By Jered Stuffco First Published: December 12, 2006
AP
Superstar in town to discuss Darfur crisis
CAIRO: Hoping to succeed where diplomats have failed, Hollywood superstar George Clooney is in town to press action on the genocide Sudan's Darfur region, The Daily Star Egypt has learned.
While Clooney is set to meet with Egyptian officials, who are seen as key brokers in the international community, he will also discuss the crisis with students today at a small gathering at the American University in Cairo at 2 pm.
"My understanding is he requested to speak with students while he was here, and those students obviously needed to speak English. So we were contacted," said Nancy Martin, an AUC spokeswoman.
Clooney, who is part of a delegation which includes other celebrities and Olympic athletes, was in China recently to press officials there into letting a UN peacekeeping force mediate the conflict, which has left an estimated 400,000 dead and displaced millions of others.
"It's very specific, he wants to talk about Darfur," said Martin, who said the session will be closed to the public and will include about 30 lucky students.
Don Cheadle, star of the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda, will also take part in the discussion. Both actors are known for their commitment to human rights issues and have spoken publicly on the need for the international community to take action in Darfur.
posted
I suspect that the student body of the AUC would be easier to control and influence.
Plenty of students at Ain Shams speak perfectly good english, but students who aren't sons and daughters of society darlings have nothing to lose and everything to gain by asking questions that will help develop insight in regards to what actually could be done by Egyptian society to put pressure on the Egyptian government to take action in Dafur.
Pretty darn docile crowd at AUC, been well aclamated to say the right things and not to question authority.
Too bad elder stateman Clooney couldn't recieve an audience to challenge his well packaged liberal hollywood views. Posts: 3168 | From: If you don't like it, don't look or read it! | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
Sono, seriously I think why George Clooney made his way to the AUC is simply the fact that this place is connected to the US and was recommended by the Embassy. And he's not coming to improve relations with the Arab world - he's in town to highlighten the crisis in Sudan.
And I am thankful that there are people out like Clooney who are famous, have influence, become active and trying to make a difference for many.
Thumbs up, George!
PS: And there are others who do nothing but complain. Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Apparently he's still in town. Today he met with your foreign minister.
Wonder in which hotel he's staying at. Semiramis maybe?
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
EGYPT: WOMEN IN A SPIN AS CLOONEY HITS TOWN FOR DARFUR MEETING
Cairo, 13 Dec. (AKI) - As the news of movie star and international sex symbol George Clooney's presence in the capital spread on Wednesday, its female population was reported to be in disarray. Clooney, voted sexiest man alive by People Magazine, was due to meet Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Abdul-Gheit, and make a personal plea to the Egyptian authorities to use their ties with Sudan's government to help stop the the mounting violence in its conflict-wracked Darfur province.
Clooney on Tuesday talked about the warfare in Darfur and the failure of international diplomacy there with a small groups of students from the American University of Cairo. "He asked to speak with some students while he is here, and contacted us because the language of instruction here is English," an AUC spokesman told a local internet site.
The 45-year-old heart-throb and Oscar-winning actor is part of a high-profile delegation of activists who have embarked on a tour to raise awareness of the killings in Darfur, which has taken in China as well as Egypt. The delegation includes Oceans Eleven and Twelve co-star Don Cheadle, as well as Kenyan Olympic athlete and United Nations Ambassador of Sport, Tegla Loroupe, champion United States speed skater Joey Cheek and human rights lawyer David Pressman.
Clooney, a liberal Democrat, is well known for his activism, and has been urging the US Congress and the UN to help end atrocities in Darfur. In September, together with Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, he addressed the UN Security Council urging action on Darfur.
Egypt has been a key mediator with neighbouring Sudan in attempts to persuade Khartoum to allow a large peacekeeping force in Darfur, where 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million displaced in three years of ethnic warfare fuelled by land and water scarcity.
(Ale/Ajd/Aki)
13-Dec-06 13:00
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By Mirette F. Mabrouk First Published: December 14, 2006
George Clooney, and the other celebrities, had chosen to address students from AUC on teh subject of the ever-escalating humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan
If you were passing by the American University in Cairo yesterday afternoon, you might have been forgiven for thinking there was rock concert held at its gates.
