Shipment to Darfur
An Egyptian aircraft loaded with medications left Cairo last week for Darfur. The LE600,000 worth shipment is part of the requirements for an Egyptian field hospital in al-Fashir, the capital city of North Darfur. An eight-member Egyptian medical team will be working in the hospital. At an Arab conference on humanitarian conditions in Darfur held last October, Cairo had pledged to send relief aid worth one million dollars to the troubled region.
New companies, new jobs
A report by the Investment Ministry released last week mentioned that 141 new companies were established during the previous week with a total issued capital of LE318 million. The newly-established companies focused mainly on agriculture, industry, tourism, and services, and are expected to generate some 2989 new job opportunities.
Sat 1
The Egyptian satellite Sat 1 has been successfully launched from an air base in Kazakhstan. Minister of Scientific Research Hani Hilal said the satellite is the first in a series that will be launched to enhance scientific research and development in Egypt. It took five years to produce the 160kg satellite in cooperation with Ukraine. “Up to 60 Egyptian scientists and engineers took part in the process,” he said. The satellite will be controlled by a base in Ukraine at the first stage, and an air base near Cairo is expected to take over in later stages.
Euro-Arab cinema
The annual Caravan of the Euro-Arab Cinema begins its activities next Tuesday at the Cairo Opera House, and runs till the following Monday. The event introduces feature films and long documentaries produced before May 2005, which were box office hits in their countries or award winners in film festivals. It focuses on films related to cultural dialogue between the North and South, within themes such as immigration, war, communication with the other, and relations and bonds between people. The Caravan started in 2006 as an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between the north and south of the Mediterranean, through introducing European cinema to Arab audiences and vise versa. It has since been held in more than 10 cities, including Cairo, Alexandria, Ismaliya, Amman, Beirut, Rotterdam, Paris, and Marseille, and was attended by thousands of audiences.
Spanish artist books
The exhibition “Leafing… Four decades of artists’ books and magazines in Spain” which opened on 22 April at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and runs till 23 May, is the first retrospective exhibition of artist books in Spain since 1960, and marks the Third Alexandria International Biennale for the Artist’s Book. The exhibition, which brings together works from the 1960s to 2007, has been organised by the State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX) together with the Spanish Foreign Ministry. The Spanish artists Alicia Martín, Lara Almercegui, Pamen Pereira and Isidro López Aparicio participated in a workshop on Artist’s Books last April, and the works produced in this workshop will be exhibited in the Biennale, with one work of each artist remaining in the permanent collection of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Necklace in auction
The famous Christie auction house in London has put on display a rare necklace of Egyptian diva Umm Kolthoum (1898-1975) who was in her heyday the queen of the Arab song scene. The Indian handmade gold necklace which comprises 1,888 pearls was a gift to the diva from late UAE President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan.