Nobel winner Naguib Mahfouz dies

Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, has died after suffering from a bleeding ulcer, Egypt's state-run Middle East News Agency reported.
Dr Hossam Mowafi, head of a medical team supervising his treatment at the Police hospital, said Mahfouz died on Wednesday morning after a sharp decline.
Mahfouz, 94, had been in intensive care since suffering a sudden drop in blood pressure and kidney dysfunction.
He had been hospitalised on July 19 after he fell in the street and sustained a deep head wound that required immediate surgery. The Egyptian author won the Nobel Prize in 1988 - the first writer in Arabic to win the award - and is best known for his Cairo Trilogy in which he narrated developments in Egypt through the eyes of a middle class family over three generations. Mahfouz was admitted to hospital regularly in recent years, most famously after being stabbed in the neck in 1994 by Muslim militants because of his portrayal of God in one of his novels. He spent seven weeks in hospital and the knife damaged a nerve, seriously impairing his ability to use his writing hand.
Biography
Across the span of 50 novels, five plays and scores of short stories and essays, Mahfouz depicted with startling realism the Egyptian "everyman", balancing between tradition and the modern world.
Often the scene of the novels did not stretch beyond a few familiar blocks of Islamic Cairo, the 1,000-year-old quarter of the capital where Mahfouz was born.

Mahfouz studied English at King Fouad University, now Cairo University, graduating with a philosophy degree in 1934.
Mahfouz was strongly political, but kept to a moderate line. He was a great defender of the Palestinian right to an independent state and a critic of US foreign policy in the region, particularly over Washington's support for Israel and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
But unlike the majority of novelists, writers and artists, Mahfouz has been a supporter of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel since it was signed in 1979.
Several of his works were made into movies. For many Arabs, his characters can never be separated from the voices and faces of some of Egypt's most popular actors.
Raymond Stock, his American biographer and translator of some of his works, said Mahfouz's legacy is to leave great novels and convey his "great love of Egypt".
"He is a great son of Egypt, a patriot in the fullest sense of the word."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E72DE65D-174D-4B42-BFD3-B32EF7289C02.htm

....La splendide mariée de Ben Guerdane

Suite à une décision indépendante de ma volonté,

je suis contrainte de supprimer cette photo.

Ne me demandez pas pourquoi,

ce sera du No Comment....

The lost City

Hier, nous sommes allés voir " The Lost City", le premier film réalisé par Andy Garcia.
L'histoire se déroule à Cuba, à la Havana plus exactement, en 1958, autour d'une famille que tout semble réunir et à qui tout semble sourire, jusqu'au moment où éclate la révolution, Batista que l'on veut éliminer, et Fidel que l'on veut glorifier. Cette famile unie va peu à peu éclater. Même l'amour qui peut lier deux êtres chers se trouve incapable de surmonter cette terrible transition. Je ne vais pas vous raconter le film, ce n'est pas mon but. Je vous conseillerai plus tôt d'aller le voir. La mise en scène est superbe.
Moi qui adore la salsa, je me suis régalée, la musique, ainsi que la danse, sont omniprésentes dans le film, elles font partie du décor, et ne font qu'accentuer les émotions ressenties. Le film est en soi une tragédie, mais la fin, symbolisée par l'exil, semble soudain porteuse d'espoir et d'optimisme.

Scénariste : G. Cabrera Infante.
Acteurs : Andy Garcia, Dustin Hoffman, Tomas Milian, Bill Murray, Jsu Garcia, Inés Sastre, Enrique Murciano, Nestor Carbonell, Victor Rivers, Steven Bauer, Dominik García-Lorido, Juan Fernández.

Quelques règles journalistiques

Règle numéro 1 : Au Proche Orient, ce sont toujours les arabes qui attaquent les premiers et c’est toujours Israël qui se défend. Cela s’appelle des représailles.

Règle numéro 2 : Les arabes, Palestiniens ou Libanais n’ont pas le droit de tuer des civils de l’autre camp. Cela s’appelle du terrorisme.

Règle numéro 3 : Israël a le droit de tuer les civils arabes. Cela s’appelle de la légitime défense.

Règle numéro 4 : Quand Israël tue trop de civils, les puissances occidentales l’appellent à la retenue. Cela s’appelle la réaction de la communauté internationale.

Règle numéro 5 : Les Palestiniens et les libanais n’ont pas le droit de capturer des militaires israéliens, même si leur nombre est très limité et ne dépassent pas trois soldats.

Règle numéro 6 : Les israéliens ont le droit d’enlever autant de palestiniens qu’ils le souhaitent (environ 10000 prisonniers à ce jours dont près de 300 enfants). Il n’y a aucune limite et n’ont besoin d’apporter aucune preuve de la culpabilité des personnes enlevées. Il suffit juste de dire le mot magique "terroriste".

Règle numéro 7 : Quand vous dites "Hezbollah", il faut toujours rajouter l’expression « soutenu par la Syrie et l’Iran ».

Règle numéro 8 : Quand vous dites "Israël", Il ne faut surtout pas rajouter après : « soutenu par les Etats-Unis, la France et l’Europe », car on pourrait croire qu’il s’agit d’un conflit déséquilibré.

