Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 February 2001 Issue No.522
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

High-ranking visitors
UNITED States Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to arrive in Cairo on Saturday for a five-hour visit, during which he will meet with President Hosni Mubarak and top Egyptian officials. The US ambassador in Egypt, Daniel Kurtzer, said the visit would provide an important opportunity for consultations between the US and its allies at an early stage in the administration of new US President George W Bush.
The talks, Kurtzer said, would focus on the peace process and Iraq. "These are the main issues that [Powell] will be discussing during his visit, which will also take him to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Syria," he said. Powell's visit to the region comes only a week after the US and the United Kingdom carried out highly-criticised joint strikes against targets in southern Baghdad. While in Egypt, Kurtzer said, Powell also hoped to talk about Sudan and possibly cover establishing a Free Trade Area between Egypt and the US. "It is a short visit; so it is a question of what rises to the top," he said.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry sources say Cairo is also expected to raise the Egypt-US strategic dialogue and the need to activate this mechanism. "The previous administration was not very keen on this dialogue. We hope that this administration will realise its value, particularly with a view to the current developments in the region," one Egyptian source said.
Also expected to arrive in Cairo on Saturday is Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who will be received by President Mubarak to discuss future bilateral relations between Cairo and Moscow, Russia's potential role in the Middle East peace process and the question of Iraq. Ivanov and Powell will seize the opportunity of being in Cairo to hold their first meeting, which is expected to focus on the US plan to build a global missile defence system.
Trade boost
FOREIGN Minister Amr Moussa and his Algerian counterpart Abdel-Aziz Belkhadem met in Algiers to sign several economic and political agreements facilitating an expansion in trade and economic cooperation between the two north African states. The two ministers signed agreements to avoid dual taxation and unify industrial standards during a session of the joint Egyptian-Algerian committee on Saturday. Diplomats from both sides say Egypt and Algeria enjoy good political relations, which are likely to improve with the increase of economic cooperation.
It was also agreed to increase EgyptAir flights to Algeria and within the coming few weeks, EgyptAir will be making four weekly trips to the Algerian capital. Egyptian and Algerian businessmen, who played an important role in the joint committee sessions, are examining ways to establish a joint land transport firm to facilitate trade between the two countries. The current volume of trade between Egypt and Algeria is a little over $40 million annually.
Incitement dismissed
ISLAMIST writer Mohamed Abbas was cleared on charges of incitement and slander in relation to his campaign against the publishers of the controversial novel A Banquet for Seaweed on Sunday. Abbas's articles, published last May in the Islamist bi-weekly Al-Shaab, mouthpiece of the frozen Labour Party, condemned the novel as blasphemous. The campaign sparked violent rioting by Al-Azhar University students and eventually led to the closure of the Labour Party and the suspension of Al-Shaab.
The novel, by Syrian author Haydar Haydar, was re-published as part of the Afaq Al-Kitaba (Horizons of Writing) literary series put out by the Ministry of Culture's General Organisation for Cultural Palaces, formerly chaired by Ali Abu Shadi. Abu Shadi, along with the series' editor, Ibrahim Aslan, initiated the legal action against Abbas.
Last week, Saudi Arabia's Permanent Committee for Research and Jurisdiction issued a fatwa (religious ruling) stating that killing Haydar is permissible and justifiable. According to the ruling, which was posted on the Internet and signed by the Islamic Media Monitor, "No Muslim can deny that [the content of the novel] is apostasy, atheism and deviation from the teachings of Islam, ridiculing God, his Prophet and his religion."
NDP reforms
MINISTER of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El-Shazli announced on Saturday that 150 members of the People's Assembly and Shura Council will soon be appointed by President Hosni Mubarak to head the district offices of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in various governorates. Speaking after a meeting of the NDP's political bureau, El-Shazli said a report by an NDP evaluation committee will come up for debate this week as part of the party's determination to improve its performance in April's Shura Council mid-term elections.
The evaluation committee is made up of El-Shazli, who is also the NDP's assistant secretary-general; Zakaria Azmi, chief of the presidential staff, and two leading members of the party's general secretariat, Gamal Mubarak and Ahmed Ezz.
Environmentally yours
SEVEN NGOs in the Suez Canal region have been chosen by the Egyptian Environmental Initiatives Fund (EEIF) to receive financial and technical aid for projects addressing local environmental problems, reports Sherine Nasr. EEIF, a joint venture between the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), will provide LE500,000 to implement projects in the fields of solid, agricultural, medical and industrial waste management.
"The priority of the EEIF is to promote sound environmental management through financial and technical assistance," explained Charles Agobia, EEIF field manager. "We work closely with the private sector, as well as NGOs, to develop sustainable environmental projects."
New metro line
AN AGREEMENT signed earlier this month between the French company Systra and the Egyptian National Authority for Tunnels is the first step towards the construction of Cairo's third underground line. Under the agreement, Systra will undertake a 12-month study investigating the building of an 11-kilometre line connecting the working class Giza district of Imbaba, south-west of Cairo, and Cairo International Airport, north-east of the capital.
The new 11-kilometre extension, expected to be operational in seven years, will be part of a 33-kilometre underground network. The Cairo underground, the first in Africa, was launched in the early 1980s. At present, two lines service an estimated four million passengers daily.
Compiled by Fatemah Farag

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