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Gas player

EGYPT is moving towards not only joining the gas exporters club but becoming one of its important members, this following President Mubarak's inauguration of the country's largest natural gas liquefication and exporting complex in Edku last week.

The natural gas fields which feed the complex includes around 40 per cent of Egypt's 66 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves. Sixty per cent of Egypt's Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exports take place through the complex. Located on 390 square feddans, the complex is composed of two processing units, or trains, with an overall production capacity of 7.2 million tonnes annually. It covers all production phases starting with gas exploration up to the exporting of liquefied natural gas. Overall investments covering the various stages is estimated at $4.6 billion.

The complex is a joint venture between the UK's British Gas, Malaysian Petronas -- each owns a 35.5 per cent stake -- and Gaz De France which owns five per cent. The remaining stake is co-owned by Egypt's General Petroleum Authority and Gas. The first pilot shipment from the complex was sent to the US in May last year. In June another shipment was exported to France which, through Gaz De France, signed a contract to buy the production of the first train for 20 years. The deal is worth $450 million annually and covers 10 per cent of France's gas needs. The second train production will be sold to Italy and the US.

The complex is the second of its kind in Egypt after Mubarak opened a similar complex in Damietta last year. The complex has a single train with a production capacity of 4.8 million tonnes of LNG per year.

Investors in the Damietta complex include Spain's union Fenosa and Italian ENI.

Egypt started exporting gas in July 2003 through the Arab pipeline which includes an undersea section between the Sinai Peninsula and the Jordanian port of Aqaba. The pipeline is to be extended to export gas to Syria, Turkey and Europe at a later stage.

In addition, Egypt signed a 20-year gas export agreement with Israel last year.

Unacceptable

FOREIGN Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit strongly condemned an Israeli attack in northern Gaza. "The continuous execution of such oppressive and aggressive military attacks against Palestinian civilians deteriorates the current situation and increases Palestinian frustration. They will also increase the gap separating both [the Palestinian and Israeli] sides," Egypt's top diplomat stated.

Abul-Gheit, who called upon both sides to pursue all the necessary measures to break the endless cycle of violence, condemned the attack carried out in Tel Aviv on Monday, which cost nine lives and injured 50. He added that any intentional attack launched against civilians "is a blunt violation of international law and all recognised international norms. It is an act of terrorism."

Accordingly, he emphasised, "the only means to end such a cycle is to intensively resume negotiations to reach a political settlement which can allow both Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace and security."

African ICT

AN AFRICAN Union session on information and communication technologies was hosted by Egypt. Held under the auspices of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, the conference, officially named the first ordinary African Conference of the Ministers Responsible for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) of the African Union, aimed to form a ministerial council for ICT on the African continent to develop implementation mechanisms for an African regional action plan, and follow up on the decisions taken at the world summit on information society. As the host country, Egypt chaired the council. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology sponsored the gathering in cooperation with the Commissioner of Human Resources, Science and Technology in the African Union.

Nour on hunger strike

GHAD Party leader Ayman Nour has started a hunger strike in protest at the conditions of his detention and against a decision banning him from writing in the party's mouthpiece, his wife and spokeswoman told reporters after visiting him in Cairo Prison Hospital where he is being detained.

On 5 December Nour was slapped with a five-year prison sentence on charges of forging documents to form his new party, a charge he claimed was fabricated.

The 41-year-old Nour complained last week that his books had been confiscated by prison authorities and that he was being prevented from writing articles for his Ghad Party's mouthpiece weekly.

Nour's wife said he had been preparing an article criticising what he said was a strategy by the regime to groom Gamal Mubarak for the presidency.

His wife also said Nour, who suffers from heart problems and diabetes, was not given adequate medical treatment. But he strongly denied he had attempted to commit suicide, as claimed by prison officials. "I didn't and will not attempt to commit suicide," his wife quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, the party has issued a statement saying that the prison authorities "had overstepped their authority and had turned themselves into a political institution defending symbols of the regime and its ruling party."

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has asked French President Jacques Chirac to ask President Hosni Mubarak for Nour's release during his visit to Egypt. "President Chirac should tell him [Mubarak] that this persecution undermines Egypt's professed commitment to democratic reforms and threatens improved relations with France," said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at HRW.

Gomaa on bail

FORMER Wafd Party Chairman Noaman Gomaa was released on LE10,000 bail from a Cairo hospital on Monday where he was detained since the start of the month. The prosecution said the decision was based on the poor health of 71-year-old Gomaa who suffers heart problems.

Gomaa and 14 others stormed Wafd headquarters on 1 April in an attempt to regain control after Gomaa was ousted from the party by reformers in February. They face charges of intimidation, instigating a riot, using unlicensed weapons with intent to kill and criminal damage to property.

Another victim

EGYPT announced the death of a fourth person from bird flu, reports Reem Leila. Government officials announced on Thursday that an 18-year-old teenager, Samah Abdel-Ghaffar, from Ashmoun village in the northern Governorate of Menufiya, had died of the H5N1 strain. Abdel-Ghaffar was the fourth fatality in Egypt and the 12th infected by the pathogenic virus in Egypt.

The girl had been admitted to hospital four days earlier after handling domestically kept birds infected with bird flu. "She was already in bad health when she arrived in hospital," said Nasser Kamel, spokesman for the Supreme National Committee to Combat Bird Flu. Abdel-Ghaffar had been on an artificial respirator since she was admitted, and died despite receiving Tamiflu, the anti-viral medication thought to be the best method of fighting bird flu in humans.

Adli Hussein, the governor of Qaliubiya and head of the main poultry stock market in Banha, has ordered the families of the governorate's victims, Iman Abdel-Gawad and Samah Abdel-Ghaffar, be awarded LE1,000 in compensation.

The government, meanwhile, announced it will import the H5N2 vaccine to combat bird flu. According to Ahmed Tawfiq, head of the Egyptian Veterinary Medical Association (EVMA), by the beginning of June and after the 25 million doses of the Chinese H5N1 vaccine are used up, "we will start importing the European H5N2 vaccine in order to properly combat the virus.

"More than 15 million birds have been culled since the outbreak of bird flu in Egypt," Tawfiq added.

Of the 12 Egyptians infected over the past few weeks, four have died, five have recovered and three are receiving treatment, Kamel said.

Bird flu was detected in birds in Egypt in February and the first human infection was reported in mid-March. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said it is concerned about the disease's human toll in a relatively short period of time.