Free Republic

Egypt's Minister of Religious Endowments Mohamed Gomaa ordered the closure of a Cairo mosque for two weeks for violating precautionary measures put in place to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the press service of the ministry reported on Tuesday. "Minister Mohamed Gomaa, after praying at the Al-Nour mosque in the Abbassia district, decided to close it for two weeks from Tuesday due to the fact that worshipers in the mosque did not comply with the requirements of the ministry on the mandatory wearing of masks and availability of a personal prayer mat," the ministry said. The ministry added that any mosque...

The Greeks who represent the last vestiges of Christian Byzantium and the Roman Empire are heading towards their final extinction in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, with their numbers dwindling to a mere handful under his Islamist government. What is now Turkey only began to be colonised in by the Turkic peoples in earnest from around 1071, after their Seljuk ancestors had arrived from Central Asia and vanquished the Greek-speaking Christian ruler Romanos IV Diogenes’s forces at the Battle of Manzikert. The last vestiges of the Byzantine state where finally snuffed out with the brutal conquest of Constantinople, widely regarded as...

And Egypt’s authorities conclude it was a “generic” crime that has nothing to do with religious hate. Two Muslim brothers recently went on a stabbing spree targeting Egypt’s indigenous Christian minority, the Copts, in Alexandria, Egypt; one man was killed and two others were severely injured and hospitalized during the rampage. Last reported on Dec. 13, the brothers had been arrested and were to be detained for four days, pending an investigation. According to authorities, they went on their murderous stabbing spree because they were “upset” that their mother had died earlier that day, on Dec. 10. Even the state...

Egypt's military court on Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment 168 terrorists for involvement with the Wilayat Sinai terrorist group, which has carried out 63 terror attacks in the Sinai Peninsula and is affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist organization (IS, outlawed in Russia), Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported CAIRO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th December, 2020) Egypt's military court on Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment 168 terrorists for involvement with the Wilayat Sinai terrorist group, which has carried out 63 terror attacks in the Sinai Peninsula and is affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist organization (IS, outlawed in Russia), Al-Masry...

Archaeologists researching on an underwater diving project, stumbled over an ancient underwater temple claimed as Heracleion’s ‘Egyptian Atlantis’ and probably have found a destroyed ancient Greek temple and treasure-laden vessels which might have sunken into the sea due to floods and tsunami 1,200 years back.

One Christian was killed and two others injured in an Islamist extremist attack on a Christian-owned shop in al-Wardayan district, Alexandria, Egypt. Ramsis Boulos Hermina, his brother Adel Hermina, and Tareq Fawzy Shenouda were stabbed and beaten by Muslim extremists armed with clubs, knives and a sword. All three men were hospitalised and received urgent care, but Ramsis Hermina died from his injuries. The attack was allegedly carried out by two brothers, one named as Nasser al-Sambo who has a history of harassing and bullying the Christian community. The Muslim men attacked Ramsis Hermina as he was working in his...

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear in his staffing plans and public remarks that he intends to return America to many of the foreign policy positions championed by his former boss, President Barack Obama. While American mainstream media has largely cheered this – and glowered at President Donald Trump for defending his achievements by making regression more difficult under Biden – many of America’s allies, and some of its foes, around the world are making moves suggesting they expect a full return to the state of global affairs in 2016. The Obama administration’s foreign policy was defined by the tension...

Secretary General. Joined by 34 other countries, the document enshrines the Trump administration’s pro-life diplomacy on the official record of the General Assembly. “The United States strongly supports the dignity of all human beings and protecting life from the moment of conception throughout the lifespan,” Ambassador Kelly Craft wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres transmitting the Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. Following the letter, the declaration was issued as an official document of the United Nations last week and circulated on December 11, after having been translated into all six official UN languages....

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian criminal court acquitted three Muslim men accused of stripping naked an elderly Coptic Christian woman and parading her through the streets of a village in southern Egypt in 2016, the state's official news agency reported. The three had been sentenced to 10 years in absentia in January, before they were detained and stood a retrial for the attack in the southern province of Minya, where an armed Muslim mob had attacked the 70-year-old woman four years ago, after rumors spread that her son was having an affair with a Muslim woman. Such relations are taboo...

New finding from Antikythera MechanismBased onstatistical analysis of micro CT imaging of the more than 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism, we show unexpected evidence establishing a lunar calendar with Egyptian civil-calendar month-names circa 100 B.C. This finding displaces a century-long presumption of a 365-day solar calendar on the Antikythera Mechanism with a 354-day lunar calendar and may inform a fundamental question of the number and type of calendars used in Ancient Egypt.

