Egypt skips key Arab summit on unity

Egypt’s president will skip a key Arab summit this week, the country’s foreign minister announced Saturday, in a move highlighting divisions within the group.

President Hosni Mubarak will not attend the Arab summit in Qatar on Monday, although Egypt will still be represented at the annual gathering, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on Saturday.

He also stayed away from a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Doha on Saturday in advance of the summit.

Egypt and Qatar have recently taken rival approaches to the Palestinian crisis as Cairo continues to mediate talks aimed at Palestinian reconciliation and forging a sustainable ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian group ruling the Gaza Strip.

Qatari officials tried to play down Mubarak’s decision not to participate.

“Egypt is a represented in the summit and we respect their decision. … I can’t say that the Egyptian-Qatari relations are excellent, but we have a good working relation,” Qatari Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani told reporters after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Saturday.

Also Saturday, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said that a resolution rejecting an international court’s arrest warrant for Sudan’s president would be issued during the summit.

Egypt releases detained blogger

Egyptian authorities have released a 22-year-old Egyptian blogger and activist after nearly seven weeks in detention, an Egyptian human rights group said on Saturday.

Police detained Diaa Eddin Gad on February 6 outside his home in the Nile Delta province of Gharbiya. London-based rights group Amnesty International said in February that his incommunicado detention in an unknown location put him at danger of torture.

 

“Dia was released (Friday) at dawn… He was ill-treated in the period where we did not know where he was being held,” said Gamal Eid, director of the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

 

Eid said police beat Gad in the car immediately after detaining him and during his detention in State Security offices.

 

Police beat and kicked him, threatened to electrocute him, and electrocuted others in front of him, according to Eid.

 

The government says it prosecutes torturers.

 

Gad’s blog Sawt Ghadib or “An Angry Voice” (http://soutgadeb.blogspot.com) contained pro-Gaza slogans and news and commentary on Gaza during the three-week Israeli offensive on the coastal strip, as well as strident denunciations of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and security services.

 

Eid said police interrogation of Gad focused on such criticism, and on his references to Mubarak as “Ehud Mubarak”–an apparent reference to Israeli Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

 

The government has faced rising public anger over its enforcement of a blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, especially since an Israeli offensive in Gaza on January.

 

Egypt has been less tolerant of criticism of its Gaza policy since an Israeli offensive that ended on January 18. This increased Egyptian public opposition to Cairo’s participation in an Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-run territory.

 

Egyptian authorities have escalated tactics against bloggers and web activists in recent weeks even as the government freed opposition politician Ayman Nour, one of its most prominent critics. Nour’s release had long been demanded by Washington.

Egypt confirms yet another human bird flu case

The Egyptian ministry of health Thursday confirmed that an Egyptian girl has contracted the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

According to a spokesman for the ministry, the girl is the 60th case of the virus infecting the human population.

The 30-month-old girl was taken to a hospital in Qena, a town in southern Egypt some 300 miles south of Cairo, local media quoted spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shahine as saying.

She showed symptoms of a fever on Monday and was taken to a local hospital where she was diagnosed with the bird flu.

Egypt has been the hardest hit country by the deadly avian influenza outside Asia. It reported its first H5N1 virus in dead poultry in February 2006 and the first human case in March of the same year.

The death toll of the human cases of bird flu in the populous country is 23.

According to the latest statistics of the WHO, some 412 people in 15 countries and regions have contracted the virus and 256 of them died of the disease.

Following airstrike, Egypt strengthens Sudan border

Egypt is sending extra forces to its border with Sudan in an effort to prevent smuggling into the Gaza Strip, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

According to Haaretz, the alleged Israeli bombing of a weapons’ convoy headed for Sudan provoked the recent Egyptian move.

“The Egyptians are patrolling the border and inspecting it,” a senior intelligence source reportedly told the newspaper.

“They weren’t doing that until now. They started doing it because of the increased international pressure to act against the smuggling. But so far, the results are only partial,” the paper quoted the source as adding.

