WATANI International
22 August 2010
The level of the Nile water has been steadily rising during the annual inundation which begins late in June and lasts till October. Last weekend, the level recorded on Sunday was 171.3 metres, 10 centimetres higher than the previous day’s reading. The Ministry of Water Resources said the water stored in Lake Nasser measured 102.35 billion cubic metres, 436 million cubic metres more than the previous day.
Oil spill drill
Egypt and Saudi State oil giant Aramco plan to launch an oil spill containment exercise in Sidi Kreir, some 30km west of Alexandria, next November. The drill aims to test response to a big shipping spill in the Mediterranean Sea, Mahmoud Ismail, the head of the environmental disasters and crisis management at the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Authority, said. The drill would test the response to the worst kind of spill, called a tier three event that would require a full collaborative international response. Sidi Kreir is a Mediterranean oil terminal at the end of the Suez-Mediterranean twin pipelines, which can pump up to 3.1 million barrels per day of crude from the Red Sea coast to the terminal. The pipeline is used by Middle East crude exporters including Saudi Arabia to bypass the shipping chokepoint of the Suez Canal.
Last June, an oil spill polluted parts of a 20km stretch of coastline at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada. Even though it was rapidly contained, oil experts fear that a similar one in the Mediterranean would spread very quickly and would be harder to contain.
TE profits
Telecom Egypt, which holds a monopoly on fixed line phone services in the country, says its net profits for the second quarter of 2010 surged 23 per cent, boosted by stronger margins, increased subscribers and growth in broadband Internet service. The company said net income climbed to EGP971 million (USD170.3 million) compared to EGP789 million in the second quarter of 2009. Telecom Egypt has seen strong competition from mobile phone providers in Egypt. It has about 9.4 million fixed line subscribers compared to over 55 million mobile phone subscribers in the country.
Islamic Art
Last weekend saw President Hosni Mubarak open the Islamic Art Museum in Cairo following a painstaking renovation process that took some eight years to complete and cost upwards of EGP85 million. The museum, located at Bab al-Khalq in Downtown Cairo, is famous for including one of the largest and most important Islamic art collections in the world.
Dance along
The Aswan Folk Group joined 20 groups from seven Arab, European, and Mediterranean countries in the Euro-Mediterranean folk music and dance festival. The week-long festival was held earlier this month in several towns in Cyprus, with the aim of promoting better understanding between people of different cultures.
Tutankhamun’s modern gold
Proceeds from the most recent world tour of Tutankhamun’s funerary treasure have reached some USD100 million, according to Zahi Hawass, the Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Hawass, who sounded elated at the figure, was speaking at the forum “Egypt between past, present and future”, organised by Al-Samra Institution for Environment and Development in Cairo. He said that revenue from exhibitions of Egyptian antiquities outside Egypt, as well as museums inside the country, have swelled the coffers of the SCA in recent years by some one billion Egyptian Pounds.