HURGHADA, Egypt – When Hamdy Shahat and his four-man crew first set sail from this resort town last month, he expected to return with a boatload full of red snapper to sell at the market later that night.

Instead, the 33-year-old skipper came back empty-handed, except for several streaks of thick, brown oil gummed along the hull of his wooden boat.

Thousands of miles from the Gulf of Mexico, the site of BP’s massive oil leak, Shahat had inadvertently discovered Egypt’s own oil spill. Now, just like most Americans, Egyptians are asking what went wrong in the Red Sea.

For fishermen like Shahat, navigating around small patches of oil floating in the otherwise turquoise-colored Rea Sea is not all that new. Egypt’s portion of the waterway is, after all, home to about 180 oil platforms and heavily trafficked by massive tankers heading north from the Middle East to Europe through the Suez Canal. In an environment like this one, small-scale oil leaks are almost the norm.

But this time, the oil was nearly impossible to avoid.

“I remember the slick looking like a lot more oil than usual,” said Shahat. “The way the sunlight hit the surface of the water the patch looked so big that we thought it was actually underwater coral.”

Last month, Shahat was among the first in Hurghada to discover, like other fishermen who inadvertently sailed through it, what some experts are already calling one of Egypt’s worst oil spills in recent years.

Many details regarding the source of Egypt’s latest spill, which washed up on the shores of an area rich in biodiversity and popular with foreign tourists, are still unknown.

The leak, initially reported to have blanketed a 12-mile stretch of sea, was first reported on June 18, though many here believe the oil started seeping into the water days earlier.

Scientists and conservationists admit that serious environmental damage was limited to only a few offshore islands because of strong currents and winds that quickly pushed the slick to Hurghada’s shoreline, rather than underwater to the coral reefs.

And by most accounts, the total amount of oil spilled in Egypt was small when compared to other international incidents, like the BP spill that was finally capped on Thursday.

But for many residents in Hurghada, there is little comfort knowing they won’t have to face the huge levels of crude oil that is now washing up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

The uncertainty over exactly what happened in the Red Sea in June, coupled with the possibility of larger spills in the future, is enough to keep everyone here on edge.

Nearly one month after the spill’s discovery, very few details have emerged regarding the source of the leak and the actual amount of oil released, prompting accusations of government mismanagement from a host of activists, independent scientists and local businessmen.

Amr Ali, director of the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency, an organization started by a group of divers, is leading the charge against the government’s handling of what Ali calls a “catastrophic” spill. The parties responsible for the leak, Ali said, did not notify anyone of the spill until Hurghada’s fishermen literally sailed into it — a full three days after it started.

“This is not just about the spill — it’s about how crises like this are handled with zero transparency,” he said. “Whoever caused this spill should not get away without a penalty.”

Ali said he was surprised to hear Egypt’s government eventually announce that they had sealed the leak, while simultaneously pleading ignorance on the exact location of the source.

Video footage shot by Ali’s organization, which was later posted to the group’s YouTube channel days after the start of the spill, shows an oil-like substance floating in the water outside an offshore drilling platform. In the video, a small boat dumps what appear to be chemical dispersants into the water near the rig.

The platform is identifiable in the footage as a similar rig run by PetroGulf Misr, a government-controlled oil company based near Geisum Island, just north of Hurghada.

For its part, the company has denied any involvement in the spill.

Khaled Boraie, a spokesman for PetroGulf Misr, provided GlobalPost only the following statement: “We have no relation with the oil spill in Hurghada.”

A sign displayed in the lobby of the company’s Cairo’s office proudly announced that they had gone 107 days without incident or accident.

Egypt’s petroleum ministry finally weighed in one week after the incident, issuing a lengthy press release denying that the company’s platform could have caused any spillage and offering several possible alternative sources.

“The spill was due to passing oil tankers that discharged their ballasts or spilled oil from their loads and then the wind likely spread it to the beaches,” said Khaled Ismail, a chemist with the government-run Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, echoing the press release.

