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.

Before June 30th 2013, all political parties was trying to prove that they are existing and their voice was so loud in criticising and commenting in every event, however, after June 30th, I barely can hear their voice in the political life. There are many factors explain why the political parties are silent but these factors cannot be a reason to continue silent. One of these factors that the political parties don’t have the tools to make any real change as most of the parties are week and suffer from internal dispute. Some other factors related to the president Sisi himself, as they consider him the saviour after he could get rid of the Muslims Brotherhood and they believe that they can’t be opponent to the person who did this favor for them.

I don’t like revolutions or changing of regimes since the alternative will be no better. However, I was hoping we will have peaceful protests on November 11th to express our rejection of the recent economic measures taken by the Egyptian government including the loans and projects. We have to express our rejection for such political and economical practices. This has not happened and therefore, the government is allowed to move from failure to failure and from crisis to another since it knows that the people will accept those practices and will never object.

I took a taxi in Alexandria and the driver was talking very proudly about Mona, the lady of Alexandria who was recently honored by the president for her struggle to provide for her family. The driver told me that people in Alexandria love Mona and talk about her hard work and struggle. She carries bags of food and delivers them to shops. She is an example of great Egyptian women.

Dr. Taleb Refaie, secretary-general of the World Tourism Organization, said that the 104 meeting of the organization was held in Luxor, which is a strong message to tourists from all over the world to come and visit Egypt. He added that he was very impressed by the wonderful view of the Nile River and the nature and history of his country that dates back to 7 thousand years ago.

We appreciate the teachers and call them messengers. Yet, they can be messengers for light or darkness. I remember several stories related to teachers some of them are positive and others are negative. Al-Jahiz, the famous writer and author of works of literature, and philosopher who lived in the 8th century was lucky to have a good teacher. The teacher was not good at science and philosophy, by also decided to support his student when he couldn’t afford for his family. The teacher gave him a lot of money to be able to dedicate his time for learning. This was hundreds of years ago.

Finally on my old beloved laptop with my old provided word processor to write a quick note about the newly elected USA president ! Well a lot of Egyptians expected all the presidential elections in USA was just for local consumption like in Egypt for decades and decades president was assigned and people do not even had the right but to say “Yes” the “No” voters should disappear ex-president R.I.P. Sadat asked once to see those people who dared and said NO! My own neighbour a very respectful true Egyptian the son of R.I.P. ex-army officer who in his old days was being treated in the same hospital with R.I.P. Omar Soliman in the next room! I resume this True Egyptian -my neighbour- predicted HELARY CLINTON will win! I said -Forgive me God as I sin- I hope she dies before Elections!

There are many things in life are basic needs and you can’t compromise them. Water, Electricity, and Medication are things we can’t tell any person to wait for long time until we solve the issues related to these basic things. We can’t ask any children he wants go to school to wait until the water come to wash his face and brush his teeth, otherwise, he will never go to school. The same for Medication, we can’t tell elder people to wait because the medicine they want is not available, otherwise, they will die before getting this medicine. I can’t imagine that Egypt with all their potential can’t solve simple issues like providing people with water, Medication and the same with Electricity.

This week brought several surprising events and surprising reactions as well. The government in Egypt decided to raise prices of fuel which increased the already increasing prices in Egyptian markets. At the end of the week, Donald Trump won the elections in the United States of America after he issued negative statements about Muslims and immigration. I thought that the two incidents will bring gloomy faces at work and streets. Yet, I was surprised to find my colleagues still smiling and telling jokes. I think that the Egyptians tend to have such unexpected reactions in such very difficult situations. We may think like: the worst has already happened and we have faced our fears! There is no use losing our smiles as well!

Two friends were walking near the mountains when they saw a black animal from a far. One of them said: Friend, do you see that crow over the mountain? His friend replied: Yes, but it's not a crow but a goat. Couple of minutes later, the animal flew. One said: See, I told you it is a crow. The other replied: it’s a goat even if flew!

Modern methods of education include many concepts like lecture, story, examples, argument, dialogue, representation, educational situations, practical methods and development of critical thinking. However, these modern methods are not very new as Jesus Christ used them hundreds of years ago. In her article entitled “thinking skills and education" Dr. Aida Nassif tells us about the importance of development of thinking of students from the very begging instead of what is called indoctrination education! Development of thinking abilities is a bridge to flee ignorance. Therefore, our students should learn how to develop their thinking abilities in all stages.