City of the Dead

Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard takes a look at the City of the Dead.
Ruth Pollard visits Cairo's City of the Dead, where four million people eke out a desperate existence, living among the tombstones.

The line of washing, barely moving in the gentle autumn breeze, hangs across the tightly packed tombs and mausoleums in the vast el-Arafa necropolis on the outskirts of Cairo.

A plate of pita bread, days past its best, sits on a wooden bench swollen with the weather, as a handful of children play among the graves, kicking up the dust as they chase tiny grey and white kittens darting between the rows.

This is Cairo's City of the Dead, home to an estimated 4 million people - the equivalent of the population of Sydney - eking out an existence in a cemetery spanning more than six kilometres....

If USA's interests are better off under the old regimes, then it is understandable as to why they stood for so long and why terrorist networks were so successful.  Repeatedly since September 11, 200l, it has been stated the best defense against terrorism is to remove the people from poverty and provide them with a future worth living.  When one reflects on the circumstances of so many in their poverty it is understandable why young men become radicalized.