Mending fences

EGYPT and Iran are not on the verge of normalising ties, according to Egyptian officials, even though Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said he will be visiting Tehran later this month to attend the ministerial meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). "Egypt and Iran have the will to improve their relations and establish diplomatic relations," Maher told parliament members on Tuesday. However, he added, "the establishment of complete diplomatic ties between the two countries is premature."

Maher said that Egypt had no reservations about rebuilding ties with the Islamic republic and pointed to ongoing contacts between himself and his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharzai, whom he has met twice already. "We have delegated our permanent missions in New York to meet and discuss the problems standing in the way of re-establishing ties and the means to overcome them," Maher said on Monday. "I can say we have taken some steps [in the direction of normalising ties] but there remain matters that still need to be resolved before the circumstances can allow the re-establishment of ties," he added.

Relations between the two countries were broken off a year after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Iran was angered at former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's decision to host the ousted Shah of Iran as well as Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. In turn, Egypt objected to the fact that Iran named a street after Sadat's assassin, Khaled Islambouli.

Custody dispute

ON WEDNESDAY, Afaf Khalifa, a grandmother serving a prison term for helping bring to Egypt her two grandchildren, who are at the centre of an international custody dispute, appealed before a Maryland court to reduce the sentence.

In January, 60-year-old Khalifa was arrested in San Diego while visiting her condominium. She was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of being an accessory to kidnapping for taking her grandsons, aged two and six, out of Maryland. The boys' father, Michael Shannon, is divorced from the children's mother and has custody of the children. Although a police warrant has been issued for her arrest, the American-Egyptian mother, Nermeen Shannon, remains in Cairo with her children. Egypt and the US do not have an extradition treaty.

Khalifa's family believes she is being held hostage in exchange for the return of her grandchildren. Yet, the state prosecutors say the grandmother took part in a conspiracy with her daughter to flee the country with the boys in August 2001 and helped her daughter pack personal belongings to take to Egypt.

The boys' father claims that his ex-wife and ex-mother-in-law stole his children while the two parents were in the midst of a divorce by claiming to be in New York and assuring that they would return to Maryland while they were actually on their way to Egypt.

Provocative charges

ON MONDAY, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher dismissed Israeli accusations that weapons are being smuggled to Palestinians through the Egyptian-Palestinian borders. The minister said that the accusations were baseless and added they were mere attempts by Israel to "provoke" Egypt. "They will not be able to prevent Egypt from exerting its peace efforts, no matter how hard they try," the minister told reporters on Monday.

The Israeli government had accused Egypt earlier in the week of smuggling weapons through tunnels linking Rafah to Gaza. The issue of the tunnels has been raised before by Israeli authorities, but Egypt denies the existence of the underground corridors. Israel is trying to "divert attention away from all the damage they are doing to peace efforts", said Maher.

Crazy bus

ON MONDAY three were killed and 13 injured when a bus crashed into a public transport stop, colliding with three vehicles and smashing into three shops in the shanty town of Mansheyyet Nasser, east of Cairo. During interrogation, Said Mahmoud, the bus driver, stated that he approached the transport stop driving at a normal speed and was surprised that the brakes were not functioning. He lost control of the vehicle and lost consciousness after the accident happened.

However, eye witnesses say the bus was speeding towards the transport stop and did not come to a halt before colliding with other vehicles. It smashed into a supermarket, a butcher shop and a hair salon, killing two women and a man, injuring 13 others and damaging three storefronts.

The bus driver, who was slightly injured, has been arrested and the prosecutor ordered him to spend four days in custody pending investigation.

Sahhaf mania

A SHORT feature film has been produced in Egypt about Mohamed Said Al-Sahhaf, Iraq's minister of information, who became a worldwide celebrity for his constant refusal to admit US troops were in Baghdad.

"I am not Sahhaf" is the title of the 12-minute comedy which narrates the story of an ordinary man who admired the former Iraqi minister so much that he ended up believing he was the minister himself. Egyptian actor Antar Hilal plays the role of the man who is so obsessed by Al-Sahhaf's daily press conferences during the US-British invasion of Iraq that he starts to dream about him and eventually acts as if he were Al-Sahhaf.

At first, no one takes him seriously, but towards the end of the war, in the hopes of receiving a reward, his family attempts to hand him over to US authorities.

According to the film's producer, Libyan Abul-Qassem Omar Rageh, the movie, which took one week to produce, is expected to be broadcast soon on Arab television channels as well as appear in cinemas.

Rageh noted that the film was shot in the streets of Cairo and includes real footage of the war. It seeks to denounce both the war and "official Arab discourse, which was full of lies". The film, said Rageh, indicates the real aim behind the war by ending with an image of an American soldier guarding the oil ministry in Baghdad.

Compiled by Jailan Halawi