Sadat’s killer
A Cairo court last week rejected a request to release the Islamist jihadist Tareq al-Zomor who has spent more than 26 years in prison for plotting to assassinate the late president Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. Zomor already served out his 22-year sentence, but his request was refused because it did not meet procedural rules. Zomor was ordered released several times since 2003 after serving his full term, but the Interior Ministry, which considers Zomor “a very dangerous person for the country’s security” and accuses him of attempting several escapes from prison, overruled the decisions. Zomor’s brother, Abboud, was sentenced to 40 years in the same case and the main defendant in the assassination, Khaled Islambuli, was sentenced to death and hanged in 1982.
Cement executives in court
Twenty executives of local cement firms were last week referred to a criminal court for conspiring to fix prices, in the first such case under the three-year-old anti-monopoly law. The government had filed accusations of anti-competitive practices against the companies last October after a 14-month probe by its investigators. Rising local cement prices drove the ministry of industry to introduce an export duty of LE65 a tonne on cement last February, and raised it to LE85 a tonne in August. Egypt sold 13 cement licences in October, raising over LE2 billion, to help boost domestic supply.
Orange labs
Communications Minister Tareq Kamel and Didier Lombard, Chief Executive of France Telecom Orange Group, earlier this month inaugurated in Cairo the group’s 18th Orange Labs around the world, expanding the group’s presence in the Middle East and Africa. The group has been in Egypt since 1998 through Mobinil—the first mobile operator in Egypt with more than 14 million customers—of which France Telecom is the main shareholder.
Eye of Amenhotep III
The Swiss President Pascal Couchepin, while on an official visit to Egypt earlier this month, launched the second phase of a joint medical programme through which Switzerland will donate $9.1 million over the next three years to provide X-ray equipment for 102 Egyptian hospitals. Over the past 30 years Switzerland spent $330 million on health infrastructure in Egypt. Mr Couchepin also launched the musical cultural programme “Swiss stories 2008” and signed a memorandum of understanding with Culture Minister Farouk Hosni on the retrieval of monuments taken out of Egypt illegally. The Swiss President said his country has already given back to Egypt 1000 pieces of antiquities. Within the upcoming months Egypt will retrieve from Switzerland the smuggled eye of a statue of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III who ruled Egypt in 1403-1366BC.
Giza Pyramids best
The World Travel Awards (WTA) has awarded the Giza Pyramids the world’s best tourist destination prize at its 14th annual round held in Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. Supreme Council of Antiquities secretary-general Zahi Hawwas described the prize, which was voted by 167,000 travel professionals from 160 countries on the internet, as the “Tourism Oscar”. Established in 1993, the WTA acknowledges, rewards and celebrates outstanding achievements in the global travel industry.
Book Fair
The 40th round of the Cairo International Book Fair opened last Wednesday. Participating are 743 publishers: 522 from Egypt, 178 from the Arab World, and 43 international publishing houses, with the UAE as guest of honour. The fair, which began on a 3000-sq.m. forty years ago, is this year held on a sprawling 66,000 sq.m ground.