On Wednesday 7 October, former Al Jazeera English bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy joined a packed audience at the Frontline Club in his first public appearance since his release from a Cairo prison on 23 September. Fahmy was joined in conversation by his lawyer Amal Clooney and BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet.

Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen, was arrested in December 2013 along with colleagues Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed, and sentenced to seven years in a maximum security prison on terrorism-related charges. He was finally pardoned by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on 23 September.

“I am a changed man and I am inspired by what’s happened to me – that’s why I’m fighting for other journalists,” Fahmy said of his newly-established Fahmy Foundation, which will support journalists across the world who have been unjustly imprisoned.

Critical in the past of the Canadian government’s failure to intervene strongly enough on his behalf, Fahmy repeated: “I do believe the Canadian government could have done more.”

He went on to emphasise that “governments should be much faster in intervening” when their citizens are held abroad. “Intervention needs to come immediately, from the highest levels of government.” Fahmy expressed his concern that this had not yet happened in the case of Iraqi VICE News journalist Mohamed Rasool, currently detained in Turkey on charges related to terrorism.

Denouncing Canada’s new Bill C-24, which allows the government to revoke a dual national’s Canadian citizenship if the citizen is convicted of terrorism, Fahmy said, “it’s a very dangerous law. It overrides the judiciary… it should be revisited.”

The discussion then moved onto the role of Al Jazeera, with reports of Fahmy suing his former employer for $100m on the basis of negligence in May 2015. “Al-Jazeera’s shortcomings and mistakes contributed to our situation,” he said. “I had specifically asked many times, are we legal in the Marriott [the Cairo hotel where Fahmy’s broadcast team was based]? They said, ‘Yes, stick to the editorial side, don’t worry about it’… but the answer – I found out in court.”

Fahmy continued, “I asked Al-Jazeera to take responsibility, to present a letter to the judge saying ‘[Greste, Fahmy and Mohamed] have nothing to do with this, this is our fault’, but they did not… it really angered me.”

“It was important to make it clear that there is a distinction between the network and the journalists who work in the network,” said Fahmy, describing the re-trial defence strategy.

Clooney took on Fahmy’s case, she said, when she “realised what was at stake, because Egypt is a leader in the region… It sets a precedent.”

Doucet praised her dedication to the cause: “We want to recognise all lawyers who fight for journalists, and we need more.”

Clooney continued: “Elements of the [Egyptian] government… sought to bring about justice. Belatedly, but they finally did do. The work that lawyers and journalists and human rights activists have to do is to make sure they’re pushing those elements of the government that are a force for good.”

Both Fahmy and Clooney praised the media’s essential role in the campaign for his freedom. “Social media was so important in this case,” Fahmy said, mentioning the #FreeAJStaff Twitter hashtag. “It does make a huge difference… This collective effort is why I’m here today.”

Optimism remains key to both Fahmy and his lawyer’s ongoing fight for press freedom. “There are signs of positive development in Egypt… but there’s a long way to go,” Fahmy said.

A new press charter to which he contributed will shortly be presented to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in the hope that journalists will consequently be able to work more freely in Egypt.

Clooney echoed this positive sentiment: “Hopefully this pardon means at the highest level there may be some change in approach.”

Clooney concluded the discussion with a few words on Fahmy‘s long-awaited freedom: “Today, we can take a moment to celebrate what’s happened to this journalist.”

“I’m here,” Fahmy replied, “because I have two very powerful women who are behind me,” thanking Clooney and his wife Marwa Omara.

Fahmy and his wife will shortly return to Canada, where he will take up a visiting post at the University of British Columbia and “continue to fight and use the spotlight” on behalf of the “many more behind bars” across the globe.

More information on the Fahmy Foundation – and their work in campaigning for the release of unlawfully imprisoned journalists, including Egyptian photojournalist Shawkan and Saudi blogger Raif Badawi – can be found here.

From 29-31 October, the Frontline Club is hosting screenings as part of the Green Caravan Film Festival, a travelling festival of environmental and socially conscious films. The full lineup can be found here.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Anna Roussillon via Skype.

