Egypt Follow

Doctors in Egypt have threatened to strike if their demands over pay are not met. They are the latest group to join a wave of popular unrest led by Egyptian workers and peasants against the US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak.

Workers at the Ghazl el-Mahalla textile mill in Egypt staged a mass demonstration last Sunday, calling for the end of the US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak.

Civil service workers in Egypt celebrate after hearing that the government has caved in to their demands for higher wages in December last year.

There were sighs of relief among Western leaders last week when Egypt finally sealed its border with the Gaza Strip. Yet there was also a recognition that the US strategy to isolate the Palestinian resistance has turned to dust.

Over 2,000 Egyptian activists were arrested today as they attempted to assemble a peaceful demonstration in front of the Arab League in downtown Cairo.

Workers at the Suez Trust for Weaving Industries in Egypt entered their eighth day of occupying their factory as Socialist Worker went to press.

Resistance to the neoliberal policies of the Egyptian government has led to a strike wave involving thousands of workers. Anne Alexander describes how women have played a key role in the struggle and Farah Koubaissy visits a tobacco factory where one woman, Hagga Aisha, has led the strikes.

Egyptian newspapers did not appear on the stands last week as a part of a national protest against the imprisoning of editors for "slandering the president".

They brought drums and homemade placards, set up a sea of tents in the factory grounds and turned the forecourt of the mill into a week-long mass meeting.

Dr Alaa Al Aswany's first published novel, The Yacoubian Building, provoked fury from the Egyptian regime, but has captured the imagination of the Egyptian public. Gehan Shabaan asks the bestselling author about his work and the film adaptation coming to Britain this month.

When David Morrison, delivery rep at Islington in north London, read in Socialist Worker about a desperate strike by Egyptian postal workers (28 July), he sent a simple note of solidarity to Cairo.

Egyptian postal workers occupied the Egyptian Postal Service building in the capital Cairo last week.