Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 24 - 30 May 2001 Issue No.535
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Diplomatic honours
NEWLY inaugurated Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and his predecessor, Esmat Abdel-Meguid, were decorated by President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday "in recognition of their services to their country and to the Arab nation." Mubarak awarded the Cordon of the Nile, one of the nation's highest honours, to each diplomat during a brief ceremony at the presidential palace in Heliopolis.
Prime Minister Atef Ebeid, Information Minister Safwat El-Sherif and Moussa's successor, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, attended the ceremony.
Moussa expressed gratitude for the president's recognition. He said he "enthusiastically" shoulders his new responsibility and is "touched by the great support from Arab countries."
Bahraini ties

PRESIDENT Hosni Mubarak met on Tuesday with Bahrain's crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, who is on an official three-day visit to Egypt. The two discussed the Middle East crisis and ways of improving economic relations. On the same day, Al-Khalifa held talks with Prime Minister Ebeid and then met Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and Minister of Defence Mohamed Sayed Tantawi.
Aid blocked
ABOUT 170 tonnes of aid destined for Palestinians was held up Tuesday at the Israeli-controlled Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Some 150 tonnes of rice, sugar and flour from Egypt's Red Crescent Society arrived at the border and were awaiting Israeli permission to cross. Several other lorries, carrying 20 tonnes of food aid from Egypt's Popular Committee for the Support of the Palestinian People, have been held up since Friday.
Another 30 lorries carrying commercial goods have been retained at the border since 14 March. The border crossing has been closed and reopened several times since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation eight months ago.
From Islambouli to Al-Dorra
TEHRAN City Council has agreed to discuss changing the name of a street honouring Khaled Islambouli, late President Anwar El-Sadat's assassin. The name of the street has been a bone of contention between the two countries, which broke diplomatic relations after El-Sadat signed the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Morteza Aliviri proposed discussing alternative names for the street -- including that of Mohamed Al-Dorra, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot by Israelis at the beginning of the Intifada -- after attending a meeting of Islamic Conference mayors in Cairo recently. The city council has yet to debate the proposal.
Women free at last
THE STATE Council's administrative court ruled against the minister of the interior's decision to prohibit married women from travelling without the consent of their husbands. The court said that women are equal to men and have the same rights according to the constitution.
Counsellor Raafat Youssef, vice-president of the State Council, said: "The minister of the interior only has the right to prohibit people from travelling for security reasons."
In November 2000, the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) annulled a 1996 Interior Ministry decree that requires wives to obtain permission from their husbands before applying for a passport.
But in January 2001, Interior Minister Habib El-Adli requested that the State Council change a phrase in the passport law indicating that a wife cannot obtain a passport without prior permission from her husband. If the husband refuses, the wife would be required to file a lawsuit with the urgent matters court and the judge should rule within 24 hours. This is in accordance with Law 1/2000, known as the Khul'.
Change in the air
INFORMATION Minister Safwat El-Sherif chose Dorreya Sharaf El-Din as head of the Egyptian satellite sector on Saturday. The post had remained vacant since the retirement of former chief Sanaa Mansour on 12 May.
The satellite sector includes Nile TV and Egyptian satellite channels one and two.
Sharaf El-Din's last job was deputy head of production at the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU). In 1995 she worked for one year as head of the censorship department. She started her career as a radio announcer and was then a television news announcer. Dorreya was also known as writer and presenter of the well known film programme Cinema Club for the last 25 years.
Compiled by Shaden Shehab

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