Another possible source of oil, which only amounted to between 30 and 50 barrels, according to Ismail, was older sludge spilled years ago on nearby islands that had melted under higher-than-average heat and slid back into the Red Sea.

Several independent scientists, however, refute those claims.

“I cannot accept [the ministry’s account] because the amount of oil found was much more than would come from a passing ship. And it was all crude oil,” said Salah el-Haggar, a professor of energy and environmental studies at the American University in Cairo. “They are aware of the problem but we are not. So we still don’t know how this happened and who is responsible.”

Though Egypt’s petroleum and environmental ministries were generally praised for the rapid cleanup of Hurghada’s beaches — thoroughly swept within just three days — many believe it was a cosmetic attempt to rescue only the areas tourists frequent.

Mahmoud Hanafy, professor of marine sciences at the Suez Canal University, worries that although the spill was limited in size, lingering pollution may have already disrupted the ecology on the islands off Hurghada’s coast.

The uninhabited Northern Islands are home to a variety of species of fish and turtles and also serve as nesting grounds for the white-eyed gull, a “near threatened” species endemic to the Red Sea. The oil washing up during the initially unreported first few days of the spill hit these beaches hard, according to Dr. Hanafy.

“The problem is that the spill happened in an area with a sensitive ecosystem. This is a very valuable piece of land for diving, as an ecological site and for oil production,” Hanafy said. “The challenge for Egypt is to figure out how to reach a balance between oil production and conservation of the Red Sea.”

Egypt produced an average of 685,000 barrels of oil per day in 2009. About 70 percent of that oil, according to Hanafy, comes from the fragile Red Sea ecosystem.

Many conservationists and tour operators saw a minor victory when, in the wake of the spill last month, Egypt’s petroleum minister said he would consider reducing the number of oil concessions granted in the Red Sea area.

Egypt’s tourism sector, by comparison, especially around the Red Sea beaches and coral reefs, is one of the largest sources of national revenue. In 2007, over 11 million foreign tourists visited Egypt, earning the country more than $7.6 billion.

Several beaches in Hurghada temporarily closed for a few days during the cleanup period last month. Sameh Hwaidak, chairman of the Red Sea Hotel Association, admits that tourism in Hurghada was not significantly affected by the spill.

But like many hoteliers here, Hwaidak watches the events transpiring in the Gulf of Mexico with grave concern, worrying that the possibility of an equally devastating oil spill in Egypt — with a similar response from the government here — would cripple the local tourism.

“We only found out about this the minute oil hit the beach. We put down booms and cleaned the sand, but that’s not the solution,” he said. “The solution is to stop the oil platforms from operating so close to our beaches.”

“Energy from the Ground Up” is from GlobalPost’s new video series Energy Entrepreneurs.  Here’s a snippet from the background article on the series:

Al Gore isn’t going to save the world from climate change. (He may not even save his own reputation if salacious allegations about his groping a massage therapist in Portland, Ore. prove true; Gore denies the charges).

But the world doesn’t need Gore, or any other global warming “guru.”

That’s because it already has Khaled Al Sabawi in Ramallah, who’s heating and cooling homes in the West Bank with geothermal energy…

On June 22nd, a fire ripped through Cairo’s Souq el-Gomma, destroying shops, merchandise, and livelihoods.

Story published July 1, 2010 by Daily New Egypt

Hussein Soliman Farag built homemade solar panel collectors on his roof to save money on gas and to help the environment in Cairo.

Story published June 19, 2010 by Daily News Egypt

RAFAH, Egypt — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a target of public outrage following the deadly weekend raid by Israeli commandos on a Turkish-led aid flotilla, kept the Rafah border crossing with Gaza open Thursday to people and supplies.

Since the May 31 raid, international pressure has mounted on Israel and Egypt to ease the three-year blockade on the Gaza Strip, prompting Cairo’s move Tuesday to open the border to Palestinians seeking medical treatment.

