Sports
Pele to the rescue
Will a Brazilian diplomatic intervention save Egyptian soccer? (February 13, 2002)

Economy
Going local?
New tales of greed and thrift in the cigarette price saga (February 11, 2002)

Politics/headline news
Cheney on the way
US Vice President Dick Cheney will be visiting Egypt along with 9 other countries in the region, it was reported. Cheney's tour -- expected to take place in mid-March, will include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Emirates, Oman, and Israel, followed by Turkey and the UK. Preliminary statements indicate that Cheney  won't be meeting Yasser Arafat, nor will he be suggesting any new ideas meant to break the Palestinian-Israeli deadlock. He will, however, be studying up for the next stages in the US's war on terrorism.
(February 10, 2002)

In brief
Saadeddin goes free
Sociology professor and Western cause celebre Saadeddin Ibrahim has been released from Tora prison, after a court declared that he and the 27 other defendants in the Ibn Kahldoon think tank case were entitled to a retrial. Ibrahim had been sentenced to a seven-year jail term for improprieties related to the think tank's financings and work itself. The tank generated controversy for its work on election fraud and minorities. Ibrahim, who says his case is politically motivated, had kind words for the Egyptian justice system upon his release.
(February 10, 2002)

Exhibitions/events
Book Fair moving to Zeinhom?
Plans are under way, according to Al-Ahram, to build a brand new, massive exposition hall to host the Cairo International Book Fair. The article claims that the Ministry of Culture has allocated a 25-acre plot of land in the "nicest area of Zeinhom", and that the LE100 million costs of building the expo will be covered by a consortium of public and private sector publishers.
The logic is that the fair needs a venue more fitting for its rank as the world's second largest book fair after Frankfurt. This year's fair -- which ended on February 6 -- featured 420 symposiums, 92 participating nations, 2820 publishers, 4.3 million visitors, and 3.85 million books sold for a total of LE40 million. Trouble is, the venues are all spread out in 35 different "sarayas" at the fair's longtime home at the Cairo International Fairground. Changing that seems to be the impetus for sticking them all in one big expo.
To read cairolive's take on this year's Book Fair, click here.
(February 10, 2002)

New developments
Ahram opens Egypt's biggest CD factory
The press giant continues its expansion into different aspects of media making, with the opening of a brand new factory to produce CDs and DVDs. The paper reports that the factory is the largest in Egypt, set to produce some 36 million discs annually. Built at a cost of LE7 million, plans are to increase the factory's capacity to 60 million discs a year in the near future. Like Al-Ahram's giant commercial printing presses, the factory's production will consist of both Al-Ahram media, and outsourced work from anyone else. The CD factory aims to serve the educational and cultural spheres for both the domestic market and export to the Middle East and Africa, the paper says.
(February 10, 2002)

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