Medicine made in Egypt
GlaxoSmithKline will pay $210 million to acquire the ‘mature’ off-patent drugs business of Bristol-Myers Squibb in Egypt. The acquisition will give the UK-based pharmaceuticals company the largest market position in Egypt, at about nine per cent. The deal includes taking control of 20 branded products that generated $48.5 million in sales last year, as well as BMS’s manufacturing plant in Giza near Cairo, which it plans to use to expand the sale of the generic medicines it produces in the Middle East and North Africa region. Egypt’s pharmaceuticals market was worth $2.1 billion last year.
Kaduna Farmers
Egyptian experts have gone to Kaduna in Nigeria to train small scale, medium and large scale Nigerian farmers on irrigation farming. Kaduna state governor Mohamed Namadi Sambo advocated partnership with the Egyptian government and businessmen, particularly agriculturists, to develop large irrigation schemes where food can be produced in Kaduna to be exported to Egypt and other African countries.
The British Rebecca Robinson has handed in three small statues believed to be Egyptian antiquities to cultural authorities in London, expressing a wish that they be returned to their homeland. The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) examined the statues and confirmed that one of them is authentic and represents the goddess Isis breastfeeding her son Horus, with the sun above her head. The five-centimetre bronze statue is broken and is to be restored, an SCA official said. The other two objects, one of them a green statue with an unreadable text, and the other a part of a larger blue statue, have not yet been confirmed as genuine.
CULTURAMA
The Egyptian Centre for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage has started a tour in Japan with CULTURAMA, a semi-circular set of screens displaying the interiors of ancient tombs, the history of the pharaohs, and panoramic scenes of the Nile, Cairo and Alexandria. A computer projects interactive footage across a 10-metre-diameter set of nine screens, allowing the presenter to show more information about—for example—Thotmosis III, who built the botanical garden in the Karnak Temple, on whose walls he documented the wildlife known in Egypt in his time. CULTURAMA programs feature ancient Egyptian history, a tour of modern Egypt, a virtual visit to Luxor, and Islamic and Coptic architectural history.
Bonaparte exhibition
Earlier this month the “Fire and Light” exhibition opened at the Arab World Institute in Paris. The exhibition, which focuses on Napoleon’s three-year military campaign against Egypt in 1798, showcases 350 antiques collected from, among others, the British Museum and Library, the Napoleon Museum in Arenenberg, Switzerland, the Art and History Museum in Geneva, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Islamic and Coptic Museums in Cairo. The word “fire” symbolises the fire of revolt of the Egyptians against the French invasion, while “light” represents the cultural and scientific impact the campaign had upon Egypt. The displays include land and maritime maps, French and Egyptian weapons, clothes, and furniture. The exhibition will close in Paris next March, then move to the French town of Arras in May 16 where it will run till next October.
Sister Emmanuelle rests in peace
Sister Emmanuelle, whose lifetime of service was dedicated to the needy in Tunisia, Turkey and Egypt, died last week at 99. The spokeswoman for the association she created said the Belgian-born nun died on Monday in her sleep, at her retirement home in the town of Callian in southeast France. Sister Emmanuelle spent more than 20 years helping slum children working in garbage dumps on the outskirts of Cairo. She helped create a network of clinics, schools and gardens for them. Upon her return to France in 1993, Sister Emmanuelle continued to speak out for the needy. She often appeared on French television, a diminutive figure with white hair and sparkling eyes.
WATANI International
26 October 2008