Newsreel

---

Ruling overturned

THE SUPREME administrative court ruled in favour of the transfer of 40 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood on Monday, thus overturning the administrative court's ruling last week which deemed President Hosni Mubarak's referral of the detainees to military courts in February illegal. The Brotherhood members, including leading member Khairat El-Shater, are accused of money laundering.

The court ruling paves the way for the resumption of the military trial of the detainees, some of whom have been in police custody since December.

MB lawyers had called for a change of venue for the hearing on the grounds that the judges examining the previous ruling were all assigned to various government offices as paid consultants, and as such could not be impartial. The court rejected the motion.

At the same time, parliament lifted the immunity of two members of the Brotherhood on Wednesday as a prerequisite for sending them to trial.

Moreover, security forces barred leading member Essam El-Erian from travelling to Oslo on Tuesday to take part in a conference on dialogue between civilisations.

The government has intensified a crackdown on the outlawed group lately. It has targeted Brotherhood finances and detained and arrested hundreds.

Nour allegedly attacked

THE FAMILY and lawyers of the jailed opposition leader Ayman Nour on Sunday filed a complaint to Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, accusing five senior policemen of attacking Nour while moving him to Giza court a day earlier.

Mahmoud referred the complaint to Cairo criminal prosecution which will open an investigation.

"He was beaten up in a courthouse stairwell. They dragged him on the stairs," said Gamila Ismail, Nour's wife. Nour's lawyers said they had seen bruises on Nour's legs and wrists.

Nour threatened to start a hunger strike to protest against the assault, while around 50 of his supporters demonstrated before the office of the prosecutor-general to protest against what they said was the humiliation Nour had been subject to.

Ismail blasted the Bush administration for failing to pressure the Egyptian government into making democratic reforms. She said Washington turned a blind eye to her husband's case in favour of winning Mubarak's support for US policies in the region.

Ismail made her accusations as US Vice- President Dick Cheney was in Cairo this week.

Nour challenged President Mubarak for presidency in 2005, finishing a distant second in Egypt's first contested presidential elections.

But he later went to prison after being convicted of forging signatures on petitions to register his party Al-Ghad.

Still homeless

ONE HUNDRED and fifty families of Qalaat Al-Kabsh continue to spend their nights on the streets over two months after a fire swept through the shantytown in Sayeda Zeinab in Cairo. More than 300 wooden shacks were destroyed, leaving 1,000 people homeless, reports Reem Leila. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, along with other governmental officials, announced that alternative accommodation would be provided but "we took nothing," according to Mahmoud Hamdi, a resident of Qalaat Al-Kabsh. Since then, more than half the families have been relocated to housing units in Al-Nahda, on the Cairo-Belbeis desert road, leaving the rest without shelter and still sleeping on the ruins of their shacks.

Although the government has provided such families with food, TV sets, washing machines and stoves, local officials insist that those who remain homeless or are demanding help are not entitled to it. The residents, though, say that even though they have been residing in the area for more than 30 years, the government does not recognise them. They are accusing the government of receiving financial aid and not providing them with shelter of even one room.

Qalaat Al-Kabsh has been subject to an upgraded plan which began in 2001. Since then two phases of the plan have been implemented. This year the third stage is to start. Accordingly, three weeks ago, security forces blockaded Qalaat Al-Kabsh, preventing its residents from leaving the area until evening. Bulldozers were used to load scattered belongings onto trucks.

Poisoned bottles

SOME 22 patients from 28 have recovered and are in stable condition after witnessing medical reaction with saline and glucose solutions, Reem Leila reports.

Immediately after taking the solutions, patients in Tahta Hospital in Sohag, an Upper Egypt governorate, started shivering, vomiting and suffering high fever. According to the hospital's initial reports, all the 3,000 solution bottles, manufactured by the Hayedelena for Advanced Medical Industries Company (HAMIC) and owned by MP Hani Sorour and the Japanese company Otsuka, were used save 36. The entire quantity expires in 2009. Even so, Sohag Governor Mohsen El-Noamani immediately banned the bottles from hospital shelves.

According to Abdel-Rahman Shaheen, official spokesman of the Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP), samples of the used solutions have been sent to the Health Ministry's central laboratories for analysis. "What happened to the patients was a mild medical reaction that could happen to anyone. Nothing serious about the issue. Causes of the reaction will be revealed within the next two days. Until then MOHP has confiscated the remaining quantity," said Shaheen.

The HAMIC has been previously involved in providing 300,000 blood bags to the nation's hospital system, 37,000 of which have been already used. The CEO of HAMIC, Sorour has been convicted of delivering defected blood bags to the ministry at the value of LE4 million, thus violating the terms of the contract between the company and the ministry.

A committee set up upon the health minister's request is conducting an investigation and will consider the validity of the saline and glucose solutions, and whether proper measures of storage have been applied. "As soon as the result of this probe is out, all legal procedures will be taken against the violators," added Shaheen.