High-ranking security officials inside the Rafah border terminal said that more than 500 Palestinians had been allowed to enter Egypt on Wednesday.

The land and sea blockade on Gaza was imposed by Israel in 2007, after the violent takeover of the strip from the Palestinian Authority by Hamas, an Islamic resistance group that had once vowed to “wipe Israel off the map.”

For its part, Egypt has also largely kept the Rafah border crossing sealed, except for the most serious humanitarian cases.

Egypt is one of the largest recipients of American foreign aid, totaling close to $2 billion annually, in part because of its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Historically, Egypt has also struggled against Islamic militancy and has seen Hamas, a movement that grew out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, as something to fear.

But international outrage over the deadly raid on the aid flotilla, which killed nine people including an American citizen of Turkish origin, is testing the Egypt-Israel partnership.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had rejected international criticism over his country’s continued blockade on Gaza, reportedly saying that without it, Iran would establish a ”port” in Gaza for weapons shipments.

Meanwhile, protests continued in Turkey on Thursday. All nine of those killed in the May 31 raids were Turkish, one a dual U.S. citizen, traveling aboard the cruise liner Mavi Marmara. Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv immediately after the raid.

The Israeli Defense Forces defended their actions, and a video allegedly showing those aboard the ship attacking Israeli commandos and throwing one overboard has been released on YouTube.

Earlier this week, downtown Cairo was also rocked by several protests against the blockade of Gaza. The demonstrations saw more than 1,000 Egyptians hurling insults at Mubarak and his government.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry called the flotilla killings “tragic,” criticizing the “unjust Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.” But even as the Foreign Ministry’s press statement was released, Egyptian opposition groups had rallied outside the building, denouncing Egypt’s complicity in the blockade while screaming “Down with Mubarak.”

“Until this week, the Egyptian government had been trying to downplay their role in the blockade, especially in the Arab world,” said Diaa Rashwan, an expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a government-funded think tank. “But after the Israeli flotilla affair, now I think there is a real change in the Egyptian strategy.”

Rafah’s border crossing, normally a sleepy, desolate stretch of sand, has been bustling with activity both inside and out, with eager travelers filling the terminal’s arrival and departure halls, and trucks laden with aid supplies lining up for entry into Gaza.

Still, several Gazans coming into Egypt claimed that there were still thousands of sick Palestinians on the other side waiting to cross; one estimate was as high as 8,000.

Egyptian security officials at Rafah placed the blame squarely on Gaza’s Hamas-led government, saying that too many people were coming through without proper documentation, including a letter from their Ministry of Health stating the medical condition and required treatment.

Not just any Gazan can cross the border into Egypt. Even those carrying normally adequate travel documentation were denied entry.

Mohamed Abdel Rahman El Deremlee, 75, rolling through the border terminal in a makeshift wheelchair, came to Egypt to have an operation on his broken hip and leg. When his son Hazem, pushing the wheelchair, was turned away, he broke down.

“Of course I’m angry. Angry with Egypt, with Hamas, with Israel,” he said, shedding tears. “Why can’t the border just be opened for good?”

Aid supplies appear to be trickling into Gaza only at a snail’s pace.

On Thursday, two flatbed trucks bound for Gaza carrying 250 family-sized tents and almost 30 generators went into the border terminal only to sit, waiting for coordination and approval on both sides of the border.

Omar Ali Mohamed, the regional Sinai coordinator for the Egyptian Red Crescent, said that as many as 25 additional trucks carrying flour, rice, sugar and canned meat were en route.

Gazans stranded on the Egyptian side, in some cases for weeks, have also gained permission to head home, most carrying dozens of boxes of newly bought household appliances and electronics, items banned by the blockade.

Many Palestinians at the border wondered how long the terminal will stay open, and more than a few Gazans here believed the move was merely a publicity stunt to appease critics of Egypt, and that Cairo will close the gates within weeks.

