CAIRO: Egypt has been handed the first draft of a media strategy that will form part of a major tourism push, Khaled El-Anany, Egyptian minister of tourism and antiquities, said on Tuesday.
The strategy is a prelude to the launch of a three-year international promotional campaign for Egyptian tourism, starting at the end of 2021, El-Anany said.
Officials from the Canadian-English Alliance have helped to prepare the strategy, which promotes Egypt as a modern tourist destination that can deliver a “unique tourism experience” throughout the year.
Mohamed Farouk, head of the e-tourism committee at the Chamber of Tourism Companies, said that bookings for travel to Egypt from Arab countries during July and August are higher than in June and May.
Most Arab tourists visiting Egypt go to Cairo, with some going to Sharm El-Sheikh, Alexandria and the northern coast.
Farouk said that Arab tourism has lifted occupancy rates in many Cairo hotels to almost 50 percent — the limit set by the Tourism Ministry as part of efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
With many five-star hotels raising their rates, demand for four-star hotels has grown in Cairo and Giza, he added.
Saudi Arabia sent the highest number of tourists to Egypt in June, followed by Kuwait, the UAE, Jordan and Iraq. He added that many tourism companies and hotels are seeking to increase their capacity rates to 70 percent.
Egypt prepares for three-year tourism push
https://arab.news/8x98b
Egypt prepares for three-year tourism push
- Most Arab tourists visiting Egypt go to Cairo, with some going to Sharm El-Sheikh, Alexandria and the northern coast
Russian warships make routine visit to Cuba
The patrol ship Neustrahimiy, training vessel Smolniy and support vessels, all from the Baltic Fleet, are scheduled to depart on Tuesday
HAVANA: Havana residents watched from shore on Saturday as Russian warships arrived for the second time in as many months, in a visit that Cuba called routine.
Cuban authorities sent shots into the air to signal their welcome, while curious fishermen watched from Havana’s waterside promenade as the ships advanced up the bay. Russian residents were also among the few up early to see the fleet’s arrival.
The patrol ship Neustrahimiy, training vessel Smolniy and support vessels, all from the Baltic Fleet, are scheduled to depart on Tuesday.
A brief statement by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces described their arrival as routine.
The US State Department and Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Russian nuclear submarine, frigate and support ships in June also flexed Moscow’s muscles in the port of Havana, less than 100 miles (160 km) from Florida.
Tensions between the United States and Russia have increased since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Russian naval activity — though routine in the Atlantic — has ratcheted up because of US support for Ukraine, US officials say.
Simultaneously, relations between Cold War allies Russia and Cuba have markedly improved as the Communist-run country battles an economic crisis it charges is due mainly to US sanctions.
High-level contacts between the two countries have increased to a level not seen since the fall of former benefactor the Soviet Union with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visiting Moscow four times.
Russia has sent oil, flour and increasing numbers of tourists to the cash and goods short Caribbean nation as citizens suffer through daily power outages and other travails resulting in scattered protests and record migration.
Ana Garces, a 78-year-old retiree, told Reuters she remembered the then-Soviet Union was the only country to help Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, the peak of tensions with Washington when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
“We are very grateful,” she said. “Why should we not receive it with open arms? This is friendship. All kinds of ships have entered here.”
“It shows how other countries do support us and takes away a little of the world’s mentality about our country,” added her husband, 71-year-old retiree Rolando Perez.
Iga Swiatek starts the 2024 Olympics tennis event with a win at the site of her French Open triumphs
Iga Swiatek starts the 2024 Olympics tennis event with a win at the site of her French Open triumphs
- Swiatek got broken in that same stadium to trail 5-3 in the second set before getting back to her usual clay-court expertise
- Italy’s Jasmine Paolini was the first tennis player to win a match at these Summer Games, eliminating Romania’s Ana Bogdan 7-5, 6-3 at Lenglen
PARIS: Iga Swiatek shook off a bit of a dip in the first round of the Paris Olympics tennis competition and grabbed the last four games to beat Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2, 7-5 on Saturday under a closed roof at Roland Garros, the site of the No. 1-ranked Polish player’s four French Open titles.