The air trembled with full-throated, bloodcurdling screams.
If the Arabs had pulled off a few of those back in Andalucia, the Spaniards would still be speaking Arabic.
The reason for the aural fireworks? Actor George Clooney was at the university.
Actually, he was there with a few other equally impressive people; Don Cheadle, an actor of enormous versatility and vibrancy, Joseph Cheek, a speed skater with enough Olympic medals to tip over a small rowing boat and Tegla Loroupe, a long distance runner of remarkable grace and resilience.
Mostly, though, people screamed at Clooney; he has that effect on people, apparently.
This small group of individuals, all noteworthy in their own way, had chosen to address students from AUC on a subject they felt was worth being bounced all over the world for; the ever-escalating humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan.
The situation in Darfur currently stands at an estimated 400,000 people killed – according to the Coalition for International Justice - and another 2.5 million people displaced and homeless. People have been dying since the summer of 2003.
It’s unlike the previous Sudanese civil war, which was fought mostly between the largely Muslim North and the largely Christian and Animist South. In Darfur, much of the carnage has been attributed to the Janjaweed, herding tribes of Arab decent, who have attacked and driven off various ethnic tribes of the non-Baggara, who are mostly farmers.
Although the Sudanese government has maintained that it is not supporting the Janjaweed, this claim holds water only with those credulous enough to believe that the Tooth Fairy is actually in business and that George W. Bush won the presidential elections fair and square the first time around.
It took around 400,000 deaths for the United Nations to finally get around to passing a resolution (1706) on sending just over 17,000 peace-keeping troops to the area to help out the 7,000 African Union troops busy trying to dodge bullets there. The Sudanese government said that it would consider such a move a foreign invasion and promptly launched a military offensive against the region.
There has been much talk, most of it derisory, against celebrities who feel they need to speak up on various subjects, be it genocides or foreign policies. One supposes that much of this derision comes from people who have never raised a finger, or a voice in support of anything that does not benefit them directly.
Celebrities are people and as such, they are hardly homogenous. There are bright ones, not so bright ones, sincere ones, those who have their own political agendas and those who’ve had a little too much plastic surgery, perhaps, to make too much sense.
However, I fail to see why someone who goes out of their way to take a concern in someone else’s suffering should be taken to task.
In this case, it’s Darfur.
The governments of the Middle East have thus far failed to have any impact on the Sudanese government. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that to the people of the Middle East, the Darfur doesn’t rate very highly on their ‘things to be concerned about’ list. Most of us live in countries where we have quite enough national worries and injustices to worry about other those in other countries. And if we think international injustice, we seem to have exhausted ourselves worrying about Palestine (possibly because that gives us an excuse to rant at Israel.)
Sudan is part of the Arab League. As far as Egyptians are concerned, it’s our neighbor- we share borders. How can we not worry about what’s happening in Darfur? At which point did we decide that our own problems had to obliterate any sense of any other injustice. How can we rant at the West for its attack on the Muslim world when we can simply allow Muslims to be slaughtered on our doorstep and not raise an eyebrow?
To give credit where credit is due, the Egyptian government has shuttled tirelessly back and forth, mediating on this crisis with the Sudanese government. A peace plan brokered some months ago has since broken down and the crisis continues.
This is currently one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. We cannot stand by and content ourselves with simply making all the right, morally aggrieved, sounds.
Celebrities who use their fame to put across a point are to be commended for refusing to lapse into ease and apathy. As Don Cheadle astutely put it, “You have to use whatever soap-box you can. You just get on there and hope you get your point across.” AUC is a fitting place for this group to have chosen to appear at; the university has long been a platform for liberal thought and socially responsible ethics.
It’s sad that it took a group of famous actors and athletes to get us to think about a crisis on our doorstep, But hey, if it works, don’t knock it.
Mirette F. Mabrouk is the publisher of The Daily Star Egypt.
posted
My friend's father looks 99% like George Clooney. They met by chance in a New York restaurant and Clooney was in shock, as the story goes.
Posts: 345 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Graf_Genn: My friend's father looks 99% like George Clooney. They met by chance in a New York restaurant and Clooney was in shock, as the story goes.
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