Egyptian Border Attack Fuels Anxiety

Wait for it – because it surely won’t be long. Following yesterday’s attack on an Egyptian border post in which at least 16 troops were reportedly shot dead by militants, the focus of Western attention will no doubt shift to the thorny matter of Cairo’s three-decade peace treaty with Israel. It was of course one of the main topics of debate among American and British political pundits after the fall of Hosni Mubarak. With the Muslim Brotherhood poised to seize power, many asked,...

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Getting Egypt Back on its Feet

Surrounded by shelf upon shelf of Perspex perfume bottles, all crafted into an array of voluptuous designs and gilded by gold and silver paintwork, fragrance-seller Mohammad explained what he thought of the activists who battled the security services for much of the past six weeks. “These people are thugs,” he said, from the back room of his store in Khan al-Khalili, the area of old Cairo usually crammed with tourists hunting for take-home trinkets. “We had the revolution, bu...

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