Latest in Politics Highlight
Latest in Politics
Demonstrations on the rise
CAIRO: Holding banners high, chanting slogans protesting local or regional matters and getting attacked on the street is a lifestyle that many Egyptians now gladly adopt. Throughout the past six years, demonstrations have made their way back onto the Egyptian streets. Gradually, it has become customary to organize a march, a sit-in or a demonstration …
Egypt reports fourth human bird flu case
CAIRO: Egypt reported a fourth suspected case of bird flu in humans on Tuesday, in a 17-year-old boy whose father had an outbreak of the disease on his chicken farm in the Nile Delta on Saturday and Sunday. Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali, quoted by the state news agency MENA, said the boy was taken to …
Charles blasts cartoon violence in appeal for tolerance
CAIRO: Britain s Prince Charles on Tuesday condemned the violence sparked by the Prophet Mohammed cartoons and appealed to religious leaders to foster common values in a speech at a renowned Cairo university. Highest among those values of our common inheritance, and born of our love of God, must always come respect for each other, …
Centurion Energy signs deal with Shell Egypt
LONDON: Canada-based oil and gas explorer Centurion Energy International Inc said on Monday Shell was to take a 50 percent interest in two Centurion-operated exploration concessions in the Nile Delta. Centurion, which is listed in Toronto and on London s junior Alternative Investment Market (AIM), said Shell would make an initial payment of $15 million …
Sunni authority objects to Jesus film in Egypt
CAIRO: A film due to be shot in Egypt on the life of Jesus Christ has stirred protests from the highest authority in Sunni Islam, the Al-Azhar institution in Cairo. Abdel Mooti Bayumi, an Al-Azhar professor, noted Monday that the institution had issued fatwas, or religious edicts, against any depiction of the prophets, which is …
Turning Egypt around
CAIRO: The fourth Business Roundtable with the Egyptian government, a turnkey event attended by the country’s government and business leaders, will take place this year on April 2, 2006. An intensely interactive day of discussions and debates on government policy and future plans for business, the roundtable is a strategic event at which the Egyptian …
Press Round-up
CAIRO: Taking priority on the front pages of all newspapers, both national and independent, is the breaking news of a second human bird flu case discovered in the city of Banha (in the Qalyoubiya governorate); most reports including the picture of the patient lying in a hospital bed. In Al-Ahram, the latest news of Hosni …
Worried Egyptians head to hospital for bird flu tests
CAIRO: Egyptians are heading to hospital fearing they might be the next victim of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu after two human cases were detected in the country, officials said Monday. There are two or three cases of people who came to hospital and tests are underway, said Nasser Kamel, spokesman for the …
Egypt shares rise on bargain-hunting
Institutional investors buying stocks like Orascom Telecom (OT), which have fallen in recent sessions, pushed up the Egyptian market, traders said. Local and foreign institutions were looking for stocks that had strong fundamentals but had fallen to levels considered cheap, the traders said. The benchmark Hermes index rose 1,520.43 points, or 2.7 percent, to 57,177.19 …
Businesses race to file taxes by deadline under new law
CAIRO: The end of the current tax season is near. Companies and their auditors are rushing to meet the deadline of Mar. 31 for finalizing their financial statements in accordance with the Companies Law. These statements will form the foundation for the tax returns that must be filed by April 30, unless an extension of …
Boosting tea imports in Egypt
CAIRO: According to the Ministry of Investment, the country has slashed taxes on Indian tea from 30 percent to five percent, thus brightening the future of Indian tea in Egypt by allowing Indian exporters to re-enter the Egyptian market. The largest exporter to Egypt in the early 1980s, India lost its foothold to Sri Lanka …
A mountain of a movie
CAIRO: Brokeback Mountain is an emotional, heartbreaking movie about two men who fall deeply in love with each other. Heath Ledger stars as Ennis Del Mar, a young cowboy, whose parents passed when he was a child. He ended up being raised by his siblings. The movie begins in Wyoming in 1963, when Ennis finds …
Emergency food agreed for Gaza through Egypt so U.S. says
JERUSALEM: Emergency shipments of food will be brought into Gaza from Egypt on Monday, a U.S. diplomat announced on Sunday after hosting talks with Israel and the Palestinians on alleviating an impending humanitarian crisis. We have agreed that the crossing from Kerem Shalom will open tomorrow for imports of food and other essential humanitarian products …
For the sake of the child
CAIRO: For the children involved, winning a case proving parenthood means the difference between having a birth certificate or going without one. Without a man’s name to fill the blank space under “father on a child’s birth certificate, the certificate cannot be issued. Thus the 14,000 parenthood proving cases waiting for the court’s decision aren’t …
Judges stand by colleagues, seek independence
CAIRO: Judges on Friday stood by four colleagues summoned for questioning about comments on last year s elections and voted against any concessions to the government on a draft law reorganizing the judiciary. A general assembly at the Judges Club, an informal and independent institution, voted that the four judges should not appear before prosecutors …