January 2011 in Egypt was marked by anti-government demonstrations. While tens of thousands of protestors gathered in Cairo, poor villagers in the country’s south followed the tense situation in Tahrir Square on their TV screens and in the daily newspapers. It is from their perspective that this documentary captures the political changes in Egypt, from the toppling of President Mubarak to the election of Mohamed Morsi. I Am the People reveals the villagers’ hopes and disappointments and shows that, despite the wild events, very little has actually changed in their lives.

The film presents a charming, funny and fascinating portrait of one family in Egypt’s rural South, as they follow the Tahrir uprising, charting their progression from amused distant observers of the events in Cairo through their increasing engagement and politicisation. Beautifully filmed, I Am The People offers a refreshing perspective on the Arab Spring and its aftermath, and shows with great intimacy the ways in which the events have touched ordinary lives away from the square.

Directed by: Anna Roussillon
Produced by: Thomas Micoulet, Karim Aitouna, Malik Menaï
Runtime: 110′
Year: 2014
Country: France

Dr Omar Ahour (left), Jonathan Rugman (centre left), Mohamed Yehia (centre right), Dina Wahba (right); Photo: Dan Tookey

Following Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s removal from power by the Egyptian military on the 3 July, the Frontline Club hosted a debate, ten days later, exploring what has happened and asking what these events mean for Egypt’s future.

Mona Al-Qazzaz, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesperson in the UK, began proceedings by describing recent events as a “tragedy for Egypt… And has run back to the day before 11 February 2011, every single democratic step… we were hoping for has just been abolished.”

The question of democracy and ‘legitimate process’ dominated much of the debate. Dr Omar Ashour, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, argued that the 2012 election was based on a false choice:

“Many of the revolutionaries voted for him [Morsi] not because they like him, not because he was their first choice but they voted for him to stop Ahmed Shafik, who was Mubarak’s prime minister from taking over and basically returning us back to pre January 2011.”

The reason for Morsi’s ousting, according to Dina Wahba, an independent Egyptian activist taking part in the recent protests, was because he betrayed the Egyptian people:

“Morsi did not deliver on his promises… The constitution for example was about exclusion… It was about one faction wanting to exclude other factions and wanting to work alone, to become the hegemonic power in the state.”

Following Wahba’s remarks, Chairman Jonathan Rugman, a foreign affairs correspondent at Channel 4 News, asked Dr Maha Azzam:

“What do you say when millions of people turned out on the streets as they did, does that constitute democratic legitimacy, that trumps what happened at the ballot box in 2012?”

Dr Maha Azzam, an associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, replied by saying “that’s a very dangerous statement:”

 “We had a democratic process underway, the danger with going with numbers on the street, and they were huge numbers to say the least, is that they can go the other way as well. Ultimately we did have elections… A referendum, albeit with a small turnout, and so we had a process. We had an alternative, the alternative was to go to parliamentary elections.”

Dr Azzam argued that the reliance on the military will see them play a large part in Egypt “for the foreseeable future.”

Dr Ashour concurred saying the opposition forces could “have paralysed the Morsi administration via institution… What has happened now is that you have sacrificed the ballot box for the bullets.”

Taking a step back, Mohamed Yehia, the multi-media editor at BBC Arabic, compared the events in June 2013 and February 2011:

“In 2011 the street was united, this time there is a very huge split in the street; the second difference is the level of violence, we have seen the events at the Republican Guard building, an intensity of which we have never seen before. There seems to be a readiness to commit acts of violence from all sides that we have not seen before…”

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/egypts-new-roadmap

Social media. Free speech. Democracy. These were the buzzwords of 2011, where international movements like the Arab Spring were said to have been fuelled by the power to communicate with one another without hindrance. 

The year of unrest has put the spotlight on the role of the internet and social media in challenging power elites and their capacity to control what the outside world sees. But while the West praises ‘pro-democracy’ movements in Arab countries and their use of social media, Westerners face greater surveillance in the name of security, including threats of increased controls in the wake of the London riots. 

“We’re becoming neighbours with each other,” said Timothy Garton Ash, director of the Free Speech Debate, a multi-lingual online platform for discussing freedom of expression which was launched in January 2012:

“The old ways of thinking about free speech – when in Rome, do as the Romans do – breaks down. But China and Iran do try to reassert their control over the internet, over the control of ideas." 

“We have to have a global conversation about what should be the norms for freedom of expression.”

