Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Conference highlights

THIS week high-level consultations were held between the irrigation ministers of Egypt, Su-an and Ethiopia within the framework of the Eastern Nile Subsidiary Programme. The meetings were the first of their kind to be held in Cairo. The first three-way meeting, in-luding high officials and experts, took place in May 1999 in Addis Ababa.

The head of the Iraqi delegation at the summit, Manal Al-Alussi, interrupted the last session to complain that the final declaration made no clear reference to lifting international sanctions against her country, which were imposed as a result of its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The statement merely referred to "summit solidarity with Iraqi women in their suffering and Kuwaiti women in their difficulties." By opting for that formula, the summit was taking the side of Kuwait against Iraq, Al-Alussi claimed. The wife of Kuwait's prime minister and crown prince, Sheikha Latifa, had called Saturday on Arab women "to intercede with the Iraqi authorities to free 605 Kuwaiti prisoners of war."

The youngest delegate at the summit was three-month-old Princess Salma, who was travelling to Cairo with her mother, Jordan's Queen Rania. The queen's stay in Egypt was short -- she returned to Jordan after attending the conference's opening session.

Silence and sorrow engulfed the audience while a 10-minute documentary film entitled A meeting with a martyr was being screened at the conference's closing session. The film tells the story of a Palestinian mother whose 10-year-old boy was killed by the Israeli army.

The fund-raising gala dinner organised by the National Council for Women succeeded in collecting a large sum of money which will all go to supporting Palestinian women. Organisers of the charity event had received a large number of valuable items for donation, including a BMW car and a painting by Culture Minister Farouk Hosni.

The general secretariat of the National Council for Women organised a huge art exhibition on the sidelines of the summit at the Cairo International Conference Centre. The exhibition displayed jewellery and porcelain made by well-known artists, in addition to a large collection of sil-er and gold jewellery by Azza Fahmy and brass works by Randa Fahmy. Leading Egyptian female artists also showed a collection of their paintings.

Soha Arafat and most of the members of the Palestinian delegation were dressed in black to express mourning for the deaths of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

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