WATANI International
21 March 2010
Cancelled
The Supreme Council of Antiquities cancelled the formal opening ceremony of the newly restored Ben Maimon Synagogue which was scheduled to take place last Sunday. The event would have been the culmination of the 18-month, USD2 million restoration of the synagogue, situated in the Jewish Quarter in Cairo. Earlier this month the Jewish community celebrated the rededication of the synagogue, which was attended by American and Israeli ambassadors as well as rabbis and a number of Jewish who had travelled especially for the event from different places around the world. The official ceremony was cancelled, “because of what the Israelis are doing with al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem”, said Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the SCA.
Best finance minister
Egypt’s Finance Minister Yousef Boutros-Ghali has been chosen by the British magazine The Banker as the best finance minister in the Middle East and North Africa for 2009. This is the fourth year in a row that Dr Ghali has won this title. The magazine hailed his financial policies and efforts at enabling Egypt to weather the economic hardships in the wake of the world crisis.
Wind farm
Egypt has secured a USD430 million loan from Japan to fund a 220-megawatt wind farm in Gebel al-Zeit on the Gulf of Suez. Even though Egypt is an oil and gas producer, it has been developing wind power along its eastern Red Sea coast, aiming to generate 12 per cent of its power from wind and 20 per cent from renewables overall by 2020. Officials say the country’s combined oil and gas reserves will last it roughly three decades, stressing the importance of developing alternative energy sources, including nuclear and solar.
EGP335million for power
The Egyptian government has signed contracts with the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank and the OPEC Fund for International Development, for the EGP335 million finance of a new thermal power plant. The plant, which is set to add 9,300 megawatts to the national power grid, will be erected at Abu-Qir, east of Alexandria, at a cost of EGP9.3 billion.
Egyptians go to Germany
Egypt will participate in the world cotton conference in Bremen, Germany, which runs from 24 to 27 March. The conference will discuss the trade of cotton and textiles and will tackle regional developments in the production and types of cotton, trends toward biotechnology in cotton cultivation and new trends in manufacturing cotton.
Orbiting Africa
A committee of representatives from African nations, including Egypt, has finalised the visualisation of a project for launching an African satellite to monitor the climate in Africa. The satellite should be in a stable orbit around Africa to photograph the entire continent every four days. The data garnered will be used, among other things, to predict and deal with natural disasters.
Africans in electricity
Some 23 trainees from eastern Nile Basin countries have completed training in the maintenance of electrical transformers and distributors and the development of wind energy technology with the Egyptian Energy Ministry in Cairo. Minister of Electricity and Energy Hassan Younis, who attended the graduation ceremony, stressed that Egypt was exerting painstaking efforts to enhance cooperation with and experience transfer to African countries and to contribute in building electrical networks there.