He was joined by Marie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at The Open University and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change; Khaled Fahmy, professor and chair of the American University in Cairo’s Department of History; Kirsty Hughes, the Chief Executive of freedom of expression NGO Index on Censorship; to discuss what the historian and commentator has set out as the first principle of free speech: That all human beings must be free and able to express themselves, and to receive and impart information and ideas, regardless of frontiers: 

“In this brave new world, private powers are at least as important as public powers. Facebook as a country would be the third largest country in the world. What Google does is more important than what Germany does.

“But they set rules without any democratic process. The internet also allows for new self-governing communities” said Garton Ash.

The highly academic debate – which some members of the audience dubbed “far too academic” and “Western” to be applied in actuality across the world – explored the pros and cons of Garton Ash’s ideal, outlined in ten draft principles supposed to be the ‘rules of thumb’ of free speech.

But Fahmy emphasised that the Egyptian revolution had “open access to information” at its core:

“It definitely isn’t a revolution of the poor and hungry – that might be just one dimension,” he said. “The need to inform was central in the revolution. We are in the middle of it.”

“It is not Islamists that pose the most serious threats to freedom of information. It is the military and all that is attached to it. It is the military we are fighting and the national security we are trying to challenge.” 

But the ideals of equality and freedom of expression were brought into question by Gillespie, whose research suggested that structures of inequality found in reality are replicated in the media:

“Are we really all neighbours? The structure of inequalities that exist in the world are replicated and intensified online. It is important to think about who is talking and who, most importantly, is listening.”

Another blow to Garton Ash’s project was dealt by Hughes, who said that a global code as is outlined in the Free Speech Debate project could open up freedom of expression to government interference and top down control – which would undermine the idea completely:

“Do we need a global code? No, we have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Codes open up government interference and topdown control. It can lead to self-censorship.”

“But we still need to fight for freedom of expression,” she added. “Let’s have a conversation but not a code.”

Diverse voices explored and expressed the pros and cons of working towards such an ideal – and so in a sense, demonstrated Garton Ash’s project in action.

“We have to move from purely western universalism to a more universal universalism,” said Garton Ash:

“The only way to do that is to put your own propositions on the table and be genuinely open to what someone in China, or Egypt, would say in response.”

By Nicole Hunt

This week’s roundup includes no fewer than eight elections at all levels of government, beginning with a leadership ballot for Australia’s Labor Party on Monday. Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the snap ballot on Thursday after the sudden resignation of Foreign Minister (and former PM) Kevin Rudd amid allegations of infighting and leadership coups. Gillard has said she expects the support of her party, but will retreat to backbench politics if she loses the ballot.

If you feel like there’s a US Republican primary every week, you’re probably not far off. On Tuesday, Arizona and Michigan take their turns at choosing who they want to lead the party into battle against Barack Obama. So far, Mitt Romney is leading the pack with a delegate count of 91 to Newt Gingrich’s 32, Ron Paul’s nine and Rick Santorum’s four, but as the winner needs 1,144 delegate votes to win, everyone still has a long way to go.

The Pakistani Supreme Court is going through what one might call a bit of a busy period at the moment, handling two high profile, national interest cases. The first, which has seen Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani charged with contempt of court over his decision not to investigate corruption among politicians (including President Asif Ali Zardari) after passing a controversial amnesty law in 2007, is back in court on Tuesday, with Gilani’s defence lawyer’s expected to make representations.

The second case is in court on Wednesday, and addresses allegations that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, better known as the ISI, distributed $6.5 million to opponents of the Pakistan Peoples Party in what amounts to vote-rigging in the 1990 election. The much-feared ISI is also facing a separate case involving 11 men it allegedly abducted from Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail in May 2010; the spy agency is being asked to explain the mysterious deaths of four of the detainees over the past six months.

Two psychiatrists asked to assess the mental health of Anders Behring Breivik, who admitted to carrying out the deadly 22 July attacks in Oslo and Utoya, are due to begin their four-week psychiatric evaluation on Wednesday. The experts have been asked to report back on Breivik’s mental state by 10 April, just days before he is due to stand trial. A November evaluation declared Breivik insane and unfit to stand trial.

On a day that only comes once every four years, the European Central Bank offers up something unusual, too – a 36-month longer-term refinancing operation (LTRO), one of three announced in December as part of emergency measures to support bank lending and market activities.

