|
|
register now
for site updates
(type your email here)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Economy
Wanted: Foreign partner for ET mobile
Telecom Egypt is looking for a foreign partner for its cellular service, set to launch in December 2002. The start-up, which belongs to the soon-to-be-privatized national phone company, expects to capture some 3 million subscribers by offering much lower rates than its virtually veteran competitors, Click and Mobinil. Click is associated with global giant Vodaphone.
Mobile penetration currently stands at no more than 4.5 percent today, but Egypt Telecom chief Aqil Beshir tells Al-Mussawir that that figure will rise to about 15 per cent by 2005. The necessity of the foreign partner, Beshir explained, is more from a management and operations standpoint, rather than a matter of necessary funding.
Television
Bad make up
An actor who was blinded as a result of poor makeup and special effects techniques at the TV Union will be receiving a LE200,000 settlement, according to the papers. The actor had originally sued the union for LE1 million, claiming that the union's attempts to reduce makeup costs by using improper face paints and gasoline ended up causing him an irreversible loss of his eyesight.
New developments
The entire internet in Alex
The Alexandria library is picking up the whole internet archive -- over a billion pages thus far, and expected to grow to 8 billion by 2005. Patrons at the Bibliotecha will be able to browse this archive, library director Ismail Serageddin, recently told Al-Mussawir.
Miscellaneous
Not everyone likes Aida
Writer Safinaz Kazim is happy that Opera Aida has been cancelled. The 2001 performance of the Opera Aida -- which had been set to take place at the Pyramids in October -- was called off in light of the September 11 attack in the United States, and the increasingly tense winds of war being felt worldwide.
The reasons stated for the cancellation are not important to Kazim, however -- for there were many reasons, she argues, to cancel the opera in the first place. Kazim scathingly criticizes intellectuals, and even the culture minister, for adopting Verdi's opera as Egypt's anthem, and holding a gala performance of it every year at no less prestigious a place than the foot of the pyramids.
Kazim passionately tells of how Aida is really a story of Egyptian army officer Radames's betrayal of his country. He reveals military secrets to his girlfriend -- the Ethiopian slave Aida -- who happens to be the daughter of the Ethiopian commander who is at war with the Egyptians.
Even so, Radames and Aida are presented as heroes, and the Egyptian priests who sentence them to death for treason are presented as evil. Kazim is not surprised that Verdi managed to push the work on Khedive Ismail, who commissioned it for the opening of the Suez Canal. The Khedive wanted anything sophisticated, and Verdi couldn't care less about Egyptians or Ethiopians, she writes, but what surprises her more is that people nowadays rush to embrace the trashy story for Egypt's major celebrations.
Did you like this article? Send your comments to comments@cairolive.com
|
|
|
|
Browse previous news items by day
Wednesday Feb. 21
Friday February 23
Tuesday February 27
Saturday March 3
Wednesday March 7
Friday March 9
Tuesday March 13
Friday March 16
Wednesday Mar. 21
Wednesday Mar. 28
Monday April 2
Friday April 6
Monday April 9
Friday April 13
Tuesday April 17
Friday April 20
Tuesday April 24
Monday April 30
Friday May 4
Wednesday May 9
Monday May 14
Friday May 18
Wednesday May 23
Saturday May 26
Wednesday May 30
Monday June 4
Thursday June 7
Saturday June 9
Tuesday June 12
Thursday June 14
Monday June 18
Thursday June 21
Monday June 25
Monday July 2
Friday July 6
Monday July 9
Thursday July 12
Tuesday July 17
Monday July 23
Wednesday July 25
Monday July 30
Thursday August 2
Sunday August 5
Tuesday August 7
Monday August 13
Thursday August 16
Wed. August 22
Friday August 24
Wed. August 29
Tuesday Sept. 4
Sunday Sept. 9
Tuesday Sept. 11
Saturday Sept. 15
Monday Sept. 17
Sunday Sept. 23
|
