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Politics/headlines
Mubarak back home
President Hosni Mubarak is back from his official visit to the United States, where he met with US President George W Bush, members of Congress and the Cabinet, as well as business leaders and Arab and Jewish activists. The President's visit resulted in a flurry of media coverage, the most significant of which cairolive.com has carefully selected for you here.
Click here for links to the most important coverage of Mubarak's US visit in the Western press.
Archaeology/Tourism
The crown jewel of Egyptian museums
Progress is being made in the pre-building stages of the new Egyptian museum planned near the entrance to the Giza-Fayoum highway, with a view of the Great Pyramids. An announcement about the international contest being held to decide who will build the museum should appear within a month, the Culture Ministry is quoted as saying in the papers.. There has been talk of the project for some time now, but the only concrete details the public may have known about was that a design had been selected. In principal everyone agrees with the concept of a technologically advanced super museum deserved of the country's unsurpassed length and breadth of items to display, but there has been controversy over what it should look like, who should decide, and how much it will cost. Culture Minister Farouk Hosni is quoted in a recent Al-Akhbar setting the project's budget at a whopping $200 million.
Telephone news
Useful numbers on both ends of the line
Today's Al-Akhbar provided a very useful little box of phone numbers -- the ones you call if you've got a problem. The numbers are broken down, district by district, making it the kind of thing you cut out and stick onto the refrigerator.
The same page in the paper also quotes a spokesman from the phone company -- Telecom Egypt -- confirming that the cost of local phone rates currently stands at 10 piasters per six minutes. The issue always comes up when it's time to pay the bi-annual phone bills, as it is this month for those whose phone numbers end in an even number. This time, the spokesman was responding to rumors that had been circulating claiming that calling the phone company's "177" service, in order to find out the cost of your bill, cost a small fortune in itself. It costs the same as a local call, the official said. Even with the crush of people calling in these days, the 177 service is working fine.
Economy
Nobody wants another Seattle
Egypt -- and many other countries -- want some time to think about some of the issues that will be discussed in the lead-up to the next World Trade Organization meeting in Doha this November. Trouble is the Organization seems to want some answers now. The questions that they want Egypt to answer include specific outlooks on the future of agriculture and services, among other things. The questions will probably not be answered by the developing part of the world, at least not until the Doha meetings commence, since they seem to imply that there's only one way to go when it comes to global trade. But it's not a one-way street, these countries are trying to tell the big guys, unless the one way points upwards for all of us.
Television
Transport outlook looking bright
Appearing on a televised forum in Suez recently, Transportation Minister Ibrahim El-Demieri presented an upbeat picture of transport achievements in the local vicinity that were either completed or on their way to being done. The railways are soon going to reach Rafah, the minister said. A port in Ain Sukhna is being built for LE750 million. The Ferdan bridge, a massive suspension bridge over the Suez Canal, linking Sinai to the Delta, is set to be completed by October. These and other massive transport projects are intertwined with the master plan meant to facilitate the movement of minds and muscle across continents, El-Demieri said. Broadcast from Suez on Channel 4, the forum was entitled "Hilm wa 'Ilm", On Dreams and Science.
More careful look at charity ads
There's going to be a little bit more control on which charity ads will run on Egyptian TV. Quoted in Al-Akhbar, Information Minister Safwat El-Sherif's directive that the ads -- and the charities they cater to -- have to be approved by the Social Affairs Committee before being allowed to screen was a result of a dispute over the allegedly unauthorized use of an Alexandria charity organization's name in ads that appeared on TV's Alexandria channel.
Ad watch
Mini-pizzas: a matter of style
Remember when mini-pizzas came out in the United States? When you could get that same family-size Pizza Hut pizza, but individually sized, for lunch. At the time it was big news, and lunch hour inevitably brought long lines at the local Pizza Hut, as everybody made the dash for the piping hot mini-pizza. Now, in Egypt, 20 years later, Dominos is offering the same thing, in a first for Cairo -- that is, if you don't count the home grown, single serving, "pizza fiteer" available at traditional "fatatri" shops everywhere. The Domino's model costs LE5.50, and LE2 extra for toppings. Will the high-speed corporate culture mini-pizza overtake the market? Think of it this way: the local version might reach LE5 max, and that's with everything. Which makes it a matter of style.
Education
Shaabola taken to test
Shaaban Abdel-Rehim has made it to the pop quizzes. In addition to all his movie and theater roles, Shaaban now stars in a high school French test. An item on the front page of Al-Akhbar claims that the title of the first question in this month's French exams at the Imbaba Secondary Military School was "Shaabola alab dimagh al-masriyeen", literally, Shaabola turned Egyptians' heads upside down. The question was all about Shaaban's rise from ironing man to shaabi pop sensation. The item does not mention the question, but maybe it was along the lines of:
Shaaban is everywhere -- wearing his trademark flowered shirt, singing his crazy lyrics. The question is: Are people getting sick of him, or is this just the beginning?
Did you like this article? Send your comments to comments@cairolive.com
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