Israeli warplanes bombed a convoy of trucks in Sudan headed toward the Gaza Strip in January, American officials told the New York Times earlier this week.

According to US sources, the January airstrike took place as an effort to stop the flow of weapons to Hamas during Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials have refused to confirm or deny the attack. An American official, however, denied any role in the attack on Sudan.

Pyramids to go dark for “Earth Hour”

The Pyramids and the Sphinx, normally bathed in the golden glow of high-powered floodlights, will go dark for an hour on Saturday, in a symbolic statement Egyptian environmentalists hope might indirectly save the Nile Delta from inundation.

The World Bank has warned that Egypt faces ‘catastrophic’ consequences from global warming. If the Mediterranean rises by one metre, as scientists expect it will by the end of the century, it will flood the coastal areas along the Nile Delta, the World Bank warned in a 2007 report.

This would force about 10.5 per cent of Egypt’s population from their homes and would harm the country’s agriculture sector, as many of Egypt’s crops, including wheat and rice, are grown on the Delta’s rich soil.

So it is perhaps no surprise to see the government endorsing Earth Hour, an initiative started by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 2007 as a means of raising awareness of global warming.

‘Please turn off your lights at 8:30 pm on Saturday,’ Maged George, Egypt’s minister of state for environmental affairs, urged readers of Egypt’s government newspapers this week.

Egypt’s government-run radio stations have been discussing the event all week.

‘Maybe people can start walking instead of taking their cars for short distances – they will save room for someone who really needs a car. Start driving more slowly – it is good for your car. It also means less fuel used and fewer accidents, God willing,’ said a broadcaster on a morning talk show.

‘Save the earth from pollution, and save it from everything bad you can think of. Each of us can save the earth in his own way.’

‘Earth Hour will not save the earth,’ said Gihad Sami, a young Egyptian supporter of the initiative said. ‘But it might raise awareness of the connection between energy consumption and climate change.’

The WWF estimates that more than 50 million people from around the world participated in 2008.

Sami said she tries to convince her friends to be as ‘green’ as they can be: ‘to use the printer less often at work, for example, to quit smoking, and to use power-saving light bulbs.’

This year, Cairo will join some 2,500 cities around the world that have pledged to turn off their lights on Saturday.

The Library of Alexandria, on Egypt’s northern coast, will join Broadway theatres in New York City, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Sydney Opera House in turning off their lights in support of Earth Hour.

Private businesses in Egypt are taking part too. Visitors to the Meridien hotel chain’s restaurants in Egypt will be forced to spend a romantic evening on Saturday, as the chain announced it would rely on candle light to observe Earth Hour. Customers will also get a free drink, the chain said.

But some in Cairo said they would find it difficult to live without electricity for an hour.

‘Even if I turn off the lights, I cannot turn off my computer, my mobile or my oven. I have to work and eat,’ said Nabil Fahmy, an accountant from Cairo.

Fahmy, who is a heavy smoker, also said he did not think he would be able to put away his cigarettes for an hour.

Egypt and Israel ponder 30-year peace

In Cairo, the 30th anniversary of the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt is seen by many as a moment for regret, not celebration.

“It’s a celebration for Israel – not for Egypt, not for the Arabs, not for the Palestinians,” says Issam al-Aryan of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist opposition movement which is officially banned in Egypt.

“I think the majority of Egyptians are against the treaty after 30 years.”

Israel is holding events to mark what it calls a “watershed” moment, the first time an Arab nation recognised the Jewish state.

But there are no commemorations in Egypt, where discussion of the treaty focuses on concerns over Israel’s new right-wing government and a campaign in the courts to stop Egypt selling its gas to Israel at below-market rates.

Pariah status

Under the deal, Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula which it had occupied in whole or in part since 1967.

In return, Egypt agreed to demilitarise the area and normalise relations with Israel.

Promises of a comprehensive peace agreement for the whole Middle East quickly ran into the sand and Egypt went from a leader in the Arab world to a pariah.

But the treaty’s advocates say Egypt won in the long term.

