‘Egyptian Jon Stewart’ is back on the air

Updated 29 January 2014
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‘Egyptian Jon Stewart’ is back on the air

CAIRO: Egypt’s favorite funnyman is back on the air.
After a four-month hiatus, the popular and controversial political satirist Bassem Youssef returned to the airwaves Friday night to host an hour-long episode of his show “El Bernameg” (The Program). The last time he appeared, in late June, Youssef had established himself as one of former President Muhammad Mursi’s most vocal and ardent opponents. He later backed the protests and the military coup that removed Mursi from power.
But it was far from clear how Youssef’s program — which mimics Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” — would play in a new Egypt dripping with pro-army nationalism and praise of Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the country’s de facto leader.
In a late-night broadcast full of parody newscasts and tongue-in-cheek commentary, Youssef chose not to directly take on the powerful — and much-loved — general. But he did allude to Sissi’s rumored political ambitions and ridiculed media personalities who offer sycophantic testimonials to Egypt’s armed forces.
“Was it a soft coup?” Youssef asked, taking aim at the debate over what to call the events that led to Mursi’s ouster. Poking fun at the idea that a coup could ever be “soft,” he produced a red rose and pretended that the military had simply been splitting up with a longtime girlfriend: “Mursi, baby, it’s not us — it’s you.”
Before Youssef’s appearance, there had been some speculation that the onetime cardiac surgeon might decide to steer clear of satire for good. He was reemerging in an Egypt very much transformed by the coup, one where hard-core nationalism has left little room for criticism or dissent, and where judicial figures and journalists have been detained for crimes such as “insulting the army.”
“Can he talk about the current government the way he talked about Mursi? I don’t think so,” student Haithem Khalifa, 26, said of Youssef before the show. Mursi and his supporters were the primary targets of Youssef’s biting humor during the year the leader was in power.
Youssef appeared to have retreated from his normal style of bluntly and often personally challenging political figures. Instead, he tested the waters — lampooning peripheral issues of military rule. In one segment, he focused on a particular aspect of the country’s love for Sissi: Cupcakes and chocolates adorned with his image are sold in sweet shops across Cairo.
A baker offers Youssef a number of sweets that have been renamed after Sissi. “Do you have a reconciliation chocolate?” Youssef asked, referring to the stalled process of bringing the Muslim Brotherhood back into the political fold.

“No,” the baker responded. “But we report anyone who asks.”
Later, he made fun of the notoriously bland interim President, Adly Mansour, flashing pictures of a frowning Mansour.
“People said his credibility would be on the line,” Zein el-Abidin Khairy, a columnist for the state-owned daily newspaper, Al-Ahram, said of Youssef. “Would he deal with the interim government? They have given him a lot of material to work with.”
Underscoring the risk Youssef takes with his sarcastic political humor, a panel of judges linked to Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court issued an advisory opinion urging the judiciary to reopen a case against the comedian for “insulting the president.”
The charges were filed in March by an pro-Mursi lawyer, but they were later dismissed.


Prince and Princess of Wales attend Wimbledon final between Alcaraz and Sinner

Britain’s Prince William, Kate, Princess of Wales, center, and Princess Charlotte arrive to attend the men’s singles final match
Updated 13 July 2025
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Prince and Princess of Wales attend Wimbledon final between Alcaraz and Sinner

  • Kate is the patron of the All England Club and was scheduled to present the trophies after the match

LONDON: Kate, the Princess of Wales, returned to Wimbledon on Sunday along with her husband Prince William and their daughter Charlotte to watch the men’s final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
Kate is the patron of the All England Club and was scheduled to present the trophies after the match.
On Saturday, she was the only member of her family in the Royal Box for the women’s final and gave champion Iga Swiatek her prize after a 6-0, 6-0 victory and offered consoling words to runner-up Amanda Anisimova.
On Sunday they were set to be joined by King Felipe VI of Spain, a number of former Wimbledon champions and a slew of Hollywood celebrities.
Actors Keira Knightley, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman and John Lithgow were all set to be seated in the Royal Box, as was London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Last year, while recovering from cancer, Kate did not attend the women’s final but was on hand for Alcaraz’s win against Novak Djokovic at the All England Club.
She has been gradually returning to public duties and recently welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron during a state visit to Britain.


