WATANI International
10 January 2010
Vaccinating students
A campaign has been launched to vaccinate all Egyptian elementary school students against the virus A-H1N1 commonly known as swine flu. Vaccination started immediately in the towns with the highest number of swine flu cases in Egypt: Cairo, Alexandria, Giza, Helwan and Qalyubiya. Over 2 million students aged between 6 and 12 years old are expected to receive the vaccine. It is expected that infection rates will increase during the winter season. The number of cases in Egypt which tested positive for A-H1N1 have so far exceeded 8300 whereas the number of fatalities hit some 150.
Eight sentenced
Last Monday a court convicted eight transport ministry employees of manslaughter for the train crash that killed 18 people south of Cairo last October. The crash occurred when a first class train filled with passengers rammed into a mostly empty stationary train on the same track. Egypt’s transportation minister later resigned over the incident. The court sentenced the stationary train’s driver to seven years in prison and the second train’s driver to three years. Six other transport employees were also given prison terms ranging between three to five years.
No to niqab
The administrative court last Sunday upheld a ruling by the education ministry to ban women from wearing niqab, the full Islamic face veil, in university examination halls. The court’s decision, which may be appealed, came after more than 50 students filed a petition against the ban. The row over the niqab intensified in recent months after Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s main seat of learning, banned the niqab in all residences and schools affiliated to Al-Azhar. The health ministry tried to ban it among nurses and the ministry of religious endowments distributed booklets saying the practice of wearing the niqab has no basis in Islam. Niqab is associated with the ultra-conservative Salafi school of thought, which is based mostly in Saudi Arabia.
Mummified hawks
Archaeologists have unearthed a 2500-year-old tomb in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, 30km south of modern Cairo, the Culture Ministry announced last Monday. The tomb is the largest and oldest yet discovered in Saqqara, the main cemetery for the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis. Though the tomb had been opened several times over the millennia, and apparently looted in the 5th Century AD, the complex still contains human remains, mummified hawks and shards of ancient pottery, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass said.
Land of contrasts
From 14 December and till last Wednesday, the Delegation of the European Union to Egypt celebrated the winners of its second annual photography competition by an exhibition of the 25 winning pictures in Cairo. Ambassador Marc Franco, head of the European Union Delegation to Egypt, handed the prizes and certificates of merit to the winners. Philipp Spalek, a 25-year-old Middle Eastern Studies student from Germany studying in Egypt won the first prize of 1,000 Euros for his photo of Old Cairo, “Illuminations”. The picture simultaneously encapsulates the old and modern side of the City with a scene of a barber working in his new shop against the backdrop of the old city walls and sheep lying around in the street.
The 12 best photographers have their pictures featured in the 2010 calendar published by the Delegation of the European Union. The competition is held annually in Egypt. The theme of this year’s competition was “Egypt: Land of contrasts”.