Omar El-Shawa, 28, flew to Egypt from China, where he works as an engineer, the minute he heard news about the opening. El-Shawa hasn’t seen his parents in more than three years. The risk of not getting back out of Gaza is well worth the price of seeing his mother and father, he said.

“I am sure Egypt opened Rafah for political reasons,” he said. “They may close it within days, but it’s worth it for me to finally see my family.”

Voters in the Helwan constituency alleged electoral fraud during the Shoura Council elections held Tuesday.

Mohamed ElBaradei went on a walking tour of Coptic Cairo today. Supporters said ElBaradei’s visit was meant to bring awareness for his movement of change in Egypt.

A waiter dishes up "tarb" at El Rifai

Story published May 24, 2010 by GlobalPost:

CAIRO, Egypt — At El Rifai, tucked away in a narrow corner of one of Cairo’s poorest neighborhoods, the only thing on the menu is meat.

For more than 40 years, this alleyway restaurant has been a carnivore’s dream, dishing up nightly over 200 pounds of fire-grilled kabob, seasoned lamb chops and tarb, a sausage-like stick of minced beef wrapped inside a layer of moist fat.

El Rifai is a local success story, having evolved from a metal street-cart near the Sayeda Zeinab mosque into a renowned, albeit shabby, eatery popular with movie directors, politicians and other celebrities.

But tough times have fallen on El Rifai. Soaring meat prices in Egypt have kept customers away, cutting business by one-third over the past few weeks. Waiters are receiving fewer tips, a vital chunk of their monthly incomes, and are suddenly worried for the future.

And so, last month, owner Mohamed El Rifai did what many Egyptians have done recently to voice their anger: he joined an organized protest, shutting the doors to his restaurant for a day.

“Meat in Egypt is just too expensive now,” said El Rifai, 66, owner and namesake of the restaurant. “By closing down, I lost some business, but it was nothing compared to what’s been going on recently.”

El Rifai was one of hundreds of restaurants in Egypt that banded together, pulling red meat from their menus out of frustration.

The one-day meat boycott exposed an entire industry rocked by higher prices, and highlighted the fact that red meat — a staple in this most populous Arab country — is increasingly becoming a delicacy that average Egyptian families can no longer afford.

On average, a kilogram of beef sells for $10 to $12.

By comparison, nearly one-fifth of Egypt’s population of 80 million earns less than $2 a day.

And last month, the price of meat shot up more than 30 percent.

Restaurants could no longer afford to serve meat, said Wagdy El Kerdani, chairman of a business association representing more than 1,300 restaurants in Egypt.

“We had to strike, even if only for one day, to put down the price of meat,” said El Kerdani. “We couldn’t keep raising our prices, so we took action to stop eating meat altogether.”

The move was aimed at butchers and distributors, who El Kerdani believes unfairly increased prices.

But butchers too are feeling the pinch.

Just down the street from El Rifai, Mohamed Ibrahim runs a small butcher shop, easily recognizable by the large leg of beef hanging by hooks out front. Customers, he says, have dwindled in recent months and layoffs may be imminent.

Magdy Sobhy, an expert at the government-funded Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies think tank, believes that the problem is not enough competition at the top of the distribution food chain; a few meat “cartels” are controlling imports and prices, he argues.

With all the finger pointing, who is to blame over the high prices?

Most economists agree that Egypt’s government is the biggest culprit, having failed to create a long-term plan to maintain adequate supplies of local beef.

The government’s decision to cut loans to farmers, which compensated for the high worldwide costs of animal feed, has resulted in shortages of up to 1 million head of cattle in Egypt, according to Monal Abdel-Baki, a professor at the American University in Cairo.

Most Egyptians now receive the majority of their proteins from other staples, like chicken,fish and foul, a cheap dish of cooked fava beans.

