Al-Ahram Weekly 30 Sep. - 6 Oct. 1999 Issue No. 449
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Pack of Cards By Madame Sosostris   memorial stamp * Have you noticed, dears, the number of exciting conferences which are taking place around the world this month? One of them in particular caught my interest: the 22nd International Mail Conference, held in Beijing which was attended by a delegation from Egypt's Mail Administration for a very good reason: Egypt was unanimously elected to the International Postal Union's governing body, in addition to its membership in the Postal Investment Council for the next five years. Soliman Metwalli, minister of transport and communications, was understandably proud. He pointed out that Egypt was the third country to obtain the required votes out of 189 countries. Ahmed El-Soli, head of the National Mail Authority, commented that the award coincided with the issuing of two memorial stamps to commemorate President Hosni Mubarak's re-election for a fourth six-year presidential term. If you are collecting, my darlings, now is the time to run to the nearest post office and acquire a few of these silver and gold stamps.

Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters

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Lehnert and Landrock's Orient Whenever we think of postcards and pictures of Egypt, the names Lehnert and Landrock immediately come to mind. The two men met in Tunis in 1904 and soon discovered that they shared the same passion for Oriental landscapes. From then on, they joined forces. Lenhert, an artist shaped by the Viennese cultural atmosphere prevailing at the turn of the century, took the photographs, while Landrock, perhaps more of a scientist and a businessman, ran the shop that they founded first in Tunis and later, after World War I, in Cairo. He was the one to manage the laboratory, organise the caravans that took Lenhert to the desert and distant oases and finally market the pictures. All this process is detailed in Philippe Cardinal's book, L'Orient d'un photographe. A collection of Lehnert and Landrock's North African photographs will be showing at the American University's Sony Gallery from 5 to 28 October, while at the same time another collection of their Egyptian photographs will be showing at the Ewart Gallery. This is a unique opportunity to see the originals of a collection which includes some of the most popular desert views, street scenes and traditional Oriental environment of this century.

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The new faces of Africa * Do you know that, last week, four more beauties were selected as winners in the North African regional finals of the M-Net "Face of Africa" 2000 competition? Our very own International editor Gamal Nkruma practically tore the invitation to attend from my hands, insisting that Africa was his province, and took himself to the Ramsis Hilton in his best suit and most colourful tie. There he witnessed Egyptian Lara El-Tanahy, Eritean Semhar Afeworki, and Tunisians Iman Manghni and Norchene Cherif being cheered onto the podium. The four finalists will represent North Africa at the All Africa Finals in Cape Town in April 2000. The girls wore garments from the fashion houses of John Galliano, Louis Feraud and other European prominent designers in addition to the African collections of celebrated Egyptian designer Alia Nosseir and Paris-based Moroccan designer Karim Tassi. Gamal was waxing lyrical, not only about the beauty of the African queens, but also about Nkhensani Manganyi, Africa's new voice. She presented the event, which was broadcast to 42 African countries.

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Reda, Shehab, Hosni; Sherine Ibrahim's composition;Inas Anwar's sculpture * The 1999 Competition for Creative University Youths is really worth a special mention, dears, because it gives a chance to all the poor overworked undergraduates out there to do something other than poring over textbooks. Well, the ceremony crowning this competition, organised by the Faculty of Applied Arts under the auspices of Minister of Higher Education Mufid Shehab, was attended by Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, Minister of Industry Soliman Reda and Head of Helwan University Hassan Hosni. The students were offered many fields in which to exercise their talents: poetry-, play-, short story- and news-writing; photography; the plastic arts; and the layout and printing of university periodicals. No fewer than 10,000 entries from all over Egypt were submitted; the 33 finalists competed for the first three awards in each field. The sculpture entries were particularly interesting, I thought, and I spent some time gazing in admiration at AUCian Sherine Ibrahim's composition, which earned her the second prize in her category, and was also quite taken by the work of Inas Anwar from the University of Assiut, whose style eloquently bespeaks the strength of her personality.

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