Last week I talked about the International media reporting the visit of the reality star Kourtney Kardashian to Egypt, and today I want to put a spot light on the promising numbers of the Egyptian economy published on Tuesday by the American financial company Bloomberg. The report said that Egypt’s tourism revenues rose to $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017, up from $510 million in the same period a year ago. It added that full-year receipts rose 16 percent to $4.4 billion. Remittances grew 9 percent to $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter, and rose two percent to $17.4 billion for the year.

The terrorist attacks in Europe reached 124 attacks from 2014 to 2017, which led to the death and injury of 211 people. This raises questions about the power and influence of terrorist organizations and especially ISIS in Europe where the most powerful security agencies are working. Do we deal with a situation of security or civilization? Last Wednesday, six French soldiers have been injured after a car slammed into them before speeding off in a suspected terror attack in Paris. This came days after a failure stab to kill attempt in France as well as several terrorist attacks in France killing dozens of people including children.

Bread, Freedom and Social justice was the slogan of the revolution of January 25. The people demanded their basic needs as human being which sounded fair and square at that time. However, the revolutionists didn’t realize at that time that governors of Egypt have spread false religious appearance. All those regimes since 1952 and until the regime of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 used religion to eliminate their political opposition not knowing that this brought criminals as the new leaders of absent minded herds. Since President Nasser decided to change the destiny of Al-Azhar from a central religious place to an inclusive university that discriminates against non-Muslims by preventing them from enrolling in it. Sadat took this discrimination to the next level by supporting the fanatic groups that killed him at the end.

It may be understood to have foreign plans to kill Egyptian people by terrorists who hate Egypt and the Egyptians. However, it is very hard to understand how negligence and corruption are more lethal to the Egyptians than terrorism. The Egyptian blood has been shed on the railroad tracks for a long time, and the officials are playing the blame game with their predecessors. The minister of transportation says that developing the railway will cost 2.5 billion dollars, which is less than any of our brilliant mega projects that is being carried out by the government.

After the train accident that happened in Alexandria yesterday, there is no doubt that Egypt has to review its plan to prevent the shedding of blood on our roads. Recent statistics show that Egypt has the most road accidents in the world. Egyptians have been dying every day on the road. Even more so than Sinai, that has terrorist attacks. This is proof of the severity of the situation Egypt faces now.

International media has reported the visit of the 38-year-old reality star Kourtney Kardashian to Egypt invited by her Algerian friend Younes Bendjima. She arrived in Cairo with a group of her friends and visited historic sites like the Pyramids of Giza. They rode camels, smoke hookah, and also enjoyed the north coast’s Hacienda Bay and the beaches. Kardashian’s vacation in Egypt comes to join her other lavish vacations around the world and proves once again that Egypt is both safe and fun to visit. Moreover, her visit comes at an important time for Egypt that depends on tourism as one of its main sources of income.

This article is a call for the Egyptian government to develop the income of several institution and public transportation. The Ministry of Transport and Communications can make a contract with an international advertising agency to advertise on all public transportation buses, trains and subway. The income of these ads shall be used to maintain and develop the transportation system. The ads should be beautiful and fun to look at which will be like graffiti art in the streets. Adding to the financial resources of those institutions will be of great value to the people and to the amount of subsidy given by the government to these institutions without having to raise the price of the services. Furthermore, these contracts will increase the tax resources of Egypt. It’s worth mentioning that these advertising contracts on such facilities are applied in the majority of developed and rich countries

She was born of the righteous parents Joaquim and Hannah whom were hoping for a male child like most of the people in the East. She was presented to serve at the temple, but when she became 12 years old, she had to leave. Mary was betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage when she conceived her son while still a virgin by the Holy Spirit. She suffered a lot by this birth starting with Joseph doubting she was a sinner and when she suffered the hardships of traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem to record the baby in the public census. She gave birth to the child in cowshed. Yet, she received heavenly condolences by angels who fill the cowshed.

It is a crime against Egypt and Coptic relics that made silence no longer possible. Some people who are part of the regime are full of corruption and fanaticism that they threaten the alliance of June 30 not caring about the homeland, the religion or even our history. The Monastery of Abu Al-Daraj dates back to the 4th century. It has several monuments including the well of Abu al-Daraj, which is used by the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. These monuments were documented by the Jesuit Father Maurice Martin after the discoveries of the French archeology mission in 1963 to 2005, which were published by the French Scientific Institute of Oriental Antiquities of the French Ministry of Culture.

Recently, I have read a statement from Dr. Baha Abu Shaka, Al-wafd Leader, stating that Muslims a new interpretation for the “ Quran” to be able to face the terrorism. I have tried to think a lot about this statement and I came to a conclusion that I don’t think that a new interpretation to Quran will help at all in this case. I don’t want go to more details of how new interpretation is useless and will not help. In fact, I believe that the only way to face terrorism will be through the education and create new chances and new hope to the coming generation. Egypt needs to invest in education double of what they spent in military and weapons.