But with malnourishment and high levels of anemia throughout the country, Egypt has to provide incentives for farmers to start growing beef again, said Abdel-Baki.

“The economic costs of poor nutrition are very high,” he said. “The government is losing if it does not make protein more accessible, in terms of poor health, less productivity and lower longevity. It cannot afford to do anything but keep prices stable.”

The recent meat boycott comes at a time of relative upheaval in Cairo.

For months, hundreds of protesters have passed through and occupied the streets near Egypt’s parliament building, calling for reform over workers’ rights and other economic issues. Earlier this month, protesters and police clashed during a demonstration to demand an increase in the minimum wage, a meager $7 a month.

Egypt has a long history of shortages in basic food staples turning into political liabilities for the government.

In 1977, riots broke out in cities across Egypt after subsidies for bread were slashed and prices increased. Clashes also occurred in 2008 when the international cost of wheat caused bread shortages throughout the country.

For now, meat prices have returned to near pre-boycott levels.

El Kerdani immediately called the strike a success, threatening to repeat it if prices went up again.

Many economists, however, are doubtful of the boycott’s effectiveness or relevance. A majority of smaller restaurants ignored the boycott. The only people really affected, say analysts, were Egypt’s upper and middle classes, the relative minority who can afford to buy meat anyway.

“The majority of Egyptians are not boycotting meat because they want to, they are boycotting meat because they have to,” said Sobhy. “There is absolutely no balance between the market and the income of the people.”

Nowhere is that more obvious than at El Rifai, where the waiters and support staff work with meat all night, but can hardly afford to buy it for themselves.

Wahid Mohamed works in one of the meat lockers at the far end of the alley, slicing shanks of freshly slaughtered beef and lamb for the cooks. He’s worked at El Rifai all his life, but still only makes $6 a day.

That’s barely enough to buy meat for his family once a month, Mohamed eventually admitted.

“See those cats down there?” he said, pointing with his knife towards a group of strays feasting on scraps below his chopping block. “They’re much luckier than us — they get to eat meat every night, all night long.”

CAIRO, Egypt — Egyptian security forces have clashed with demonstrators in downtown Cairo for the second time this month, in a sign that foment over a worsening economy and political uncertainty is growing.

Plainclothes security officers beat at least one protester before bundling him into a car during clashes on Tuesday, witnesses said. The demonstration, which also saw hundreds of protesters physically taunt riot soldiers, was aimed at challenging police brutality that occurred at a rally last week. During that protest, activists and journalists were attacked and about 100 people were detained.

Egypt’s excessive use of force to quell political assemblies — which are illegal under the country’s controversial emergency law — is nothing new, especially during a parliamentary election year.

In spite of the threat of violence, a worsening economy and concerns over the health and future of 81-year-old President Hosni Mubarak have led to increasing unrest on the streets of the capital.

“There’s been an increase in sporadic strikes and violence in the past five years,” said Maye Kassem, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo and author of several books on Egyptian politics. “Discontent is rising and more people are willing to voice their opinions.”

Signs of discontent are visible everywhere, but perhaps nowhere more so than on the steps of Egypt’s parliament building.

Workers from various industrial groups and companies have spent days, and in some cases weeks, camped out on the streets near Egypt’s parliament. A group of handicapped Egyptians have parked themselves directly across the street from the lower house of parliament for the past two months.

Chanting, waving signs, and braving the chilly nights, these activists are holding peaceful, extended sit-ins, rather than potentially rowdy street protests. Still, they face metal barricades blocked by riot troops.

Most are hoping to bring attention to a specific set of various labor issues: dismal working conditions, limited rights and, above all, low wages.

Egypt’s official minimum wage is a meager $7 per month.

Public sector workers too have increasingly joined the fray. Archaeologists from the Supreme Council of Antiquities recently staged public protests demanding higher wages, according to a report published this week by the independent Al Masry Al Youm newspaper.