From axes to swords to chariots, see the weapons that helped make ancient Egyptian warriors formidable.The Egyptian military became one of the ancient world’s greatest fighting forces during the New Kingdom period (1550 B.C. - 1070 B.C.), but it did so using borrowed weapons technology. For much of its early history, Egypt relied on simple stone maces, wooden-tipped spears, axes and bows and arrows to fight off neighboring Nubian and Libyan tribesmen. Then came the Hyksos, an invading army from Syria that conquered Egypt around 1650 B.C. with vastly superior weapons like speedy chariots and powerful composite bows. During the...

Alexandria’s Coptic Christians Suffer from Violent Hate Crime 12/15/2020 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on December 10, 2020, three extremists attacked Coptic Christians living in Alexandria (al-Wardyan district), Egypt. This resulted in the murder of one Christian man, the injuries of two, and significant damage to three Christian shops. A relative of the victim explained about the attack’s instigator, “The extremist was in jail because of so many cases. Usually he was bothering Copts and bullying them so much. His mother was sick and she died on the night of December 10....

In the summer of 1973, the junior senator from Delaware Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. visited Egypt and met with local officials – not the first tier ones: the highest-ranking among them were the country’s Minister of Propaganda, alongside Hassanein Heikal, editor of the semi-official daily Al-Ahram. Following his Cairo visit, Biden, who had just been elected the previous year, met in Israel with then Prime Minister Golda Meir and passed on the Egyptian disinformation. Biden told the Israeli prime minister that of all the Egyptian VIPs he had met, not one denied Israel’s absolute military superiority, and they all reassured...

At least 40 “terrorists” have been killed in an exchange of fire with the army men in Egypt’s North Sinai province, the armed forces said in a statement on Tuesday. “Seven army men including four soldiers and two officers have been killed and wounded in the clashes with the terrorists,” said the statement. The air forces have destroyed 437 of the terrorist hideouts in the strategic direction of the northeast part of the country, leaving 25 “highly dangerous terrorists” killed, it added. Another 15 militants have been killed in another operation, according to the statement. The military raids have destroyed...

When a stunning sculpture of Nefertiti was found by German archaeologists in 1912 it prompted enormous interest in this powerful Queen who'd lived in 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Dr Constance Lord from the University of Sydney took Indira Naidoo from the workshops of the short lived capital of Armana where it was found, to the modern day controversy swirling around whether the bust should stay in its current home in Berlin, or be returned to the country it came from. Duration: 27min 13sec Broadcast: Sun 6 Dec 2020, 10:00pm Audio at link

At 277 miles (445 kilometres) long, up to 18 miles (28 kilometres) wide, and 1 mile (1.6 kilometres) deep, the Grand Canyon is one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring places in the United States. The Hopi Indians believe it is the gateway to the afterlife. Its sheer immensity and mystery attracted more than 6 million visitors in 2016.

Salma al-Shimi, who has thousands of followers on Instagram, last week posted images of herself in ancient Egyptian garb with pharaoh-like accessories near the 4,700-year-old Step Pyramid of Djoser, according to the Guardian. The busty model and lensman Houssam Mohammad allegedly took part in the shoot “without authorization in the Saqqara archaeological site,” They were released on bail pending the results of a probe of what local media described as “provocative and offensive” images, according to the outlet. ... Shimi had appeared before a public prosecutor and argued that her goal had been to promote tourism rather than offend Egypt......

CAIRO, Egypt (Morning Star News) – A young Christian teacher in northeastern Egypt is facing charges of insulting Islam after he posted comments on Facebook, according to local reports. Youssef Hany of Ismailia, a city on the Suez Canal 78 miles northeast of Cairo, posted the comments earlier this month in reply to a Muslim who had expressed her opposition to criticisms of Islam by the president of France and other French citizens. Hany was reportedly arrested on Nov. 11, as was a Muslim woman identified only by her Facebook name, Sandosa, for comments on social media allegedly defaming Islam....

A mob of Muslim villagers attacked the homes and shops of Coptic Christians in Egypt’s Minya governorate over rumors that a Christian man had posted a comment denigrating Islam on Facebook, according to reports. At least one elderly woman was hospitalized for burns suffered in the fire in her home after groups close to Islamist groups used stones and Molotov cocktails to target the Coptic Orthodox community in al Barsha Thursday, according to Independent Catholic News. The man accused of posting the comment against Islam on his personal Facebook account said that his page had been hacked. The mob also...