Economy:
- Some ways they are doing well and others they are not
- How there economy works:
- Tourism (who wouldn't want to see the pyramids?)
- Tourism is a big part
- Oil, natural gas, manufacturing
- Sets up a lot of jobs and money
- Government is making the money not the people because the government owns them
- Agriculture- 3% arable land 68% desert
- Cotton, corn, rice, wheat, fava beans
- The old pattern of dealing with the Nile {akhet (inundation), peret (land emerges from the flood), and shomu (water is short} has been changed since the 1970 building of the Aswan High dam
- Control water and where the silt goes to by dams
- the dam controls the flooding of the Nile, and increases the amount of reclaimed land
- Area behind the dam turned into a manmade like and told the people they had to leave their homes because that's where the dam was going to be (in 1970)
- Because of the dam is not as clean and the soil is stuck at the bottom
- Dam is a big part of their economy
- 79 million people- biggest population of the Middle Eastern nations, third biggest African country (#1: Nigeria, #2 Ethiopia)
- Cairo: 6.7 million (metro: 19.4 mil)
- NYC: 8.3 million (metro: 19.0 mil)
- People cluster around the Nile
- Official language: Arabic
- English, French, and German are also taught to some
- Religion: around 90% Muslim
- most of the rest are Christian (Coptic)
- There are major conflicts
- Egypt is 12th in religious violence
- 5th worst for religious freedom
- Usually Muslims beat the Christians
- They don't know if the religious violence will get worse or better, since their president resigned
- China's worse than Egypt, but Egypt has a lot of room to improve
History:
- Many African countries were taken over by British
- 1922- end of protectorate with the United Kingdom
- 1953- Egypt declared a Republic
- Stopped the British from controlling
- 1954-1970- ruled by Gamal Nasser
- Nationalizes the Suez Canal
- Forms allegiance with Soviet Union
- Cold war was going on and he controlled the Suez Canal and the Soviet Union
- The Canal was very big and important
- 1970-1981- ruled by Anwar Sadat
- Switches allegiance to the Untied States
- Attacked Israel over Sinai Peninsula, but later made peace
- Sadat assassinated in 1981 because he was trying to make peace
- 1981-2011- ruled by Hosni Mubarak
- Kept alliance with United Stated (helped in the Iraq war)
- US liked Mubarak, he was our friend
- We gave them over $2 billion in aid
- Accused of corruption, political persecution, human rights violations
- Driven from office following mass demonstrations last month
- No one knows if we are going to have a friend over in Egypt
- He did a good job
- but we wonder why didn't he fight back with what he had
What's Next:
- No one knows
- Army was on the people's side
- police were not
- Egypt currently ruled by military junta
- Government is taking over till elections
- democratic elections scheduled for September 2011
- Some want Mubarak arrested and tried for embezzling from the government
- Some want him hung in public
- Revolution is in the air
- Our friend Sarah & other Egyptians say he may have stolen $50 - 70 BILLION
- other sources say more like $5 billion - still a huge amount
- Revolution is in the air (to varying degrees) throughout the Middle East and northern Africa:
- Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria…
- ... and Libya
- Libya has been ruled by Muammar Gaddafi since 1969
- he is violently opposing Libya's uprising
- He has been around for 42 years
- Ordering jets and air strikes against other country
- Kind of guy who could gas thousands of people
- He could start a big time war in the middle east
- He still controls the capital
- All his people love him but all the countries hate him
- Libya may descend into full civil war
- the east is controlled by rebels, but he still holds the capital (Tripoli) - so far
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