CAIRO: National newspapers have gone back to their custom of dedicating their headlines to announcing government-related plans and presidential events, while opposition papers have their front pages dedicated to corruption cases, updates on the tragic ferry accident and bird flu summaries.
Al-Ahram reports a joint summit between Egypt and South Korea due to start Tuesday in Cairo. The daily reports that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and President Hosni Mubarak will discuss ways of boosting trade, information technology field exchange and economic cooperation between the two countries. Politics and the security situation in the Middle East is also on top of the discussion agenda. President Moo-hyun is reportedly scheduled to meet with Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League. The South Korean president will also pay a visit to the league’s headquarters. The Korea Times reports that the visit is “a first by a South Korean president.
Al-Masry Al-Youm, an independent daily, uncovered a report recently filed with the prosecutor’s office. It accused Mahmoud Mohieddin, minister of investment, among others, of corruption. According to the press report, the minister allegedly used his official influences to sell the privatized public store Omar Effendi at a knocked-down price in order to “entertain the monetary difference in price and keep it for himself.
Al-Masry Al-Youm reporters have just recovered from a slander case in which one journalist was sentenced to prison for writing a news story that allegedly defamed Egypt’s former housing minister while the latter was still in office. If not for reconciliation between the press syndicate and the housing minister, the journalist would have had to see through a prison sentence and pay a fine of over LE 3,000.
On the international level, wires are hot with news of Egypt’s “oppressed forces. The case of politician and former El-Ghad leader Ayman Nour, who was imprisoned late last year on forgery charges, tops the news. The Chicago Tribune reported that Nour described himself as “a model of repression during an investigation by a Cairo prosecution court last Sunday.
Nour, who was one of Mubarak’s principal rivals in last year’s presidential elections, told the Chicago Tribune that Mubarak “is stamping out any secular opposition that challenged him.
According to the newspaper, Nour was accused of new charges during last Sunday’s court session.
According to the Chicago Tribune, “[a]mong the new charges against Nour: calling Mubarak ‘ineffective’ and ‘a loser’ during a political rally last fall, beating a police officer with a stick on Election Day and putting up a statue to an Egyptian composer, something prosecutors said is an offense against Islam.
I admit I called Mubarak a loser, Nour told the newspaper. But beating a police officer? It never happened.
On another level, The Associated Press reports the detainment of three Muslim Brotherhood members. During the course of last week, the authorities reportedly detained more than a dozen members, including a 70-year-old man.
Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud, principal lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood, told the AP that “police have not filed charges against the three [detainees].
According to the same report, the group made an official statement calling the wave of arrests an oppressive operation.
