Bottom lines

---

Click to view caption

Anti-clockwise from top left: Haydar Haddad in Al-Hayat paints a gloomy picture depicting Turabi's release from detention; Amgad Rassim's take on the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat; and in Al-Dustour, Hani derides the hopes of journalists who want to eliminate laws allowing imprisonment for publishing liability; and in Al-Akhbar cartoonist Mostafa Hussein pokes fun at the public fuss over what he protrays as the insignificant Ayman Nour case

"I am not contesting the constant need for change, as needs be, of editors and chairmen of the national press, or the need to open doors to the contribution of a younger generation of journalists, but what I am saying is that the current crisis of the press requires an alternative approach ... that might adopt the overall state-orientation towards privatisation." -- Mohamed Wagdi Qandil, Al-Akhbar

"The confrontation was between two conservatives but it was also between two social backgrounds: Rafsanjani the wealthy Iranian and Ahmadinejad the voice of the poor, and since these poor are the majority they pushed for his victory." -- Joseph Samaha, Al-Bayan