Wael Khalil
Wael Khalil
Born	وائل خليل (1965-12-21) December 21, 1965 (age 46) Egypt
Residence	Cairo, Egypt
Nationality	Egyptian
Known for	2010 Al Ahram photo scandal
Spouse	Lamia Bulbul
Children	Ahmed Wael (Doda)
Parents	Ahmad Khalil and Mohsena Tawfik
Relatives	Azza khalil (Sister)

Wael Khalil (Arabic: وائل خليل‎) is an Egyptian political activist known for his criticism of the Mubarak regime, his activity during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and his blog WaELK.net which covers government, activism and sports.

Personal life[link]

Khalil is a software engineer by trade.^[1] On the 5 September 1996 Wael married Dr. Lamia Bulbul. On the second November 1998, they had their first son Ahmed Wael (Doda). Wael has one sister Azza khalil.

Early activism[link]

Wael Khalil joined the Revolutionary Socialists in 1992 but left them in 2011 after Hosni Mubarak resignation by few weeks. Khalil began his activism in 2000 as part of the Egyptian anti-war and anti-globalisation movement.^[1] He believes that political reform is rooted in the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements.^[2] He also believes that dictatorship leads to imperialism.^[1]

He was a protester from the Egyptian opposition movement Kefaya.^[2] He also co-founded the 20 March Popular Campaign for Change.^[1]

In 2006 he criticized Egyptian police after at Sudanese refugees were killed at a squatter camp in Cairo. He said, "When you kill little babies, things have changed...We will try you, and you won't be able to travel abroad again."^[2]

Al Ahram photo scandal[link]

In September 2010 Khalil reported on an altered photograph in Al-Ahram in which editors had changed the position of president Hosni Mubarak from the back of a row of heads of state to the front. On his blog Waelk.net Khalil posted the photoshopped image alongside the original taken by Associated Press, which showed Mubarak actually behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah II, and United States President Barack Obama at a media event at the White House.^[3][4]

Egyptian Chronicles blog commented, "The photo scandal of the week which is making headlines worldwide is another triumph to the Egyptian blogosphere as the one who discovered from all the world is Egyptian follow blogger Wael Khalil...I repeat the one who discovered is Wael Khalil...Who said that blogs are losing their power in Egypt !!??"^[5]

2011 Egyptian revolution[link]

Wael Khalil

Khalil was active during the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath.

In May 2011 Khalil spoke out for a second wave of protests in support of a "Friday of rage" against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). In an editorial in The Guardian, Khalil's criticisms of the SCAF focused on rumors about pardoning Mubarak and members of his regime, physical or violent reactions of security forces during protests, the army's use of military trials against civilians, use of trials against protesters and 'normal citizens', and he also noted the prior successes which resulted from large protests in Tahrir Square. He wrote, "The call for a 'second revolution' chimes with a growing restlessness and impatience at the pace of developments and the overall performance of the governing Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)....We will be out again in Tahrir Square on Friday 27 May in order to assert that the interim power respect our rights and demands. The Egyptian people have earned their right to control the future of this country."^[6]

In July 2011 Al-Ahram profiled Khalil's presence at a meeting with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, along with four other activists, which prompted a debate on Twitter about whether or not the activists represented to growing protests. Seven demands, agreed upon by several organisations, were presented to Sharaf. The meeting happened while in Tahrir square protesters gathered in their second major wave of activism.^[7]

2011 Budget policy[link]

Wael Khalil speaking at Tweet Nadwa about the 2011 Budget

In a June 2011 editorial in The Guardian, Khalil criticized support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which included a $3 billion loan.^[8] He said, "But many people, myself included, were unhappy with this news and the impact such a loan will have on deepening the country's debt and mounting debt servicing burden."^[9] Khalil equated help from the bank with "neoliberal[ism]", "imperialism", and the politics of the Mubarak regime. He blamed such policies for economic stagnation, deterioration, and growing inequality under Mubarak. Khalil cited IMF ex-employee and Mubarak regime finance minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali, who was sentenced to prison for corruption. He said, "I believe that this country's future lies not with the same highly paid, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats of the IMF, nor with their sacred indicators of budget deficits and market economics. Our future lies with a new home-grown economics that caters for the majority of Egyptians, the schools where their children are educated, the hospitals where they receive healthcare, and the jobs that guarantee them decent and honourable living."^[9][10]

