Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt

		14 - 20 November 2002 Issue No. 612 Home news	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Modernisation plan

PRESIDENT Hosni Mubarak on Monday reviewed the European Union (EU)-Egypt partnership agreement as well as a plan to modernise Egyptian industry. During a meeting which lasted more than three hours with several ministers, led by Prime Minister Atef Ebeid, Mubarak was briefed about the status of the partnership agreement between Egypt and the EU. The goal of the programme is to develop Egypt's industries and improve the quality of production. Ebeid returned to Egypt last week from a trip to EU headquarters in Brussels, where the partnership was the focus of talks.
During Monday's meeting, Mubarak discussed each article of the partnership agreement, which he described as "the gateway for the comprehensive modernisation of the Egyptian economy". Mubarak's instructions were that policy- makers should strive to ensure that policy capitalises on Egypt's strengths such as its central geographic location, its political stability, investor- friendly environment and advantages in the fields of agriculture, industry and tourism. "This should all go hand-in-hand with improving the work ethic, skills, human resources, education and services," said Mubarak.
Eighteen years

ON TUESDAY night, a state security court sentenced Mohamed El-Wakil, the former news director of Egypt's state-owned television apparatus, to an 18-year prison sentence with hard labor, on charges of bribery and drug possession. The conviction was on two separate bribery charges, which carried respective sentences of 10 and five years each. An additional conviction on charges of drug possession landed El-Wakil with three more years of jail time.
El-Wakil must also pay fines equivalent to the bribe money he received, as well as an additional LE100,000 on the drug conviction.
El-Wakil was the target of a July sting operation conducted by State Security officials and the Administrative Monitoring Office (AMO), which is in charge of investigating allegations of official impropriety. He was arrested in his office soon after receiving LE10,000 in bribe money in exchange for featuring a medical doctor, Mohamed Fathi (who had filed a complaint to the AMO), as a guest on Sabah Al-Kheir ya Masr (Good Morning Egypt), a popular morning show.
A state television veteran for 30 years, El- Wakil was suspended from his position following the arrest. Two of the show's producers, Hani Abdel-Latif and university professor Ahmed El- Hassisi, were also arrested and tried, but were acquitted in Tuesday's ruling.
During the interrogation, a fourth suspect -- medical doctor Fakher El-Guindi -- was also indicted for allegedly paying LE3,500 in return for appearing on the morning TV show. El-Guindi was sentenced to five years in jail plus a fine of LE5,000.
'Meaningless fuss'

THE UPROAR over the television series Fares Bila Gawad (Horseman Without a Horse) continues although the first episode contained no "objectionable or anti-Semitic material". The day following the broadcast of the first episode on 6 November -- the first day of Ramadan -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that although the episode did not have objectionable content the US "will be watching very, very closely and raising issues as appropriate depending on what actually airs". The Israeli Foreign Ministry, however, continued its protest, saying, "Israel takes a serious view of the broadcasting of this series which is violently anti- Semitic and denies any right for our state to exist."
The leading actor and the co-author of the series, Mohamed Sobhi, had said that the show "deals with" but is not "based on" The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion -- a work published in Russia in the early 20th century that purported to contain the minutes of a series of secret meetings held in Switzerland in 1897 aimed at devising a strategy to effect Jewish control over the world. Soon after they were disseminated, the Protocols were exposed as a Czarist forgery.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters on 6 November that the whole matter is a "meaningless fuss". Answering a question as to whether the series might impact on US loans to Egypt, Maher said, "If some people have goals [behind creating the controversy] they do not stir us." He added, "We act from our conscience and from our respect for all religions and we will never accept any type of threat. Loans are a means of cooperation between the two sides," and "we are not bothered by such attempts to harm Egyptian-American relations that are based on equality and not interference in internal affairs."
From FAJ to Anan

AT THE END of the two-day meeting of the Cairo permanent office of the Federation of Arab journalists (FAJ), delegates sent a statement to UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan, expressing the federation's "alarm at the escalation of the aggressive tone of threats against Iraq by the United States".
The FAJ, which includes members of 17 syndicates throughout the Arab world and is chaired by Ibrahim Nafie, chairman of the Al-Ahram organisation (which publishes the Weekly) and editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram, said, "War is not, and cannot be the way to settle a crisis."
The federation called on Anan "to make every effort and use every prerogative to stop the sabre rattling and to mobilise the efforts of the members of the UN to check the irrational exercise of power by the superpower, which is acting unilaterally and away from the umbrella of the United Nations".
With respect to the Palestinians' situation, the journalists urged Anan to "intervene decisively to activate UN resolutions relevant to the Palestinian issue, and to halt the barbaric Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people who are entitled to exercise their basic rights to life, freedom and self determination."
Another collapse

TWO PEOPLE were killed and 49 injured when a three-storey building collapsed in the Bassatin district in southern Cairo on Saturday. Fortunately, before the building collapsed most of the residents had heard a loud booming sound, which they heeded as a warning to leave the building immediately.
Authorities had ordered the demolition of the building two years ago for safety reasons, but the residents had not complied nor did the authorities take action to ensure the order was implemented.
Minister of Housing Ibrahim Suleiman had told reporters last week before the accident that according to the most recent statistics compiled this year, 70 per cent of Egypt's buildings violate building codes.
Compiled by Shaden Shehab

Send a letter to the Editor Recommend this page

ARCHIVES
Letter from the Editor
Editorial Board
Subscription
Advertise!

WEEKLY ONLINE: weekly.ahram.org.eg
Updated every Thursday at 20.00 GMT, 10 pm local time
weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg

Al-Ahram Organisation