I have been watching for a long time the struggles of the Coptic youth movements, especially Maspero Youth Union. I realized that Copts, as a major component of the Egyptian nation, were able to contribute in all Egyptian revolutions (1804, 1882, 1919, 1952, January 2011 and June 30, 2013). Not only they sacrificed their lives and participated in all wars of the Egyptian armed forces, but also sacrificed their churches and properties that were attacked by supporters of the terrorist organization after the dispersal of Rabaa Adawia and Nahda sit-ins. However, their sacrifices did not bring them full citizenship in their home country for many reasons. The church and the Patriarch have represented the Copts instead of their actual presence. Since the founding of the first General Congregation Council in the ninth century, only two councils were completed. Many conflicts between the clergy and the laity deprived the denominational boards its effectiveness. Many secular Copts have been trading on their presence in the General Congregation Council and all official occasions.

I can’t understand why. But maybe I shouldn’t be asking “why” but asking “how.” How are they so happy? How do have this joy that fill a room? Is there some kind of secret that I don’t know about? I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe the key to joy is not in what happens to us, but how we happen to life. Does that make sense? Not so much, right? Think of this: the most impoverished people are the happiest people. Tragedy hits everyone equally, it does not discriminate. In one way or another, you will face disasters in your lifetime. So maybe since heartbreak is a known factor in the equation of happiness, we need to change a different variable, which is our attitude.

American movie star Will Smith arrived to Egypt on Sunday morning with his family for a short visit while the megastar Amitabh Bachchan will be attending the Luxor African Film Festival in Egypt this month. This should mean that Egypt is safe now and is open for tourists as such visits promote tourism and support foreigners’ visits to Egypt. Smith chose to visit the Pyramids with his family while Bachchan will be accompanying his wife Jaya Bachchan and daughter Shweta Nanda to visit Luxor, which has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-air museum", as the ruins of the temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city. Immediately opposite, across the River Nile, lie the monuments, temples and tombs of the West Bank Necropolis, which includes the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.

An Egyptian journalist has written an article on Sunday, February 26, entitled "Calling ISIS infidel is a matter of national security"! in which she talked about killing Copts in Arish. However, she called Al-Azhar to call ISIS infidels instead of calling police and army to protect the Copts as Egyptian citizens. The writer thinks that facing ISIS as political, social, economic and military phenomenon is limited to “calling it infidel”. She believes that Al-Azhar has a magical ability to cope with ISIS only by calling it infidel. The political struggle with a suspect organization created by western intelligence agencies is taken by the writer as religious conflict. We hate what is done by ISIS even if they are believers! In fact, the battle with ISIS should depend on exposing its bad ideology and criminal record.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been calling for nearly three years on Al-Azhar Sheikhs to develop the religious discourse, but they didn’t. In fact, Sheikh of Al-Azhar is responsible for Al-Azhar religious and educational institutions. Therefore, he is responsible for developing and changing education curriculum that incites violence and terrorism. Changing the wrong concepts of the graduates of Al-Azhar who work in all state institutions, especially the Ministry of Education, Interior and Justice.

As some of our MPs are calling to legalize virginity check on university students and non-criminalization of female genital mutilation, the Egyptian women are supposed to fight for their freedom like their mothers did many years ago. Egyptian women should remember «Merritt Nate» the first queen to take control in history, Khentkaus, Queen of Ancient Egypt during the 4th dynasty. They may also remember Nitocris, the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt's Sixth Dynasty, and Sobekneferu, the Egyptian woman reigning as pharaoh after the death of her brother Amenemhat IV. Hatshepsut was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt and the second female pharaoh in history. There were other great female rulers in Egyptian history like Nefertiti, Nefertari, Cleopatra and Shajar al-Durr that modern women should be proud of.

