Economy
A question of quality control
(cairolive.com, May 25, 2002) Al-Akhbar gives prominence to news that only 100 Egyptian companies have received the quality control certification need for successful exporting of their products and services. A tiny item covering an industrial improvement conference on a recent front page of the paper indicates that only 100 companies out of a total of 26,000 have qualified themselves for export, a sector needing quite a boost in the current stage.
This issue was also covered by Business Monthly this month-- read about it in What's In the Mags. 

Egyptomania
The Egyptian season
(cairolive.com, May 25, 2002) The Egyptian Wing of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art held a gala celebration recently as a kick-off event for a series of events promoting Egyptian tourism and antiquities set to take place at the museum's fabulous space housing the Dendur temple. Newly appointed head of Egyptian Antiquities Zahi Hawass revealed the latest archaeological finds during a presentation at the party. 

Click here for an article about the opening of the biggest Egyptian exhibit at the Met in a long time...

and here for a more in-depth experience of Egyptomania 

Ad watch
Star turns out to be car
(cairolive.com, May 25, 2002) After years of careful ad watching, cairolive was duped, it seems, by the ads. We have been following the development of "surprise" or "series" ads for quite some time (see "Ad watch: Spain turns out to be Egypt" (4th item) in September 4, 2001 edition of classic cairo live) but this time a series/surprise ad caught us unawares.
You may have read in this same space a few weeks ago about an ad that mentioned a star called "astra" that was set to appear in the night skies over Cairo over the next few days.
Well, alert reader Mustafa Hussein let us know that the numbers printed in the ad for people to use to get more information on the star (and which one would have assumed were numbers to the astronomical society which was listed as a source in the original ad) were actually the numbers of a GM dealership.
Turns out the ads were actually just a new way of getting people excited about the latest model of the Opel Astra sedan.
A call revealed the truth, as did an ad in a later edition of Al-Ahram.
The gentleman at the GM dealership, however, confirmed that cairolive wasn't the only one duped. Lots of callers, he said, had been inquiring about the alleged star... 

Crime
Million-year-old mummy a hoax
(cairolive.com, May 25, 2002) The story of the supposedly prehistoric mummy that was discovered being illegally sold on the black market last month turns out to be a hoax, according to a story on Al-Akhbar's crime page. At the time, amidst the flurry of coverage of the crime,  there was also a report that the mummy had a tail.
Officials are now saying the "mummy" was actually just an ordinary corpse, recently deceased. 

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