Mohieddin reassures American investors
CAIRO: Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin visited the United States for 48 hours late last week to promote investment in Egypt and met with 14 representatives of financial institutions, funds and investment companies. The minister was accompanied by Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, chairman of the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, and joined members of the …
Islamic row over Prince Charles' visit to Egypt
CAIRO: Prince Charles flies into Egypt today facing controversy at Cairo s most renowned Islamic institution over the awarding of an honorary degree to the heir to the British throne. Al-Azhar University, one of the top institutions in Sunni Islam, is to give Charles an honorary doctorate when he arrives with his wife Camilla at …
Lawmaker who owned ferry that sank in Red Sea stripped of immunity for questioning
CAIRO: Egypt s upper house of parliament on Saturday stripped one of its deputies of immunity so he could be questioned about the tragic sinking of a ferry owned by his company. At least 1,000 people died when the Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 sank in the Red Sea on Feb. 3. Mamdouh Ismael, who owns Al-Salaam …
Egypt finds foot-and-mouth disease in eight calves
ASSIUT, Egypt: Egyptian vets have detected foot-and-mouth disease in eight calves on a government-owned farm in southern Egypt, an official said on Sunday. Mohammed Marzouq, head of veterinary medicine for the governorate of Assiut, said 80 other calves were being tested for infection with the disease, which does not affect humans but can have a …
Winning start to Al Ahli's defense of African crown
JOHANNESBURG: Al Ahli made a winning start to the defense of their African Champions League crown on Saturday, defeating Tusker FC of Kenya 2-0 in Nairobi in the first leg of a second-round tie. Both goals came from Emad Motaeb, one of the heroes of Egypt s triumph at last month s African Nations Cup, …
Estonian soldier held in UAE for alleged assault against Egyptian woman
DUBAI: An Estonian soldier who served as peacekeeper in Afghanistan has been detained in the United Arab Emirates for an alleged sexual assault against a policewoman, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Egyptian policewoman, who works at the airport of the emirate of Sharjah, alleged that Andrie Carol tried to rape her as she slept in …
Identifying the fathers
CAIRO: In 2005, Egyptian courts witnessed 14,000 parenthood proving cases. The women who filed these lawsuits were trying to prove their marriage (whether orfi, unregistered, or otherwise) to the men they claim are the fathers of their children. The only way to register the baby under the name of the man in question is by …
Egyptian born every 23.4 seconds
CAIRO: An Egyptian is born every 23.4 seconds, raising the country s population to 73.6 million since last year, newspapers reported Sunday, citing the National Centre for Mobilization and Statistics. The census conducted in January includes 2.3 millions Egyptians living abroad, said the center s president Abu Bakr Al-Gundi. In the last population survey carried …
Second suspected case of human bird flu discovered
CAIRO: An Egyptian man has apparently recovered from a suspected case of bird flu, the health ministry said on Sunday, a day after announcing the virus had killed a woman in the same part of the country. Health and Population Minister Hatem El-Gabali announced the appearance of a second suspected human case of bird flu …
The force of gravity
CAIRO: They called it Black Tuesday. Four days of panic selling on the New York Stock Exchange ended on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 1929 with share prices at only a quarter of their peak earlier that year. The event shocked financial markets around the world and precipitated the Great Depression, and the stock market took 25 …
For Iraqis who can afford it, vacations abroad offer respite from the violence at home
CAIRO: Reem Al-Jawad can t take her young daughters to see Iraq s great and famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers as she believes it s too dangerous. So the 34-year-old Iraqi housewife brought her mother and two girls for a vacation in Egypt to see the Nile and to get a brief escape from the …
Brains or brawn for men in fitness
CAIRO: Typically, it has always been women that have a preoccupation with staying in shape and getting fit. Traditionally, men have gone to the gym to “get a six-pack, “get big, and “bulk up. However, the world is changing, and fast. Trends such as getting personal trainers and joining group exercises are making their way …
Prince Charles to visit Egypt, Saudia Arabia, India
CAIRO: Since assuming the role of Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, has worked to establish himself not as a defender of one faith, but rather, the “defender of faiths . On Monday, the British royal and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, will embark on a …
Courting danger
You can tell a sporting parent a mile away. There are the pacers, the nail-biters, the encouragers, the pushers and sometimes, the whackos, like the Frenchman who last week was given an eight-year jail term after he admitted drugging a number of his children’s tennis rivals. Christophe Fauviau, 46, a retired army officer, was convicted …
Present and Tense
From bull to bear, Arab stock markets came crashing from coast to coast. Normally, I don’t care much about the stock market. I keep my money in coffee futures and socks. The coffee futures are a good bet. You buy the coffee from your nearest supermarket and stack the jars on your book shelves for …