Newsreel

---

New ambassadors

EGYPT is sending new ambassadors to major world capitals, reports Dina Ezzat. The ambassadorial reshuffle, approved by President Hosni Mubarak this week, includes sending Sameh Choukri to Washington, replacing Nabil Fahmi. Choukri has been serving for the past three years as Egypt's current permanent representative to the UN offices in Geneva.

Choukri will be replaced in Geneva by Hisham Badr, assistant foreign minister and former ambassador to Japan.

To Israel, Egypt is sending Yasser Reda, and to Germany Ramzi Ezzeddin who replaces Mohamed El-Orabi.

Hatem Seif El-Nasr, who has been serving as assistant foreign minister, is posted to London, Mahmoud Ouf to Riyadh and Afifi Abdel-Wahab in Khartoum.

The new ambassadors should be at their posts by the beginning of the new diplomatic season, in autumn.

Nour drops charges

TAHER Mahmoud Taher, chairman of the Misr Al-Fata Party, has been sentenced to one year in jail with hard labour on charges of libelling Ayman Nour, the jailed leader of the liberal Ghad Party, and his wife Gamila Ismail, reports Mona El-Nahhas. The Cairo Criminal Court also fined Taher LE10,000.

Taher was charged with publishing what were deemed a series of offensive articles in his party's mouthpiece The Voice of Boulak Abul-Ela in April 2005 when Nour challenged President Hosni Mubarak in the country's first presidential elections.

Nour, still serving a five-year jail term in Torah Prison, attended Monday's court session amid heavy security.

After the ruling, Nour said he would drop the charges against Taher, saying he does not approve the jailing of journalists. He added he would give the LE10,000 to the Ghad Party and the group Egyptians against Corruption.

Ismail, however, said she would not drop charges, saying "words of libel cannot be tolerated".

Dangerous waters

ENVIRONMENT Minister Maged George has warned that by 2020, rising sea levels will threaten 15 per cent of the Nile Delta, home to about half of the Egyptian population of 73 million, because of global warming.

"Many of the towns and urban areas north of the Delta will suffer from the rise in the level of the Mediterranean in 2020. About 15 per cent of Delta land is under threat from the rising sea level and seepage into the ground," George told a parliamentary committee on Monday.

George quoted technical studies by his ministry, in conjunction with the United Nations, in assessing the danger, saying he had asked the Foreign Ministry to start an international campaign to seek urgent solutions. The government has said little in the way of cautioning the public to the problem thus far.

A study by the UN Environment Programme says that a rise of 0.5 metres would displace 3.8 million people and damage 1,800 square kilometres in the Delta. A rise of one metre would displace 6.1 million people and damage 4,500 square kilometres of agricultural land, the study added.