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.

As we celebrated the valentine’s day we should remember that God is the one who deserves our love. I’m talking here about the holy trinity and all attributes of the loving God for mankind. People usually show their love by working for the beloved. In fact, love is great as it belongs to heaven. It unites people and makes difference. Let’s rejoice in that day and send our best wishes to our relatives and friends even in heaven. Love increases by giving. So, let’s give generously, especially for those who have nobody to care for. Let’s offer our love to the needy, street children and the lowly.

I have spoken previously about poverty in Egypt and how the government deal with it by opulence and call the people to austerity. Today, I talk about how some international organizations see Egypt. World Bank data base indicates that the GDP of the Egyptian stock of hard currency reached $ 33.8 billion in 2015, putting Egypt in the 32 place of GDP. (World Development Indicators database, World Bank, 22 July 2016) This means that Egyptians is located in the medium-high income countries. Yet, the poverty in Egypt is because the rich receive the majority of income and are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer.

Every day in the morning we wake up very active and very hopeful. We start our day by taking breakfast, going to our work, chatting with our friends and back to home after long day of being exhausted, trying to relax and eat our supper together before time for sleeping come while watching TV. We are doing that every day, hoping and feeling that the future will be better and we believe that we will live longer to see our dreams coming true in front of our eyes. When we hear about accident here or there or when we know by chance that one we know have died, we try to feel sorry about him and say “God have Mercy on him “, God give patience to the family”, “we will all die”, also we might think little bit about repent and stop doing the bad things we were doing for a while.

Couple of years ago, President al-Sisi promised that Egypt will be a great country once again like it used to be in the past. In a study prepared by PWC, Price Waterhouse Cooper, Egyptian economy is expected to grow to be stronger than Canada in 2050. This will only happen if many reforms are carried out in Egypt to face corruption, and nepotism. These reforms can’t be carried out away from the people who should work harder and change their mind from This study is very similar to Egypt's vision 2030, which is an optimistic Sustainable Development Strategy to develop Egypt by the year 2030 that many people underestimate. All Egyptians are dreaming that Egypt will be one of the greatest nations all over the world. Thus, stop dreaming and start working.

Forced displacement returned to the scene under auspices of officials and MPs who took an oath to respect the Constitution that prohibit forced displacement. Unfortunately, most Egyptian intellectuals ignore that the majority of Christians live in Upper Egypt where 90 percent of the churches need legalization of their status, and that most of them are built on agricultural Land and don’t have even have ownership documents like most of the buildings there. According to the law No. 119 to build churches, most of these churches will not be approved by the Commission appointed by the Parliament. Islamic houses of worship will never suffer the same giving the fact that more than 150 churches in Minya are closed for security reasons which gives the Copts in these villages that they are oppressed by their government.

Like our fathers, we are very attached to our land. People from many countries traveled to trade when the Egyptians preferred to stay and plant their land. I was born in Assiut in Upper Egypt, a city that boasts Pharaonic origins. My family didn’t like traveling and especially immigrations. They almost held my funeral when I decided to immigrate. Over the years, I couldn’t forget about my home land where my heart stayed. The decision to immigrate was not easy at all, but such decision comes with a divine plan in my life.