The success (or otherwise) of the LTRO will feed into what’s sure to be the now-customary high-pitched frenzy ahead of Thursday’s European Council meeting, at which the participating member states (that is, everyone besides the UK and the Czech Republic) are planning to sign the new fiscal responsibility treaty. The Council is also carrying out a review of the European Financial Stability Facility’s €500bn lending capacity.

Villagers in Wukan, China, hold a democratic election to choose their new village committee, unusual in China even at this level of politics. The villagers, who held unprecedented protests in December last year after a man negotiating a land dispute with authorities died in custody, had a practice run in February when they voted for the committee that would oversee Thursday’s polls.

Back to Pakistan on Friday, where the country elects 54 of the 104 members of the Senate for six year terms. The remaining 50 members are safe in their seats for another three years, when the other half of the Senate is up for grabs. Four new seats, which are reserved for minorities, have been added for this round of votes, which some hope will be followed quickly by parliamentary polls.

Iranians also go to the polls on Friday, to elect the 290 members of the Majlis for four-year terms. The election is the first national poll since controversial 2009 presidential elections, which saw the emergence of the opposition Green Movement, a subsequent crackdown on dissent, and disputed results. Reformist candidates will be hoping to beat the 51 seats won in the 2008 elections, especially as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to appear before Parliament for questioning over alleged mismanagement of the economy sometime soon.

France’s Constitutional Council is due to rule by Friday on a challenge lodged by two groups of MPs and Senators against a law criminalising denial of the Armenian genocide. The law was passed by the Senate on 23 January, but on 31 January was referred to the Council for a ruling on its validity. The Council is due to rule within one month.

Prince Harry begins a Caribbean tour as part of the Royal Family’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. I think most people would envy him this business trip, which kicks off in Belize, and takes in the Bahamas and Jamaica before wrapping up in Brazil on 9 March.

On Saturday, a Cairo court is due to rule on charges against Free Egyptians Party founder and telecoms mogul Naguib Sawiris, who is accused of defamation and contempt of Islam over a picture he posted last summer depicting Mickey and Minnie Mouse in traditional Muslim garb.

The last of five local elections scheduled in India this quarter takes place in Goa three days before the results for all five are due to be announced. Elections have already taken place in Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Punjab, and Uttarakhand; elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are expected later this year. The local elections are being closely watched as an early barometer of party support ahead of 2014 general elections.

The last election of the week is also the biggest, as Russia gears up to elect its next President on Sunday. While the election of former President/current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is basically a foregone conclusion, the recent spate of anti-government protests and anti-Putin rhetoric means that Putin might find his vote percentage closer to the 52 per cent he received in his first election in 2000 than the 71% he managed in 2004.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Barack Obama is scheduled to address the annual American Israeli Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) policy conference. At last yea
r’s meeting, Obama famously and controversially referred to a two-state solution based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, borders which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later called ‘indefensible’.

By Nicole Hunt

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has been ordered to appear before the Supreme Court again on Monday, this time to be indicted on charges of contempt of court over what prosecutors say is his refusal to ask Swiss authorities to re-open graft investigations against allies, including President Asif Ali Zardari. Whether Gilani actually appears or not depends on the outcome of his last-minute appeal against the order.

The beginning of the week is filled with little bits and pieces that will be closely watched as part of the ongoing EU debt saga. Short-term debt auctions in France and Germany get things started on Monday, followed by the release of Greece’s fourth quarter GDP estimate on Tuesday, the same day the OECD publishes its Economic Survey of Germany.

Tuesday also marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of ill-fated protests in Bahrain. Inspired by the toppling of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime in Tunisia a month earlier and Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt just days before, protesters took to the streets and Manama’s Pearl Roundabout to demand political reform. The protests were later crushed as a state of emergency was imposed a month later, with the help of Saudi Arabian troops, and the Pearl Roundabout was demolished on 18 March.

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces the prospect of having to appear before Parliament in the coming weeks to defend himself against allegations of economic mismanagement and shady friends, the country’s opposition Green Movement has called for demonstrations across the country to mark the one year anniversary of 2009 presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi being placed under house arrest for their support of Arab Spring protests.

