222 CultureShock! Egypt
Local radio stations are similarly rough on the foreigner.
English language news can be heard on FM 95 at 7:30 am,
2:30 pm and 8:00 pm. This is the foreign-language station,
which broadcasts from 7:00 am until midnight. Besides
English-language programming, French, German, Greek
and Italian programmes are offered. As mentioned earlier,
a good option is a short-wave radio receiver. Other options
include tape players, boom boxes and portable CD players.
A word of caution with these: bring a good supply of tapes
and CDs with you. The ones you find in Egypt are great for
local music, but the quality is often inferior. Many are several
generations away from any original recording.Newspapers and Magazines
Several options exist for getting printed news in English.
Egyptian newspapers definitely slant coverage towards what
the government wants to see printed, although some lively
debates do appear. Censorship in Egypt is considerably less
than in other countries in the Middle East. More than that,
there is substantially less censorship in Egypt than 15 years
ago. Is censorship gone? Absolutely not! Many books are still
deemed anti-Islamic and not available. President Mubarak
loosened the reigns on the press considerably, but, if you
are expecting all-out freedom of the press, it simply is not
there yet.
The Egyptian Gazette is Egypt’s daily English-language
newspaper. Finding the Gazette outside of Cairo or Alexandria
is problematic. On Saturdays, the edition is called the
Egyptian Mail. For the past few years, Al-Ahram (the Arabic-
language daily) has published a weekly English summary on
Thursday (also available on the Internet; see the Resource
Guide for more details). Similarly, a French version is
published on Wednesday. The Middle East Times is a weekly
English-language newspaper published on Sunday. Most
newspapers can also be found on the Internet—just search
for them by name!
Many major Western newspapers and news magazines
can be found in Cairo and Alexandria. Some can even be
found in other good-sized cities, but they may be a bit