It was meant to be the library that recaptured the glories of Alexandria, providing a new home for the world’s knowledge almost 2,000 years after its predecessor was burnt to the ground.
Whereas the old Egyptian library offered a rich diet of philosophy and history to the greatest thinkers of its age, including Euclid, Archimedes and Herophilus, the modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina is attracting harsh criticism for serving up very different fare. A row has erupted over the decision to build a food court at the heart of Egypt’s self-proclaimed “window on the world,” with critics accusing its trustees of selling out the library’s venerable legacy for short-term profit. Among the charges leveled at the £135 million (US$219 million) Bibliotheca, which opened seven years ago, is the accusation that secret plans are being hatched to allow McDonald’s to open a branch inside the complex, and that the library is putting brash consumerism ahead of serious scholarship.
Library authorities have denied the claims, insisting the food area is needed for the annual influx of 800,000 visitors.
Six firms have got licenses to open stores in the food area and the library insists McDonald’s is not among them. Sharif Riad, press relations director, said the court was sensitively designed with no logos visible.
In a country that has seen multinational corporations proliferate rapidly in recent years, however, the library’s assurances have left many unconvinced. Commentators link the invasion of brand names into Egypt’s most sacred cultural institution with broader ties between capitalists and politicians and the ensuing corruption scandals.
“I don’t know why everything promising, everything good, in this country must be destroyed by the government ... with their greed and cooperation with the businessmen,” said Zeinobia, a prominent blogger.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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