Cairo Today

A Molotov cocktail thrown into a small restaurant apparently as some act of private revenge tragically finished with the lives of sixteen people early this morning here in Cairo - the door to the restaurant is 50 metres from the entrance to the centre where Dd works. The army have set up their own food stalls in various cities to undercut local merchants in some great 'look how we help the people' gesture which completely upsets the market place. A Germany-based Egyptian researcher and journalist specialising in the Sinai was arrested and detained as soon as he got off a plane in Egypt for his printed views and a sixteen-year old girl is reported to have been tortured in a Cairo police station. Meanwhile, this man evidently suffering from ankylosing spondylitis makes his way with more difficulty than his unafflicted fellow citizens across a Cairo street as life goes on as usual.

In the midst of it all we visited the Swiss Club Christmas Fayre which was strangely quiet.