Greek Community of Alexandria

Category: EGYPT

News about Egypt

  • Egypt wins IMO Executive Membership

    Egypt wins IMO Executive Membership

    Egypt IMOEgypt won the Executive Board membership in the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for 2016 and 2017 during the elections on Friday at the organisation’s headquarters in London.

    Transport Minister Saad El-Geioushy, who heads the Egyptian delegation in London, said Egypt’s IMO membership will have an influential role in the shipping industry.

    Egypt received 130 votes out of a total of 154 votes where it occupied seventh place after Singapore, Turkey, Malta, Cyprus, Australia, and Peru. Other countries that won membership include Indonesia, South Africa, Morocco, Denmark, Chile, Bahamas, Belgium, Mexico, Malaysia, Philippines, Liberia, and Thailand.

    Egypt’s ambassador to Britain Nasser Kamel, who is also a Permanent Representative of Egypt in IMO, said after the great victory Egypt achieved last month in the elections of the non-permanent membership of the Security Council, it succeeded Friday in restoring its seat on the Executive Board of IMO.

    He said Egypt had the largest number of votes since it began contesting for membership in the council since the establishment of the organisation. He said this achievement reflects the appreciation given to Egypt at an international level and at the shipping industry level after its success in completing the Suez Canal expansion project and launching the Suez Canal Axis Development project to serve the international maritime trade.

    El-Geioushy thanked the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its significant role in Egypt’s membership at IMO: “Ambassador Nasser Kamel exerted tremendous effort in this regard and also the Egyptian private sector in the field of maritime transport contributed greatly to Egypt’s access to this important international seat”.

    He  headed the Egyptian delegation in the Executive Board of IMO elections and also included head of the maritime transport sector General Abdul Kader Darwish.

    Egypt is the only non-member country on the board, with 40 other countries as members of the organisation. Egypt restored its membership, which was lost to Turkey in the previous session during the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

    IMO is legislative authority that accredits marine laws and agreements related to the safety of maritime navigation and marine environment. It is one of the United Nations organisations concerned with the shipping industry and issuing maritime conventions to achieve safety, environmental protection, and maritime security.

    http://www.dailynewsegypt.com

  • Greek president promises greater cooperation with Egypt

    Greek president promises greater cooperation with Egypt

    ΠαυλόπουλοςGreek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos promised stronger cooperation with Egypt, while hailing the North African country’s efforts to ensure stability in the Middle East.

    In an interview published by Ahram Arabic news website on Wednesday, Pavlopoulos outlined his talks with Egyptian President El-Sisi, who is currently on a three-day visit to Athens. Pavlopoulos said the talks have been focused on cooperation between Egypt and Greece in geostrategic, security, and economic sectors.

    Read more at: english.ahram.org.eg

  • Greece, Cyprus, Egypt to speed up talks over sea boundaries

    Greece, Cyprus, Egypt to speed up talks over sea boundaries

    Ελλάδα-Αίγυπτος-ΚύπροςGreece, Egypt and Cyprus agreed on Wednesday to speed up talks to demarcate sea boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of efforts to turn the region into an offshore natural gas hub.

    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades met in Athens to discuss how they could take advantage of gas reserves especially after Egypt this year discovered the biggest offshore gas field in the Mediterranean.

    Read more at: www.reuters.com

     

  • INTERVIEW: First Egyptian candidate ever as astronaut for a NASA-sponsored space mission

    INTERVIEW: First Egyptian candidate ever as astronaut for a NASA-sponsored space mission

    Γενικά νέαAkram Amin Abdullatif may fulfill his childhood dream of becoming the first Egyptian to travel to space, gaining inspiration from the catchphrase of his fictional childhood hero Buzz lightyear from the film Toy Story; “To infinity and beyond!”
    Born in Cairo in 1988, Abdullatif was selected in June to compete in the Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere (PoSSUM) research-training programme, which is the first manned suborbital research effort devoted to the observation of the upper atmosphere.

    PoSSUM is sponsored by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and aims to study the mesosphere layer, take samples and undergo climate research at an altitude of about 100km from the Earth’s surface.

    Abdullatif, who old was the only Arab among 12 candidates to be chosen for the for PoSSUM programme, told Ahram Online he felt “shocked” upon hearing the good news.

    If the 27-year-old finsihes PoSSUM in high ranking, he stands a chance to travel on a space mission in 2017.

    Starting in 2005, he studied communications engineering at the German University in Cairo for three-and-a-half years before finishing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Ulm in Germany.

    He then received a master’s degree in communications engineering from the University of Stuttgart.

    A fan of science fiction since his early childhood, Abdullatif decided just four years ago to follow his dream of becoming an astronaut. He studuied NASA’s handbook, finished a second master’s study in the field of space technology at the Technische Universität München (TUM), and joined Astronauts4Hire, a non-profit organisation which recruits and trains qualified scientists and engineers for the rigours of spaceflight.

    He has been working for the past five years as an aerospace engineer at the German Aerospace Centre, and studies for a PhD in flight system safety at TUM.

    Last year, he was encouraged  to apply for the PoSSUM programme following a discussion with NASA’s chief at a space event.

    “I met NASA’s chief last year in a SpaceX launch where I was presenting on an Egyptian experiment carried out through the International Space Station (ISS). I talked to him a little, and he just told me that I must keep my dream up and that I will catch it, and then it was just done,” Abdullatif told Ahram Online in an online interview.

    Abdullatif and his fellow Egyptian colleague Hanaa Gaber had won in 2014 the ISS’s Space Florida Research Competition last year for a Hepatitis C Egyptian research mission, beating 600 other applicants.

    EGAHEP, the first Egyptian microgravity protein crystal growth mission on the ISS, aims to utilise the microgravity environment to crystallise the HCV genome 4 proteins that make up the Hepatitis C virus, seeking to understand the nature and behaviour of the virus and its process of replication.

    Egyptians suffer from one of the world’s highest rates of Hepatitis C, with 15 million people – or 22 percent of the population – living with the virus.

    In October of 2015, Abdullatif started a one-week advanced PoSSUM training at NASA facilities at Florida’s Embry Riddle University. He will undergo two more trainings in the US in 2016 before waiting for the big decision.

    He told Ahram Online his Egyptian nationality was not a barrier in his career, saying he has not faced any discrimination.

    “If you work hard and you compete with other colleagues, nationality won’t be considered a barrier in [general]. But in some cases, like working for NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA), nationality might be an issue because both organisations are federal and require local citizenship,” Abdullatif said.

    His nationality may indeed affect his bid for space travel in 2017 as the selection process for candidates could be influenced by NASA rules.

    NASA offers work opportunities to international astronauts only from countries that have signed space cooperation deals with the US agency, such as Canada, Japan, Russia, Brazil and some European countries.

    NASA does not have any space agreements with the Egyptian government.

    “I’m being pushed forward all the time by my role model, my father, who was a major general in the Egyptian Air Defence Forces; he passed away when I was 14.”

    “While there are no guarantees that I’ll be chosen to fly, I’m still dedicated to reaching my goal,” Abdullatif says.

    (http://english.ahram.org.eg)