Cairo

By Deena Mohamed Pantheon. 568 pp. $35 - - - In the opening pages of Deena Mohamed's graphic novel "Shubeik Lubeik," we watch a televised public service announcement in which a woman purchases a "delesleep," a "third-class wish" granted not by a genie in a bottle but one confined to an aluminum can. When the being within emerges, the woman makes a simple request. "I want to lose weight! About," here she hesitates a moment, "ten kilos?" The results are as immediate as they are horrifying. Her right leg and left arm fall to the ground, bloodlessly severed by the force she has unleashed. Her wish granted, the woman screams. Welcome to a Cairo where donkeys talk, dragons destroy villages and posh suburban homes can hide under a cloak of invisibility. Cairo - the real city, that is - has long been a nerve center of Arab comic art's revival. Across the Middle East, political cartoonists and caricaturists have been experimenting with strips and visual stories for more than a … [Read more...] about Book World: What Egyptians wish for

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 CAIRO (AP) — An ancient Yemeni kingdom and a Lebanese modernist concrete fair park were added Wednesday to UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites in danger, the latest entries from The Middle East. The seven major landmarks of the Ancient Yemenite Kingdom of Saba and the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli were inscribed on the U.N. agency list in ‘’an emergency procedure,'' in hopes of better preserving the neglected sites. Now added, both sites will have access to enhanced technical and financial assistance, UNESCO said. The pre-Islamic Yemeni kingdom of Saba, which once stretched from Sanaa to Marib, now lies on one of the major front lines dividing Houthi rebels from Saudi coalition forces. The threat of destruction from the ongoing conflict was cited as the key reason to add the seven landmarks that include several ancient temples, a dam and the ruins of old … [Read more...] about Yemen and Lebanon sites added to UNESCO endangered list

CAIRO (AP) — Italy’s prime minister arrived in Libya on Saturday for talks with officials from the country’s west-based government that will focus on energy and migration, top issues for Italy and the European Union. Libya is the third North African country that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has visited over the last two weeks as she seeks to secure new supplies of natural gas to replace Russian energy amid Moscow's war on Ukraine. She previously visited Tunisia and earlier this week Algeria, Italy’s main supplier of natural gas, where she signed several memorandums. Meloni landed at the Mitiga airport, the only functioning airport in Libya's capital, Tripoli, amid tight security and accompanied by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, her office said. She then met with Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, who heads one of Libya’s rival administrations, and was also to hold talks Mohamed Younis Menfi, who chairs Libya's ceremonial presidential council. … [Read more...] about Italy’s premier visits Libya for talks on energy, migration

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 8 JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police on Sunday sealed up the east Jerusalem home of a Palestinian attacker who killed seven people and wounded three outside a synagogue, one of several punitive measures approved by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet overnight. The move came following a deadly weekend in which seven people were killed and five others wounded in two separate shootings in Jerusalem, in one of the bloodiest months in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem in several years. The measures threatened to further raise tensions and cast a cloud over a visit next week by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The weekend shootings followed a deadly Israeli raid in the West Bank on Thursday that killed nine Palestinians, most of them militants. In response, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a barrage of rockets into Israel, triggering a series … [Read more...] about Israeli police seal off home of Jerusalem synagogue attacker