The world of Short Movies and Theater in Egypt

My audio feature discusses the importance and path of theater and short films here in Egypt and how they are portrayed to the society nowadays, and its history

Children’s perspectives on child well-being

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) through its reporting framework for nation states has prompted increasing interest on the measuring and monitoring of child well-being. The domains and indicators included in the repertoire of country measures of child well-being have mostly been constructed and monitored by adults, usually social scientists and government officials. This study explored children’s own understandings of children’s well-being. Sixteen focus groups were conducted with 200 children between the ages of 9 and 16 years. The study identified protection and safety, basic needs, community resources and psychosocial issues as the key domains of well-being. The study further highlighted the importance of perceiving well-being as an integrated whole consisting of closely interacting components rather than as a discrete multidimensional phenomenon

Corruption, revolution and settlement: An Egyptian story for resolving investment disputes

في عام 2011 ، أصدرت المحكمة الإدارية العليا بمجلس الدولة المصري سلسلة من القرارات التي اعتبرت المحكمة بموجبها خصخصة بعض شركات القطاع العام ومِن ثم نقل ملكيتها إلى مستثمرين أجانب باطلة، وذلك بسبب عدم صحة إجراءات المناقصات والعطاءات والممارسات الفاسدة التي شابت هذه العمليات. كما اعتبرت المحكمة مواد التحكيم التي تضمنتها هذه العقود لاغية. وخلال هذه الفترة، دفعت الأجواء العامة التي صاحبت ثورة 25 يناير 2011 الرأي العام في مصر إلى الترحيب بهذه القرارات التي اُعتبرت حينئذ دليلاً على انتصار الإرادة الشعبية على النظام القديم الفاسد. إلا أن هذا الاتجاه أثار قلق المستثمرين الأجانب حيال الأمن القانوني ومدى الاستقرار الذي تحظى به استثماراتهم. وعليه، فقد أقرّت الحكومات المصرية اللاحقة مجموعة من الإجراءات التشريعية التي استهدفت طمأنة المستثمرين وتعزيز النمو الاقتصادي. وشملت هذه الإجراءات إمكانية التصالح في الجرائم المالية أو الجرائم التي تمس المال العام، كما حظرت هذه الإجراءات على أي طرف ثالث الطعن في أي عقود استثمارية عامة أمام المحاكم الوطنية. وفي عام 2015 ، أُدخلت تعديلات جديدة على قانون الاستثمار تأسست بموجبها لجنة وزارية جديدة أُنيطت بها مهمة تسوية المنازعات الاستثمارية. ومما سبق يتضح أن السلطتين التشريعية والتنفيذية كانتا حريصتين على ضمان سلاسة الإجراءات الخاصة بتسوية المنازعات الاستثمارية خارج مظلة التحكيم. ونحن في هذه الورقة نحاول تقييم الإجراءات المختلفة التي تم إقرارها في القانون المصري ومن ثم تحليل علاقتها بالتحكيم سواء باعتبارها عملية تكميلية أو عملية منافسة.In 2011, a series of decisions were rendered by the High Administrative Court at the Egyptian State Council in which the court considered void the privatization of a few public companies which had been transferred to foreign investors due to the invalidity of the procedures of tendering and bidding and the corrupt practices accompanying these transactions. The court also considered null the arbitration clauses inserted in these contracts. During this period, the climate of the Egyptian revolution of 25 January 2011 pushed public opinion to welcome these decisions as a sign of popular victory against the old corrupt regime. Yet, this trend made the foreign investors anxious about the legal security and the stability of their investments. Accordingly, the subsequent Egyptian government introduced a variety of legislative measures to assure the investors and to boost economic growth. These measures included the possibility of conciliation in financial crimes or crimes affecting the public fund and also forbidding third parties from challenging any public investment contract before the national courts. In 2015, new amendments were introduced to the investment law establishing a new ministerial committee to settle investment disputes. From all the above, it is clear that the legislative and executive authorities were keen to secure smooth procedures to settle investment disputes outside the umbrella of arbitration. In this paper, we try to evaluate the different measures introduced in the Egyptian law and analyze its relation with arbitration whether as a complementary or competing process

A systematic review of children’s construction of the self: implications for children’s subjective well-being

This research aimed to systematically review academic literature focused on how children construct and assign meaning to the ‘self.’ An article search and appraisal yielded 38 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Within these articles, six central thematic categories emerged as the key influences on children’s constructions of the self. These include multidimensionality, discursive practices, socio-environmental conditions, oppression & marginalisation, culture, and social support. The study highlights the multidimensional and fluid nature of the self and emphasises the self-concept to be mutually influenced and supported by an individual’s immediate social networks, socio-environmental resources, and internal processes. A child’s ability to meaningfully construct a sense of self was associated with higher levels of coping and resilience and improved well-being. The review provides considerations for increased interventions aimed at improving child well-being which must take into account the unique ways in which children construct and assign meaning to the self. Such interventions should be inclusive of the individual and contextual issues influencing a child’s self-constructions, including coping skills, structural challenges and proximal economic and social resources.IS

