11 - 17 January 2001
Issue No.516
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 11 - 17 January 2001 Issue No.516 |
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Newsreel
Crash probe nears end
FOURTEEN months after EgyptAir flight 990 plunged in the Atlantic off the east coast of the United States, resulting in the death of 217 passengers, American investigators are adding the final touches to a draft report on the possible causes of the crash, Amira Ibrahim writes.EgyptAir sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that the Egyptian team would study the draft report prepared by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) experts and determine whether the Egyptian viewpoint was adequately represented.
Shortly after the crash, and even before the black boxes were retrieved from the ocean, NTSB officials leaked information which directly accused co-pilot Gamil El-Batouti of having deliberately nosedived the plane into the ocean in an apparent suicide bid.
The leak caused mistrust between Egyptian and US investigators. The dispute reached a peak in August, when the NTSB released a factual report which ignored Egyptian theories, mainly the suggestion that the crash was the result of a mechanical failure.
In response, Egyptian investigators issued a report in which they rejected the NTSB assumptions and made new demands, such as the release of relevant radar images and additional technical examinations on simulators. Further, Egyptian pilots asked American authorities to question more witnesses, including two Jordanian and German pilots who had been quoted as saying they saw a fireball in the area at the time of the crash.
According to EgyptAir sources, the draft report will be released in a month's time. The Egyptian team will discuss the findings with their American counterparts and will prepare a separate report. "Points of difference must be reported within 60 days after the release of the draft report. The final report will be prepared within a month after that," a top EgyptAir official, who requested anonymity, said. He added: "They are free to say whatever they want and we are also free to say whatever we want. The conclusion is that there are two points of view and this situation is likely to continue."
Al-Yasar, take four
THE NEW millennium has brought with it the fourth reappearance of the monthly Al-Yasar, a political magazine published by the leftist Tagammu Party and headed by Hussein Abdel-Razeq. Al-Yasar is the country's only legal leftist magazine. Although not all leftists will agree with the magazine's content, the general attitude is that Al-Yasar is obligatory reading.The magazine, which first appeared in March 1990, faced its third financial crisis in April 1999. A decision was taken then to turn it into a quarterly, the last issue of which appeared in May 2000. Publication was then suspended. It is now back on news-stands at the same price of LE3.
Al-Shaab wins again
THE GOVERNMENT lost yet another round on Monday in its legal battle to prevent Al-Shaab, mouthpiece of the frozen and Islamist-oriented Labour Party, from staging a comeback on the news-stands. After Al-Shaab led a heated campaign in late April against the Ministry of Culture for approving the reprinting of a novel which it viewed as insulting to Islamic religion, the government-controlled Political Parties Committee ordered the suspension of the newspaper. However, Al-Shaab lawyers appealed against the ruling in the Administrative Court, and won. The government filed a counter-appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court and lost. The court ruled that, under Egyptian law, newspapers cannot be closed down by administrative orders.In an apparent attempt to delay implementation of the sentence, government lawyers went to the urgent matters court. The Cairo urgent matters court ruled on Monday that it had no mandate to hear the latest government appeal, and sent the case back to the Supreme Administrative Court.
Talaat Rumeih, deputy editor-in-chief of Al-Shaab, said he expected the Supreme Administrative Court to hand down a final ruling in a matter of weeks.
"We feel strongly that the court will rule in our favour because it has already done so twice before," he said. "From a legal perspective, we can reappear now if we want to. But this has been a political case since the beginning, and we will wait until a final decision is made," he added.
Killing smog
IT WARMS the heart to see drivers and passengers with fastened seat belts, but while stringent traffic laws may reduce the possibility of human error, weather conditions are not subject to the law. High pollution levels helped exacerbate adverse conditions, resulting in a heavy smog which caused two separate accidents on roads near the Suez Canal on Sunday that killed 14 people and wounded 60.
Fatal neglect
THE BIRTH of her first baby should have been a joyful occasion for 21-year-old Samah Mohamed. Tragically, a doctor who performed the caesarean section to deliver a healthy boy forgot to remove two swabs from Samah's abdomen before closing up. The young woman was reported to have died a painful death 10 days later.Under Egypt's inadequate malpractice laws, the doctor who caused young Samah's death and made her infant an orphan is unlikely to be duly punished.
Sleep well, Ramses
EGYPTIAN mummies currently under examination by CAT-Scans at Emery University in the United States will rest more easily now they are saved from harmful examination.According to scientists, the use of sophisticated X-ray technology allows them access to the interior of a mummy without having to unravel the embalmed corpses from the swaths of ancient cloth, a process that invariably resulted in damage.
The most important mummy undergoing the X-ray examination is that of Pharaoh Ramses I, who founded the 19th dynasty and ruled Egypt from 1292 to 1290 BC.
Night stalker
HE IS a lawyer with a problem: he hates women. He especially hates those women who walk the Pyramids Road, known for its nightclubs and rowdy night-life, in search of a living. He hates them enough to burn their skin and disfigure their faces.Ahmed Hussein would prowl the streets in search of victims. As soon as a woman either accepted his offer of money for sex, or appeared to accept anyone else's offer, he would pull out a small bottle of sulphuric acid and spray its contents in her face.
On the streets he was dubbed "the phantom of the Pyramids Road," and fear ran rampant among the women forced to work there. When eventually Hussein was caught, he claimed to have taken the law into his own hands because it was incapable of keeping the women off the streets. Now the women have one less monster to worry about.
Change spared
SIX gold coins minted some 500 years ago under Egypt's Mameluke ruler El-Ashraf Qait Bey and stolen last July from a temporary Islamic exhibition at the Qait Bey fort in Alexandria have been recovered. The antiquities police arrested two Alexandrian jewellers after one of them attempted to sell the coins.Following the theft, the Qait Bey exhibition was closed and all its artifacts transferred either to the Islamic Museum of Art in Cairo or the Maritime Museum next door to the Qait Bey fort.
Compiled by Fatemah Farag
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