The European Commission extended last week rules allowing member states to support film-makers with public money.

With current arrangements due to expire at the end of the year, the European Union's executive arm decided to extend the rules until the end of 2012.

"For European creators to express themselves, they need a stable environment for the film industry," EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement.

"This is why we are reconfirming today the commission's current approach to national aid to cinema for another three years," she added.

Led by France, many member states have long sought to hold back a flood of mostly US-made films, which are often highly popular with the European public, by promoting European productions with subsidies.

The commission said that across the 27-nation European Union, member states spend about €1.6 billion in support of films each year.

Under rules dating from 2001, member states can finance up to 50 percent of a film's budget as long as the production is deemed to be a "cultural product."

More money can be provided if the film is considered "difficult" or is made on a low budget.

A member state can also require a film company to spend 80 percent of a movie's budget in its territory if the enterprise wants to receive public subsidies. –AFP

From Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian creator of “Persepolis,” to cutting-edge artists from Seoul or South Africa, star authors joined some 200,000 fans in southern France this week for the world’s biggest comic book showcase.

Once a year the sleepy south-western town of Angouleme turns into the capital of the comic book industry, playing host to a star-studded marathon of book signings, talent scouting, live drawing, screenings, round-tables and concerts.

Satrapi, whose groundbreaking comic novel on growing up in 1980s Iran was turned into an Oscar-nominated movie, was a star guest among the 1,000 authors invited to this year’s four-day event, which runs until Sunday.

Now in its 36th year, the Angouleme festival — described as the Cannes of the comic book world — aims to celebrate the best of the genre, whittled down to a shortlist of 56 key titles.

Subjects range from sci-fi, superheroes and children’s fantasy, to ambitious graphic novels on politics, war or the legacy of slavery, all the way to romance, erotica and social satire — with offerings from around the planet.

“A comics strip is always a window open on the world,” said the festival’s art director Benoit Mouchart.

“That is true of our comics tradition here in the West — but it’s just as true of the Asian traditions, manga in Japan or manhwa in Korea.”

Japanese manga has its own tent at Angouleme — with a special exhibition on the work of Shigeru Mizuki — while a dozen authors from Sai Comics, a flagship South Korean independent publisher, were in town to work on a giant fresco, live before an audience of festival-goers.

A special exhibit focuses on the South African authors of “Bittercomix,” a cult comics fanzine that violently attacks Afrikaaner culture and the lasting legacy of racism more than a decade after the end of apartheid.

Other high-profile foreign guests include Italy’s Milo Manara and the British cartoonist Posy Simmonds.

Even Steven Spielberg — who just started work on a big-budget Hollywood trilogy based on the adventures of Tintin, the Belgian boy reporter who turns 80 this year — made a brief on-screen appearance.

Spielberg and Peter Jackson — co-producer of the movie, starring Jamie Bell and Daniel Craig and set for release in 2011 — recorded a tongue-in-cheek video message for festival-goers, promising to stay true to the spirit of the original “Tintin” series.

Meanwhile household French-language stars at the show include the child’s comic series “Boule et Bill,” which turns 50 this year.

A jury of industry professionals will award its coveted Golden Lion for the year’s best album on Sunday, with separate prizes for runners up and for best youth and classic albums.

Further prizes will single out the best comics blogs, a fast-growing sub-genre and hotbed of young new talent.

Known in the French-speaking world as Bande-Dessinee, or BD — pronounced “Bay-Day” — comics are big business in France, with 4,700 new titles hitting the shelves in 2008, a third of them manga, up from 1,500 in 2000.

Some warn the sector is ripe for a shake-down, saying quality is losing out amid the sheer volume of new titles.

“It’s confusing for readers — there comes a point, when you just have to stop churning out books that nobody has time to read,” said Philippe Ostermann, editorial director at the French publisher Dargaud.

But so far, experts say, comics have held up well against the economic slowdown, with a turnover of €350 million in French-speaking Europe in 2008.

