Copts have been raised on the idea of accepting martyrdom as martyrs enjoy superior rank in their church. Therefore, the Coptic Church has offered thousands of martyrs throughout its history. Those martyrs were simply victims of tyranny or fanatics who don’t like their faith and want to get rid of it forever. Copts refused to abandon their faith and therefore they were brutally tortured and killed. Copts have always accepted such suffering remembering the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Holy Bible in which he said: “yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service”

The Arab countries are facing waves of conspiracies and threats including those by Iran and threats to their oil industry. Yet, the thirty-seventh session of the summit of the leaders of the six Gulf states was held under the supervision of Great Britain and in the presence of its Prime Minister Theresa May who declared that the security of the Gulf states is security of Britain. The Arab leaders should not forget about years of occupation by the British Empire when they rush to meet with the British Prime Minister and talking her presence with excessive pride. Such interest comes by the Saudi Kingdom after America has changed its policy toward the kingdom and issued Justice against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that considers the Saudi Kingdom a sponsor of terrorism that should compensate the victims of terrorism billions of dollars. This coincides with the new policy embraced by Donald Trump that will not be very friendly with them. The Muslim Brotherhood will be considered a terrorist group and the Iranian threat against the Saudi Arabia led the kingdom and several Gulf countries to ask for help from Israel and took the British ally that still supports the Muslim Brotherhood. In return, Britain will gain a lot of money from the Gulf countries that will also purchase military defense systems. This is their alternative to the agreement of joint Arab force sponsored by Egypt knowing its importance to the Arab security. However, Saudi Arabia prefers it English - Israeli.

First, I offer my sincere condolences to the martyrs who shed their pure blood as a result of the vicious terrorist act that targeted the Petrine Church in Cairo.

The bombing of the Saints Church in Alexandria was not planned by Egyptian police simply because they don’t know how to plan. They only know how to torture and kill their unarmed victims. They do so because they don’t know how to interrogate and follow the perpetrators. Instead, they annoy human rights activists and monitor their accounts on Facebook. The lawyer demanding the rights of Magdy McCain was arrested and sexually harassed while she was blindfolded, and later police called the terrorists cowards! The recent terrorist attack at the Coptic Christen Patriarchate proved police are good-for-nothing. Those who are supposed to protect the churches don’t really believe they are important. In fact, they can’t protect the churches since they can’t even protect themselves. They are failing because of their arrogance, negligence and lack of power.

The terrorism attack that happened recently against the Church of St. Peter, located inside the Coptic Cathedral shows us, that without a doubt, the Copts have a history, and are a living history, of sacrifice. Martyrdom is something the Coptic people have gotten used to since the time Islam invaded Egypt. Before that, it was the Roman Empire who considered Christians as rebels. This terrorism attack not only shows the teachings of hatred in schools and mosques, and how it leads to disasters such as these tragedies, but also shows that unless Egypt takes serious steps to eliminate these insulting teachings towards other religions we will continue down this road. This attack aslso shows how the police is so careless about protecting the rights and freedoms any Egyptian Christian should be able to practice.

Talking about the prices in Egypt, everybody will say that prices are increasing in Egypt and the people are suffering more and more. However, these are not the prices I meant in the title. The prices that are going down in Egypt are the prices of the workers. The floating of the Egyptian pound caused the prices to increase, but such increase was not reflected on the wages. The US dollar prices jumped from about 8.5 LE to about 17 LE. This means that the wages are cut off by 50%. The worker who earned 3000 LE was receiving about 353$ per month couple of months ago. Now, the same worker receives about 176$ per month. The workers who work for the minimum wages of 1200 LE are now receiving 71$ per month instead of 174$ couple of months ago.

The Gulf, which I mean in this article, is not the Arabian Gulf, but the Gulf of Suez with the tremendous petroleum discovery of an English company working in the Gulf of Suez. The new oil mount Includes reserves of two hundred and fifty million barrels that should be ready to go very soon. The discovery gives extra hope to the suffering Egyptian economy, and adds to the Egyptian precautions of gas and oil to unprecedented levels. We may not only stop importing gas and oil, but we can also start exporting them.

As everybody expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidential elections in America, God had another plan to change the world destiny. Therefore, Donald Trump won the elections to be the 45 president of America against all expectations. This came after Egypt made a miracle by overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood in June 30. Yet, America has gone mad to lose its terrorist arm in Egypt, and to break its plans to divide the region. The United States increased its plots against Egypt and used media to spread rumors and reduced the financial aid. On the other hand, this has not achieved their goals and the Egyptian state became even stronger. The Egyptian people were united against such plots and the army became more powerful. The Egyptian president kept his relations with American officials and started new era of relations with countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. He imported weapons from different countries and restored security in Egypt and waged a fierce war against terrorism supported by America in Sinai.

St. Paul invited the people in (1 Corinthians 16: 13) to Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Furthermore, it is translated in the Arabic version to be strong as men. This means to be courageous and brave. Such courage disappears several times in hardships. For instance, Adam blamed Eve for eating from the tree.

I have talked many times about the culture of hatred that Egyptians have. I don't believe that Egyptians are peaceful people, contrary to what the media is trying to proclaim. There are many things that have happened in the last 2 decades that has made Egyptians very violent and hatefull of everything.

