1 - 7 March 2001
Issue No.523
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 March 2001 Issue No.523 |
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Newsreel
African moves
EGYPT will participate in an African summit in the Libyan city of Sirt on the establishment of an African Union. Should President Hosni Mubarak be unable to attend the summit, which opens on Friday, then Foreign Minister Amr Moussa will lead Egypt's delegation. Moussa, who flew to Libya yesterday, will be meeting with his Libyan and Sudanese counterparts, Ali Al-Trikki and Mustafa Othman Ismail, for talks on the joint Egyptian-Libyan initiative for civil peace in Sudan.This week, Moussa met with leading Sudanese opposition figures in Cairo regarding a reconciliation meeting between the Sudanese government and opposition forces tentatively scheduled to take place in Cairo this month. Both Mohamed Al-Merghani, who is still based in Cairo, and Al-Sadig Al-Mahdi agreed that they are willing to take part.
"The time has come for this meeting to take place," Moussa said on Tuesday. He said that Cairo has been in contact with all concerned parties in the Sudanese conflict to arrange for the meeting, including John Garang, the southern Sudanese rebel leader.
Saidi in the Vatican
FOR THE first time in its history, the Cardinals Council of the Roman Catholic Church includes an Egyptian patriarch. Istifanous II, patriarch of the Catholic Church in Egypt, was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II last Wednesday at a celebration held at St Peter's Square in Rome, which was attended by thousands of spectators. During the same ceremony 44 new cardinals were appointed to the Cardinal's Council, which is comprised of 184 clerics from 61 countries.Istifanous II was born in the town of Tahta in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag, and was appointed patriarch of Egypt in 1984.
Traffic compensation
THE INCREDIBLE amount of time wasted in traffic jams, particularly those caused by the movements of dignitaries, has been accepted by the Egyptian people as a "normal" part of life. But when Naemat Abdallah lost her baby because the traffic was so bad in Alexandria on the fated day she was to give birth, she took those responsible to court. And the courts did not let her down.This week an Alexandria court fined the Ministry of Interior LE300,000 to be given to Abdallah and her husband as compensation for the loss of their baby. According to the court, before Abdallah lost her baby, she suffered considerable pain during her wait in an ambulance which was unable to reach the hospital because the police had shut off the main throughways to permit senior government officials to traverse the city swiftly.
Electrified!
THIS week, several families and a cat residing in Maadi woke to discover that their bodies were emanating a positive electrical charge. The press reported on one such family early in the week and days later several other families came forward and complained of the same "problem." These revelations caused a number of people in the area to panic.At first it was feared that there might be radioactive material in the vicinity, however, specialists who studied the situation assured the public that such material could not be the reason behind the electrical charges that people were giving off. To date, the cause of the phenomenon has not been determined.
Killer aphrodisiac
CONVINCE people your food-product will improve their sexual performance and it seems they will eat anything. A fish outlet in the Cairo working-class district of Al-Daher called its shrimp sandwiches "Viagra sandwiches" and sold them to 55 people within a few hours. But instead of experiencing the effects associated with the drug prescribed for impotence, most of the sandwich eaters -- all of whom seem to have been men -- were transported to the Poisons Centre at Ain Shams Hospital.The owner and cook at the shop have been arrested and the labs will soon tell us what exactly did all the damage.
Cheaper connections
NOT ALL prices are on the rise, something is actually getting cheaper. Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ahmed Nazif announced this week that tariffs on international calls made on Fridays and Saturdays will be cut by 25 per cent. For those who call the US, there is the added bonus that the reductions are in place throughout the week. Thus charges are now levied at LE3 per minute during peak hours and LE2.25 during non-peak hours.
This week's cuts are the second of their kind, the first having been made in August 2000. With this latest tariff schedule the cost of international calls has been reduced by a total of 75 per cent.
Eid 2001
AND FINALLY, 5 March is the first day of Eid Al-Adha when millions will complete the rites and rituals of their pilgrimage to Mecca and at home many will undertake the sacrificial slaughter of a sheep. The Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation has informed the public that 250,000 heads of local sheep and 80,000 heads of Australian sheep have been made available in the market. And for those who want to diversify their Eid fare and include some beef, the minister asserted that they could do so without fear of mad cow disease.If you are one of the jet set and want to keep up with religious duty, you can now buy your sheep over the Internet. Simply log onto the Web site of a company that specialises in meat, type in the specifications of the sheep you want and the vendor will have received your order.
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