And with on-screen adaptations on the rise — from “Persepolis” and Tintin to the brooding hero Largo Winch, the Roman-bashing adventures of Asterix or the sharp-shooting cowboy Lucky Luke — the future of comics looks bright. –AFP

THE HAGUE: I was struck down with gastroenteritis last week, not that surprising in Egypt you may think, except I wasn’t scoffing down fuul and tameya in Embaba, but contemporary delights in sanitized Europe.

Europe may be considered low risk for diarrhea, but the dreadful bug, strikes travelers anytime, anywhere.

It is estimated that about 18 million adults from around the world travel for business or pleasure each year and a remarkable 39 percent spend more time than normal in the bathroom or bent over with excruciating cramps and violent vomiting.

Personally, I have been hit with traveler’s diarrhea (TD) in Argentina (seven days), Syria (three days), Egypt (five days), Australia (two days), Turkey (three days) and now The Netherlands (one day).

I’ve survived India, Indonesia, Peru and Tanzania and what I have learned is listed below in my guide.

Avoidance tactics are many and visitors always turn up with this obsession of drinking bottled water and washing your lettuce.

Wash your lettuce in whisky if it is that important, but remember with the lousy air quality on international flights, it is more than likely that you will arrive at your destination with some type of bug, quietly incubating in your gut or throat.

One always spends the highest percentage of money at the start of a holiday as you sample all and sundry on offer to get a feel for the new culture.

It is most important during the first few days of your holiday to take it easy.

It is when your body is most venerable from the flight, and as you graze through the market food stalls, enjoy nights out dining on rich cuisine.

No travel advisory can suggest to you what to eat, thus they say, “drink bottled water and eat in clean restaurants,” as if you are likely to quench your thirst from a road side puddle and a café that resembles an upside down dog’s breakfast.

What they should be saying, is drink very little whisky before each meal to kill off the germs in your gut, eat small meals and snack on your duty free chocolate.

Get to bed early, sleep well and recover from your flight. You’re not as young as you use to be.

Before you start to venture into the exotic and exciting culture of your destination, cut your finger nails. Pay close attention to the cleanliness of your hands and if you are really off the beaten track, keep a bottle of antibacterial hand wash that can be used without water nearby.

Don’t forget that you can also wash your hands with a little whisky, which is standard procedure for all doctors in all black ‘n’ white cowboy films, disinfecting their hands with whisky before using a Bowie knife to extradite the bullet.

One is no longer allowed to travel with a hunting knife on international or domestic flights, believe it or not, but that is another story.

Meanwhile, don’t be caught with your pants down after 48 hours. That is about average for your ego to be caught unawares, chest puffed out, thinking you are bullet proof.

In military parlance, that is just the feint; a ploy to get you thinking you have avoided the worst, seen off the enemy, when all the viruses are doing is mustering at the back door.

My own theory on a lot of the gastroenteritis viruses lie with paper money.

You see, many rich nations either have notes with a plastic coating or circulate their cash regularly. In less privileged countries, the paper is more likely to absorb the environment and host creepy crawlers that are waiting to hand deliver the Luxor two step.

When you get struck down and you can’t move into a five-star hotel, barricade your room, let no one see your humiliated self and sip on flat sprite.

Green tea and Chinese noodle soup. There is no quick fix, only your mom, the couch and the tele can bring comfort.

Apart from the antibacterial hand wash, you should also pack super soft toilet paper, because that foreign stuff has the texture of sandpaper. A little bottle of talcum powder will also be handy and just thank your lucky stars that you only have TD and you have not started vomiting violently.

pacarrigan@freelancejournalism.com

I’ve always loathed chess, the way you hate anything you’ve never been particularly good at.

I’m not good at it is because I don’t have a brain suited to making moves that are five steps ahead of my intentions, or a drive to deliberately calculate the gains of every action I take nor a predilection towards hiding my intentions from all those around me.

This rather overdrawn prelude leads me to the situation in Gaza, once more, as a follow up to my somewhat unfocused rant of two weeks ago. As we all know, Gaza isn’t new. And all the outrage, the Facebook status updates, the long, cold marches and rallies through Trafalgar Square, Midan Ramses and downtown Manhattan, while commendable and important, are rather a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

The questions I’m fixated on today are what can we do in order to address the next Israeli/ Palestinian crisis? What moral obligation does Egypt have, as a nation, to leverage whatever influence it claims to have in order to help alleviate the future suffering of the Palestinians? And are we willing to do it without asking what’s in it for us?

