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Egypt's economic crisis poses a threat to basic nutrition in the country of 84 million people where the poorest spend more than half their income on food, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday. WFP country director Gian Pietro Bordignon's warning underscores one of the main challenges facing President Mohamed Mursi's government as it grapples with an economic crisis caused by two years of instability. "The economic crises are putting more and more people in a very risky situation," Bordignon told Reuters in an interview. "The situation is deteriorating and has to be tackled right now because it's a very risky trend." He added that the problem was not availability of food, but people's ability, especially the poor, to pay for it. "There's no lack of food. There's lack of money for the families to buy food. It's a matter of economic access to food," Bordignon said. "One of the risks of the economic downturn is that there could be in the future less availability of food." The poverty rate in Egypt climbed from 21 percent in 2009 to 25 percent in 2011 - the year Egyptians overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising that was partly fueled by economic grievances. Another 20 percent of the population lives near the poverty line, according to the World Bank. Reuters More : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/11/us-egypt-food-idUSBRE93A0WM20130411
Egypt’s 25 January Revolution produced few economic benefits for the country’s poor even though they were instrumental in overthrowing the old order.
The Muslim Brotherhood has other economic priorities, including pushing measures that further economic liberalization in Egypt. Given the Egyptian media’s focus, it might be difficult to believe that Egypt’s 25 January 2011 Revolution was not one of the educated middle class. On the TV screen, these shiny young faces appear on talk shows, portrayed as the leaders of the revolution.
But 28 January 2011’s “Friday of Anger” belonged to the marginalized who – using the tricks they learned in their daily battles with the state apparatus in the slums – were able to defeat the police forces. Regardless, the media see the revolution differently: “This is the revolution of dignity and not of the hungry,” they say. This discourse paved the way for state repression of social demands. It even reached a point where the media began depicting Egypt's working class– those that bolstered the revolution’s ranks with its mass mobilizations – of deliberately aiding the counter-revolution through strikes that hurt the economy. (...) Post-Revolution, Little Help for the Poor Even before the revolution, experts close to the ruling National Democratic Party saw signs of unrest rooted in growing poverty. This was clear in the First Investment Report: Towards a Fair Distribution of the Fruits of Growth prepared by the General Investment Authority in 2009, which warned of sharply rising poverty rates. More on: http://www.albawaba.com/business/egypt-economy-unemployment-479976
Two years since the revolution, residents of low-income districts have little to celebrate. On a recent Friday, coppersmith Alaa Moussa parked himself in the same spot where two years earlier he had stood defiantly with a handwritten banner addressed to then president Hosni Mubarak. His petition that cold February morning in 2011 had listed the key demands of Egypt’s 18-day uprising: “bread, freedom, dignity”. His new message for President Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood reflected the growing desperation among the nation’s poor and unemployed. It simply stated: “bread, bread, bread.” Moussa, a father of three from Cairo’s ramshackle Ramlet Boulaq district, says he joined the uprising against Mubarak because he believed the dictator’s fall would end the suffocating corruption and government repression that blocked all paths out of poverty. It did not, and the disillusioned artisan says his hope of a better life for his family has been crushed by the stark economic realities of post-revolution Egypt. “We hear promises every day, but we never see any improvement and things are much worse now than under Mubarak.” In the two years since the uprising, Egypt’s battered economy has taken hit after hit. Political turmoil and labour unrest have shuttered factories, forced layoffs, and scared away tourists and investors. Economic growth has slowed to a crawl, while foreign reserves have withered to critically low levels. The small workshop where Moussa once fashioned ornamental brass lamps is closed, its owner having absorbed months of losses before laying off his six employees. Some have found jobs in other workshops at a lower salary. Others are still looking.(...) “Since the revolution, employers are reluctant to hire,” he says. “You work for a few days, then get laid off, and start looking for work again.” (...) Twenty-seven year old Ramy Shahin was working in an American company before the 2011 uprising. He now drives a taxi, earning about 120 dollars a month after expenses. With his second child on the way, he worries about rising living costs.
