Newsreel

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American caller

FOREIGN Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit on Sunday received US Assistant Secretary of State for Military Political Affairs John Hillen.

Following their first ever meeting, Hillen told reporters that he tackled with Egypt's top diplomat a host of regional security issues, including Iraq, Iran, Darfur and the Palestinian question.

Discussing means to reinforce the "strong nature of Egyptian-American ties" was another item on the agenda.

Abul-Gheit emphasised the necessity of "exerting every possible effort to help the Palestinian and Israeli sides to pursue further steps as far as the peace process is concerned." This, he noted, was the only way by which an independent Palestinian state could be established.

TE bid

TELECOM Egypt formed an alliance with Telecom Italia to bid for Egypt's third mobile licence.

While TE officials said it will be holding the majority stake of the consortium, its size is yet to be revealed.

News of the alliance came just hours before today's deadline for submitting proposals. So far, 21 local, regional and foreign companies have bought tender documents. Bidders include Etisalat of the UAE, MTC of Kuwait, South Africa's MTN, Telenor of Norway and Qatar Telecom.

To obtain a licence, foreign bidders must partner with an Egyptian entity.

The minimum value of the bid is LE2.5 billion and observers believe it could reach LE8 billion.

If it were to win the bid, TE must sell its 25.5 per cent stake in Egypt's second largest mobile network operator Vodafone Egypt.

First visit

CYPRIOT President Tassos Papadopoulos is expected to arrive in Cairo today on a four-day visit, the first visit to Egypt by a Cypriot president in 40 years.

In an interview with the Cypriot daily Fileleftheros President Hosni Mubarak said Papadopoulos's visit would provide "a genuine boost for already strong Egyptian-Cypriot ties." Mubarak said there had always been coordination between the two countries on the political level, especially under the umbrella of the UN, as well as in the context of the 1995 Barcelona Declaration and the Euro-Mediterranean partnership process.

Cyprus, Mubarak added, has been playing a "supportive role in the negotiations concerning a plan of action that Egypt is to adopt with the European Union (EU), in accordance with the EU's neighbourhood policy."

Mubarak highlighted "increasing bilateral cooperation between Egypt and Cyprus in trade, oil, gas, investment and, most importantly, tourism."

Issues including the Palestinian question, Lebanon and Syria, Iraq, a dialogue among cultures and civilisations and the image of Islam in the West are expected to top the agenda.

Papadopoulos is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. Following their meeting, Papadopoulos will sign six agreements aimed at boosting bilateral ties in transportation, electricity, development and technology.

Papadopoulos is also expected to meet Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa and People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour.

Darfur follow-up

ON MONDAY Egypt welcomed a peace initiative on Darfur which the African Union submitted last week to all concerned parties.

In a press statement released by the Foreign Ministry, a high-ranking diplomatic source underlined Egypt's "keenness to continue its cooperation with all the parties taking place in the Abuja negotiations in order to reach a final peace agreement in the near future."

The statement also reaffirmed Egypt's commitment to provide all the necessary humanitarian aid to the people of Darfur.

Meanwhile, Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit on Monday sent a message to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice which tackled the recent Darfur negotiations and the means to attain stability, as far as Sudan's relations with its neighbours are concerned.

United prayers

THE MINISTRY of Religious Endowments has agreed to buy 4,000 wireless receivers to synchronise the call to prayer from all state-run mosques in the Cairo area.

Only one muezzin, chosen for the quality of his voice, will make the call to prayer from a central location. The call will be transmitted directly to loudspeakers at the top of the city's thousands of minarets.

Under the current arrangements, the muezzin in one mosque might finish his call to prayer before another in a nearby mosque has even started his version.

Since most of the muezzins use loudspeakers and are audible for hundreds of metres, the result is a discordant mix stretched out over 10 to 15 minutes, five times a day.

The ministry first floated the idea in 2004, provoking opposition from traditionalists. The news that it will sign a contract for the equipment on Sunday indicates its seriousness about putting the idea into practice.

Proponents of the project have complained that some of the existing muezzins do not have pleasant voices.

The grand mufti of Egypt, the country's highest authority on Islamic law, has approved the project.

Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq is due to announce how the project will work, when it will start and who the new muezzin will be. In 2004 Zaqzouq said there was no threat to the jobs of some 45,000 muezzins as they can be retrained as the imams or prayer leaders of mosques, of which there is a shortage.

The project will start in the Greater Cairo area and could be expanded. But each area would need its own system as the times of prayer differ from one place to the other.

MB members detained

POLICE forces detained 18 Muslim Brotherhood activists, accusing them of being members of a banned group, security sources said on Saturday.

Mohamed Habib, deputy leader of the Islamist opposition group, said the Brotherhood members were detained for campaigning against emergency laws. They were distributing posters and leaflets.

"The 18 were distributing items as part of a campaign against the emergency laws," Habib told the press, adding that they were arrested at dawn on Friday.

The Brotherhood has launched a campaign against extending the laws, including blacklisting politicians who support it, and claims the state is cracking down on the group in response. Police detained 100 Brotherhood activists earlier this month.

Although the Brotherhood is outlawed, its members form the largest opposition bloc in parliament with nearly one-fifth of the seats. They stand as independents to avoid the ban.

Authorities refuse to grant the Brotherhood legal recognition as a political party on the grounds that the constitution bans parties based on religion.

Sane murderer

DOCTORS have declared sane a man jailed in the killing and dismemberment of 10 people -- four of them children -- as they slept in their homes in a village in the Upper Egyptian Governorate of Al-Minya nearly four months ago, the state prosecutor-general has said.

Two other suspects were released earlier for lack of evidence.

The 10 dismembered and eviscerated bodies were discovered on 29 December inside three homes in the village of Shamseddin, 220 kilometres south of Cairo.

Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed made the determination after "several medical examinations [that] proved the suspect was not psychologically disturbed."

Officials have disclosed no motive for the murders, nor did they explain the discrepancy in the latest sanity finding and an earlier statement that all three suspects had been treated for mental illness prior to the incident. Police said they had ruled out revenge killings, a common practice in rural southern Egypt.

Train crash

THIRTY-FIVE people were injured on Monday when a cargo train crashed into a stationary passenger train in Al-Sharqiya, northeast of Cairo, police sources said. Transport Minister Mohamed Lutfi Mansour, together with a team of officials and technicians, visited the site of the accident near the Nile Delta village of Al-Shat. None of the injuries were believed to be life- threatening.

Bird flu recovery

THE HEALTH Ministry has announced that a recent bird flu patient has fully recovered.

Health authorities said 18-year-old Shaimaa Khairi El-Desouqi, from Kafr Al-Sheikh, some 125km north of Cairo, would be discharged from hospital after tests showed she had completely recovered.

The girl is one of 13 bird flu patients in Egypt. Four have died while one girl was hospitalised this week.

Egypt reported its first human bird flu case on 18 March and the second on 27 March. Both were women.

The first outbreak in Egypt of bird flu virus in poultry was on 17 February. Most victims were infected after close contact with sick birds.

Compiled by Mohamed El-Sayed