Swiatek, who won a third consecutive championship at Court Philippe Chatrier just seven weeks ago, got broken in that same stadium to trail 5-3 in the second set before getting back to her usual clay-court expertise. She wrapped up the victory by breaking at love when Begu double-faulted on the last point.
Day 1 of tennis began with showers that might have contributed to slow lines for umbrella-toting spectators at the facility’s security checks near entrances and postponed by hours the start of matches at the 10 courts without retractable roofs.
It’s a good thing the French tennis federation built a pair of covers recently: 15,000-capacity Chatrier added one in 2020, and the second-largest arena, 10,000-capacity Court Suzanne Lenglen, has one as of this year.
Italy’s Jasmine Paolini, who was the runner-up to Swiatek at the French Open in June and to Barbora Krejcikova at Wimbledon two weeks ago, was the first tennis player to win a match at these Summer Games, eliminating Romania’s Ana Bogdan 7-5, 6-3 at Lenglen.
Among the other big names from the sport scheduled to play later Saturday were reigning French Open and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz — facing Lebanon’s Hady Habib in singles in the afternoon and pairing with Spanish teammate Rafael Nadal in doubles at night — along with 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia and four-time major champion Naomi Osaka.
Nadal has won a record 14 of his 22 Slam titles at Roland Garros and owns Olympic gold medals in singles and doubles. He carried the torch and rode on a boat in the Seine River with retired tennis star Serena Williams during the drenched opening ceremony Friday night.
Coco Gauff, the female flag bearer for the United States on Friday, was slated to make her Olympic debut Saturday with Jessica Pegula in doubles. Gauff won the French Open doubles title with Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic last month and the US Open singles trophy last September.
Three years ago, Gauff missed the Tokyo Games after testing positive for COVID-19 right before she was supposed to fly to Japan.
Palestinian Olympian wore shirt showing bombed children at opening ceremony
- His white shirt had embroidered images of warplanes dropping missiles over children playing sport
- Poses test for organizers who have strict rules on political statements
PARIS: Palestinian boxer Waseem Abu Sal wore a shirt depicting children being bombed for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in a test for organizers who have strict rules on political statements.
Abu Sal was one of two flag-bearers for the Palestinian delegation during the rain-soaked river parade along the Seine on Friday.
His white shirt had embroidered images of warplanes dropping missiles over children playing sport.
“This shirt represents the current image in Palestine,” Abu Sal told AFP on Saturday.
“The children who are martyred and die under the rubble, children whose parents are martyred and are left alone without food or water.”
At least 39,258 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a military campaign in retaliation for the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry.
The October attack that began the war resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Jibril Rajoub, president of the Palestine Olympic Committee, told AFP they had checked with the local organizing committee of the Paris Olympics to see if Abu Sal’s shirt contravened Olympic regulations.
“It’s a message of peace. It’s a message to attract attention,” he said. “This is anti-war, against killing. This abides with the Olympic Charter.”
“We presented it, they approved it,” he added.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) bans political statements on the field of play during sports events and during the opening and closing ceremonies, but athletes are free to express themselves in press conferences and on social media.
The Palestine Olympic Committee wrote to the IOC last week asking for a ban on Israeli athletes at the Paris Olympics, which has been rejected.
Rajoub said the Palestinian team intended to use the Paris Olympics to draw attention to the suffering of civilians in Gaza.
Abu Sal, 20, received a wildcard for the Olympics boxing.
He lives in the West Bank and is unable to train with his Cairo-based coach — a Gazan who cannot travel to him due to Israeli restrictions.
Bangladeshi police arrest student protest leaders from hospital
- Police say they arrested three student leaders ‘to keep them safe’
- Two of them were still undergoing treatment, hospital worker says
DHAKA: Bangladeshi police have discharged from hospital and arrested the leaders of a student protest that led to nationwide unrest last week, when security forces clashed with demonstrators.
Students have been demonstrating since the beginning of July against a rule that reserves a bulk of government jobs for the descendants of those who fought in the country’s 1971 liberation war.
At least 209 people have been killed and thousands injured, according to a count based on reports in the local media after the protests turned violent last week.
Most of the casualties were reported in Dhaka, which saw intense clashes between protesters, government supporters, police and paramilitary troops, when the country went into a communications blackout for six days.
