Author: Athanasios Koutoupas

Egypt Hosts Five Million Refugees: Foreign Ministry

Egypt’s Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Hisham Badr told European Union Members of Parliament (MEPs) that Egypt now hosts five million refugees and migrants from across the region.

Blaming the EU-Turkey deal for an increase in the number of refugees arriving in Egypt, Badr said that pressure has increased on Egypt to accommodate for refugees and to prevent others from attempting the dangerous crossing to Europe.

“You see what has happened as a result of the deal with Turkey. The closing of the Balkan route and the deal in north Africa, the pressure has increased on Egypt,” said Badr, according to the EU Observer. The EU-Turkey deal saw the EU provide billions of dollars in aid in return for Turkey stopping the flow of migration to Europe and accepting refugees.

Badr also told MEPs from the foreign affairs committee that it had prevented more than 5,000 people from crossing the Mediterranean in recent months, including 400 people just days ago.

“We will continue of course to do our jobs and bear our responsibility without trying, unlike certain other countries, to bargain with that for other reasons,” said Badr, adding that Egypt spends $US 300 million a year as a result of the refugee crisis.

Badr also revealed that there are currently 500,000 Syrians seeking refuge in Syria.

“We are not getting enough support. I don’t want to mention any examples with a country bordering you, which has got 6 billion dollars in help,” continued Badr in reference to Turkey.

Along with Syrians, Egypt hosts hundreds of thousands of Somalis, Eritreans, Sudanese, Libyans, and more.

(egyptianstreets.com)

September 8, 2016
Egypt to hire private companies to clean, manage and secure Giza pyramids area

Egypt’s government has decided to hire private companies to manage, maintain and secure the area around the Pyramids of Giza, the Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.

A meeting took place on Tuesday between Prime Minister Sherif Ismail and officials from the housing ministry, the tourism ministry and the antiquities ministry, during which the government announced the details of the pyramids development project, stating that a company has already been hired for EGP 5 million a year to maintain cleanliness the area.

Another company has been hired for security, and a third will be chosen for management.

The government also announced that it will increase tourism police in the area and will coordinate with the interior ministry to rebuild a nearby police station, as well as either renovate or relocate a hospital in the area.

Egypt has been struggling to revive its ailing tourism sector, which has suffered greatly after the political instability that followed the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The number of tourists visiting Egypt dropped by 41.9 percent in July compared with the same month last year, the state’s official statistics authority announced last week.

The crash of a Russian flight in Sinai late last year was yet another blow to the tourism industry. The number of tourists coming to Egypt dropped by 50 percent in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year, according to Egypt’s Tourism Authority.

Russia was among several countries to suspend passenger flights to Egypt after the crash, which killed 224 people on board. The crash was claimed by Islamist militants who said they planted a bomb on flight.

(english.ahram.org.eg)

September 8, 2016
Bookshelf: Walking in Athens with Constantine Cavafy

Renowned Greek poet Constantine Cavafy was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on 29 April, 1863. A cosmopolitan by birth, Cavafy travelled for the first time to Greece in the summer of 1901, accompanied by his brother Alexandros. His stay in Athens constitutes the topic of a new book entitled Walking in Athens with Constantine Cavafy.

Wandering through Athens with Cavafy is a fascinating experience. Readers will have the chance to discover that, despite the fact that it’s been over a century ago and with dramatic changes have taken place in the capital, the city centre has preserved the broad outline of its physiognomy. The urban grid, shaped like a large symmetrical triangle and dating from the time of King Otto (mid 19th century), is still the city’s most obvious trait, while the large public buildings that remain attractions adorning the city would have also been seen by Cavafy at the time.

The map that is attached to the publication has, among other things, the intent to introduce the reader to this dual path between the Athens of today and the Athens of yesterday, the one described by Cavafy. The game of comparisons will be a further element of discovery for the curious traveler willing to experiment. To see Athens with Cavafy’s eyes and compare it with their own experience of the modern city, will give an unexpected force to the reader’s Athenian experience, to discover a city of many faces, simultaneously the cradle of ancient civilization and a modern Mediterranean capital.

The book has been another yet venture of Enzo Terzi Publishing, a publishing company active since 1989. The publisher’s move to Greece in 2008 helped to strengthen the knowledge of an unknown literary world to the general public and the rediscovery of many texts that, until now, were the domain of strictly academic production and research. This led to the idea of disseminating works and authors that are often of high literary value but also rich in themes and languages that constitute a reservoir of pleasant, easy and fun reading that is also suited to a wider audience driven by simple curiosity.

ETPbooks work in three languages: Italian, French and English markets, where many of the titles to be proposed have never been published. This is the case of the works of Yannis Maris, the founder of detective stories in Greece, and of Theodore Prodromos, the first among the Byzantines to use popular Greek (dimotiki, i.e. the vernacular form of the Greek language), who among other things, wrote the hilarious “War Between Cats and Mice” to be launched next summer.

It should be noted that Cavafy was introduced to the English-speaking public in 1919 by his friend E.M Forster, who used translations of selected poems by George Valassopoulo, while numerous translations followed over the years. Given that Cavafy never published a poetry collection in book form and opted instead for publishing them in newspapers, periodicals and annuals reaching thus a much wider audience, his international appeal, attested by the multiplicity of its translations, would not come as a surprise to the poet!

(www.greeknewsagenda.gr)

September 8, 2016
Greek volunteers awarded top UN humanitarian honour for efforts with migrants and refugees

A Greek human rights activist and a Greek volunteer rescue team – Efi Latsoudi and the Hellenic Rescue Team (HRT) – have been jointly awarded this year’s Nansen Refugee Award for their efforts to aid refugees arriving in Greece during 2015.

“Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict and persecution last year made the desperate bid to reach Europe in search of safety, many risking their lives in unseaworthy boats and dinghies, in a journey which all too often proved insurmountable,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said in a news release on the win.

“Both the Hellenic Rescue Team and Efi Latsoudi refused to stand by as they witnessed the dramatic humanitarian situation unfolding on their shores, and are fully deserving of the Nansen Refugee Award,” Mr. Grandi added. “Their efforts characterize the massive public response to the refugee and migrant emergency in Greece and across Europe, in which thousands of people stood in solidarity with those forced to flee, and the humanity and generosity of communities around the world who open their hearts and homes to refugees.”

According to a news release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), since 2007, Greece has been challenged by the arrival of a large number of refugees and migrants, but in 2015 sea arrivals escalated to an emergency. On the island of Lesvos alone, numbers topped 500,000 last year. In October 2015, arrivals peaked at more than 10,000 per day, as conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq continued to uproot people from their homes.

“For many refugees, the heroic humanitarian efforts of Greek volunteers in 2015 went well beyond pulling survivors from the seas, they helped them to take the first steps towards a normal life,” UNHCR noted in a news release.

“During 2015 the HRT conducted round-the-clock operations to save refugees and migrants in distress at sea and Latsoudi showed compassion and care for the most vulnerable refugees arriving on the island of Lesvos through her work at PIKPA village,” the UN agency added.

The Nansen Refugee Award recognises outstanding service to the cause of refugees and displaced people, and was first handed out in 1954 – Eleanor Roosevelt was its first recipient and other awardees since then include former refugee Hawa Aden Mohamed of Somalia and Sister Angélique Namaika of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is named after Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the first High Commissioner for Refugees at the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations.

(www.un.org)

September 8, 2016