There are only two options in the attempt to solve the growing unrest, said Magdy Sobhy, an economist at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, a government-funded think tank.

“The first option involves a lot of changes in the Egyptian economy, including providing more jobs, a higher minimum wage and increasing production to settle the growing inflation,” said Sobhy. “The only other option is chaos.”

But chaos is exactly what the almost 30-year-old emergency law seeks to avoid.

Egypt’s modern emergency law came into effect almost immediately with Mubarak’s ascension to power after President Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981.

Its original purpose was to combat extremism, but critics argue the emergency law takes away virtually all human rights at the discretion of Egypt’s vast police force.

“The emergency law gives state security the impunity to control elections, conduct arbitrary detention and military tribunals, and even torture,” said Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. “The government can do anything they want in the name of public peace.”

On April 6, protesters demanding an end to the emergency law quickly realized the full might of the same government power they were rallying against.

Almost as soon as it started, the peaceful demonstration was over, crushed by plainclothes police officers under the watchful eye of baton-wielding riot guards. There were several instances of violence, as security beat and dragged several protesters down the street before hauling them off to detention.

Journalists were also targeted that day. Police, hit, pushed and knocked over several reporters while their cameras and tapes were confiscated.

The violence witnessed over the past week is reminiscent of street protests from 2005, also a parliamentary election year like this one.

Such violence is par for the course in any authoritarian regime, said Kassem. “Still, the regime is firmly in control, even if they are acting more harshly than they normally do,” said Kassem. “They may be more nervous than before because they are in a period of transition.”

The transition is not yet official, but Mubarak’s age and extended absence from Egypt while in Germany recovering from gallbladder surgery last month created ample public speculation over potential successors.

Perhaps complicating matters is the recent arrival of Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the man many Egyptians are hoping will challenge Mubarak in the upcoming presidential race.

At the very least, say supporters, ElBaradei should help to bring more transparency to Egypt’s restricted political landscape, which has become stagnant over the past three decades of Mubarak’s rule.

ElBaradei received a hero’s welcome from supporters upon his arrival in Cairo in February, and has attracted hundreds to the streets in his recent travels around Egypt.

ElBaradei did not attend the latest protests, much to the dismay of supporters chanting his name in the onlooking faces of security forces.

He did, however, respond to government through his Twitter account, calling the April 6 reports “repugnant and inhumane.”

“Detentions and beatings during peaceful demonstration [sic] is an insult to the dignity of every Egyptian,” tweeted ElBaradei the day after the protest. “Shame.”

The arrests also drew condemnation in Washington. Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley announced at the daily briefing on April 7 that the U.S. was deeply concerned about arrests made under Egypt’s emergency law.

“The government of Egypt must uphold the rights of all people to express their political views peacefully and to ensure due process,” Crowley said.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry later rejected Washington’s “interference” in Egypt’s internal affairs in a statement published in the state-funded Al-Ahram newspaper.

Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, has long been one of Washington’s closest allies in the region, home to both the Suez Canal and the Middle East’s first peace treaty with Israel.

American aid to Egypt is just under $2 billion a year, making it a recipient of one of the highest levels of U.S. foreign aid in the world.

Still, the Obama administration has yet to clarify a firm position on democracy in Egypt, where pushes for greater reform during the George W. Bush presidency ultimately led to electoral wins for the Muslim Brotherhood in the last parliamentary elections.

Members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, banned by the semi-tolerated Islamist opposition group, are frequently rounded up and jailed under the emergency law.

The popular independent journalist Salama A. Salama pointed out the irony of American foreign policy in Egypt in a recent column in Al-Ahram.

“Without the extraordinary powers the emergency laws give to [Egypt’s] government, the latter wouldn’t be able to help American policy. Take for example the government’s unlawful detention of dozens of Muslim Brotherhood members. Is not this a move that fits well into American policies?” he wrote last month.

“Shouldn’t the Americans be pleased?”