Back to the EU on Wednesday as fourth quarter GDP estimates are released for the euro zone and Germany.

While recent Arab League meetings have been dominated by what’s happening in Syria and the state of the League’s observer mission there, a lower-profile meeting in Cairo shifts the focus briefly to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Members of the League’s Follow-Up Committee are set to discuss the next steps in Palestinian negotiations with Israel, following the passing of a 26 January deadline without any Israeli commitments for a settlement freeze.

On Thursday, North Koreans mark what would have been the 70th birthday of recently-deceased leader Kim Jong-Il. Expect extravagant celebrations and more public mourning, and perhaps another parading of Kim’s son and heir, Kim Jong-un.

Ministers from the 56 countries that make up the Paris Pact Partners meet in Vienna to discuss how to combat the trafficking of opium and heroin from Afghanistan. The UNODC’s most recent Afghanistan Opium Survey, published in January, showed that opium prices in the country soared by 133 per cent last year.

Big celebrations are expected in Libya on Friday to mark the one year anniversary of the beginning of protests against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. As the initial protests prompted a violent crackdown from Gaddafi forces, the situation in Libya quickly turned into the most global of the Arab Spring protests, with NATO forces beginning action there in March and international action continuing up until Gaddafi’s death on 20 October and the subsequent declaration of liberation by the National Transitional Council.

The Rwandan Supreme Court is expected to announce the fate of two journalists sentenced to prison after being convicted of denying the 1994 genocide, inciting civil disobedience and causing divisions. Agnes Uwimana Nkusi and Saidati Kukakibibi, sentenced to 17 and seven years, respectively, await the outcome of their appeal.

Voters in Latvia go to the polls on Saturday to decide whether to introduce Russian as the country’s second official language. Native Russian speakers account for approximately a third of the population in the former Soviet nation; over 50 per cent of the electorate must approve the measure for it to take effect.

In Cairo, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaa get together to iron out the details of a new unity government, which is expected to be announced at the end of their meeting. They’re also expected to confirm a date for elections, which are due to take place around 4 May, one year from the date they signed an agreement ending four years of internal conflict.

Saturday is also the beginning of Rio Carnival!

And on an otherwise fairly quiet Sunday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is back in the spotlight – not in front of the courts, but on TV screens as he makes his appearance on the 500th episode of The Simpsons.

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By Nicole Hunt

New week, New Year – the Chinese Year of the Dragon, that is.

But while weeks of celebrations are kicking off in China, the mood will be considerably less celebratory in Brussels, where the EU foreign ministers and euro area finance ministers are holding monthly meetings. The Foreign Affairs Council is scheduled to discuss new sanctions against Iran, including the possibility of imposing sanctions on Iranian oil, while finance ministers will hear from Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on his government’s plans for economic and labour reforms.

In Cairo, the Egyptian parliament holds its first sitting following marathon elections between November and January. The need for re-votes and subsequent delays in results reporting means the full make-up of the National Assembly is still unknown, though it’s likely to be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Libyan authorities have until Monday to submit information to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on the conditions of Saif al Islam Gaddafi’s arrest and detention, and to notify the court whether they intend to hand him over for trial. Gaddafi has been indicted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity.

Spanish Magistrate Baltasar Garzon, who went on trial last week on charges of illegal phone tapping, is back before the court on Tuesday to face the allegations that originally saw him suspended last spring. Right-wing lobby groups have accused Garzon of overstepping his judicial authority by investigating disappearances under Franco’s regime despite a 1977 amnesty.

US President Barack Obama delivers the final State of the Union address of his first term in Washington. While no details of the speech have been released (other than that Obama will follow it up with a five-city tour through the battleground states of Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan), the focus is likely to be on the economy and employment.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel opens the World Economic Forum Meeting, better known as Davos, on Wednesday. The annual gathering attracts heads of state and government from across the world, with nearly 40 leaders expected to attend this year alongside IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, Arab League Secretary General Nabil El Araby and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Despite the star-studded Davos meeting, all eyes will be on Cairo as the Egyptian revolution marks its first anniversary. However, the mood is likely to be less celebratory than would be expected, as protesters have grown impatient with the rate at which power is being transferred from the military to civilians, as well as the ongoing trial of former President Hosni Mubarak, and activists have continued to clash with police in recent months.

