ESA Proba-1 Images of Earth from Space

The Pyramids of Giza, nearby Cairo in Egypt.

The Mysterious and Mystical Uluru or Ayres Rock in Australia.

Egypt eyes U.S. missiles, equipment

The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency has signaled its intent to consider a rash of foreign military sales to Egypt, including the transfer of anti-tank missiles.

The government of Egypt has also requested anti-ship missiles, engine upgrades for its fleet of F-16 jet fighters and Fast Missile Crafts worth an estimated $1.18 billion.

The proposed sale is expected to "contribute to the foreign police and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country which has been and continues to be an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East," the U.S. Defense agency said.

Among Egypt's grab-bag of requests: 450 AGM-114K3A Hellfire II air-to-surface anti-armor missiles, along with associated parts, equipment training and logistical support. This package alone is estimated at $51 million.

Experts say Egypt requires the particular missiles to defend its own borders and to remain militarily viable in the contentious region. Still, the experts maintain, the purchase will not adversely affect the military balance in the region.

Egypt also wants to procure 20 RGM-84L/3 Harpoon Block III anti-ship cruise missiles, 4 Harpoon shipboard command launch control systems, including all consoles, software and shipboard canister launcher units.

The potential sale would also feature support equipment, personnel training and training equipment -- all estimated at $145 million.

Should the deal go through, the principle contractor will be U.S-based Boeing company.

Another export opportunity includes Egypt's request for upgraded F-110-GE-100 engines that power its fleet of F-16 jet fighters. The proposed upgrades will be spread out over six or seven years, in increments of approximately 24 upgraded engines per year, local media reported.

This contract would amount to a value of approximately $750 million and would be carried out by General Electric Aviation, the Defense Professionals Web site reported.

The proposed sales, however, have triggered sharp criticism by Middle East experts who fear the fresh dispatch of arms to Egypt could end up in hostile hands.

"These U.S. arms are likely to fall into the hands of the Islamists, who would be more inclined to immediate aggression," wrote the Examiner. "Egypt needs means of neutralizing the Islamists within. It does not have enemies threatening assault on it with modern armies."

News of Egypt's arms requests follows similar bids from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi Arabia recently disclosed that its intent to buy wire-guided radio frequency missiles was aimed at supporting the kingdom's efforts to modernize its national guard.

Cairo Tries to Save Face after H1N1 Pig Slaughter Disaster

Cairo and Egypt are claiming to be able to turn trash into treasure, and at the same time keeping it green in Cairo.

In an attempt to help curb the city's stifling pollution and meet their energy needs too, a few Cairo families have begun to recycle waste by generating biogas from rubbish.

Recovery from disaster

This is felt to be a face saving gesture following a disasterous decision to slaughter all the nation's pigs, on the pretext that they were a threat to public health. The pigs were wholly owned by the zabaleen, a Coptic Christian sect that, for generations had used them to consume and clean up the city's garbage.

It is an ambitious project that is still in its infancy but may just catch on in this teeming city of 18 million people, currently obscured in a dirty grey veil of haze produced by the fumes from millions of car exhausts.

American sponsored solution
The initiative to transform organic waste into alternative energy, not in itself a new idea, was started by an American, Thomas Culhane, in east Cairo's Manshiet Nasser slums, which are known locally as Garbage City.

He runs Solar Cities, a non-governmental organisation that looks to design and develop technologies that aim to solve very local problems.

Following a grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2007, he has been installing solar panels to produce hot water for families in Garbage City.

The Christian zabaleen

This is where thousands of zabaleen, freelance trash collectors, hand-sort through tons of rubbish collected from the streets of the megalopolis and then sell recyclable material. In the past, the pigs consumed the edible waste material and in turn the zabaleen would eat the pigs and sustain their families.

Muslim acceptance

The Solar Cities idea was well received and began to spread to the neighbouring mainly Muslim area of Darb al-Ahmar, prompting Culhane and Hanna Fathy, a Manshiet Nasser resident involved in the scheme, to offer families "biogas digesters."

Simple solution

Made from two simple plastic tanks and tubes, the digesters convert organic matter into biogas through a process in which bacteria decompose the matter to produce methane for cooking and fertiliser which can then be resold.

"One man's garbage is another man's gold mine. One woman's trash is another woman's treasure," Culhane said.

The alternative would be that "I would be throwing this garbage out in the streets, there would be rats, flies, cats and dogs."

Spend money to save

The solar panels allow a family of 10 to save around 30 Egyptian pounds (5.4 dollars) a month, and biogas trims a further 10 pounds monthly.

This can mean valuable savings in Egypt, where the average household salary is around 100 dollars a month.

So far, however, Solar Cities has installed just 30 solar panels and seven biogas digesters.

The main hurdle is cost. Solar panels cost up to 2,400 Egyptian pounds and the digesters cost 700 Egyptian pounds, in a country where gas and fuel are heavily subsidised by the government.
"It's a very good system which has a future here, especially now that they have killed our pigs," insists Fathy, who says he remains optimistic about the project despite the obstacles.

Unnecessary Pig Slaughter
In May, Egypt ordered the slaughter of the nation's 250,000 pigs as part of swine flu prevention measures, even though the World Health Organisation said that taking such a drastic measure was not scientifically justified.

The pigs, which ate the teeming city's organic waste, were already involved in a recycling process that provided revenue and food for their owners.

"In the past they fed the organic waste to the pigs but even the pigs could not eat it all," Culhane said.

"Now the pigs are gone and there is nothing to transform Cairo's organic waste into safe products except biogas digesters."

"I miss the sound of the pigs," Fathy said, gesturing to the slum's rooftops where the zabaleen have now taken to raising goats and chickens.

"These animals can't swallow what the pigs use to," he said.

"We don't have big goals, we just want to be catalysts, to spread seed by seed a garden of solutions that make sense," Culhane said.

If the systems were applied on a large scale, he said, "we could solve 50 percent of Egypt's pollution problem and eliminate mechanically the organic garbage problem."