2001:
Just the beginning...


JANUARY

Fasten that belt
The New Traffic law went into effect on January 1, 2001, with fines ranging from 50 to 100 pounds being levied on those who do not fasten their seat belts. The law also stipulates that mobile phone use must be limited to hands-free headsets, and that both the driver and passenger on motorcycles must wear helmets. 

The birth of Arabic rap
Illiterate ironing man Shaaban Abdel-Rehim made quite a ruckus with his little ditty, I Hate Israel. Nearly every foreign media operation must have covered this story at some point over the year.  We featured intense coverage of Shaaban, interviewing him, and even putting out a little book about him. Dardasha, meanwhile, also had something to say about Shaaban's sudden rise to fame.

FEBRUARY

Facing the storm  
The first Arab feature film about the Gulf War, El-Asifa (The Storm) is a well-made saga of an Egyptian family torn apart by the conflict. Directed by Youssef Chahine protegee Khaled Youssef, the film made the rounds of film festivals around the world, and won a Special Recognition Award at the 2000 Cairo International Film Festival. It stars Youssra, Hisham Selim, Sami El-Adl, Hanan Turk, Hani Salama and Mohamed Nagati. 

MARCH


Sainbury's out, Metro in
After a drawn-out struggle, British supermarket chain Sainsbury's closed down its Cairo branches, while another foreign chain, Metro, began expanding. In any case, the supermarkets, featuring new shopping concepts for
Egypt, such as prepackaged fresh meat, fruit, vegetable and cheeses, began to make waves amongst local merchants and the traditional "baqal" grocer. 

Searching for links
Despite the global dot-com
bust, the mood was upbeat at a large Arab IT conference that brought together industry professionals, government officials, and international business and IT luminaries. The conference established an Arab IT forum to coordinate on IT policy between Arab states, as well as an Arab IT fund to invest in the industry. Read cairolive's interviews with IT leaders Scully, Tabaza, Upson...

APRIL

To peg or not to peg
All year long, the pound continued to struggle against the dollar. The peg went from its half-decade stance at 3.33 to a rapid 6 month uphill climb to its current LE4.50. Dardasha first dealt with this issue here -- and we're sure to not hear the end of it anytime soon.

Rocking the Nile
Global musical giants Sting and Herbie Hancock had separate concerts in Cairo. Jazz guru Herbie also had a word with cairolive. The Sting show was an interesting merge of cultures, and featured a not-so-pleasant problem with Egyptian singer Hakim. 

Pyramid debate
Featuring Zahi Hawass, Al-Wafd and Safinaz Kazem, an increasingly surreal debate began taking place, over who can and cannot visit the Pyramids. The gist was that during public holidays, totaling eight days a year, Egyptians would only be allowed to visit the Pyramids from the new entrance on Fayoum Road, and only foreign tourists would be allowed to use the traditional Mena House entrance.

MAY

The Maher-Moussa dynamic
A new era in Egyptian and Arab foreign policy began on May 15 -- Amr Moussa replaced outgoing Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel-Meguid while Ahmed Maher replaced Moussa as Egypt's new foreign minister. As the Palestinian intifada continued to intensify, the difference in style between the two men would become a hot topic of conversation from then on out, for both insiders, and the man on the street.

COMESA summit
Pumping up inter-African trade was the order of the day at the COMESA summit which took place in Cairo. Commenting on private sector complaints that were still a lot of kinks in the information networks meant to ease regional economic cooperation, Egyptian Foreign Maher said, "Don't judge things on the short term. This is a new experiment for Egyptian businessmen, so inevitably there will be problems." The foreign minister said he had seen tangible enthusiasm on the part of the private sector.

JUNE

Burying a legend
Suad Hosny, one of Egypt's most famous actresses, was buried at her family's burial ground in 6 October city, after thousands of mourners jam-packed the streets around Mustafa Mahmoud mosque in Mohandiseen to bid the late
actress farewell. The circumstances surrounding her death -- the result of a plunge from a high-rise balcony in London -- are still being investigated.

JULY

Winners and losers
Although Egypt's national soccer team took the country on a roller coaster ride of hope and despair that ended without a qualification to the 2002 World Cup, the under 20 soccer team was taking the youth World Cup by storm. They ended up as the third best team in the world of youth soccer. Meanwhile, the World Military Soccer championships, which were taking place in Cairo around the same time, ended with the hometown team -- Egypt -- first in the world. It was the third time Egypt had won the championship, meaning the cup will stay in Cairo permanently. 

AUGUST

Healthy summer cinema
No less than eight Arabic movies were released over the summer, most of them doing quite well at the box office. An increase in the number of available screens, as well as a slight attempt to break the silly comedy mode, showed that maybe there was some hope of an Egyptian cinema revival after all.  Two examples -- Friends or Business and Days of Sadat.

SEPTEMBER

September 11
The devastation that changed everything... Cairolive, like most media, went into overdrive with its coverage and commentary on the events shaking the world's foundations. Sample stories included: Why they love us (civil liberties on the wane), Why Afghanistan doesn't make Rolexes (Muslim countries under construction), A tale of two talk shows (War TV domination), A Global Inferno (a look at what Heikal had to say), Praying for peace and moderation (Arab Americans in the middle), The smoking gun? (Images becoming way too powerful), and our first few dispatches in September

Summing it up
This item, posted on cairolive as the bombs rained down on Afghanistan, says it all:
UPDATED 11 PM Cairo time Sunday, October 7, 2001  Breaking news
US and UK strike Afghanistan...
This is not a war against the Afghan people or against Islam, Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld assure the world...
Al-Jazeera broadcasts footage of bin Laden and his inner circle denouncing the US attack, and calling on all Muslims to defend themselves against US attacks.   
The United States and the United Kingdom have begun their air attacks on Afghanistan. There have been reports of attacks on Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad, but no details have been released.   In their addresses to the world, US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld all deny that this is a war against the Afghan people or against Islam as a religion.   As evidence they all mention that humanitarian assistance - food and medicine, etc, -- is being dropped onto the country along with the bombs. 
In an interesting reversal, CNN and Western networks have become dependent on an Arab satellite channel, Qatar's Al-Jazeera channel, for much of their footage of this war.
The world watched as CNN aired Al-Jazeera's footage of Osama bin Laden and his inner circle, accompanied by a poor translation of bin Laden denouncing the US attack, and calling on all Muslims to defend themselves against US attacks. 
The immediate reaction: How many will die as a result of the attacks?  
Who gave bin Laden the right to speak for Islam?

OCTOBER

Azhar tunnel
It finally opened -- and that's when the controversy was set to begin. An ambitious plan to direct traffic under the treasure trove of antiquities in Old Cairo, the new tunnel is part of a plan to turn the area around Al-Azhar into a pedestrian-only zone. It is also part of the overall plan to solve the city's traffic problems, which included an interesting connector between the 6 October and 15 May bridges

NOVEMBER


Ramadan in flux
Was Ramadan overshadowed by September 11? This was one of the issues covered by cairolive. We also looked at the continuing commercialization of the holy month. 

DECEMBER

Victory is sweet
The year ended on a happy note for soccer fans, as Egyptian clubs champions Ahly took the African clubs championship after a 3-0 rout of South Africa's Sundowns in Cairo. The hat trick was scored by Khaled Bibo, and capped a great year for Ahly, who also beat global giants Real Madrid in an earlier friendly.

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