Thursday is a much quieter anniversary, marking one year since the first, tentative protests in Syria, where the death toll has now reached somewhere between 5,000 and 6,500. Widespread demonstrations did not take place in Damascus until 15 March, which is considered the beginning ofthe Syrian uprising, but smaller gatherings were held on 26 January, inspired by Tunisia and Egypt.

Thursday is also seen as a key deadline in the Middle East Quartet’s plan for the progress of peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials. The parties are supposed to have put forward ‘comprehensive proposals’ on border and security improvements by now, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded that a settlement freeze be put in place.

Senegal’s Constitutional Court is scheduled to make a decision on Friday as to the eligibility of candidates for the country’s 26 February presidential election. Incumbent President Abdoulauye Wade maintains that since he was first elected in 2000, three years before the introduction of a two-term limit, he is still eligible to run for another term (despite re-election in 2007). Singer Youssou N’dour is also among candidates.

After a delay of over a month, Silvio Berlusconi’s trial for paying for underage sex resumes in Milan. Both sides will be looking ahead to a 7 February hearing, during which the Constitutional Court is due to hear a motion brought by the Senate requesting that the case be moved to a special minister’s court.

The Cuban Communist Party holds its national convention on Saturday, the first since Raul Castro succeeded his brother Fidel as the Party’s Secretary General last year.

Saturday also marks 100 days since the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

With the lower house elections over and Parliament in place, Egypt begins the first round of voting for the upper house or Shura Council on Sunday. A second stage of elections will be held 14-15 February, with runoffs scheduled for both stages, if necessary. Plans for a three-stage vote, in line with the lower house elections, were abandoned in favour of a shorter timeline that will see the Shura Council sitting by 28 February.

By Nicole Hunt

US President Barack Obama hosts Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki for talks in Washington on Monday, with discussions focusing on strengthening the ‘strategic partnership’ between the two countries. The summit comes ahead of a looming 31 December deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

Following last week’s European Council meetings, the focus early this week is, predictably, still the euro zone debt crisis. Experts from the IMF, the European Central Bank and the EU begin their sixth review mission to Athens, hoping that this time around they’ll be able to stick around until the scheduled end of the visit on Friday.

The venue changes but the topic stays the same on Tuesday, with Spain, Italy and France in the limelight. Spain’s Congreso de los Diputados convenes for the first time since elections on 20 November, though new Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy won’t formally take up his post until he’s sworn in by King Carlos later this month.

In Rome, Parliament is scheduled to begin debating Prime Minister Mario Monti’s austerity measures, which he issued by decree on 4 December. MPs are expected to approve the measures well before the 60-day deadline.

Meanwhile, French unions have planned a nationwide day of protests against their government’s austerity measures. Thousands are expected to take the streets in Paris, where the largest demonstration takes place outside of the Assemblée Nationale.

Under Egypt’s complicated election laws, another parliamentary vote is held on Wednesday, with polling taking place in nine governates, including Giza and Suez. The elections on 28 November, which were held despite violent protests only days before, covered nine provinces, including Cairo and Alexandria. A third round of voting takes place on 3 January.

In New Orleans, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management holds the first oil and natural gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

A Paris court is expected to issue its verdict on Thursday in the long-running corruption trial of former French President Jacques Chirac. Chirac is accused of misusing public funds and creating false job contracts during his time as Mayor of Paris. He settled a €2.2m civil suit with the city of Paris in August 2010.

Thursday also sees two meetings taking place which will be viewed very differently by Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev attends the EU-Russia Summit in Brussels, but the visit will be coloured by expressions of concern from the EU over allegations of unfair voting practices in Russia’s 4 December parliamentary elections, which saw Medvedev’s United Russia party win a majority despite heavy losses.

Over in Geneva, the World Trade Organisation holds its eighth Ministerial Conference, where delegates are expected to hold a long-awaited vote on Russian accession to the WTO.

TIME Magazine announces its annual Person of the Year on Friday. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg was 2010’s winner; leaders in this year’s online poll (which don’t have any bearing on the final choice) include Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, footballer Lionel Messi, The 99%, Anonymous, Steve Jobs, and the Arab Youth.