Yes Egypt my home I was born on its earth and drunk from its Nile my parents were buried in its land I love Egypt! I've seen lots of its news proud with the efforts El Sisi and its crew are doing to improve our lives, financially, health efforts, and social efforts briefly our daily life! I do apologize for missing my weekly article, last week I feel like I did miss an important meeting but I was traveling no way6 to be on time in that meeting and right now I have to meet you all happy to be there but I have to leave you all as I do have difficulties with the Internet that comes and goes at its own choices no way to control it so I do have to end my article keep it short and brief so I do not miss this week meeting! May God keep blessing Egypt and EGYPTIANS Peace of the Lord be upon you ALL!

Let’s paint two pictures. The first, a family that has a roof over their heads, food in the fridge, money in the bank. The second, a family that is struggling to find food, who lives in poverty, not a piaster to their name. These are very basic pictures, because as you know, each family faces many obstacles in their lifetime. Going more in-depth, we could factor in family issues, self-fulfillment, serious illness, death, mental diseases, tragedy, and the list can keep on going because this life is filled with the absolute best and absolute worst situations anyone could encounter. One minute you could be happy beyond belief, the next minute you could be completely devastated, through no fault of your own, but simply by living.

The Cotton Egypt Association CEA is the sole representative for the registered trademark logo and licensing program to protect Egyptian cotton’s heritage of luxury. CEA estimates that 90% of products carrying the Egyptian Cotton label are not genuine. Target company in the US is offering customers millions of dollars in refunds after discovering that it sold fake Egyptian cotton sheets. The sheets were manufactured by Welspun India, a global textile company that's a key supplier to many US retailers including Bed Bath & Beyond, Walmart, JCPenney, and Macy's.

What happened to the Copts in Arish should not be surprising for anybody, giving the previous attacks against them for more than five years. ISIS has described the Copts as the "favorite catch", but the state didn’t move until several people lost their lives.

As the Egyptian armed forces is waging fierce war against Takfirists in Sinai, terrorists of ISIS have killed six Copts in two weeks taking the number of killed Copts since 2012 to 16 martyrs. This caused panic among them and therefore they decided to flee to Ismailia just like they did in 2012 when a leaflet was distributed giving the Copts 48 hours to leave Rafah or else they would lose their lives. Two Coptic priests were shot dead later. "The state of the Sinai" has always declared its responsibility for the attacks. Such attacks have always been an introduction for forced displacement, which threatens national security of Egypt. I have written five articles about that topic since 2011. El-Arish was founded by Muhammad Ali in 1810 before he faces its very first rebellion in 1831 against his policy to recognize the right of the people in Sinai to own the land. From 1831 to 1950, there were 14 rebellions against the government by people of Sinai.

Copts are the descendants of the pharaohs and the origin of this country. They spread all over Egypt and believe that their land was blessed by the baby Jesus during his visit to Egypt. Those Copts are now facing forced displacement as they are targeted by ISIS in Sinai just like ISIS target Police and army. 8 Copts have been killed in recent weeks by the terrorist organization leading hundreds of Copts to flee Sinai to Ismailia leaving their homes, jobs, and schools. It was painful for them to see local and international media ignoring their suffering.

Recently, Copts have been forced to leave their homes in Arish because of the threats they face. 6 Copts have been killed by the Islamic State in Sinai. This is not the first incident to happen against the Copts, and not the first time for them to be forced out of their homes and community. However, I want to point out that this displacement in Sinai is not only from terrorism. It's also as a result of authorities agreeing with the general public that forced displacement in Upper Egypt is appropriate. Forced displacement of the Copts is not just an isolated incident, it is something that happens often when Muslim people want to force their rules on others including the law and the legislation. This serious situation, as I mentioned and written many times earlier, will not be solved by security measures only, it needs more efforts than that. As long as our children keep getting the same education in schools and mosques, calling for Muslim kids to hate others because they are "infidels" we will continually be dealing with these types of incidents in Egypt all the time, and in alot of places. When you plant seeds in chilren to hate others becuase they are Christian, don't except to have angels when these children finally become adults. Unfortunately, Sisi is still running Egypt with the same old rules and same old approach. The president still hasn't recognized that Egypt is in need of a new and creative approach that not only comes through security measures. In conclusion, I want to call for the Pope and for all Christians to pay attention to their brothers and sisters who have become displaced lately, and to do their best to help, where possible, in this horrbile situation.

