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Larsen talks

DURING a series of high-level talks in Cairo, Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations secretary-general's envoy on Syria and Lebanon solicited Arab and Egyptian support for his international efforts to broker what the UN would qualify as a higher level of Syrian cooperation with the demands of the international community presented to Damascus in the wake of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri in February 2005.

In town for two days, Larsen held talks with President Hosni Mubarak, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul- Gheit and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa.

In press statements he made following talks with Mubarak on Monday, the UN envoy said that the international oraganisation is counting on the efforts of Cairo to encourage Syria to continue and upgrade its cooperation on the UN-led investigation in the Al-Hariri killing to exert every possible diplomatic effort to support the national unity talks in Lebanon.

Earlier this week, Egyptian Ambassador in Beirut Hussein Derar said that Cairo is willing to work with every concerned Arab capital to present a diplomatic initiative to support national unity efforts in Lebanon and the development of warmer Syrian-Lebanese rapport.

Reform in the works

GAMAL Mubarak, assistant secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) said this week that the party is hard at work to implement political reform commitments undertaken by President Hosni Mubarak -- the NDP leader -- during the presidential campaign last summer. According to Gamal Mubarak, top on the agenda are plans for a comprehensive draft for a law to combat terrorism. This law was promised by the president during a nomination speech last July as a the way towards the elimination of the emergency law that has been in force since 1981, following the assassination of late President Anwar El-Sadat.

Gamal Mubarak also said in press statements he made following a high-level NDP meeting that the party is dedicating much attention to efforts aiming to eliminate the imprisonment penalty for alleged publishing offences and to support attempts to ratify a judiciary independence law.

Political opposition has been highly critical of the very slow pace of political reforms since Mubarak's re- election last autumn.

On the job

PRIME Minister Ahmed Nazif this week emphasised that there is no turning back on the reforms initiated by his government, reports Niveen Wahish. He pointed out that the government must be doing something right if they have been given a second mandate by President Hosni Mubarak. Speaking at an event organised by Egypt's International Economic Forum he said that indicators show a 6.1 per cent growth during the last quarter of 2005. "This shows that Egypt is on a growing curve," he said pointing out that exports and imports have also grown by 25 per cent and inflation is down at three per cent compared to 18 per cent two years ago. "We tend to forget where we were in terms of stagnation. What if these measures had not been implemented? We could have been in a worse situation," he said.

He acknowledged that the progress in the economy has been felt more by the educated than by the more marginalised classes. However, he said they may begin to reap the benefits as more jobs are created. He said that unemployment according to official records is already down from 10 per cent to 9.5 per cent. "If we keep growing at six per cent we can create the number of jobs needed annually," he said pointing out that for every one percent of growth some130,000 jobs are created.

Another thing that Egyptians should be satisfied about is the 50 per cent cut in taxes. Elaborating on the new tax system, Youssef Boutros Ghali, minister of finance, stressed that the development of trust between taxpayers and the tax authority is crucial. "In most countries trust is taken for granted. Here, for the past 120 years the approach of the tax authority has been predatory and tax payers had to be squeezed for taxes." This is already bearing fruit, he pointed out that the number of registered tax payers increased by 27 per cent.

He said that the simplification of the system and because of stiff penalties people are beginning to declare their incomes.

On the issue of subsidies Nazif pointed out that some LE40 billion will be earmarked for fuel subsidies in next year's budget compared to LE22 billion this year. This, he said, compares to a combined spending on education and health of LE30 billion. "The increase in fuel prices is a new challenge to cutting subsidies," he said.

Ghali added that previously fuel subsidies were part of the budget of the Egyptian Petroleum Corporation. "We took it out as a separate item to force society to deal with it," he said, adding that people have decide whether they want to spend their tax money on subsidising fuel or on improving education.

He added that statistics have shown that fuel subsidies are skewed towards the rich, who benefit from LE1,700 per person, while the poor only benefit from LE300 per person.

"The issue is not so much the elimination of subsidies, but rather how and over how long," he said, adding that "some people who are not poor today, will become so if we remove subsidies."

Nazif pointed out that the creation of the new Social Solidarity Ministry aims precisely at defining who needs subsidies. "We will literally knock on every door," he said.

Case closed

INVESTIGATIONS into Omar Effendi's sale ended this week after Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed announced that claims of the misappropriation of public funds by the Ministry of Investment and the Holding Company for Trade (HCT) had been proven invalid.

Yehia Abdel-Hadi, head of Benzione, one of the state-owned department stores affiliated to HCT, had filed a complaint three weeks ago with Abdel-Wahed accusing Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin and head of the HCT Hadi Fahmi of squandering public funds by trying to sell Omar Effendi for LE600 million less than its fair value.

Abdel-Hadi was a member of a committee selected by Fahmi two months ago to put a price to the store group. After a month they came up with a valuation of LE1.14 billion.

