Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 April 2001 Issue No.528
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

The pressure is on
THOUSANDS of Egyptian students demonstrated against Israeli and US policies in the region once again this week. According to official sources, approximately 5,000 students gathered at the campus of Ain Shams University to protest continued Israeli aggression against Palestinian civilians. The students also denounced Israel's kidnapping of several members of Yasser Arafat's Force 17 bodyguard unit from the autonomous Palestinian territories, a blatant violation of interim peace accords.
Students tried to take their protest beyond the campus gates but were stopped by heavy security. On campus they chanted anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans while burning the flags of both countries.
To date, Israeli aggression has claimed the lives of 375 Palestinians.
No surrogates allowed
IF YOU were hoping to have a child with the help of a surrogate mother or a dead husband, your hopes may be dashed. Egypt's highest Islamic authority has declared that religion forbids surrogate motherhood and in vitro fertilisation of a woman with frozen sperm saved from her dead husband.
The Islamic Research Council, headed by Mohamed Tantawi, Sheikh of Al-Azhar, ruled last week that Islam prohibits a woman from acting as a surrogate mother through insemination, in vitro fertilisation or the planting of an embryo in her womb. Further, the Council said insemination of a woman with her dead husband's sperm is prohibited because death ends the bond of marriage.
Risk-free security
MINISTER of Interior Habib El-Adli warned that in spite of a three-year lull in Islamist militant violence, the possibility of a "terrorist attack" remains.
"Terrorism tries at all times to prove its presence and there are possibilities that such an act will be carried out," the minister told the press in Alexandria. He added that Egyptian security services "will be completely ready to deal with any element which thinks itself capable of carrying out an attack, no matter of what kind."
Caught!
THE LAST of three men who attacked and seriously injured ruling party MP Mohamed Hussein last December has finally been apprehended.
Gamal Badawi, one of the suspects, had fled the country after the attack, which took place in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut, and was arrested at Cairo airport upon his return from London. Reason for the attack: an age-old vendetta between Hussein's family and Badawi's.
Shifty sands
EVERY spring brings the khamasin, a series of sandstorms that sweeps across Egypt causing general unpleasantness. But for six people in a road accident caused by one such sandstorm, it was fatal. Fifteen others were wounded in the same accident, which occurred on the Fayyoum highway.
The Ministry of Interior has warned drivers to be extra cautious while driving during the khamasin because of low visibility and strong winds. Further, authorities have shut down Port Tawfik and Red Sea ports due to two-metre-high waves and winds exceeding 30 knots.
Desert finds
A SKELETON, a gold ring and bits and pieces of gold and precious stones were the major finds when N'assa's tomb was discovered last week in the Western Desert.
Belonging to the wife of the governor of the Bahariya Oasis during the reign of King Ahmus II, N'assa's tomb shows signs of having been tampered with in Graeco-Roman times. According to Tarek El-Awadi, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb, little of N'assa's mummy remains. Other than part of the skeleton, a gold ring still intact on one finger was discovered. In the sarcophagus, El-Awadi's crew also found 100 gold pieces, three scarabs and a heart-shaped pendant with a sun-disk design.
Compiled by Fatemah Farag

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