"A Near-death Experience": UK-Egyptian Activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah Nearly Dies on Hunger Strike

Nov 18, 2022 | The family of imprisoned British Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah visited him on Thursday for the first time since he ended his full hunger and water strike, which they say occurred after he collapsed inside his prison shower last week. El-Fattah had intensified his strike on the first day of the U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh to draw international attention to the country's human rights violations and protest his seemingly indefinite imprisonment. We go to Cairo to speak with his aunt, Ahdaf Soueif, who was among the visitors and says El-Fattah may resume his hunger strike if the British government does not more aggressively demand his release. "It really breaks my heart to think of him going back on hunger strike when he is so thin and so weak," but the campaign so far "has left no one in any doubt that Alaa should be free," she says.

No 10 Alarm as Boris Johnson Plans to Attend Cop27 Climate Summit

THE OBSERVER: Ex-PM’s Cop27 visit is seen as snub to Rishi Sunak as Labour attacks government’s policy failures on environmental crisis

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to an energy company in 2020. Photograph: Leon Neal/AP
A row over prime minister Rishi Sunak’s refusal to attend the Cop27 climate summit took an extraordinary twist on Saturday night as the Observer was informed that his predecessor but one – Boris Johnson – is planning to attend the event.

Several sources said they had been told that Johnson is intending to go to the crucial meeting of world leaders in Egypt to show his solidarity with the battle against the climate crisis.

Johnson’s attendance would be potentially explosive just days after Sunak took over as prime minister and decided he did not have time to attend.

Johnson’s involvement would be seen as both an implicit criticism of Sunak for not going and an attempt to maintain and bolster his profile just a week after he abandoned his own attempts at a dramatic comeback to No 10. Several sources close to Johnson did not deny that he was set to go. » | Toby Helm and Fiona Harvey | Saturday, October 29, 2022