Lina Attalah
Former Chief Editor
Lina studied journalism at the American University in Cairo. Before joining Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition, she wrote for Reuters, Cairo Times, the Daily Star, and the Christian Science Monitor, among others. In 2005, she worked as radio producer and campaign coordinator with the BBC World Service Trust in Darfur, Sudan. She also worked as project manager for a number of research-based projects with multi-media outputs around the themes of space, mobility, and intellectual history. Lina is particularly drawn to border areas, where human geography issues of conflict and desire are rampant.
Contributions
News
Salloum--The scene of thousands of Egyptians flocking back into the border city of al-Salloum from Libya appears like what has occurred for many years happening in reverse.
Libya has traditionally been a popular and easy destination for...
State-run papers lead this morning with notes from Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq’s meeting with chief-editors, in which he spoke of impending change in the government’s current cabinet, whereby it would rid itself of “undesired...
Coming down from the high of revolutionary euphoria that hit the press over the past few days--including state-run papers, which endorsed the youth uprising in the final moments--more moderate reporting has returned.
The constitutional review...
The youth of Tahrir are determined to escalate their uprising on Friday, following President Hosni Mubarak’s speech late Thursday, viewed by many as yet one more disappointing act.
Mubarak’s speech pledging to delegate powers to Vice...
Sweeping protests in Cairo and beyond are turning what has been a Tahrir-specific uprising to a nationwide revolution.
Professionals, workers and employees across the nation staged protests demanding better working conditions. Some are first-timers...
Following days of nationwide protests, Tahrir Square’s “week of resistance” celebrates the square as a “liberated zone” while also raising questions about its future.
The square has been the site for protesters across...
With evening curfews still in effect, the 14-kilometer drive from Garden City to Heliopolis takes three hours on average. And, for better or worse, the main reason for the delay is the popular committees that have mushroomed all over the city.
The...
Thousands congregated Friday in Tahrir Square, dubbed Egypt’s “liberated zone" by protesters. Friday marked day 11 of the revolution that erupted on 25 January to demand the ouster of the Hosni Mubarak regime.
“Before 25...
Egyptian doctors at two public hospitals said Saturday that the death toll from Friday’s protests, which swept Cairo with calls for the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, could be much higher than what was previously reported by security....
Thugs looting residential neighborhoods and intimidating civilians are government-hires, say eyewitnesses.
In Nasr City, an Eastern Cairo neighborhood, residents attempting to restore security told Al-Masry Al-Youm that looters were caught...
Opinion articles
I don’t expect the state to be creative, because power is an end in many ways, and only a threat to power is conducive to the state going outside of its comfort zone.
I don’t expect the state to be creative, because creativity is put...
I spent days grappling with the difficulty of identifying ways of remembering 25 January — and we’re only down to the second anniversary. Every possible story seems to have been told and retold. Barracks have been cast on both...
During the painful Ettehadiya battle earlier this month between Brotherhood supporters and youthful opposition, the violence was not just physical. The scene was also a battlefield of chants. We chanted, “horriya” (freedom). They...
Bashing the Egyptian state for its utter failure in Sinai is no longer news. But some microcosmic incidents still illustrate the state’s impotence in dealing with the tumultuous border area.
Indeed, Sinai can serve as a laboratory in which one...
Amid Egypt's troubled transition, news from Sinai is emerging again, albeit in its old familiar form. Lawlessness is the story of the arid peninsula, which is home to an intricate set of historic, political, social and economic conditions that...
I was recently sipping a cup of tea in Café Riche, Downtown Cairo’s 100-year-old café. I sat next to one of its windows, fenced with interlocking iron wires to close it off from the hurling sounds of the busy heart of town. As I was gazing at the...