In July 2011, Khalil criticized a proposed increase in Egypt's minimum wage as insufficiently large. Khalil said the new wage, while "an improvement" represented an "example of the priority of the government to lean on the poor and working majority in order to protect the interests of businessmen and the established elite."^[11]

Khalil also supported the proposed budget's decreasing of the deficit but criticized the means to do so which he said put more burden on workers and pensioners rather than raising capital gains taxes. Khalil said, "We need to continue mass demonstrations to pressure the government, [because] it won’t stop with just the budget and the decision on minimum wage, but they will continue leaning on workers, on the country’s weakest side."^[11]

Khalil argued that in the movement for reform social rights were necessary as well as political rights. He said, "We must not only mobilize people, but also debate and explain specifically why social justice is important for [Egypt]. You cannot really say that you want democracy, and then after that you’ll [work to] get social justice. No. If you do it in this order, you’ll end up with nothing."^[11]

See also[link]

• Alaa Abd El-Fatah
• Nawara Negm
• Saad Eddin Ibrahim

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wael Khalil

Official sites

• "وَيلك دوت نت". WaELK.net blog. http://waelk.net/. 
• Wael's Twitter

Media

• ThinkExist.com Quotations. "Wael Khalil quotes". Thinkexist.com. http://thinkexist.com/quotes/wael_khalil/. 
• Khalil, Wael (27 May 2011). "Guardian.Co.Uk profile". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/wael-khalil. 

Interviews

• Inside Story. "A new dawn for Egypt - Inside Story". Al Jazeera English. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2011/02/201121391344411737.html. 
• Inside Story. "Egypt: The youth perspective - Inside Story". Al Jazeera English. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2011/01/2011129111336830896.html. 
• Haddad, Bassam. "Opportunities and Challenges Facing the Egyptian Revolution: Interview with Blogger Wael Khalil". Jadaliyya. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1790/opportunities-and-challenges-facing-the-egyptian-r. 
• "Egyptian blogger Wael Khalil discusses what opposition activists have planned next | Free Speech Radio News". Fsrn.org. http://fsrn.org/audio/egyptian-blogger-wael-khalil-discusses-what-opposition-activists-have-planned-next/7963. 

3-2-1 Contact is an American science educational television show that aired on PBS from 1980 to 1988, and an adjoining children's magazine. The show, a production of the Children's Television Workshop, teaches scientific principles and their applications. Dr. Edward G. Atkins, who was responsible for much of the scientific content of the show, felt that the TV program wouldn't replace a classroom but would open the viewers to ask questions about the scientific purpose of things.^[1]

History[link]

3-2-1 Contact was the brainchild of Samuel Y. Gibbon, Jr., who had been the executive producer of The Electric Company for CTW from 1971 to 1977. (Gibbon actually left CTW before Contact's production began, though he was still credited as "Senior Consultant.")

The first season of 65 programs began airing January 14, 1980 on select PBS member stations; it featured a cast of three college students who discussed science in an on-campus room known as the Workshop. The first season came to an end on April 11, 1980, but funds for more episodes were not sufficient until 1982.

When production resumed for the second season, which premiered on October 17, 1983, the show presented a more realistic appearance, as the new cast convened in a suburban basement (these segments were shot at Reeves Teletape, which also housed Sesame Street at the time). This cast continued until October 18, 1985. Ozzie Alfonso was Contact's new director and Al Hyslop its executive producer.

When the fifth season began on September 22, 1986, a third cast was introduced. However, unlike the previous casts, they did not meet in any specific setting; instead, they appeared in various taped and filmed segments. Episodes continued to be produced through November 1988.

For a time in the mid-1980s, the program was co-produced with the French television network FR3 and featured several new French cast members in addition to the American cast. From 1982 to 1983 the program was aired in Spain with dubbed-over versions of the American original broadcasts, and some local add-ons with four Spanish cast members: Sonia Martínez, Luis Bollain, Fernando Rueda and Marifé Rodríguez.^[2] Another Spanish version of the broadcast was aired from 1990 to 1992.