Evidence abounds that Egypt's political elite, both within and outside of its ruling Muslim Brotherhood, aren't engaged with the issue that brought them to power. Egypt's political elite continue to fail their people. They are failing to empathize, they are failing to speak to the public in a way that makes them feel they're being listened to, and they're failing to craft approaches to turn around a dangerously listing economy. Egypt's current economic and social problems have no easy fixes, and would confound an all-star team of political leaders. But compounding those problems is the fact that President Mohamed Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood, and the security forces – who are seen by the public as dangers to be avoided rather than keepers of the peace – are out of touch with the struggles of the nation's poor. Their attitude veers between amusement, disgust, and contempt, and all of them were on display when, while answering questions in parliament earlier this month,Prime Minister Hisham Qandil was asked about Hamada Saber, a middle-aged laborer who was caught on film being stripped naked, beaten, and dragged through the street by police in front of the presidential palace on Feb. 1. Mr. Qandil managed, in very few words, to unintentionally outline how estranged Egypt's leadership is from the working classes when he launched into a set of unfocused comments that seemed to place responsibility for poverty squarely on the backs of the poor while sidestepping the issue of police mistreatment of Mr. Saber. The poor, who may not be well-educated but aren't stupid, are well-aware of this contempt among the political elite – one reason so many average Egyptians say that what they wanted out of the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak was more "dignity." So far they're not getting it. (Dan Murphy/The Christian Science Monitor) More : http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2013/0219/Egypt-s-political-elites-and-their-estrangement-from-the-poor?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co
Reports that Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi recently sent his family and friends on an expensive vacation that consisted of a private jet ride to the Red Sea resort town of Taba and the booking of 12 rooms at the Hilton has caused outrage in country, battered by an ongoing political and economic crisis.
For over a week, street fighting has raged between Egyptian police officers and demonstrators. Increasingly willing to turn violent, the young protestors are often poor and feel abandoned and oppressed by the state.
Egypt’s 25 January Revolution produced few economic benefits for the country’s poor even though they were instrumental in overthrowing the old order. The Muslim Brotherhood has other economic priorities, including pushing measures that further economic liberalization in Egypt.
More than 16 million people out of a population that has exceeded 80 million currently live in Egypt’s slums, most of which are based in the Greater Cairo metropolitan area.
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Des heurts avec la police ont éclaté à l'issue d'une manifestation ce dimanche 7 avril au Caire. Des milliers de personnes ont scandé des slogans contre le pouvoir islamiste après les funérailles de quatre Coptes. Des chrétiens d'Egypte tués au cours de violences confessionnelles survenues vendredi soir dans le gouvernorat de Qalyoubia, au nord de la capitale. Hier déjà, plusieurs villes égyptiennes ont été le théâtre de violences. A l'occasion du 5e anniversaire du Mouvement du 6 avril, l'opposition hostile au président islamiste s'étaient mobilisée. Au moins 8 personnes ont été blessées. Le pays vit une période de grandes turbulences sociales. Les Egyptiens sont inquiets, à la fois par la situation économique dégradée du pays et par le programme d'austérité que réclame le FMI. La grogne, le mécontentement gagnent du terrain en Egypte. Depuis un an, les prix de la viande, du poisson, des produits laitiers, des pâtes n'ont cessé d'augmenter. La farine et le sucre de plus de 50%, les concombres et les pommes de terre de 100%. Et pour de nombreux Egyptiens qui vivaient des mille et un services rendus aux touristes, l'heure est au chômage et au désoeuvrement. Car la plupart des tour-opérateurs ne viennent plus en Egypte. Résultat : la misère gagne du terrain dans ce pays où des dizaines de millions d'Egyptiens vivent depuis toujours dans une grande pauvreté. Selon le rapport annuel du Fonds des Nations unies pour la Population, 23% des Egyptiens survit avec moins de deux dollars par jour. Et pour ne rien arranger, partout le diesel manque, de nombreuses stations d'essence sont fermées, ce qui a pour conséquences des coupures de courant, des transports perturbés et beaucoup de chômage technique en ville mais aussi à la campagne où les agriculteurs manquent de carburant pour faire tourner leurs tracteurs.
Evelyne Herber / Arte Journal Plus : http://www.arte.tv/fr/tensions-sociales-et-grande-pauvrete/7440292.html
As soon as I landed in Cairo, I could feel the heaviness of life, economy, politics and breath. It didn’t take long for the first Egyptian to blurt out that things were “better under Mubarak’s dictatorship than they are in the Muslim Brotherhood’s lair.” A slew of similar observations followed, mostly from poor people like a taxi driver who told me he sometimes works all day long to barely avoid sending his kids to sleep hungry. Not that life was much better before, but now they are “unbearable,” he said as he asked god’s forgiveness for wishing death over “this life of indignity!” After spending a few days around Cairo the reality sinks in: Egypt is at a dangerously boiling point only waiting for a major explosion to occur, and its people are on edge. We’ve seen the danger and insecurity in the streets where knife-wielding gangs break into groups. The outcome can be anything between intimidation and threats until they’re paid off to leave or beating and even killing. In other places, an intimidation of a different kind: Thousands of street vendors relentlessly and hopelessly pushing products to uninterested people.
A little girl fighting to make ends meet
In the midst of despair, I heard a girl’s voice threatening a male, “Get your hands off me. I’ll beat you up and break your arm if you touch me.”