Gisele Pelicot and Pharrell Williams get France’s top honor

Updated 13 July 2025
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Gisele Pelicot and Pharrell Williams get France’s top honor

  • Gisele Pelicot, who became a feminist icon by publicly testifying over the mass rapes she endured
  • Rapper-turned-fashion designer Pharrell Williams were among 589 people awarded France’s top civic honor on Sunday

PARIS: Gisele Pelicot, who became a feminist icon by publicly testifying over the mass rapes she endured, and rapper-turned-fashion designer Pharrell Williams were among 589 people awarded France’s top civic honor on Sunday.
Pelicot, 72, and Williams were both named knights of the Legion of Honour on a list announced ahead of France’s July 14 national day.
Pelicot earned international tributes for her courage in testifying at a trial in 2024 against her former husband, who drugged her and arranged for her to be raped by dozens of men over a decade.
She has since been named on lists of the world’s most influential people by international media and the case helped forced a change in France’s rape law.
But Pelicot has remained silent since the trial. Her lawyer says she is concentrating on writing a book giving her side of the mass rape story which is to be released in 2026.
Williams, 52, made his name as a rapper and singer but earned a second fortune as a music producer and after designing clothes and accessories for several brands. He has been Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director since 2023.
His recent Paris show attracted a host of international celebrities, including Jay Z and Beyonce, film directors Steve McQueen and Spike Lee and football and basketball stars.
Actor Lea Drucker, veteran singer Sylvie Vartan, writer Marc Levy and Auschwitz deportee Yvette Levy, 99, were also among the figures awarded the Legion of Honour along with a host of former ministers, academics and top legal names.


Hungary’s oldest library is fighting to save 100,000 books from a beetle infestation

Updated 13 July 2025
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Hungary’s oldest library is fighting to save 100,000 books from a beetle infestation

  • The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary’s oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site

PANNONHALMA, Hungary: Tens of thousands of centuries-old books are being pulled from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary in an effort to save them from a beetle infestation that could wipe out centuries of history.

The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary’s oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Restoration workers are removing about 100,000 handbound books from their shelves and carefully placing them in crates, the start of a disinfection process that aims to kill the tiny beetles burrowed into them.

The drugstore beetle, also known as the bread beetle, is often found among dried foodstuffs like grains, flour and spices. But they also are attracted to the gelatin and starch-based adhesives found in books.

They have been found in a section of the library housing around a quarter of the abbey’s 400,000 volumes.

“This is an advanced insect infestation which has been detected in several parts of the library, so the entire collection is classified as infected and must be treated all at the same time,” said Zsófia Edit Hajjdu, the chief restorer on the project. “We’ve never encountered such a degree of infection before.”

Abbey houses historical treasures

The beetle invasion was first detected during a routine library cleaning. Employees noticed unusual layers of dust on the shelves and then saw that holes had been burrowed into some of the book spines. Upon opening the volumes, burrow holes could be seen in the paper where the beetles chewed through.

The abbey at Pannonhalma was founded in 996, four years before the establishment of the Hungarian Kingdom. Sitting upon a tall hill in northwestern Hungary, the abbey houses the country’s oldest collection of books, as well as many of its earliest and most important written records.

For over 1,000 years, the abbey has been among the most prominent religious and cultural sites in Hungary and all of Central Europe, surviving centuries of wars and foreign incursions such as the Ottoman invasion and occupation of Hungary in the 16th century.

Ilona Asvanyi, director of the Pannonhalma Archabbey library, said she is “humbled” by the historical and cultural treasures the collection holds whenever she enters.

“It is dizzying to think that there was a library here a thousand years ago, and that we are the keepers of the first book catalogue in Hungary,” she said.

Among the library’s most outstanding works are 19 codices, including a complete Bible from the 13th century. It also houses several hundred manuscripts predating the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century and tens of thousands of books from the 16th century.

While the oldest and rarest prints and books are stored separately and have not been infected, Asvanyi said any damage to the collection represents a blow to cultural, historical and religious heritage.

“When I see a book chewed up by a beetle or infected in any other way, I feel that no matter how many copies are published and how replaceable the book is, a piece of culture has been lost,” she said.

Books will spend weeks in an oxygen-free environment

To kill the beetles, the crates of books are being placed into tall, hermetically sealed plastic sacks from which all oxygen is removed. After six weeks in the pure nitrogen environment, the abbey hopes all the beetles will be destroyed.

Before being reshelved, each book will be individually inspected and vacuumed. Any book damaged by the pests will be set aside for later restoration work.

Climate change may have contributed

The abbey, which hopes to reopen the library at the beginning of next year, believes the effects of climate change played a role in spurring the beetle infestation as average temperatures rise rapidly in Hungary.

