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The Fifth Floor

Factual: Life Stories

Global stories from the BBC’s 40 Language Services, with Faranak Amidi

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services.

Faranak Amidi presents global stories from the Fifth Floor, home to the BBC’s 40 Language Services

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The Fifth Floor: Cairo Calling

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BBC Arabic Office in Cairo

22/07/2016 GMT

Cairo Calling

BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Cairo Calling

Lessons in living, language and laughter from the journalists of BBC Arabic

Legacies of Suez, slang from the pharaohs onwards, what jokes can tell you about politics, and life after the 2011 revolution: David Amanor joins BBC Arabic in Egypt.

It's sixty years since the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, the event that marked Egypt's decisive break with its colonial past.  BBC Arabic journalists share their thoughts on how that iconic moment shaped modern day Egypt, and how it still influences Egyptian and Arab identity today.

How to be an Egyptian
Presenter David Amanor goes on a crash course on How To Be An Egyptian. Angy Ghannam teaches him how to joke like an Egyptian. Dina Aboughazala gives him tips on how to speak like an Egyptian. And Ahmed Nour takes him to the nearest café for a lesson on how to hang out like an Egyptian. Our BBC Arabic panel of experts contribute their own favourite jokes, and debate the eternal Egyptian café question: who should pay?  Meanwhile Mehrdad Farahmand, who reports from Cairo for BBC Persian, shares his frustrations at trying to master Egyptian slang.  He also gives us an Iranian perspective on life and politics in the Middle East, and tells us which stories his audience enjoy most.

My Tahrir
Before the 2011 Revolution, Marwa Nasser of BBC Arabic was working in an IT recruitment call centre. Within a few short weeks, she was reporting on the revolution and her face was on the cover of Time Magazine. She shares her personal story of how she found her voice, her calling and her husband in those days in Tahrir Square.

After Tahrir: Whatever happened to citizen journalists
During the 18 days of protests in Tahrir Square, a wave of citizen journalism reported on the police battles, placards and street-level populism that formed the Egyptian Revolution. Yet in recent years, that spirit of citizen journalism has all but disappeared - BBC Arabic's Radwa Gamal, Wael Hussein and Sally Nabil discuss what happened to those impromptu reporters, and share insights into the challenges facing journalists reporting in Egypt and across the region today.

(Photo: Presenter David Amanor with BBC Arabic staff in Cairo.  Credit: BBC)

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