Issue No. 609
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24 - 30 October 2002 Issue No. 609 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
New port in operation
PRESIDENT Hosni Mubarak is scheduled to inaugurate the Sokhna Port and Logistic Centre today, 130km east of Cairo at a strategic location on the Gulf of Suez. The new Red Sea port will provide the necessary infrastructure for import and export cargo flows, and operate under free zone laws, hence offering foreign companies easy access to the Egyptian, North African and Middle Eastern markets.
The Sokhna Port offers deep-sea port facilities for the handling of liquid and bulk cargo, containers, break-bulk and general cargoes. Services at the Logistic Centre include packing and labelling, warehousing, handling returned products, repairs, final assembly, customer invoicing, blending and mixing, distribution and quality control, testing and sterilising.
The state estimates that by 2005, more than 20 million tonnes of cargo will be handled at the Sokhna Port. That figure is expected to more than quadruple by 2020.
Home at last
AFTER 10 months in Israeli prisons, eight Egyptian sailors have finally made it back home, Fatemah Farag reports. Israel took the sailors into custody in January when it seized the Karine-A freighter in international waters 300 miles off Israel's Red Sea coast. There were 50 tonnes of arms on board, which Israel insisted had come from Iran and were destined for the Palestinian Authority. At the time, the Palestinian leadership and Iran denied the Israeli allegations.
While the Karine-A became the centre of a political imbroglio, little media attention was given the Egyptian sailors who had manned the ship.
Just a few months short of a year since they were incarcerated, the sailors made their way back home to the Delta village of Borg Moghayzil near Kafr Al-Sheikh, where their families had desperately awaited their return. "I accepted God's will and tried to contact some officials, but it seemed that the whole matter was too dangerous to even be talked about," recounted Hussein El-Gaweish whose two sons, Mohamed and Ahmed, were on board the freighter.
And while the Israeli government decided to release the Egyptian sailors on the grounds that there was no evidence to tie them to the arms trafficking case, the eight men returned with horror stories of maltreatment. For months, they were incarcerated in a 2.5 by 5 metre cell. When they complained, they were transferred to the Ashkelon prison where they were locked in a black-walled windowless room. They were denied proper medication for their ailments and Mohamed Assad was deprived of sleep for four days during which he was continuously interrogated.
At last they came home. They returned to extended families that had suffered for months the loss of their breadwinners. And there were new family members to return to; Hussein Naematallah came back to find that his wife had given birth to a child they had waited eight years to have and Emad Rizk also returned to a recently-born son.
Amnesty for some
EGYPT is following up on the status of Egyptian prisoners recently pardoned by the Iraqi authorities, writes Soha Abdelaty. Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters on Monday that Iraq had notified Egypt that 150 Egyptians were among the prisoners President Saddam Hussein pardoned.
However, it remains to be seen how many will have the charges against them completely dropped. Maher said on Sunday, "We will look into each prisoner's case in light of the requirement of attaining the Iraqi victims' families approval, such as in cases of murder, before the accused can be freed." He added that officials from the Egyptian Interests Section in Iraq will visit the prisons where the Egyptians are being held to find out the necessary information and procedures.
Ibrahim chance
THE COURT of Cassation, Egypt's highest court, will convene on 3 December to hear an appeal filed by prominent human rights activist Saadeddin Ibrahim and his co-defendants, Jailan Halawi reports.
Ibrahim, a sociology professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC), was convicted in July by a State Security Court on charges of embezzlement, receiving foreign funds without the government's permission and tarnishing Egypt's image abroad, in a case widely condemned as politically motivated. The July conviction was the outcome of Ibrahim's appeal that he mounted after his first trial. On both occasions he was convicted on the same charges and sentenced to seven years in prison.
Ibrahim Saleh, head of Ibrahim's defence team, submitted a 113-page appeal to the Court of Cassation last month, citing 14 errors in the State Security Court's ruling. The court will review the appeal on 3 December and will either accept it and order a retrial -- meaning that the Court of Cassation will try the case and Ibrahim will be released, pending its outcome -- or uphold the ruling, leaving Ibrahim to serve his sentence.
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