Al-Ahram Weekly | Region

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 April - 2 May 2001 Issue No.531
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Boycott meeting shelved
A MEETING to discuss reviving an economic boycott of Israel was postponed after a majority of Arab countries failed to respond to invitations by the Arab League.
Talaat Hamed, spokesman of the Cairo-based league, said that 12 Arab governments did not reply to the call for a meeting of the Central Office for the Boycott scheduled for Sunday in the Syrian capital Damascus. A quorum of 14 of the league's 22 members was necessary to hold the meeting. Hamed declined to name the countries that did not respond or to say if a new date has been fixed.
Syria, Libya and Iraq led a drive at last month's Arab League summit for the revival of the Israeli boycott. The summit's final statement incorporated their demand, though Egypt and Jordan claimed they were unable to participate in the boycott due to their peace agreements with Tel Aviv.
EU-Gulf trade progress
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said on Monday they saw potential progress in ongoing discussions on a free-trade agreement.
"The joint council noted that in the last two years conditions for progress in negotiations were coming into place," said the final communiqué following talks in Bahrain, noting that the previous decade of talks had achieved little progress.
The joint panel also said that the two blocs backed a Saudi-proposed forum to encourage dialogue between oil producers and oil consumer nations.
Since 1988 the six-nation GCC has pushed for a trade deal with Europe and set a deadline of 2005 for a customs union within the region, a pre-condition for the accord with the EU.
One key dispute is over high taxes imposed by the EU on refined oil products and primary aluminium exports from the Gulf. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal also criticised European countries for failing to recognise what he described as improvement in the human rights situation in the Gulf states.
The Genocide continues
IRAQ said on Monday nearly 10,000 people, most of them children, died in March and that the 10-year-old UN sanctions were responsible.
The Health Ministry said 6,638 children under the age of five died of diarrhoea, pneumonia and respiratory and malnutrition-related diseases as opposed to 362 deaths in the same period in 1989, a year before the embargo was imposed.
Quoting the ministry, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) said that 3,099 adults died in March of heart problems, cancers, diabetes and kidney and liver diseases, compared with 406 deaths caused by the same diseases in the same period in 1989.
INA said the latest figures brought to 1,481,162 the number of people who have died since the United Nations imposed sanctions in August 1990.
The embargo, imposed as punishment for Baghdad's invasion of Kuwait, has ruined Iraq's infrastructure and caused living standards to plummet.
Morocco improves its rights record
THOUGH Moroccan jails still hold some 60 political prisoners, the political will exists in Morocco to solve past and present human rights abuses, Amnesty International said on Monday.
"We are optimistic. There is a political will but families [of disappeared people] are still suffering," Amnesty Secretary-General Pierre Sane said after meeting with Prime Minister Abderrahmane Al-Youssoufi.
Sane said progress had been made since Amnesty's last visit, in June 1998. He cited the release of 28 political prisoners in the past three years and the lifting, a year ago, of the 10-year house arrest of Sheikh Abdel-Salam Yassine, leader of the country's main Islamist opposition movement.
Relations between Amnesty International and the Moroccan government used to be "acrimonious," but are now "calm," he said.
Compiled by Rasha Saad

Recommend this page

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Send a letter to the Editor

ARCHIVES
Letter from the Editor
Editorial Board
Subscription
Advertise!

WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly
Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time
weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg

Al-Ahram Organisation