The prosecutor-general's decision, made on Tuesday, was based on testimonies by other members of the evaluation committee who said Abdel-Hadi's claims were groundless. They said the way they evaluated the company's cost provided a benchmark for the market value of the group's assets should it turn out that land and buildings are sold separately and difficult to implement on the bid carried out for Omar Effendi. The only bid offered was by the Saudi Anwal group which offered to buy for LE504 million.

This was the fifth time the company goes up for sale. Previous interest in the company was dampened by the high asking price by the government.

Omar Effendi employs 6,000 staff members and last year made a profit of LE2 million after four consecutive years of losses.

Six ferries

SECRETARY-GENERAL of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) Safwat El-Sherif said on Tuesday that Egypt is about to receive "six new modern ferries that will be donated to Egypt by Arab Gulf states". According to press statements made by El-Sherif, the offer, which aims to consolidate Egypt's naval transport capacity, was made during talks held by President Hosni Mubarak in several Arab Gulf capitals earlier this month.

The capacity of Egypt's naval transport was recently undermined, following the shocking sinking of the Al-Salam 98 Boccaccio in the Red Sea. The accident exposed the many deficiencies of a large section of the mostly private naval services sector that caters for the demands of hundreds of thousands of Egyptian pilgrims and workers who pursue job opportunities in the Arab Gulf countries.

Meanwhile, Gamal Mubarak, assistant secretary-general for the NDP said in press statements on Monday that the ruling party and its government are working on developing safe and affordable naval transport. Speaking following a high-level NDP meeting on Monday, Gamal Mubarak said that the NDP may propose a plan to the government to establish a higher council to supervise safety in naval transport.

Apprehensive welcome

THIS WEEK, Cairo welcomed the establishment of the new UN Council for Human Rights, voted by the UN General Assembly to replace the UN High Commission for Human Rights, whose role in promoting human rights around the world has been subject to much criticism over recent years.

In a brief press statement, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit expressed hope that the new council will succeed in promoting the rights of all human beings, of developed and developing countries alike, to live in dignity and respect. However, he hastened to warn against the application of double standards: "Human rights violations should be considered in all the countries of the world and not just a particular group."

While Egypt has been reserved, to say the least, in publicly condemning the violations of human rights committed by the US against political prisoners of Third World countries, including Egypt, in its custody, Egyptian diplomats say that it is worthy of note that the US has the courage to criticise Egypt for allegedly torturing prisoners when the US's accounts of torture in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo base in Cuba is simply horrifying.

Abul-Gheit insisted that the purposes of equity in international relations will be best served if all member states of the UN General Assembly become eligible for membership in the new council.

Egyptians per second

AN EGYPTIAN comes to life every 23.4 seconds, raising the country's population to 73.6 million since last year, a newspaper reported on Sunday, citing the National Centre for Mobilisation and Statistics.

The census conducted in January includes 2.3 million Egyptians living abroad, said the centre's president Abu Bakr El-Guindi.

In the last population survey carried out in January 2005, Egypt's population survey stood at 71.89 million, including two million citizens living abroad.

Men make up 51 percent of the population, with an average life span of 69 years, while women, who account for 48.8 per cent of the nation, are expected to live an average of 73 years, Guindi said. Egypt's population remains largely young, with 37.7 per cent of its citizens under 15, while another 40.8 per cent are between the ages of 15 and 40.

Cairo has the highest population density in the country, with 11.1 per cent within the boundaries of the capital, as compared to 0.1 per cent for the southern Sinai Peninsula.

The population has increased at a rate of 1.3 million people a year since 2000.

President Hosni Mubarak has regularly spoken out against the rising birth rate as a huge obstacle to development.

Church rejects ruling

THE HEAD of the Orthodox Church has strongly rejected a court order obliging the church to let followers re-marry after obtaining a civil divorce. "Granting divorces falls within the jurisdiction of the court, but it has no authority to carry out marriages," Pope Shenouda III told the press. "Only the church has that authority."

Shenouda was commenting on a controversial ruling by the administrative judicial court last week. Most churches, including the Coptic Church, seldom grant divorce and allow divorcees to re-marry only under strict conditions. These include a marriage being terminated due to adultery or a member converting to another religion.

The church, said Shenouda, was "implementing the teachings of the Holy Bible with regard to the issue of marriage. And the Bible does not approve divorce except in the case of adultery or conversion."

Shenouda first criticised the court ruling during his weekly sermon and meeting with followers on Wednesday, which also included a warning to priests who may be tempted to heed the order.

"Be assured. No power on earth can force on the church anything against the teachings of the gospels or the Church," the pope was quoted as saying. "The Church will never wed divorcees, regardless of the court rulings," he added.

Many Copts face a dilemma as a result of the church's uncompromising stance, with many caught between loyalty to the Church and the desire to terminate troubled marriages at any cost.

The Church's followers, which account to around 10 per cent of the country's 73 million citizens, have dwindled on the issue, especially as many who want to get on with their lives find themselves forced to convert to other faiths.