From September 1, 1991 until May 1, 1992, an edited version of the series titled 3-2-1 Classroom Contact was produced, specifically for in-school viewing.

It was reported in 1984 that 3-2-1 Contact had an audience of over 7 million viewers and was broadcast in 26 countries including West Germany, France, Italy and Spain making their own dubbed-over versions.^[1]

Broadcasters wanted the children to record the episodes without being afraid of infringement of copyright violations.^[1]

Hosts[link]

The Bloodhound Gang[link]

A frequent segment of the show was The Bloodhound Gang, a series about a group of young detectives who used science to solve crimes. Episodes of the series needed to be run in regular sequence for understandable viewing, as many Bloodhound Gang mysteries were cut among two or three Contact episodes.

The magazine[link]

Three months before the show premiered, a print magazine of the same name that also focused on science was released. In 1985, the magazine absorbed some of the content of sibling publication Enter (which went out of print that same year), including reader submissions of computer programs written in the BASIC computer language as well as reviews of popular computer programs. A new feature called "The Slipped Disk Show" appeared in mid-1985, starring a fictional disc jockey who answered computer-related questions submitted by readers.

Beginning in 1987, the magazine also featured content from another CTW production, Square One Television. Such content frequently took the form of a two-page comic strip, often parodying a popular show or movie of the time, with a math-related question at the end.

The Bloodhound Gang mysteries also made the leap to the magazine, but they were subsequently replaced with a series entitled The Time Team in September 1990. These stories found teenage characters Sean Nolan and Jenny Lopez traveling to different time periods in the past and future. Their surroundings and personal encounters were described with great detail, educating readers as to the customs of various cultures throughout history, and – on trips to the future – often pushing present day hot-button issues. For example, a 1993 story saw the duo traveling to what appeared to be a prehistoric forest, but near the end, they found a Brazil flag, a newspaper clipping from 1995, and a bulldozer at work: this was in fact a Brazilian rainforest being levelled.

In 1996, The Time Team was replaced by a comic serial, Cosmic Crew, which focused on the adventures of a group of teenagers and their robot butler in space. Their first story arc (which ran for more than a year) had them trying to figure out a series of riddles relating to places in the solar system in order to claim a treasure (which turned out to be a scholarship fund). Another story arc had a delinquent (who had been a villain in the first arc) join them in order to chase down a gang of other delinquents. Despite being effectively replaced, a few Time Team stories were run whenever there were gaps between installments of Cosmic Crew.

Many of the magazine's cover stories involved current events, such as 1990s oil fires in the Middle East. In addition, the magazine offered a games section in which most of the games were related to the stories in the issue.

In 1996, CTW presumably concluded that faithful readers from the late 1980s and early 1990s had long since moved on, and the magazine began to reprint non-time-sensitive stories from years past. For example, a 1991 article on the geography of the Galápagos Islands – a relatively unchanging subject – could very well re-appear in an identical format a half a decade later.

Under Sesame Workshop the magazine later became Contact Kids, removing the original reference to the television show. Production of the magazine was suspended indefinitely in 2001.

After production[link]

Though the show went off the air in 1988, it appeared in reruns from 1999 to 2003 on the cable television network Noggin, then a joint venture of CTW and Nickelodeon. Occasionally, shows were also rerun on Nickelodeon's Cable in the Classroom time period. For all these Nickelodeon and Noggin airings, the series was rated TV-Y7 (possibly due to the target audience). It also still aired on some PBS stations as reruns from 1989 to 1998 before it was switched to Noggin in 1999. As of 2003, Noggin no longer airs any shows produced by Sesame Workshop. The shows were modified for the shorter running time on these networks to allow for their interstitials.

Sources of funding[link]

Funding for 3-2-1 Contact was provided by the following:^[3]

• National Science Foundation (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• United States Department of Education (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• IBM Corporation (January 14, 1980–November 18, 1988)
• Carnegie Corporation of New York (October 31, 1983-November 18, 1988)

Five sponsors funded the show for its entire run. They were originally supposed to fund for 20 new episodes until 1989.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• 3-2-1 Contact at the Internet Movie Database
• 3-2-1 Contact at TV.com