Posts Tagged ‘North Africa’

Visiting Leila Menchari’s garden in Tunisia

An Hermès exhibit to honor Leila Menchari and my journey to her beloved garden in Tunisia

The late Omar Sharif in a magazine called Alive

I remember Omar Sharif best for a 1997 interview in a forgotten magazine in Cairo

The cultural destruction of war in the Middle East

My beloved Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo may not be a total loss but much is elsewhere


The ancient theater in Sabratha, Libya

Anarchy in post-Gaddafi Libya sends me into storage to find photos I took on my trip there in 2004

How I got to Libya one month after the embargo was lifted

Ten years ago the US lifted its embargo on Libya. I landed a month later. It was complicated

Sisi builds his regime

Joshua Stacher explains the violence and repression in Egypt


My favorite museum in Cairo damaged by a car bomb

Terror attack on Egyptian police HQ badly damages the Museum of Islamic Art, an overlooked marvel

98.1% of Egyptians vote for the Sisi constitution

By comparison, Mubarak only claimed 88.6% of Egyptians voted for him in his last election in 2005

Two constitutions, one triumph

Tunisia got it right with their new constitution while Egypt reverted to old authoritarian habits


Interview with History by Oriana Fallaci, 1976

Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci lost the plot at the end but she was a wonder in her prime

Was the coup in Egypt even necessary?

Morsi might have been forced from power anyway, but the military short circuited that

Draft articles of impeachment for Morsi now

Even elected leaders can lose their legitimacy; Egypt needs a legal statement to that effect


My twenty years in Egypt

My first trip to Cairo was in 1992. Here are some thoughts on how it has changed

Rendition and torture: how it happened

Everyone knows by now that the US and UK tortured captives. That should still shock us

If you missed the Egyptian royal family…

A film made by the Egyptian royal family about a coup d’état that was lost for nearly sixty years


The embassy mobs and Obama’s ‘failure’ in the Middle East

Is Obama’s policy in the Middle East in ‘epic collapse’? Hardly. But serious people have doubts now

Latest in the battle over the Mohamed Mahmoud mural

The New York Times blog The Lede picks up the battle over street art in Cairo

The amazing mural on Mohamed Mahmoud that was just painted over

What a loss for Cairo, artistically as much as politically


In a first, a new dictionary of ancient Egyptian colloquial

The language was on the Rosetta Stone but the dictionary is only now being published

How the US is playing into the hands of the Salafiyeen

The US just told the Salafiyeen they have the power to affect aid talks. Big mistake

Tracking how the Egyptian government is doing

Before the revolution, Egypt had no politics. Now it does, and the small things matter


Pay no attention to these anti-American protests in Cairo

I was in Cairo 48 hours ago: there is no great wave of anti-Americanism right now

Espresso glasses, Fes, Morocco, 2008

A triumph of quotidian design from the medina in Fès

The Egyptian Angel of Darkness passes away

For the US, Omar Suleiman was ‘our man in Cairo.’ That only makes it worse