Politics/headline news
Why we're going to the Euro-Med
(cairolive.com, April 22, 2002) Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa indicated that he understood the decision taken by Syria and Lebanon to boycott the Euro-Med economic cooperation meetings set to take place this week in Valencia, Spain -- because of Israel's participation.
Moussa, speaking to reporters in Cairo before he himself headed to Valencia to take part in the meetings, said the Syrian and Lebanese stance was an important one. He also indicated that it was important for there to be Arab participation in a wide variety of important global events -- such as the Euro-Med conference -- if only to present a balanced perspective to the regional issues that Israel was trying to dominate, and to provide a counterpoint to Israel's claims that the violent incursions into Palestinian territories over the past few weeks were a matter of self defense.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher -- who will also be attending the conference -- indicated that the meeting would provide a good opportunity for those Arab states participating to put pressure on Europe to take a firmer stance against the Israeli actions.

Commentary
Changing Shaaban's song
(cairolive.com, April 22, 2002) Al-Wafd's back page cartoon takes the deteriorating situation in Palestine one surreal step further -- it depicts US Secretary of State Colin Powell speaking to Yasser Arafat at his headquarters in Ramallah...
While everyone has heard that meeting being described as disastrous, with Powell admonishing the Palestinian leader for not working hard enough for peace even as Arafat remained under complete siege by the Israelis, Al-Wafd's cartoon imagines just how bad the conversation between Arafat and Powell might have been.
In the cartoon, Powell is demanding the following from Arafat... "And on top of all that... we want Shaabola (Shaaban Abdel-Rehim) to sing... "I hate Arafat and I love Sharon"...
The cartoonist's vision of Powell's request is a play on Shaaban's song heard round the world -- "I Hate Israel and I love Amr Moussa." 

New developments
Sinai day and daylight savings
(cairolive.com, April 22, 2002) Thursday is a national holiday in honor of Sinai Liberation Day. Thursday will also mark the start of daylight savings time, when clocks will "spring forward" 60 minutes to allow more daylight  and less electricity usage in the summer time... Follow the discussions that went on regarding this issue in the past few months here.

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