Among the injured were student leaders Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, coordinators of Students Against Discrimination, the main protest organizing group. They were patients at Gonoshasthya Hospital in Dhaka, from where they were arrested by the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police on Friday evening. Another student leader visiting Islam and Mahmud, Abu Baker Majumder, was detained as well.
Detective Branch chief Harun Or-Rashid told reporters in Dhaka on Saturday that the trio had been detained “for security reasons” as their families were worried about their safety.
“We took them in our custody to keep them safe,” he said.
The student leaders were arrested by a group of more than a dozen plainclothes officers despite objections from medical staff, a hospital worker told Arab News.
“At first, we tried to make them understand that without proper protocols, admitted patients couldn’t be released from the hospital. Later on, they talked with our authorities, and the students were taken from the hospital. There was no way we could hold them further,” the hospital worker said on condition of anonymity.
“The students’ health was not so good ... Asif was dealing with low blood pressure, and Nahid was suffering from blood clots and bruises on different parts of his body. Both of them needed further treatment.”
The arrests come in a crackdown launched by police in Dhaka, where a curfew imposed last week was still in place.
Liton Kumar Saha, joint commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said that 2,284 people have been arrested in Dhaka over the protest-related clashes, in which numerous administration offices were set on fire.
“We are analyzing the footage of different places and identifying the miscreants. When we get confirmed about someone’s involvement in the anarchy, we conduct the operations to arrest them. It has been conducted with transparency, and we are checking the people who were involved with sabotage,” he told Arab News.
“In the last 24 hours, 245 persons were arrested in Dhaka. Our drive will continue until the situation gets normal.”
International rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns over Bangladesh’s handling of the protests, with Amnesty International saying that witness testimonies and video and photographic evidence “confirm the use of unlawful force by the police against student protesters.”
The protests broke out after the High Court upheld a controversial quota system, in which 56 percent of public service jobs were reserved for specific groups, including women, marginalized communities and children and grandchildren of freedom fighters — for whom the government earmarks 30 percent of the posts.
The Supreme Court last week scaled back the quota system, ordering 93 percent of government jobs to be allocated on merit.
Russia slams Olympic opening as ‘massive failure’
- “I wasn’t planning to watch the opening. But after seeing the photos, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a deep fake or photoshop,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram
- “Ridiculous open-air opening ceremony forced guests to sit for hours under pouring rain“
MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday slammed the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games as a “massive failure.”
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave a long list of shortcomings at Friday’s ceremony, which was not broadcast live on Russian television.
“I wasn’t planning to watch the opening. But after seeing the photos, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a deep fake or photoshop,” the spokeswoman wrote on Telegram
Only a few Russian athletes have been approved to participate in the Games as “neutrals.” Competiors under the Russian flag have been banned over Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine.
Zakharova wrote that the “ridiculous open-air opening ceremony forced guests to sit for hours under pouring rain.”
“The organizers did not think of either seeding the clouds or awnings,” she said, referring to Russia’s practice of sending up planes ahead of major outdoor events to attempt to break up clouds.
France detained a Russian man just ahead of the Games’ opening, accusing him of a “destablization” plot for the event. “I wonder how many more ‘spies’ had to be embedded for the opening of the Olympics in Paris to end up such a massive failure?” said Zakharova.
Zakharova also mocked the “transport collapse” on the day, after three arson attacks on the rail system, and France’s blaming this on sabotage.
She said the center of Paris was “transformed into a ghetto for homeless people,” while “rats flooded the streets.”
Other targets were the US rapper Snoop Dogg carrying the Olympic torch and gaffes such as introducing the South Korean team as North Korea and raising the Olympic flag upside-down.
Zakharova picked on a part of the opening ceremony featuring drag queens, interpreted by some as parodying The Last Supper. She called it a “mockery of a sacred story for Christians,” saying that “the Apostles were shown as transvestites.”
“Evidently in Paris they decided that if the Olympic rings are multi-colored, you can turn it all into one giant gay parade,” she added.
A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, Vakhtang Kipshidze, also condemned this section, writing on his personal Telegram channel that it was “cultural and historical suicide.”
