Solid Candidate creates Excitement in Egypt

As President Mubarak returns to Egypt after his latest health crisis a new face is on the scene. Mohamed El Baradei who is internationally famous as the head of the IAEA has returned to his homeland and is seeking to replace Mubarak. His candidacy is stirring up great excitement and we can only hope that democracy will prevail. There is a little debate going on in Egypt as to who is the most well known Egyptian. My own thought is Omar Sharif but perhaps my wife has colored my thinking! Here is what the Egyptian Chronicles had to say. Enjoy the video.

Cairo-A Vulnerable Mega-City?

Almost 8 years of my Foreign Service career were spent in Egypt. It holds many great wonders and I found the Egyptian people to be warm and generous. For the most part they were also pro-American even though our support of Israel often gets in the way. I have followed an Egyptian blog for several years and I have mentioned before that I don’t always agree with it’s contents but I do admire it’s editor. She did a piece today that sardonically reports that Cairo is listed in a report about 7 mega-cities of the world that have severe economic problems and as aconsequence could be a threat to global security. I understand her frustration with the present government of Egypt but I have not seen any viable alternative. There is a fair amount of support for the Muslim Brotherhood which has been officially outlawed in Egypt but I believe that the election of any government with a religious base would be “out of the frying pan into the fire.”


Whatever party is in charge the fact is that unless and until Egypt can manage its population growth there is little chance for improving the lot of average Egyptians. I first spent time in Egypt in 1954 and the population at that time was around 23 Million. Today it is 73 Million! I believe the Egyptian government promotes birth control practices but based on the statistics they obviously are not very effective. Egypt does not have that many natural resources and this kind of exponential growth is unsupportable. Rather than just simply wishing for change of leaders I believe that the young activists could accomplish more by supporting practical programs such as birth control.

Internet Access around the World

As our world continues the Technology Revolution many totalitarian countries are trying to restrict internet access and even here in the United States there are elements within the current administration that would like to curb bloggers and other media that are critical of President Obama and his administration. In light of this  I am very pleased that the U.S. has spoken out about the restrictions being placed by China. It will give our own free speech advocates and media ammunition should the congress proceed with its attempts to revive the so-called  "fairness doctrine." See the article here

We already know how the difficulties faced by bloggers in Iran but Egypt is also trying to intimidate its very large blog population. Go here for some comments and follow on to an incident in Upper Egypt where five Christians were murdered on Christmas Day.Happily the U.S. State Department has also protested the incident according to the Egyptian Chronicles