Newsreel

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Students in arms

THREE Ain Shams University students were injured on Monday in a clash which included knives and sticks after students belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood protested against what they described as the university's discriminatory policies. The students claim their candidates have been prevented from running in student union elections in some of the university's colleges, including the faculty of education.

Rumors abounded that the university's security authorities met on Saturday with union students during which they agreed to exclude the Brotherhood's candidates from any future meetings.

Similar clashes broke out in Al-Azhar University in Mansoura where 200 Brotherhood students protested at what they said was interference by security personnel in the acceptance of candidate applications for the union's elections.

Pilgrims on the streets

TWENTY-five Egyptian pilgrims died last week after failing to receive proper health care in the Jordanian harbour of Aqaba. Around 25,000 pilgrims had been forced to spend their nights in Aqaba on the street due to the limited number of ferries operating between Egypt and Jordan.

Egyptian authorities are sending representatives from the ministries of tourism, transportation and social security to arrange for the return of the pilgrims to Egypt using three new ferries deployed exclusively for the purpose. About 8,000 pilgrims will return to Egypt daily.

Jordanian authorities said Tuesday they were doing their best to help the pilgrims in the face of a 200 per cent increase in the number of pilgrims from last year.

Jordanian authorities have prevented any new pilgrims from entering the harbor until after Egyptian pilgrims return home.

In Saudi Arabia, thousands of Egyptian pilgrims were denied access to the Saudi harbors of Daba and Jeddah because of a lack of ferries to transport them. The situation is said to have so deteriorated that pilgrims have been reported begging for food on the streets after running out of money following a 15-day delay in their date of return. Hundreds of elderly pilgrims have been affected by the lack of proper health care services. A few mosques in the Jordanian city of Ma’an have called on citizens to donate food to the pilgrims.

Mahfouz Taha, head of the permanent committee for Hajj and Umrah, said Tuesday that 3,000 pilgrims had already been sent back to Egypt.

Bird flu victim No 7

HANAN Abul-Magd, 39, died on Monday, Egypt's seventh bird flu victim. She was the first reported death in Egypt from the virus since May.

Abul-Magd, who was admitted to hospital with a high temperature and respiratory trouble in early October, had handled and slaughtered domestic poultry. Health Ministry spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shaheen said Abul-Magd, from the Nile Delta town of Samannoud in Gharbiya governorate, had raised 11 ducks in her home. Two became sick and died. She then slaughtered the rest before being hospitalised where she was treated with Tamiflu. People with whom she had been in direct or indirect contact have tested negative for the virus, Shaheen said.

The latest case comes a month after Egyptian health authorities found a cluster of new cases in birds following three months of relative calm. The H5N1 virus was first detected in Egypt in February this year when the virus spread to 20 of the 26 governorates.

Bird flu has caused serious damage to the poultry industry in the country. Losses have been estimated at LE17 billion. The industry has started to recover and the vast majority of commercial flocks have been vaccinated, but only about 20 per cent of domestic birds have received vaccines. Efforts to vaccine domestic fowl are being made in order to finish the process some time next year, Shaheen added.

Secret abuse

MANY incidents of violence against children go unreported and the abuse is even often socially approved, according to the UN report Violence Against Children, reports Reem Leila. The report was issued in Cairo in June 2005 and its findings recently committed to by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM).

Moushira Khattab, NCCM secretary-general, said the meeting also underlined regional recommendations and the Cairo Declaration which stressed the need for immediate action to combat all forms of child abuse and devise a mechanism for monitoring the implementation of regional recommendations.

A follow-up meeting focused on the importance of taking advantage of the continuing momentum to ensure implementation of the regional commitments and the report's recommendations at the country level. Khattab said that in order to ensure adequate support for the implementation of the report's recommendations, following up at the national, regional and international levels was critical.

Khattab said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented the first edition of the report to Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, head of the NCCM, in appreciation of her role in defending children's rights.

The report, which combines human rights, public health and child protection perspectives, focuses on five settings where violence occurs: the home and family; schools and other educational sites; institutions (care and judicial); the workplace; and the community. The report says extreme violence against children may hit the headlines but that for many children violence is routine, a part of their daily reality. It revealed that in 16 developing countries, the percentage of school-aged children who have been either verbally or physically bullied at school ranged from 20 per cent in some countries to as much as 65 per cent in others. Some 90 per cent of developing countries, corporal and other violent punishments are accepted as legal disciplinary measures in penal institutions.

The report stresses the fact that everyone has a role to play in order to stop violence against children, but that countries must take the primary responsibility. That means prohibiting all kinds of violence against children, wherever it occurs and whoever the perpetrator, and investing in prevention programmes to address the underlying causes. People must be held accountable for their actions but a strong legal framework is not only about sanctions, but about sending a robust, unequivocal signal that society simply will not accept violence against children.