International media was talking on February 21, 2017 about the visit of Lionel Messi, the famous Argentinean football star who signed with the Egyptian program TOUR N’ CURE to be its ambassador. He came at the face of an initiative to promote the North African country as a medical tourism destination for hepatitis C patients. The program offers hepatitis C patients, from all over the world, with an effective and affordable treatment package.

A German philosopher once said that Asian people have the future pointing out that they were going to progress soon, which already happened to South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Korea has large industrial progress, while Hong Kong has very good average per capita income comparing to other countries. Taiwan depends on small industries.

Since Islam entered Egypt in the seventh century; Egypt never had pure civilian rule. It is known that Amr ibn al-Aas did not come to Egypt preaching Islam, but as an invader hoping to seize its wealth. However, religion has been playing a major role in the Egyptian daily life ever since. We can say that imposing the tribute achieved the goals of the invader at that time. Many Copts decided to convert into Islam to get rid of the jizyah, but the governors decided to make them pay less amount of money in order to keep the taxes. For decades, extremism varied in Egypt according to the personality of the ruler. The family of Muhammad Ali Pasha put efficiency above religion in recruitment which led his government towards a civil state. Copts under the Egyptian kingdom were allowed to take senior positions in the cabinet.

I have written in several articles about the important role of media to influence and shape public opinion. However, Egyptian media is owned by a number of rich capitalists and some agents who receive foreign funds to implement certain agendas. Private televisions use media mercenaries to implement their agendas. Therefore, it became very hard to define TV presenters as many of them pretend to know the truth or claim they feel for the people. Talk show programs appeared in a unique format in Egypt where you can find many TV presenters talking for hours though they have not even studied media in some college. Most of them are merchants, actors and ignorant people. However, they never allow their guests to talk much before they are interrupted.

Being away from Egypt is usually a problem, I can no more follow Egypt news! While in Manchester I had a few choices Greece broadcasting and Cyprus closely related to Egypt do not forget Alexandria was built by Alexander the Great who took down Persian civilization of his time! So both channels will talk of Major events happening in Egypt but that is not enough I get ESC broadcasting or channel 1, and once again that was not enough to keep me updated of Egypt's news!

Lately, the US dollar had declined by 3 Egyptian Pounds, which lead everyone to believe that the government was right when it made the deceison of floating the Egyptian Pound against the US dollar. But we need to ask this question before becoming optimistic or pessimistic: is this decline real? Will this decline continue? And, what does it mean? From my opinion, the decline of the US dollar is not real and it will not last more than 3 to 4 months maximum, and the reason I say this is because nothing has changed in the Egyptian economy to improve the situation of the Egyptian Pound against the US Dollar. Let's take tourism for example. Egypt is still suffering from a lack of toursim and tourists who can bring and spend US dollars. By this way, Egypt can get more dollars than they need, consequentially, the Egyptian Pound will then gain more power to face the US dollar. In conclusion, I want to emphasize that I hope that this decline in the US dollar is real, however, I don't think this is real and I expect that in 3 to 4 months we will be talking again about the soar of the US dollar against the Egyptian pound. If we want the US dollar to have real decline against the Egyptian pound, we need to work hard to get more US Dollar through more exports or decrease our import and be self independent.

If you are among the people seeking positive news in Egypt, you will be glad to hear that US dollar decline against the pound and registered 16 EGP especially as the dollar declined against the pound at unprecedented rates since the flotation on 3 November 2016, to hit EGP 16.00 on Tuesday compared to EGP 19.50 mid-December 2016. Those who stored the dollar are heading to the banks to sell their stock before they lose their profits as economists are advising to not buy dollars in the coming period, because they expect its further decline in the short term.