I had a chance to study in the United States of America in 2009-2010. It was a distinguished grant that turned my life upside down. I studied media production and graphic design and took them as profession after I had spent years working as journalist. However, when the grant was over, I decided to go back to my homeland in order to be with my family and share all good and bad things with them. At that time, rumors spread among the Copts in America that the Muslim Brotherhood were about to take power in Egypt. I simply said that if my family has to suffer under such autocratic regime, I will be suffering with them out there.

Tomorrow, Egypt will open the new Suez Canal Project, which was funded by the Egyptians hoping for better future for their children and for Egypt. Thus, they were able to collect more than 60 billion Egyptian pounds (US$8.4 billion) in just one week to fund the project. The chairman of the Suez Canal Authority announced that the revenues from the Suez Canal would jump from 5 billion dollars to 12.5 billion dollars annually boosting the hard currency earnings for the Egyptian national income.

Pope Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of St. Mark See, has been recently receiving increasing criticism and attacks from several people including his spiritual sons. Two weeks ago, a group of attendees of his weekly sermon started talking loudly at the beginning of the sermon. Arguments quickly broke out among attendees before the Pope cancelled the sermon. The protest has been based around restrictive personal status laws. On the next week, the pope surprised everybody by his decision to cancel the meeting for three years. Wednesday's weekly meeting at the cathedral was the last until 2018, Pope said. Of course, this was linked to the criticism he had received by some people of his congregation. This raised many questions as well as the anger of many Copts. They demanded the Pope to cancel this decision and deliver his weekly sermons as usual.

After long debate with homosexuals, United States of America has legalized same-sex marriage. Such marriage is not acceptable by most Muslims, Christians and Jews; however, passing a law for gay marriage in America was easier than passing a unified law for building houses of worship in Egypt. For years, Coptic Christians have been suffering discrimination based on religion in their own country. They faced several hardships each time they decide to build a new church. Such suffering is likely to last for years before they are able to build a new church and perform their prayers.

At the anniversary of the revolution of June 30, Islamists in Egypt promised several terrorist attacks in Egypt. One day earlier they killed Egypt's general attorney and one day after they carried out several attacks in Sinai killing dozens of civilians and soldiers. Several countries condemned the attacks, but it was a silly joke to hear that the US embassy in Cairo has issued a statement condemning the assassination of Egypt's prosecutor-general Hisham Barakat on Monday, describing it as "heinous terrorist attack". "The United States steadfastly stands with Egypt in the fight against terrorism," said the US embassy. It's known that the CIA gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and breastfed his organization during the 1980_s. Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that Al Qaeda was unquestionably a product of Western intelligence agencies. Mr. Cook explained that Al Qaeda, which literally means an abbreviation of “the database” in Arabic, was originally the computer database of the thousands of Islamist extremists, who were trained by the CIA and funded by the Saudis, in order to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan.

Today is the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, which is celebrated by Muslims worldwide, but in Egypt is celebrated by both Muslims and Christians. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Prophet Muhammad according to Islamic belief. This annual observance is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The month lasts 29–30 days based on the visual sightings of the crescent moon, according to numerous biographical accounts compiled in the hadiths. It’s clearly an Islamic religious occasion,

I had this discussion with a retired police officer who was talking about discrimination in Egypt based on religion. I said that writing the religion in the national ID card is a dangerous tool to define and target Coptic Christians in Egypt. The man defended the importance of this information on the national ID card assuring that this is very useful to decide where to bury dead people whose families are unknown, whether in Muslim or Christian tombs! Indeed, he was defending the right of the dead to be buried properly! Yet, he forgot that some living people among the Copts don’t have the right to live in their homes at all. This is true with several Copts whom are expelled from their homes for no reason excep

I met with many atheists in the United States of America, and was surprised to find the words "In God We Trust" on its banknotes, which was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956. I’ve always wondered which God they mean or accept if many of them don’t really believe in God. Finally, I found it responds to mercy and tolerance rather than any other God or religion. In the Middle East, we have so many religious people that the Egyptian people for example are generally called “religious people”; however, we are losing many beautiful human values and morals including mercy and tolerance, and left those morals and values for the atheists to adopt and apply since they have mercy by nature and apply them away from written commandments.

After ISIS had released a video showing the beheading of the Copts that were kidnapped in Libya, many people denounced the brutality of the extremist group. However, it should be known that the Coptic Church has presented too many martyrs across the history. Coptic years are counted from AD 284, the year Diocletian became Roman Emperor, whose reign was marked by tortures and mass executions of Christians, especially in Egypt. Hence, the Coptic year is identified by the abbreviation A.M. (for Anno Martyrum or "Year of the Martyrs"). The A.M. abbreviation is also used for the unrelated Jewish year (Anno Mundi).

I know that many people all over the world are interested in the Egyptian history and antiquities. However, most of them don’t even know that Christians represent 10 - 15% of the Egyptian population. Therefore, they don’t know to what extent the Copts are being prosecuted in their home country, where they are pretty much ranked as second degree citizens and are discriminated against through writing the religion in the identification card.

Public transportation in Egypt is a good place to chat with people you don’t know, learn more about their lives, and even to fight with them. Couple of days ago, I took the bus. Suddenly, I heard some people arguing about losing Sinai for the