Newsreel

---

Anti-Israel petition

THE EGYPTIAN Movement for Change (Kifaya) is campaigning to gather one million signatures in 100 days in favour of rescinding the country's peace treaty with Israel. "I ask you to applaud Hassan Nasrallah," shouted George Ishak, who Kifaya's coordinator, of Lebanon's Hizbullah leader. "And to denounce those who call him reckless." -- namely Arab rulers.

During a rally in Damietta on Thursday, around 200 men, a handful of women and a few children who took to street gave an ovation to Nasrallah. Ishak said that Hezbullah's victory in Lebanon has "breathed new life to the spirit of resistance against [President Hosni] Mubarak," adding that the moment had come to link that effort with opposition to Israel.

By the end of November, Ishak wants to collect one million signatures demanding that the Egyptian parliament annul the 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said last week that a break with Israel or a freezing of the treaty would represent "a declaration of war".

The big drop

GROUND level dropped by up to five metres over an estimated area of 25 square metres in the downtown neighbourhood of Lazoghli last Tuesday. Though it happened suddenly, leaving residents and passers by in wonder, the event apparently incurred no damages.

According to Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Wazir, the drop resulted from a crack in the sewerage system, located at the crossroads of Al-Mansour and Maglis Al-Shaab streets. The minister has ordered the sewerage company to start work on repairing the faulty pipeline, which turned out to be connected to the underground metro -- a task that will take no longer than 72 hours, he said, diverting traffic for that period of time only. For their part officials of the Transportation Ministry insisted that the metro has in no way been affected by "the descent", as they described it, which, they added, poses a threat to neither the Saad Zaghloul metro station, 15 metres from the site, nor the surrounding buildings.

Paying the price

THE GIZA Criminal Court sentenced businessman Hossam Abul-Futouh on Monday to ten years in prison for failing to pay a LE1.4 billion loan to Banque du Caire. The court also sentenced five bank officials between five and 15 years in prison and acquitted five others. Abul-Futouh and the others were also ordered to reimburse the bank.

In 2003, Abul-Futouh was sentenced to three years imprisonment with hard labour on charges of possessing hidden surveillance devices and invasion of privacy. Abul-Fotouh had been an agent for BMW in Egypt for the past 20 years.

Ferry rescued

A FERRY carrying about 1,000 passengers, mainly pilgrims, was rescued in the Red Sea after it ran into engine trouble on Monday. 'Cleopatra I' sent distress signals when one of its engines broke down as it headed from the Jeddah to the port of Suez. It was safely towed back to the Saudi port.

Six months ago, more than 1,000 people, mainly pilgrims and migrant workers, died when the Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 ferry sank in the Red Sea. It was one of the worst maritime tragedies in recent history; close to 500 people perished when another ferry sank in the Red Sea in 1991.

Preparing for floods

EGYPT and Sudan are working together after the worst flooding in a generation killed more than 600 people in the Ethiopian highlands, the source of the Blue Nile. Special commissions in the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources are meeting on a regular basis to monitor the situation.

The Aswan High Dam would be used to contain the floodwaters in Lake Nasser on the southern border with Sudan. The water level in the massive reservoir has already reached 171.21 metres, close to the high of 180 metres reached in 1998, although officials expressed confidence it would not exceed it.

The Blue Nile, which joins the White Nile flowing south from the Great Lakes in Khartoum, recorded an unprecedented high of 14.02 metres at Deim on the Ethiopian border. The water flow rose from 785 million cubic metres on Thursday 24 August to 1.025 billion cubic metres on Friday 25 August.

Suing for space

THE NATIONAL Democratic Party (NDP) MP Haydar Baghdadi filed a lawsuit with an administrative court against Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif on Sunday, accusing him of wasting LE36 million of public funds by removing the car park at Ramses Square.

Baghdadi, who is the deputy head of Arab Affairs Committee, demanded that the demolition of the garage be halted at once, and held concerned authorities accountable for wasting public funds. The car park cost LE36 million to construct and will cost at least another LE15 million to be torn down. The government decided to remove it because it occupies too much space in one of the most busy thoroughfares in Cairo.

Compiled by Engy El-Naggar