Règle numéro 9 : Ne jamais parler de "Territoires occupés ", ni de résolutions de l’ONU, ni de violations du droit international, ni des conventions de Genève. Cela risque de perturber le téléspectateur et l’auditeur de France Info.

Règle numéro 10 : Les israéliens parlent mieux le français que les arabes. C’est ce qui explique qu’on leur donne, ainsi qu’à leurs partisans, aussi souvent que possible la parole. Ainsi, ils peuvent nous expliquer les règles précédentes (de 1 à 9). Cela s’appelle de la neutralité journalistique.

Règle numéro 11 : Si vous n’êtes pas d’accord avec ces règles ou si vous trouvez qu’elles favorisent une partie dans le conflit contre une autre, c’est que vous êtes un dangereux antisémite.

Par Sindibad

Source : http://www.europalestine.com/article.php3?id_article=2228

TT1, nouvelle chaine privée Tunisienne

Mars 2007 verra le lancement de la nouvelle chaîne de télévision privée, TT1. La direction de cette chaîne sera confiée à M Faisal Habib, le Directeur Général est M Tarek Bachraoui.Cette nouvelle chaîne viendra s’ajouter à la première chaîne tunisienne privée Hannibal TV qui a fêté son premier anniversaire au mois de février 2006.D’autre part le groupe Karoui And Karoui lancera sa chaîne Maghrebine Nesma TV au mois d’octobre 2006.

Palais Grand Ducal du Luxembourg

Dimanche, nous avons effectué une visite guidée du Palais Grand Ducal de la ville de Luxembourg. C'était en soi un petit évènement puisque le palais ne peut être visité que durant les mois de juillet et aout et uniquement par petits groupes.

Bien que loin de la grandeur du Palais de l'Elysée (CF. post de Septembre 2005 où nous attendimes plus de 5h pour admirer ce beau bâtiment...), et encore moins de celle du château de Versailles, ce fut tout de même intéressant de découvrir ce palais charmant mais modeste. La visite fur d'autant plus agréable, bien que trop courte (1h seulement), grâce au super guide qui nous accompagnait... une dame agée d'au moins 70 ans, qui n'avait en rien perdu de son dynamisme et surtout de son humour, et qui alternait récits historiques et anecdotes très drôles! et en plus, 'est dingue, mais je lui ai trouvé un air de ma mamy...Bref, j'en étais émerveillée.

PITOYABLE!

Article déniché sur le site de la BBC...J'ai d'abord cru à une farce, mais l'histoire est vraie. Quoi dire à part que c'est réellement pitoyable??? Lisez plutôt...

Passengers on a Manchester-bound flight have described how two men were removed from the plane because other travellers thought they were speaking Arabic.
Heath Schofield, a passenger on the flight from Malaga, described it as being a "bit like Chinese whispers".
Monarch Airlines said passengers had demanded the men were removed because they were acting suspiciously.
Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood said it was disgraceful the pair seemed to have been judged on their skin colour.
The men - reported to be of Asian or Middle Eastern appearance - were taken from Wednesday's flight ZB 613 and questioned but were allowed to fly back to the UK later in the week.
Refusal to board
Mr Schofield, who was travelling with his wife Jo and their children, said: "We all started boarding the flight.

Heath and Jo Schofield were on the Manchester flight
"Our daughter noticed a couple of guys that were perhaps acting a bit strange. They went to the front of the queue, went to the back of the queue, and then they went and sat down by themselves.
"Anyway, we got on the plane and we boarded and it became apparent after we were already supposed to be flying that several of the passengers had refused to board the craft.
"A few rumours went round, it was a little bit like Chinese whispers, and then some more people decided they were getting off."
Plane finally took off
He said Spanish police officers came on to the plane and took the two men's passports and 20 minutes later the pair were removed from the plane.
All the passengers were then taken off and the plane and all the luggage was swept for explosives. Three hours later the passengers boarded again and the plane took off without the pair.
We can't have a situation where one passenger decides that another passenger isn't going to fly
David ReynoldsBritish Airline Pilots Association
His wife said: "We still don't know what was said, or whether it was anything to be alarmed about."
She said: "A lot of mums were trying to calm the children down - they were getting quite panicky because of what they'd seen on the telly.
"It became apparent that the reason that some of the people didn't board the plane was because somebody had overheard the gentlemen in question speaking - I think it was Arabic."
'Tight procedures'
Mr Mahmood said it was "absolutely disgraceful" that passengers had taken it on themselves to label people.
"That is not what we want. The colour of your skin shouldn't identify what you are. It is a sad state of affairs that that has happened."
He called for air passengers to understand that once people were allowed through security "they should be OK".
In a statement, Monarch said: "The captain was concerned about the security surrounding the two gentlemen on the aircraft and the decision was taken to remove them from the flight for further security checks."
David Reynolds, from the British Airline Pilots Association, said there were "very tight procedures" in place to ensure only the "right sort of people" boarded flights.
"Clearly, we can't have a situation where one passenger decides that another passenger isn't going to fly," he said.