Let’s talk politics: Max Weber identified two types (or, perhaps, it might be more fitting to call them strains) of politics: the politics of intentions and the politics of consequences. The first describes the political novice who aims to achieve something (good or bad isn’t important) while ignoring the consequences of those steps. The second lauds the seasoned political operator who undertakes a series of chess moves aimed at arriving at a defined goal, but calculating the incremental damage/ benefit of every single move along the way.

Weber, needless to say, favors the second route. So too, apparently, does the Egyptian government. At the expense of any moral imperative.

You see, Weber was both right and wrong: he was right that the politics of intentions are naïve in that they discount consequences of their actions; but he perhaps didn’t place enough emphasis on the power and moral necessity of announcing clear and powerful intentions. Without them, an opponent correctly characterizes you as a bystander; then make their moves, banking on your complicitous immobility.

I can’t help but think that against the appalling moans of devastated and dying civilians, the heartless proclamations of callousness by the international community, and the embarrassing and flaccid posturing of the Arab governments, a steadfast refusal to accept oppression, in any form, rings a powerful gong that forces everyone to sit up and take notice.

Exactly what Egypt isn’t doing: cutting through the politics, and trying to do some good.

Let’s weigh up our motives in all this, differentiating between government and people, since the actions of the former appear to be increasingly at odds with the will of the latter.

As a people, our objectives have everything to do with compassion and pride. Like all decent people, it hurts us to see suffering in any form (I don’t subscribe to cynics who maintain that we are only moved by Muslim suffering) and are moved by compassion and empathy to bring it to a halt.

We also feel the tinge of humiliation and dented pride that ‘some of our own’ can be subjected to such savagery, while we stand by, unable to muster even a whimper of defiance. This inaction hurts our perception of ourselves as proud Middle Eastern, passionate people and fuels our national depression: we fail, so we believe we are fated to fail, which means we continue to fail.

Our government is a different story. Our government’s image of itself as a global player is at odds with its actions and capabilities.

The need to project itself as a ‘player’ is of vast strategic importance to the Egyptian government. Some of this is ego (“We are Egypt!”) but most of it is the government’s survival instinct kicking in. It knows that if it loses face to its own people, its position as an authoritarian power will be compromised, which means ordinary people will be less likely to tolerate it.

After all, as many have remarked, all we have is our pride. Take that away from us and what do we have left?

But people’s outrage at the government’s limp response (not just internally, the condemnation of the Egyptian stance in this conflict is universal; from its reluctance to publicly criticize Israel and the US, all the way through its shameful refusal to open the Rafah crossing) isn’t just to do with the marginal, almost indifferent role its played to this point. It has a lot to do with the government’s blatant disregard for Palestinian life, and its willingness to trade human decency, for power.

That’s not Weber, that’s Machiavelli.

If Gaza were a building that was set on fire by the Israelis and the escape hatches were manned by the Egyptians, who refused to open them, how would that be? Even if I accept that the Egyptians don’t want the Gazans living in our hospitals, at least let them out to stand on the pavement.

So why is the government not doing the right thing? Simple: the consequences of helping out could anger the Americans ($2.2 billion in annual aid) and fracture an already fractious relationship with cheap-gas importing Israel. Partly because we need them economically but mostly because the government knows the value of having a ready-made bad guy for the people to focus their ire on.

Just like Hamas or the sex-offender Ehud Olmert or the Clinton, Bush and Kennedy dynasties, or Joe Biden and the Delaware senate, or Bernie Madoff or the heads of Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, the goal here is power. And the Egyptian government is no different. It’s been in power for too long to the point where it becomes inevitable that its instinct for self-survival becomes at odds with the reasons it was ‘elected’ to office: to represent the people, to promote their interests and to uphold their rights and their dignities.