“It has gained territory, it has gained a relationship with United States that is important, it has gained a reputation of being a country of peace,” says former Egyptian diplomat Ahmed Maher, who worked on the treaty.

“In the end I think the result is positive.”

But others say Israel’s recent war in Gaza demonstrates how the deal weakened Egypt.

Despite public outrage, the government refused to open its border with Gaza, leading to accusations that Cairo was putting its relationship with Israel and the US above the suffering of the Palestinians.

“In this case, the main concern of Egypt was to maintain the treaty and at same time not allow it to become obstacle to taking stands against Israel’s actions and aggressions,” says Mr Maher.

“It’s difficult when you want to keep many balls in the air.”

Economic and political ties

Egypt argues by keeping Israel on-side it can mediate between Israel and the rest of the Arab world.

But some say Egypt could worry less about antagonising Israel.

“Since Israel violated its commitments [under the treaty] by carrying out military actions on Egyptian borders, by not going along with the intention in Camp David to reach a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, and violated its commitments to the Palestinians, and its commitments under international law, I think Egypt has a good argument for offering more support to the Palestinians,” says Professor Mustafa Kamel al-Sayed of the American University in Cairo

As well as political ties, the peace treaty opened economic relations between Egypt and Israel and the US provided vast amounts of financial and military aid to Egypt.

“Generally I think Egyptians are quite realistic,” says Magdi Tolba, Chairman of Cairo Cotton Centre, one of Egypt’s biggest textile factories, who has joint ventures with Israel.

They do not have a problem working with Israelis when it helps economic growth, he says.

But he admits the continued regional instability of the past 30 years has made industry hesitant about forging closer ties:

“We’ve been losing opportunities… Economy-wise, industry-wise, if the area is more stable the sky can be the limit for cooperation.”

Undiplomatic presence

But the arrival of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led government in Israel, including the hardliner Avigdor Lieberman as a possible foreign minister, brings fresh concerns for stability.

Mr Lieberman said Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak should “go to hell”, and has suggested bombing the Aswan Dam, drowning Egypt in the waters of the Nile.

Such language does “not make Israelis very good partners”, admits former diplomat Ahmed Maher:

“The Israelis are so arrogant… We are on a very shaky foundation, but a shaky foundation which has endured because we Egyptians have been wise.

“You can’t live by the sword alone, this is something the Israelis, in the arrogance of power, have not yet realised.”

Many Egyptians are bitter that their precedent of exchanging land for peace did not lead to a comprehensive settlement.

Instead, some believe Israel returned Sinai to consolidate its hold on other occupied territories and free its hand to pursue military action against the Palestinians and in Lebanon.

Fact of life

Although there is now talk of a possible deal between Israel and Syria, Issam al-Aryan warns the Syrians not to believe it will help in the wider conflict:

“I hope they can study and review 30 years of discomfort and struggle in Egypt against the treaty.

“They are intelligent enough to get the lesson: the problem is not in Golan or Sinai, it is in Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Gaza, Ramallah, that is the problem.”

But even the Muslim Brotherhood shies away from calling for Egypt’s treaty to be ripped up.

“Many people are opposed to this treaty,” says Professor Mustafa Kamel al-Sayed.

“Israel did not live up to its treaty… But I think the Egyptian public considers the treaty to be a fact of life”.

In three decades, Egypt’s cold peace with Israel has never warmed.

The treaty may now be a fact of life. But it is still not a comfortable one.

Gov tries to hang up on killer SMS rumours

The Egyptian government has sought to dispel rumours that a mobile phone text message “from unknown foreign quarters” is spreading around the country and killing those who receive it.

The extraordinary move by Egypt’s health and interior ministries follows press reports that an SMS containing a special combination of numbers killed a man in the town of Mallawi south of Cairo.

“He died vomiting blood,followed by stroke, shortly after he received a message from an unknownphone number,” the Egyptian Gazette reported on Wednesday.

“The number begins with the symbol (+) and ends with (111),” it said.

An “official security source” was quoted by the official MENA news agency as denying that those who receive the SMS “get splitting headaches followed by brain haemorrhage that leads to death.”

