CAIRO // The body of a blind Egyptian cleric convicted of plotting terror attacks in New York was brought back to Egypt and handed over to his family for burial on Wednesday.
Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheikh, died in a US federal prison over the weekend.
He was arrested in 1993 and convicted two years later along with nine followers, accused of conspiring to blow up the United Nations and several New York City landmarks. He was serving a life sentence in prison when he died on Saturday.
He was the spiritual leader of Gamaa Islamiya, the most feared militant group in Egypt in the 1980s and 1990s, and fled to the US in 1990.
Dozens of his followers, along with his son Mohammed, daughter Asmaa and other family and relatives, waited at the Cairo airport to receive the body and take it to his hometown in Dakahliya province.
Cairo airport official Medhat Kandil confirmed that Abdel Rahman’s body had been handed over to the family.
Another son, Ibrahim, said his father had wished to be buried in his Nile Delta town of Gamaliya.
In the US, the cleric – who lost his eyesight in infancy from diabetes – was convicted of involvement in a broad terrorist plot that includes the February 26, 1993, truck bombing of New York’s World Trade Centre that killed six people – eight years before Al Qaeda’s suicide plane hijackers brought the towers down.
He was also convicted of plotting a string of bombings against the UN, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington bridge and other New York landmarks, and of plotting to kill Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president at the time.
In 1981, Abdel Rahman was arrested in Egypt and tried for involvement in the assassination of former president Anwar Al Sadat, which was carried out by Gamaa Islamiya. He was acquitted and released in 1984. * Associated Press
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The specs
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The specs
Common to all models unless otherwise stated
Engine: 4-cylinder 2-litre T-GDi
0-100kph: 5.3 seconds (Elantra); 5.5 seconds (Kona); 6.1 seconds (Veloster)
Power: 276hp
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Director: Brady Corbet
Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
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Size, number of employees: 12
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How will Gen Alpha invest?
Mark Chahwan, co-founder and chief executive of robo-advisory firm Sarwa, forecasts that Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) will start investing in their teenage years and therefore benefit from compound interest.
“Technology and education should be the main drivers to make this happen, whether it’s investing in a few clicks or their schools/parents stepping up their personal finance education skills,” he adds.
Mr Chahwan says younger generations have a higher capacity to take on risk, but for some their appetite can be more cautious because they are investing for the first time. “Schools still do not teach personal finance and stock market investing, so a lot of the learning journey can feel daunting and intimidating,” he says.
He advises millennials to not always start with an aggressive portfolio even if they can afford to take risks. “We always advise to work your way up to your risk capacity, that way you experience volatility and get used to it. Given the higher risk capacity for the younger generations, stocks are a favourite,” says Mr Chahwan.
Highlighting the role technology has played in encouraging millennials and Gen Z to invest, he says: “They were often excluded, but with lower account minimums ... a customer with $1,000 [Dh3,672] in their account has their money working for them just as hard as the portfolio of a high get-worth individual.”
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Mia Man’s tips for fermentation
- Start with a simple recipe such as yogurt or sauerkraut
- Keep your hands and kitchen tools clean. Sanitize knives, cutting boards, tongs and storage jars with boiling water before you start.
- Mold is bad: the colour pink is a sign of mold. If yogurt turns pink as it ferments, you need to discard it and start again. For kraut, if you remove the top leaves and see any sign of mold, you should discard the batch.
- Always use clean, closed, airtight lids and containers such as mason jars when fermenting yogurt and kraut. Keep the lid closed to prevent insects and contaminants from getting in.