Issue No.589
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6 - 12 June 2002 Issue No.589 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Egyptian alert
EGYPT'S intelligence services warned US officials one week before the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon, according to President Hosni Mubarak. In an interview with The New York Times published on Tuesday, Mubarak said that Cairo had obtained information, through its secret agents in close contact with Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda network, that the organisation was in the advance stages of executing a significant operation against a US target. But the details and magnitude of the plot were unknown.
"We didn't know that such a thing could take place," the president said, "we thought it was an embassy, an aeroplane, something, the usual thing."
Cairo, he said, had instructed its agent to use his influence to stop the impending attack, but had failed.
"We knew that something was going to happen [and] we informed them about everything," he added, referring to US intelligence officials. Mubarak added that he did not know how the US intelligence community had reacted to Egypt's warning, but he believed that security at the US Embassy in Cairo was tightened as a result.
The New York Times report came amid controversy over how US agencies such as the FBI and CIA handled potential clues about an imminent terror attack in the months before the attacks. One of the main criticisms of US security agencies has been that they failed to share intelligence among themselves. And congressional hearings start this week to investigate their failure to uncover the plot.
In its report, The New York Times quoted an unidentified senior US intelligence official denying that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had received any warnings from Egypt about the 11 September attacks. "The Egyptians gave us some threat information, earlier in 2001, of possible attacks against US or Egyptian interests," the official said. "There was nothing about hijackings, nothing about an attack inside the US. It did not come in the days before 9/11."
Al-Raml elections
ON 30 MAY, Alexandria's Administrative Court ordered elections within 60 days for the two parliamentary seats of the Alexandrian constituency of Al-Raml. The court ruled that all the 26 candidates who registered for the 2000 parliamentary elections in this district must enter the election campaign.
The elections for the Al-Raml district were delayed for two years because the candidates resorted to the administrative court in an attempt to disqualify each other from running. Consequently, the two Al-Raml seats in the People's Assembly remained vacant for two parliamentary sessions.
Some observers suggested that the delay in the Al-Raml elections was because the main runner was Gihan El-Halafawi. She is the wife of Ibrahim El-Zaafarani, an active member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and assistant secretary-general of the Alexandria chapter of the Doctors' Syndicate. Shortly before the November 2000 parliamentary elections, El-Zaafarani, who was expected to run as an Al-Raml candidate, was arrested. El-Halafawi succeeded in the first round of the Al-Raml elections, but the Interior Ministry had to postpone the final elections until the court delivered a final verdict on the appeals filed.
Underpass or tunnel?
PRESIDENT Hosni Mubarak has once again referred the ring-road controversy to UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, reports Nevine El-Aref. The controversy erupted eight years ago when the Ministry of Housing proposed the construction of a bridge near the Giza plateau as the final phase of completion of the ring road. The Ministry of Culture vehemently rejected the plan and warned of archaeological hazards. Mubarak then referred the question to UNESCO's World Heritage Committee. But it seems that the issue has not yet been resolved.
The first UNESCO committee met in April 1995; the second in 1998. Both recommended a re-routing of the road to bypass the Mansuriya and Maryutiya irrigation canals, thereby avoiding the Giza necropolis altogether. They also recommended razing all urban construction such as sewage and drainage systems on the section of the road that would be re-routed. The recommendations were never implemented.
Recently, the Ministry of Housing proposed an underpass four-kilometres south of the Giza plateau, in order to avoid protected archaeological areas. But the Ministry of Culture believes that building a tunnel is the solution. Mubarak referred the controversy once again to the UNESCO committee.
"The decision expressed President Mubarak's concern to protect one of Egypt's most important sites, which is on UNESCO's World Heritage List," said Farouk Hosni, the minister of culture, who argued that protecting the Egyptian heritage is the ministry's responsibility. "We will never allow the destruction of, or adverse effects to, monuments," he said, "but nor will the ministry stand against any development project advantageous to the public."
The minister conceded that, in this case, the only project which the ministry would accept would be the excavation of a tunnel 15 to 20 metres beneath the plateau, "and not an underpass".
Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), agreed that a tunnel could be a solution, but added: "This would be an environmental pollution of the pyramid backdrop and would also destroy the Giza necropolis sequence that extends from Abu Rawash in the north to Dahshur in the south."
Hawass said: "It may also prove to be another threat to the five Osiride symbolic tombs unearthed in the area of the ring road eight years ago. The only solution as I see it is to excavate a tunnel at right angles beneath the present Pyramid Road."
What has become a perennial problem between the Ministry of Culture and the SCA on the one hand, and the Ministry of Housing on the other, seems endless, but final decisions will have to be made.
Dead for soccer
SOCCER fan Abeer Shaaban, 15, was adjusting the television antenna ahead of a World Cup soccer match, when she lost her balance on the rooftop of a three-storey building. She later died of her injuries in hospital. She was checking with her brother on the ground floor to see if the TV image was clear.
Compiled by Shaden Shehab
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