Egypt, host of the UN climate summit, persecutes its own greens

The climb up the holy mount seemed innocuous enough. On the side of the UN’s annual climate conference this week in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, a few dozen religious leaders from India to Indiana planned to pray on its summit for forgiveness for the harm humanity has been inflicting on Mother Earth. Egypt’s local military governor gave the idea a cautious welcome, hoping it might boost tourism. But his masters in Cairo were taking no chances. The bus companies and hotels were told to cancel their reservations. Security men grabbed the local fixer, took his phone and sifted it for names to put on the state’s blacklist. “They want to control us,” says an organiser, who has moved the Earth-propitiating event to London instead.