Cairo University is one of the oldest and greatest universities in Egypt and its president has always been a prominent Professor. The previous president Dr. Jabber Nassar has taken some bold decision against extremism including banning the head to toe covering of women known as Niqab, and striking religion from official documents inside the university. These decisions were clearly taken to support a civil state in Egypt and cure the disease of extremism before it spreads more and more in the Egyptian body. Few hours ago, the new president of the university was named Dr. Muhammad Othman Elkhosht, professor of philosophy of religion and contemporary philosophy at Faculty of Arts. This man has called for the renewal of religious discourse, and for developing the understanding of Islam as fit to be a modern religion. At the beginning, this gave me a good impression that the man is going to support civil state in Egypt and dialogue between religions.

One of the sheikhs of Al-Azhar issued a Fatwa that saluting the Copts is a moral impurity. He cited a verse of Quran saying: O you who believe, the idolaters are surely unclean, so they shall not approach the Sacred Mosque after this year of theirs. (Al-Tawba Verse No:28). I decided to research the meaning of "moral impurity" and found that impurity is two kinds: the sensual impurity like all what was prohibited by Islamic Sharia, and moral impurity including lechery, infidelity and idolatry.

No one can deny the role of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the 1952 revolution by the free officers who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood. This revolution was used to propagate the Wahhabi ideology in Egypt by developing Al-Azhar and establishing Al-Azhar university where the study was limited to Muslims only. Moreover, the Saudi Arabia opened its doors to the Egyptian workers where they absorbed the cultural backwardness of Wahhabism and spread Hijab, Naqab, beard and jilbab. After the revolution of June 30, Egyptian government has been seeking the blessings of the clerics and worked hard to fight and resist terrorism but due to the failure of the law and the police to face terrorism the National Council to combat terrorism and extremism was established. However, the membership of the church in this council raises many questions concerning the role of the church in terrorism. I believe this membership only aims to use the approval of the church on its decisions and promote this before the whole world. Yet, this can embarrass His Holiness Pope Twadros II and the church before its congregation, especially in the Diaspora.

God has created men and women as equal human being. This emphasis the company, unity and adherence between them as the essence of humanity. Adam was created from dust and Eve was taken from his rips to be made equal to him. This equality does not cancel that both Adam and Eve had different role and function. Therefore, Christ didn t choose a woman among his disciples and messengers. Neither the apostles nor their successors have ordained women as priests. St. Peter called men to (be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life). However, women had no priestly work in the Tent of Meeting of the Old Testament.

There is no doubt that Qatar plays a role in the Middle East region since Arab spring stared and until now. What is this role and is it negative or positive role that what will try to explain in the coming lines. Since the Arab spring started, all the arb nation was thinking that this is the moment to feel the freedom and to practice it, however, few months later we found out that it wasn’t peaceful revolution as everyone was dreaming with.

Many people think that the reason behind the Qatari crisis is Tamim and his mother, but those don’t consider the economic basis of this country. It is almost the objective equivalent of Israel in the region. It is even more dangerous than Israel since it is able to collect three extreme conflicting parties on its land. It has a military base for America, and another for Turkey, in addition to the experts from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In short, Qatar has collected what the devil can’t collect by himself! The four Arab states leading the boycott against Qatar have issued a list of demands to Doha, including severing diplomatic ties with Iran and closing down the Turkish military base. Moreover, they demanded the closure of Al Jazeera, the reduction of the Iranian diplomatic representation and the expulsion of members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in addition to stop financing terrorism and terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and ISIS. However, months have passed and nothing happened.

Dr. Magdy Yaccoub is a modest loving man who is a rare heart surgeon. He gave lessons in love without preaching as Saint Teresa did. His loving heart served the people using little science and much love making him an ambassador to Christ in the work of mercy in the developing and poor countries. He established centers in several countries to treat children and to spread the love of Jesus Christ among the nations. He knows how to follow that voice of Jesus Christ that calls us to be merciful and holy (Luke 6:36) (1 Peter 1:16). Being saints is not limited to working miracles, but also to show mercy and love. Therefore, the name of Dr. Magyd Yacoub may be remembered one day as the saint of mercy.

Every time I try not to write about Nasser and what he called a revolution, the supporters of him provoke me to write about his crimes and forge the history. They claim that Nasser was poor, but they fail to explain how he paid to all singers and artists of Egypt who performed in the wedding of his daughter. Some may claim they didn t receive money for such performance, but even this proves his tyranny and dictatorship. Maybe Nasser was so powerful that he didn t need money. They claim he has built factories, but he only nationalized them and failed to run them later. He didn t plan to develop nationalized industries since he was motivated by class hatred that he instilled in the hearts of everybody. Only the Suez Canal was so important to the whole whorld that he couldn t ruin like other nationalized factories. Yet, he failed to develop and waited for Mubarak and al-Sisi to do so.

When the Egyptian constitution decided to give a positive discrimination to the Copts, the Coptic MPs should have defended the Copts and demanded their needs. Yet, those MPs failed to represent the Copts and claim their rights. The very first law that they should have cared about was the unified law of houses of worship. But they failed to pass a respectful law to protect the Copts. Instead, it became a law to prevent the Copts from building houses of worship or open the already existing closed ones.

Peace is more important than food for the world and our lives since the bible says: Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife. (Proverbs 17:1) Pope Tawadros in his sermon about peace said that sin makes us lose our peace, and this first happened to Adam and Eve. In the Old Testament, Cain killed Abel and lost his peace. This is the way the world loses peace ever since. Therefore, we have to seek peace in our hearts first and then our homes, churches and community.