A statement from the health ministry quoted health officials in several regions as saying that they had “received no cases with such symptoms”

“These rumours contradict all scientific facts,” the statement said.

Egypt’s interior ministry has detained three workers at an oil company for allegedly starting the rumours “and they are now being interrogated,” MENA said.

Sudan’s Beshir flouts war crimes warrant in Egypt

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir arrived in Cairo on Wednesday, flaunting his freedom in defiance of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Beshir was met at the airport by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, the official MENA news agency said, on his second visit abroad since the International Criminal Court issued the warrant on March 4.

But there was no chance of Beshir being arrested in Sudan’s northern neighbour, with both Egypt and the Arab League rejecting the warrant and saying it threatens peace talks in Sudan.

Egypt — like all Arab states except for Jordan — is not a party to the Rome treaty that created the ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.

The ICC does not have a police force and calls on signatory states to implement warrants. However, all United Nations member states are urged to cooperate with The Hague-based court.

Even the United States, whose previous administration described the Darfur conflict as genocidal, said on Tuesday it was under “no legal obligation” to arrest Beshir as it was not a signatory to the Rome statute.

Beshir’s visit to key US ally Egypt comes just two days after he made a short trip to diplomatically isolated Eritrea on Monday.

Speculation has also risen about whether Beshir will attend a March 29-30 Arab summit in Doha, with Sudan’s highest religious authority, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, issuing a fatwa, or edict, urging him not to go.

The Egypt visit comes amid a worsening humanitarian situation in Darfur after Khartoum ordered the expulsion of 13 international aid agencies in the wake of the arrest warrant.

The United Nations warned on Tuesday that it would appeal to international donors for extra funds following the expulsion of 3,142 aid agency staff.

UN humanitarian affairs coordinator Ameerah Haq warned in Khartoum that the situation in Darfur would deteriorate further over the next weeks.

“By the beginning of May, as the hunger gap approaches, and unless the World Food Programme has found partners able to take on the mammoth distribution task, these people will not receive their rations,” she said.

“Up to 650,000 currently do not have access to full health care,” Haq added.

Aid groups which remain are also increasingly concerned about security in Darfur, after a Sudanese working for a Canadian group was shot dead at his home on Monday.

The United Nations says 300,000 people have died — many from disease and hunger — and 2.7 million been made homeless by the Darfur conflict, which erupted in February 2003.

Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000.

Beshir, the first sitting president to be issued with a warrant by the ICC, faces five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes, accused of orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture, rape and pillage in Darfur.

Many African and Arab states, along with key Khartoum ally China, have condemned the ICC move and called for the warrant to be suspended.

The Arab League and African Union have vowed to lobby the UN Security Council to suspend the court’s proceedings.

Police arrest Egyptian man for burying baby alive

Egyptian police have charged a father with murdering his child by burying it alive in the desert, independent daily al- Masry al-Youm, reported Wednesday.

Police told the newspaper that the man, from the Egyptian town of Beni Suef, roughly 115 kilometres south of Cairo, had married a 24-year-old woman two years ago on the condition that she keep the marriage a secret and that she not bear him any children.

But when she got pregnant, the newspaper said, the man tried to force her to have an abortion. The mother refused and gave birth after seven months of pregnancy.

Police charged that the father said he would take the child to an incubator since it was born prematurely, but instead buried his child alive in the desert near Beni Suef.

Al-Masry al-Youm reported that the man is in custody, and that investigators have sent the baby’s body to a morgue for DNA testing.

Egypt detains 17 members of Muslim Brotherhood

Seventeen members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood were detained on Wednesday on suspicion of engaging in banned political activity, an Egyptian security official said.

The Brotherhood is Egypt’s largest opposition group. Though officially banned, members have run for political office as independents, and they hold about a fifth of the seats in Egypt’s parliament.

The security official said that Egypt’s prosecutor issued 15-day detention orders for those who were arrested Sunday while holding a meeting in the Nile Delta region.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.

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