I was shocked to find a little girl single-handedly fighting off a large man wanting to beat her up. This is no place for an unaccompanied minor to be fending off harassment, the kind Egypt has been plagued with for decades and much older and stronger women are trying to fight with hardly any success at all. For the sake of this piece, I will refer to 9-year-old as Rajaa and I won't disclose her location to protect her identity.
Wishing for a better future
She clung to me for hours; we talked a lot during my journalistic assignment, before she herself became the subject of this column. Around me, she was polite, kind and smart. She shared her dreams and wishes: If she had 50 Pounds (about $8), she would buy a toy and sell it to a passerby. More on: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2013/03/26/Egypt-s-future-in-a-brave-little-girl-s-hands.html
Egypt has enough money for three months' supplies. What then? Egyptians suffering deprivation and strife over the past two years have revived the original slogan of the 2011 uprising, “Bread, freedom and dignity”.
While revolutionaries in the streets continue demanding “freedom and dignity”, workers with and without jobs simply cry “bread”. Hassan, a chef, says costs are rising “day by day. I used to give my wife 400 [Egyptian] pounds for shopping for two weeks. Now we buy the same amount of food for 800-1,000. “For two years we have bought no clothes,” he says. His eldest daughter, aged 24, is an elementary school teacher. The youngest, at 17, is still in school. Hassan’s wife keeps refilling a prescription obtained from a doctor two years ago without returning to see if she still needs the medication because the family cannot afford another consultation. Hassan, who lives in Helwan outside metropolitan Cairo, has to travel an hour and a half to get to his job. “The metro [ticket price] is the same but the bus fare is higher,” he says.
“Many factories have closed in Helwan,” once famous for its steel works, “and many people have lost their jobs.” Ahmad, a driver and father of two, complains of the rising cost of diesel, petrol, and cooking gas, and long queues at service stations. He has a son at university and another at school. Fees are backbreaking. More on: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2013/0211/1224329906137.html
Reports that Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi recently sent his family and friends on an expensive vacation that consisted of a private jet ride to the Red Sea resort town of Taba and the booking of 12 rooms at the Hilton has caused outrage in country, battered by an ongoing political and economic crisis.
Earlier this week, an official at the Taba resort told the Egyptian newspaper, Almasry Alyoum, that Mursi’s family arrived on Wednesday.
The official also said Mursi’s family reserved 12 rooms at the Hilton Hotel, which overlooks the Red Sea, and in addition to the Mursi clan wives of officials from the Freedom and Justice Party came to stay.
Egyptian screenwriter Wahed Hamed on Sunday spoke out against the alleged luxurious vacation.. Hamed, in remarks published in the Egyptian daily Al-Shrouq, asked who was paying the bill for the 12 reserved rooms.
“The country is poor, and the [rate of hunger] increases every day. Mursi’s [financial] resources do not allow these huge expenses. And since when has Mursi’s family traveled via a private jet?” he added.
Almasry Alyoum reported the president’s family, as well as the others who accompanied them, returned to Cairo on Saturday afternoon, on a private jet.
An official at the Smart Aviation Company said expenses for the flight per hour costs 6,000 U.S dollars. The official added that the total cost encompasses the time from when the jet was prepared for travel and until it lands at its destination.
Radwan Salam, head of the Smart Aviation Company, said he did not know who rented the jet which Mursi’s family boarded, Almasry Alyoum added.
During an interview with the channel An-Nahar on Saturday evening, Hamed, the Egyptian screen writers, acknowledged that Mursi’s wife, Najlaa Mahmoud, may have “nothing to do with politics.” But she “must look at the poor citizens.”
Reports on the alleged expenses of the vacation were also not well-received on the social networking website Twitter. One user tweeted: “I thank all the respectful citizens who paid the price for the Taba vacation.”
Another wrote: “All of this is from the citizens’ pockets.”
News of the president’s family’s vacation comes during a week of deadly clashes, which killed at least one leaving up to 48 people injured. On Friday, heated demonstrations kicked of riots between security forces and protestors in front of the presidential palace.
The clashes came amid anti- Mursi rallies in several cities following the unrest that killed 56 people, mostly in Port Said. Residents and families of 21 residents sentenced to death over a football-related riot in 2012 sparked the recent turbulence in the country.
Hands caked in plaster, hammers scattered at his side, Yousry Abdelaziz toils away almost forgotten in a workshop at the edge of a shantytown that echoes with gunshots and the hollers of boys peddling cabbages in the middle of the night. The car mechanic next door is faring no better, even with his new marketing gimmick, a sculpture of mufflers and silver pipes twisting like fingers into the sky. A man has to try something to call attention to his business as the inflation rate rises, the Egyptian pound tumbles and sparse ingredients make subsidized bread as thin as paper.
Ramadan Khalaf Amin, 24, a microbus driver who earns the equivalent of $4.50 a day, is one of the myriad faces of the Egyptian revolution the world does not know.
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