When the Sphinx awoke : an eye witness account of Egypt’s revolution

The one duty we owe history, said Oscar Wilde, is to rewrite it. Egyptians have done so twice in as many years – in 2011 and again in 2013. Here is my account of what happened. Now that our youth have freed my country, memories, emotions, incidents keep returning. For the sake of my grandchildren and their generation, I will try to recollect my impressions about those wondrous events, how they developed, their highlights, their low points, and their climax. My other objective is to explain to a wider audience what really happened. It is 2011 and Tunisia has already shed its dictator. The date of 25th January had been set for our uprising, well in advance, to coincide with the National Police Day. The protesters’ “Day of Rage” centred on the reign of the police state and its role in helping the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) monopolise political life. Police intervention included the rigging of election results, the systemic rampant arrests without warrants of political activists, torture in police stations and prisons, and the manhandling of protesters, especially their sexual assaults on female demonstrators. The protesters had three main demands: the resignation of the Interior Minister, Habib El-Adly, a term limit of two on the presidency, and an end to the 30- year state of emergency. At the height of the demonstrations, on 2 February 2011, Professor Marjorie Cohn, an authority on torture, published a study, citing the 2002 US State Department’s report, which stated that Egyptian detainees were “stripped and blindfolded; suspended from a ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beaten with fists, metal rods, or other objects; doused with hot or cold water; flogged on the back; burned with cigarettes; and subjected to electrical shocks... forced to strip and threatened with rape”.1 President Hosni Mubarak’s much-delayed arrogant speeches inflamed the situation. The government’s cosmetic reforms and slow response to few of the protesters’ demands led them to realise that the only option left for change was wholesale regime change. Slogans in Tahrir Square changed accordingly to “Bread, Freedom, Social justice, Human Dignity” (`Aish, Hurreya, `Adalah Egtema`eyah, Karama Insaniyah). This white revolution triumphed over 30 years of tyranny that Egyptians were subjected to, by a combination of the vision, technological expertise and perseverance of the youths, in addition – crucially – to the armed forces’ tacit endorsement of their demands. When we worried that the demonstrators would suffer from exhaustion, or that the protests could fizzle out, a number of events outraged public opinion – one came to be called “the battle of the camel”, on 2 February. A British paper’s disclosure that Mubarak had transferred abroad billions of dollars he had swindled, stoked their anger further. Wael Ghoneim’s public breakdown in tears, on a TV channel, moved people. He had just been released, after being arrested and kept blindfolded in solitary confinement for 12 days, shortly after the protests began. The Egyptian Google manager in Dubai and online activist had attracted the government’s wrath for launching a Facebook page in tribute to his cousin, Khaled Said, tortured and killed by two under-cover policemen, in broad daylight. The demonstrators marched shouting “Selmeyah! Selmeyah!” (Peaceful! Peaceful!), waved our flag, and sang the national anthem in unison, “Biladi, biladi” (My country, my country). As they converged from Cairo’s various areas towards Tahrir Square, they appealed to the housewives on balconies to join them, and asked passers-by and shopkeepers to do the same. So, the crowds kept streaming to the square over the following days, and never lost their courtesy and humour. For 18 long days, those who remained at home like me held their breath. But then, I have never been good at protest rallies. A few years ago, my friend Dr Afif Safieh, the former Palestinian ambassador to London, Washington and Moscow, called me, “an intellectual guerrilla”. I am still doing what I do best for my beloved Egypt: support – and garner support for – the legitimate fundamental rights of the people

Actin reorganization is involved in vasoactive intestinal peptide induced human mast cells priming to fraktalkine-induced chemotaxis

We recently reported a novel neuro-immuno co-operation between vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and fraktalkine (FKN) in recruiting human mast cells to the asthmatic airway that provided a classical example of priming effect on mast cells migratory function, but the role of the F-actin in human mast cell chemotaxis’ priming is poorly defined. Therefore the aim of this study was to further investigate the biophysical role of the cytoskeletal element; the F-actin, intracellular reorganization and its polymerization in mast cell priming of chemotaxis function. In the present communication it is shown by immunofluoresence confocal microscopy analysis that physical F-actin intracellular reorganization in a membrane bound manner on human mast cell is involved in VIP-induced priming of human mast cell chemotaxis against FKN. The F-actin reorganization was calcium independent and without modification of its contents as assessed by fluorescence-activated cell scanning analysis. These results identify a novel role for the biophysical association of F-actin in the crosstalk between neuro-inflammatory mediators and mast cells and may be an important target for therapeutic modalities in allergic inflammation

N-Methyl­isosalsoline from Hammada scoparia

The title compound (systematic name: 1,2-dimethyl-6-meth­oxy-1,2,3,4-tetra­hydro­isoquinolin-7-ol), C12H17NO2, is a major alkaloid isolated from Hammada scoparia leaves. It belongs to the isoquinoline family and it was characterized by NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallographic techniques. The absolute configuration could not be reliably determined. An intermolecular O—H⋯N hydrogen bond is present in the crystal structure