The Spark, January 25, 2011 Responding to the invitation of the ‘We Are All Khaled Said’— 28 year-old man who died in police custody—page on Facebook, tens of thousands of people convene in Liberation Square, raising the slogan of ‘Bread, Freedom and Social Equity’, in a mass demonstration that Egypt has not witnessed since the […]

“Civilization is not just stones,” says the Karnak guard known as Uncle Abdo, who has been sitting in the same spot in front of the temple for fifty years.  At a time when some people in today’s Egypt, due to certain fatwas, are calling for these ancient statutes to be shrouded or demolished, Uncle Abdo […]

Dr. Badawi, during the transitional phase, the Constitutional Court played the winning card in the management of the democratic change process in the last year; perhaps its recent most important ruling was the unconstitutionality of the Political Isolation Law— which bans any person who served within Mubarak’s regime in the last ten years—and the law […]

Assiut Cement Plant is one of the largest in Egypt. It produces around 5.7 million tonnes a year, or about 11.5% of local production. With an area of 1,300 acres, the plant was privatized in the 1990s in the midst of the controversial privatization policy adopted by the government at the time to overcome the […]

Uncertain about the Islamists’ arrival to power, some of Alexandria’s foreigners have decided to leave for good, while others stay with reservations. The coastal city of Alexandria has long boasted an ancient cosmopolitan legacy that has embraced Greek, Yugoslavian, Italian, and other nationalities. Foreign presence gradually waned, however, after the 1952 revolution, particularly after the […]

Every day, dozens of men like forty-five year-old Ali Salama wait for long hours under the broiling sun, in hopes of a bad deal. They stand in strategic spots around Sidi Awad Square in Qalyobia City, on the lookout for a Godot, a contractor, to appear in a pick-up truck and give them work for […]