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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 2 - 8 November 2000 Issue No. 506 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 2 - 8 November 2000 Issue No. 506
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Interview International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters All lined up
NOT SO long ago, people had to wait for years before their application for a telephone line was processed. Today, however, Niveen Wahish reports that an ambitious plan to eliminate phone line waiting lists has been announced by Egypt Telecom, Egypt's national telecommunications company.According to Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ahmed Nazif, two million new lines will be functional by December 2001, increasing the number of telephone lines in Egypt to 9.2 million.
With the installation of the new lines, Egypt's teledensity will grow from around 10.5 per cent to 13.6 per cent. The increase is expected to cost some LE4.5 billion and is part of a broader LE21 billion five-year plan for the development of Egypt Telecom's network and services.
Mini-buses, macro violators
DESPITE the daily death toll of road accidents and a new traffic law, traffic police registered 5.5 million violations over the past 10 months.Topping the list of law violators were microbus drivers, who were issued 1.5 million tickets for driving against traffic, illegal parking and driving without a licence.
Hazardous classrooms
SENDING your child to school should not be a high-risk decision. This, however, seems contingent on the Ministry of Education coupling its resolve to substantially increase classroom availability with a determination to ensure that classrooms are safe. Only the other day, 104 high school students were injured when the ceiling of their newly built classrooms came crashing down without notice.The mishap took place at the Hussein Hammad girls high school in the Nile Delta town of Dekerness. To accommodate the attending thousands of students, eight classrooms were added atop the school building. The structures were obviously not very sturdy and the roofs were made of tin and not built with concrete. The roof fell off the building and into the playground only minutes after hundreds of students had flocked to their classes. An investigation is underway.
Lethal school
SIX-YEAR-old Ibrahim Azaz was a first grader with the future ahead of him -- that is until he fell from the fourth floor of his school into the playground and died.The principal of the Asmaa Bint Abi Bakr School in Qalyoub, the scene of the tragedy, has been remanded in police custody along with two teachers. The circumstances of the mishap are yet unclear.
Compiled by Fatemah Farag
