By accepting an appeal from Mubarak, the Court of Cassation has also opened the possibility … Continue reading
January 4, 2013 CAIRO // The Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, is walking a diplomatic tightrope with the United Arab Emirates as he weighs Cairo’s response to the arrests of several Egyptians accused of links to the Muslim Brotherhood. UAE authorities have arrested a cell of least 10 people since November, according to newspaper reports this … Continue reading
December 27, 2012 CAIRO // Egypt’s new constitution has been called the beginning of a repressive Islamist state, the greatest constitution in the country’s history and a middling document unworthy of the uprising that unseated Hosni Mubarak. It may turn out to be none of these things, but it does set the outlines for the power … Continue reading
December 7, 2012 CAIRO // Nearly two years ago, the uprising against the regime of Hosni Mubarak saw protesters from across the political spectrum – leftists and Islamists, shop vendors and doctors – fighting in the streets around Tahrir Square against black-clad riot police. They were unified in their disgust with the pitiful results of … Continue reading
November 14, 2012 CAIRO // Egypt’s corruption investigators are examining the sale of a private jet in 2011 by a business tycoon tied to the regime of Hosni Mubarak as part of a money-laundering investigation, officials say. Hussein Salem was in 2011 and 2012 convicted in absentia in several criminal cases by Egyptian courts for obtaining wealth … Continue reading
November 3, 2012 CAIRO // A consulate in Libya was stormed by men wielding heavy weaponry, killing the US ambassador and several others. Sporadic violence has erupted in North Sinai, near the border with Israel. A cache of explosives and machineguns belonging to a “terror cell” was found in a Cairo flat. Taken from the … Continue reading
CAIRO // Compared to the Arab Spring’s other toppled rulers in Tunisia and Libya, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak lived an abstemious life, his only widely known indulgence a Red Sea villa to which he often slipped away. ■ The Mubarak family’s assets ■ How an investigator unearths the assets of a corrupt regime ■ Corruption by the Mubarak regime: some key … Continue reading
