Better price wheat
The government will raise the price at which it buys Egyptian wheat from farmers to EGP270 (USD49.50) per ardeb (150 kg), a Ministry of Agriculture adviser recently said. Last year’s price was set at EGP240 per ardeb. The Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza said that wheat would only be bought from farmers who have contracts with the ministry. “We will not buy from any trader, broker or non-Egyptian,” he said. Egypt, the world’s top wheat importer, bought around 3.1 million tons of domestic wheat in 2009. Wheat consumption runs at some 14 million tons annually, and the consumer price is extensively subsidised by the government.
Illiteracy down
The illiteracy rate in Egypt dropped to 26 per cent, a slight decrease from last year, Raafat Radwan, executive director of the General Authority for Literacy and Adult Education recently said. Radwan said the drop was an indication that campaigns to eradicate illiteracy have succeeded in educating some 450,000 people. Women account for 69 per cent of the total prop of illiterate people in Egypt, leaving men at 31 per cent. Illiteracy is also more prevalent in rural than in urban areas.
Hungarian mission
An exhibition showcasing 140 pieces of antiquity discovered by the Hungarian archaeological mission in Egypt was opened on Saturday 7 November by Culture Minister Farouk Hosni and his Hungarian counterpart Istvan Hiller. The exhibition, which was held at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, has been organised to mark the 102nd anniversary of the Hungarian archaeological mission operating in Egypt. Members of the Hungarian archaeological mission and several Egyptian archaeologists attended the event. The Hungarian mission has been working in and around Thebes—present-day Luxor—for some 102 years now.
First graphic novel
Last month saw Egypt’s first graphic novel “Metro” banned on grounds of indecency. The author Magdy al-Shafie has vowed to fight the ruling.
Qasr al-Nil misdemeanors court on Saturday found Shafie and “Metro” publisher Mohamed al-Sharqawy guilty of printing and distributing a publication infringing public decency, and handed down a EGP5,000 fine against both of them. The court also rejected the appeal against the administrative ban imposed by a vice squad that seized all copies of the comic in April 2008, a few months after its publication. The novel had carried a “for adults only” warning on its front cover.