As It Shifts, Egypt's Economy Retains Some Oddities

NPR Middle East Correspondant, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, did an interesting report on the evolution of Egypt's economy over the past 30 years. In many ways it is doing well; however, in other ways it is just as corrupt as the west.

www.npr.org...

The article I linked doesn't really do the story justice, but for some reason there is no transcript available for the audio. I strongly recommend listening to the 8 minute long story, especially around the 6 minute mark.

The Egyptian tourism minister is a member of a family that owns a large tourism firm. Apparently, there have been some conflicts of interest regarding the sale of land by the government in single-bid contracts. So the tourism office is being sued. The Minister's response...he claims that those suing him are working against the public interest. He goes on to say, "for me this is a very simple act of terror".

So I guess Egypt really IS becoming a modern state, even so far calling legal enemies terrorists.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting story. Cheers!