As time passes and people keep blaming ex-president Mubarak for all the misery Egyptians still suffering from; Very poor people; corrupted police officers, military forces still helping around no one else capable to solve those problems? Should it be the Army? Well the collapse of Education system was it Mubarak's fault? Our new respectful parliament that all they could do is prosecute R.I.P. Naguib Mahfouze or call all university girls “Whores” and they can not see the degradation in male's attitudes and more is it still Mubarak's fault? Long time ago when the King was still a King in power, he had a parliament that its members refused to be pawns in a chess board they refused the British occupation and was the 1919 revolution Saad Zagloul was expelled not by the King but by the occupation British forces but history did open all doors to him!

Egypt was elected for a five-year term in the 34-member International Law Commission of the UN General Assembly on Friday. Ambassador Amr Abu Atta, Egypt's permanent delegate to the United Nations said that this election reflects international confidence in Egyptian competence and expertise, particularly in the field of international law. 11 candidates from Africa competed for the membership, but the Egyptian candidate Ambassador Hussein Hassouna won 146 votes while he only needed 97. Egypt is getting better relationships with Africa and the world, and therefore, we should stop claiming there is a conspiracy against Egypt and should start working hard as this is the only way to progress. I wish Egypt and its Ambassador Hussein Hassouna the best.

Leaders of the major powers are keen on planning and consider it crucial for their countries and peoples. They use all means to make such plans work for the benefit of their countries and people. Consequently, the Arab countries suffered from a Zionist American plan known as the “Arab spring” Such plans started many years ago, and the Muslim Brotherhood was used to make the plan work. The MB came in power and they decided to sell the Egyptian land in Sinai and divide Egypt. Yet, God saved Egypt by its great son, president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who supported his people and nation from such evil schemes. However, the enemies of Egypt refused to see the massive demonstrations of 33 million Egyptians calling for the overthrown of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian people are very familiar with torture and insulting for thousands of years. They were occupied by several countries, ruled by kings who were overthrown in the revolution of July 23. For years, security services tortured the people decided to reject such insult and torture in the revolution of January 25, 2011. The regime was overthrown but the people couldn’t be very optimistic as human rights in general as well as the rights of the minorities were violated as usual. Once again people are tortured and insulted in police stations even if they are innocent!

The over reaction to the visit of Abba Makarious, Bishop of Minya, to family of the Coptic man who was killed in police station Magdy McCain in order to offer his consonances in Magdy’s death was very strange to me, especially as the Coptic MP Nadia Henary was there offering her sincere condolences as well. In fact, I didn’t find any official reactions to Coptic clergy against any torture incidents. No religion supports torture, but church has always tried to keep pace with the regimes though they never stopped violating rights of the poor, women and Copts.

Well as much as I'm happy to write to you (Egyptians or whomever reads my weekly articles) I'm truly sorry for the absence of updated news of Egypt in my exile abroad yes I'm in exile since ex-president Nasser -a former Muslim Brotherhood member- decided Egypt was an Arab country its main religion is Islam, and with all due respect to all religions COUNTREIS Never had a religion! Moreover when ½ my family -the Greek side- was still in Egypt I would feel Christmas coming way before the 25th of December -or the 7th of January which ever is right- there was a Greek / Egyptian tradition that children and grown up children will go around in the neighborhood to well known Christian houses and sing about Father Christmas coming and offering presents!

The U.S. has come out with a report listing the safest Middle Eastern countries to visit for tourists. Among this list were Jordan, UAE, and our very own Egypt. What I want to focus on is this fog that is floating around Egypt clouding everyone from the downturn the country is actually encountering.

The famous football player Lionel Messi signed with the Egyptian program TOUR N’ CURe to be its ambassador. The program offers hepatitis C patients, from all over the world, with an effective and affordable treatment package. The Egyptian latest initiative in medical tourism offers the opportunity to treat hepatitis C with the most recent, advanced therapies worldwide with no waiting time. Moreover, the treatment package offers patients the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of Egypt and visit historic landmarks during the days of the treatment. They will be staying at a nice 5-star hotel.

During the days of Mubarak, police used to leak images of torture and abuse of defendants in police stations in order to create a state of panic among the citizens and fear the police. They were able to create a psychological barrier between the people and the police that many of them preferred not to walk near police stations to avoid getting in troubles. The peak of their tyranny was reached few months before the revolution of January 25th, and many videos and photos were published by social media activists for similar attacks. Now, I wonder if the killing of Magdy McCain is repeating such practices and building such psychological barrier. This idea may be supported by the arrest of head of the Journalists Syndicate in Egypt as well.

The Egyptian citizen Magdy McCain was killed by people who were supposed to protect the rights and dignity of the Egyptians. The social media proved the negligence of normal media that refused to show the case to cover up for the regime especially after the killing of the Italian citizen Rogini. The case of McCain proved that the Ministry of Interior returned to its practices before the revolution of January 25 by torturing the poor citizens and even killing them. Media, sponsored by businessmen, attacked the family of the victim and spread false information about him in order to save the police officer.

His Holiness Pope Tawadros has started a project to train 1000 church leaders in order to empower them to teach and lead the congregation. They were trained to use the Bible, liturgy, church history, the writings of church fathers and church laws. The training included topics like Coptic identity and Coptic art. The project is divided into three levels to be implemented over three years ending in 2019. The first level started at Mary Land in Shorouk city from September 23 to October 14, 2016. Five groups from all over Egypt received training over topics like the Holy Trinity, Church unity, the priesthood, and the Coptic identity.