The US army begins an Article 32 hearing for Private First Class Bradley Manning, which is expected to last just over a week. The hearing is to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed with a court martial against Manning, who is accused to leaking a 2007 video to WikiLeaks which showed a military operation in Baghdad in which two Reuters reporters were killed.

As Saturday happens to be Manning’s 24th birthday, an international day of solidarity has been organised, with protests planned worldwide. Occupy London protesters have already pledged to take part.

Though it hardly seems possible as Egypt works through elections and protests and killings rage on in Syria, Saturday also marks the one year anniversary of the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit and vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi, an event that has been singled out as the catalyst for the Arab Spring movement as it kicked off Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution.

Forty percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day, and Egypt receives an average of $2 billion a year in foreign aid. Yet millions of people are preparing to migrate away from the centre of Cairo and into newly constructed suburbs for the super rich.

Jason Larkin, a photojournalist, and Jack Shenker, the Guardian’s Egypt correspondent, spent two years collaborating on Cairo Divided, an in-depth project documenting this increasing disparity between rich and poor in Egypt’s capital.

Larkin presented the work in an event moderated by Max Houghton, co-editor of 8 magazine and once his photojournalism tutor at the University of Westminster. He gave an astonishing insight into what was largely an unreported area of the world until this year’s uprisings (of which Shenker’s coverage won an award). His real concerns were for what was going on in plain sight, but not being discussed at all by either the public or the media. He said:

"This is the largest city in the middle east, and five million people could move into these new districts, which represent an area twice the size of central Paris on either side of Cairo. Villas are fetching between $700,000 and $1.4 million each, but the average wage is around £20 a month – it’s astonishing that there are enough people who can afford these plots, but they do exist. Some of these developers have $80 million in deposits before they’ve even dug the land. This is an exit strategy, but only for a few people. This is what we wanted to explore."

In addition to presenting and discussing some of the most telling images from his time in Cairo, he also spoke about some of the issues facing photojournalists today, and the difficulty in getting Cairo Divided published:

"Magazines and newspapers tend to follow each other, and I wanted to present a different side of the story. The Guardian and Internazionale Magazine both eventually published versions of it, which helped recoup some of the costs, but it had already been rejected by National Geographic, The New Yorker and Harper’s Bazaar – some of the few places that would have been able to publish it in its full form."

"You have to prepare yourself for what you do and don’t want in life – you’re constantly travelling, and not making much money. Everybody talks about the death of photojournalism, and whilst I enjoy it I do wonder if it’s sustainable – you can’t rely on it to pay the rent. I was taking commissions and working all over the place alongside the project in order to fund it."

And although Larkin laments the troubles facing photojournalists, he takes solace in the fact that as a free publication Cairo Divided has reached thousands of people in its full form. He now hopes that once the dust settles, the Egyptian people will be able to explore the issues themselves through the Arabic translation of the work that they have made available.

Copies of Cairo Divided are available to pick up from the Frontline Club’s reception desk.

 

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Over the past century, in common with many capital cities, Cairo’s population has increased exponentially. In recent years luxury private developments have popped up in the desert surrounding Cairo, making room for Egypt’s business elite with backing from the Mubarak regime. The boom in the construction of wealthy suburbs away from the chaos of the over-crowded city is sharply underlining the vast gap between rich and poor in Egypt.

Photojournalist Jason Larkin chose these desert construction sites as the subject for his latest project, Cairo Divided. His two-year collaboration with journalist Jack Shenker has produced a long-form essay, accompanied by Larkin’s pictures, which has challenged traditional publication methods. Larkin will be speaking at the Frontline Club about photographing Cairo Divided and the means through which it was published.

Released just before the much-anticipated November elections in Egypt, the publication is a free paper supported by academic institutions, cultural centres, architectural organisations and Panos PICTURES. Its production is a novel attempt to bring long-form journalism and photojournalism to a wider audience.

The talk will be moderated by Max Houghton, Course Leader of the MA in Photojournalism at the University of Westminster and co-editor of 8 magazine. Larkin was one of Houghton‘s first students at the University of Westminster and she takes a particular interest in photographic projects that combine images with the written word.

Jason Larkin is a British photojournalist who specialises in under-reported issues in the Middle East and Africa. He was recently awarded the Arnold Newman New Portraiture Award.