The President names the Prime Minister and may preside over the cabinet. President Mubarak holds a monthly meeting with the cabinet on which he presides. In addition, the President is the Supreme Commander of the Egyptian Armed Forces. The President concludes treaties and may submit questions to national referenda. The President also possesses the constitutional power to dissolve the People’s Assembly, however, no President has ever done so. In certain emergencies, the President may assume special, comprehensive powers.
Small communities spread throughout the desert regions of Egypt are clustered around oases and historic trade and transportation routes. The government has tried with mixed success to encourage migration to newly irrigated land reclaimed from the desert. However, the proportion of the population living in rural areas has continued to decrease as people move to the cities in search of employment and a higher standard of living.
Warm weather and plentiful water permit several crops a year. Further improvement is possible, but land is worked intensively and yields are high. Cotton, rice, wheat, corn, sugarcane, sugar beets, onions, and beans are the principal crops. Increasingly, a few modern operations are producing fruits, vegetables and flowers, in addition to cotton, for export. While the desert hosts some large, modern farms, more common traditional farms occupy one acre (4,000 m˛) each, typically in a canal-irrigated area along the banks of the Nile. Many small farmers also have cows, water buffaloes, and chicken, although larger modern farms are becoming more important.
The Egyptian military provides indirect support for the foreign policy of Egypt in the region. Egypt is the strongest military power on the African continent, and the second largest in the Middle East, after Israel.
In the late 1970s Egypt had several cohabitation governments which proved to be unstable, due to the struggle arising between the President and the Prime Minister. However, since 1981, the National Democratic Party has maintained a majority in the People’s Assembly and supplied the Egyptian President.
Some famous Egyptians include: Gamal Abdel Nasser (former president), Boutros Boutros-Ghali (former Secretary General of the United Nations), Naguib Mahfouz (Nobel Prize-winning novelist), Umm Kulthum (singer), Omar Sharif (actor), Ahmed Zewail (Nobel Prize-winning chemist), Mohamed ElBaradei (Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency), Anwar Sadat (former president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize),
Among the modern talents of Egyptian literature, Naguib Mahfouz is foremost. In 1988, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Other well-known Egyptian writers include Nawal El Saadawi, who is well known for her feminist works and activism, and Alifa Rifaat who is conservative and writes about women and tradition
Geography, population, history, military strength, and diplomatic expertise give Egypt extensive political influence in the Middle East. Cairo has been a crossroads of Arab commerce and culture for millennia, and its intellectual and Islamic institutions are at the center of the region's social and cultural development.
In modern times, archaeology and the study of Egypt's ancient heritage as the field of Egyptology has itself become a major scientific pursuit in the country. Led at first by Westerners, this modern rediscovery has in recent decades been taken up by Egyptian archeaologists such as Zahi Hawass and the Supreme Council of Antiquities he leads. None of this could have taken place, though, without the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, a tablet written in ancient Greek, Egyptian demotic script, and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Greek, a well known language, gave linguists the ability to decipher the mysterious Egyptian hieroglyphic language. The ability to decipher hieroglyphics facilitated the translation of hundreds of the texts and inscriptions that were previously indecipherable, giving us insight into Egyptian culture that would have otherwise been lost to the ages. The stone was discovered on July 15, 1799 in the port town of Rosetta, Egypt,and has been held in the British Museum since 1802.
The history of Egypt is the longest continuous history, as a unified state, of any country in the world.
From the 1910s, Egyptian pop music has become increasingly listened to, as has folk music from Egypt's many cultures. This enhances the sense of place which is part of the Arab influence in Egyptian music.
Under Islam, Egypt continued to be a great source of literary endeavour, now in the Arabic language. In 970, al-Azhar University was founded in Cairo, which to this day remains the most important centre of Sunni Islamic learning. In the 12th century Egypt, the Jewish talmudic scholar Maimonides produced his most important work.
The vast majority of Egypt's population inhabit the banks of the Nile river (about 40,000 km˛).Large areas of land are part of the Sahara Desert and are sparsely inhabited.
Egypt's foreign policy operates along a non-aligned level. Factors such as population size, historical events, military strength, diplomatic expertise and a strategic geographical position give Egypt extensive political influence in the Middle East and Northern Africa, and within the Nonaligned Movement as a whole. Cairo has been a crossroads of Arab commerce and culture for millennia, and its intellectual and Islamic institutions are at the center of the region's social and cultural development.
According to a 1995 law, the application of family law, including marriage, divorce, alimony, child custody, inheritance, and burial, is based on an individual's religion. In the practice of family law, the State recognizes only the three "heavenly religions:" Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Muslim families are subject to the Personal Status Law, which draws on Shari'a (Islamic law). Christian families are subject to canon law, and Jewish families are subject to Jewish law. In cases of family law disputes involving a marriage between a Christian woman and a Muslim man, the courts apply the Personal Status Law.