Telephone news
Phone bill extension
(cairolive.com, July 26, 2002) Customers have until August 10 to pay their latest phone bill, according to a tiny item on the front page of Al-Akhbar. The paper reports that an extension to the July 31 deadline has been offered by Egypt Telecom, a practice which has become quite standard.
Inside, another story claims that over 5000 customers have paid their bill through the phone company's website.
Al-Ahram, meanwhile, reports that the phone company has received some 8800 complaints from customers regarding the veracity of the current bill. In 8155 cases, the paper says, the phone company's computations were right. 
Only 50 per cent -- or 3.3 million out of a total 6.6 million customers -- have paid their bill so far, which probably means lines at telephone offices will be longer in the next few weeks as the deadline approaches.
Phone bills are appearing much more frequently now, every three months. The amounts being paid are certainly smaller than the older semi-annual bills, but people are beginning to realize that the total amount being spent on phones over the course of the year is definitely more than before.

To read more about phone bills click here

Crime
Similar names, different content
(cairolive.com, July 26, 2002) A tiny item on Al-Akhbar's front page indicates that the paper has received a lot of complaints from readers regarding a site with a similar name that features pornography.
The item says investigations have revealed that the site used to belong to a Sudanese paper called Akhbar El-Youm, but that it was not renewed and then subsequently taken over by someone who turned it into a porn site.
The paper clarifies that it has nothing to do with the porn site and that the address of its site is http://www.elakhbar.org.eg

New developments
An interesting way of looking at the heat
(cairolive.com, July 26, 2002) The head of the Electricity Holding Company is quoted on the front page of Thursday's Al-Akhbar saying that the heat wave that hit Egypt over the past few weeks resulted in a vast increase of peak time electricity use, from 3 to a whopping 10 hours a day.
This has resulted in a total of 800 extra megawatts of consumption, which equals, the paper says, the power that would be generated by a LE2 billion power station.
The holding company head also says that the government subsidizes the electricity industry to the tune of LE2 billion a year -- an across the board subsidy that all customers benefit from.
Earlier this week several Cairo neighborhoods experienced power outages which many attributed to the increased use of air conditioners resulting from extreme heat which brought temperatures into the mid 40s.

Ad watch
A great offer?
(cairolive.com, July 26, 2002) It's rare that you'll see an ad in the paper for a product that costs LE369,500...
Or, if you do, the price is usually not there, so as not to enrage those who can't even afford a product that is 1/100,000th of that price.
But there, in full color, on the pages of Al-Akhbar, is an ad for the new Jaguar X-type, "specially priced for summer" at LE369,500. Actually, considering that Jaguars have sold for between LE750,000 and a million pounds in the past, perhaps this new affordable Jaguar's price is reasonable indeed.
Okay, you convinced me. I'll take two.

and don't miss...
Party on the Nile
(cairolive.com, July 24, 2002) Thousands of people turned up for the downtown celebrations commemorating the 50th anniversary of the July 23 Revolution

READ MORE ABOUT THE PARTY

GO STRAIGHT TO THE PHOTO ALBUM

READ MORE ABOUT THE REVOLUTION

DON'T MISS...

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