Hajjdu, the chief restorer, said higher temperatures have allowed the beetles to undergo several more development cycles annually than they could in cooler weather.

“Higher temperatures are favorable for the life of insects,” she said. “So far we’ve mostly dealt with mold damage in both depositories and in open collections. But now I think more and more insect infestations will appear due to global warming.”

The library’s director said life in a Benedictine abbey is governed by a set of rules in use for nearly 15 centuries, a code that obliges them to do everything possible to save its vast collection.

“It says in the Rule of Saint Benedict that all the property of the monastery should be considered as of the same value as the sacred vessel of the altar,” Asvanyi said. “I feel the responsibility of what this preservation and conservation really means.”


The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York

Updated 13 July 2025
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The biggest piece of Mars on Earth is going up for auction in New York

  • The natural history-themed sale on Wednesday features a 54-pound hunk of Mars estimated at $2 million to $4 million

NEW YORK: For sale: A 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock. Estimated auction price: $2 million to $4 million. Why so expensive? It’s the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth.
Sotheby’s in New York will be auctioning what’s known as NWA 16788 on Wednesday as part of a natural history-themed sale that also includes a juvenile Ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton that’s more than 6 feet (2 meters) tall and nearly 11 feet (3 meters) long.
According to the auction house, the meteorite is believed to have been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike before traveling 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) to Earth, where it crashed into the Sahara. A meteorite hunter found it in Niger in November 2023, Sotheby’s says.
The red, brown and gray hunk is about 70 percent larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth and represents nearly 7 percent of all the Martian material currently on this planet, Sotheby’s says. It measures nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches (375 millimeters by 279 millimeters by 152 millimeters).
“This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found by a long shot,” Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby’s, said in an interview. “So it’s more than double the size of what we previously thought was the largest piece of Mars.”
It is also a rare find. There are only 400 Martian meteorites out of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites found on Earth, Sotheby’s says.
Hatton said a small piece of the red planet remnant was removed and sent to a specialized lab that confirmed it is from Mars. It was compared with the distinct chemical composition of Martian meteorites discovered during the Viking space probe that landed on Mars in 1976, she said.
The examination found that it is an “olivine-microgabbroic shergottite,” a type of Martian rock formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma. It has a course-grained texture and contains the minerals pyroxene and olivine, Sotheby’s says.
It also has a glassy surface, likely due to the high heat that burned it when it fell through Earth’s atmosphere, Hatton said. “So that was their first clue that this wasn’t just some big rock on the ground,” she said.
The meteorite previously was on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome. Sotheby’s did not disclose the owner.
It’s not clear exactly when the meteorite hit Earth, but testing shows it probably happened in recent years, Sotheby’s said.
The juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton was found in 1996 near Laramie, Wyoming, at Bone Cabin Quarry, a gold mine for dinosaur bones. Specialists assembled nearly 140 fossil bones with some sculpted materials to recreate the skeleton and mounted it so it’s ready to exhibit, Sotheby’s says.
The skeleton is believed to be from the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago, Sotheby’s says. It’s auction estimate is $4 million to $6 million.
Ceratosaurus dinosaurs were bipeds with short arms that appear similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex, but smaller. Ceratosaurus dinosaurs could grow up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) long, while the Tyrannosaurs rex could be 40 feet (12 meters) long.
The skeleton was acquired last year by Fossilogic, a Utah-based fossil preparation and mounting company.
Wednesday’s auction is part of Sotheby’s Geek Week 2025 and features 122 items, including other meteorites, fossils and gem-quality minerals.


French prisoner escapes in fellow inmate’s luggage

The 20-year-old prisoner escaped from Corbas prison, near Lyon, southeast France, on Friday, broadcaster BFMTV reported. (AFP)
Updated 13 July 2025
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French prisoner escapes in fellow inmate’s luggage

  • The inmate “took advantage of the liberation of his fellow inmate to hide himself in his luggage and get out,” the statement said

LYON: France’s prison service said Saturday it had launched an investigation after a man escaped by smuggling himself into his cellmate’s bag as he left jail, having served his sentence.
The 20-year-old prisoner escaped from Corbas prison, near Lyon, southeast France, on Friday, broadcaster BFMTV reported.
The inmate was serving several sentences, the prison service said in a statement to AFP.
He “took advantage of the liberation of his fellow inmate to hide himself in his luggage and get out,” the statement said.
The escaped prisoner was also under investigation in a case linked to organized crime, a source close to the affair told AFP.
An internal investigation is underway and Lyon prosecutors had opened their own investigations, the prison service added.