The Egyptian government has long been a byword for corruption, incompetence, lawlessness and shameless authoritarianism. Now we can add other failings to that list: a loss of human decency and a failure to take a moral stand. And in this elaborate game of chess, the pawns that are being sacrificed are actual, living, breathing human beings.

Shame on you,

Mohammed Nassar is a London-based  commentator who has worked in advertising, in Cairo, New York and London for the past 10 years. This column is special to DAILY NEWS EGYPT . Email him at mo.nassar@gmail.com.

Disclaimer: Commentaries published by Daily News Egypt do not reflect the position of the paper, but the independent opinions of their authors.

The recent appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East is

no doubt a positive sign of President Obama's commitment to the region, signaling that there will be immediate and direct American involvement in the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. Mitchell, who was the architect of Ireland's Good Friday Agreement, is largely seen as an honest broker and a tough negotiator. He is a firm advocate of diplomacy, yet his success will ultimately depend on the authority he is given to accomplish his mission. The full backing of the president and involvement of Secretary of State Clinton must be part and parcel of any outcome Mitchell can procure.

One of the most urgent issues that Mr. Mitchell must grapple with is what to do with Hamas, especially in the wake of the Gaza war. There are many right-of-center Israelis who believe that Hamas-as a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction-is simply irredeemable and must therefore be destroyed. These people are pursuing an unachievable goal, trying to obscure a reality while loosing sight of Hamas' changing circumstances and political fortunes. In fact, the same thing has been said about the Palestine Liberation Organization, but over the years the PLO has changed with the circumstances and time has come to choose a political solution rather than continuing senseless resistance.

The argument that unlike the secular PLO, Hamas' ideology is religiously based and is not likely to change must be measured against Hamas' ultimate choice, which is political survival. Hamas is a grass-roots movement and will not die a natural death. As the Gaza war has amply demonstrated, even Israel's colossal military power as compared to Hamas' has its limitations as Hamas is deeply embedded in the civilian community. They have become part of the Palestinian social fabric, especially in Gaza, and have shown tremendous capacity for clean governance and realism. They want to stay in power and ideally seek to capture power in the West Bank as well, but they also understand their limitations. The Gaza war may have jolted Hamas to realize that the political tide and events on the ground are mounting against them and that a change in direction may be necessary to remain politically vital.

The Gaza war has caused a serious split between Hamas' political leadership in Damascus, which has advocated further resistance, and the leaders in Gaza who suffered the brunt of the Israeli onslaught and were looking to end the Israeli incursion as quickly as possible. Other than protesting against the Israeli military campaign, no country, including Iran, has come to Hamas' aid, save sending some money, a fact that might just awaken Hamas to a painful realization. Egypt, who is determined not to allow an off-shoot government of the Muslim Brotherhood as a neighbor made no secret of its support of the Israeli assault and put insurmountable pressure on Hamas to accept a ceasefire on its own terms. In addition, Egypt continued to exert pressure on Hamas to establish a unity government with Fatah. The recent meeting between Hamas' and the Palestinian Authority's representatives in Cairo offers a first positive sign, and the prospect of a reinvigorated political process.

Saudi Arabia, which is weary of Iran's ambition to become the region's hegemon, has been critical of Hamas' close ties to Tehran, accusing it of undermining the national security interests of the Arab Sunni states. The Saudis are exerting quiet pressure on Hamas to abandon its Iranian sponsors and come back to the Arab fold. Adding to this mix is the fact that the Palestinians in the West Bank remained restrained throughout the Gaza war, sending another ominous signal to Hamas of their determination to abandon violent resistance in favor of a political solution. Concerted efforts led by the United States, the EU and Israel to interdict shipments of weapons by air, sea, and land through tunnels to deprive Hamas from rearming will likely add to the pressure on Hamas to modify its long-term strategy. The question is how much of this leaves room for influencing Hamas' direction. The answer certainly lies in the level and the consistency of involvement of the US, EU, the Arab states and Israel in building a new st
ructure of peace that will include Hamas based on the changing reality in Gaza and Hamas' real options.

Hamas cannot be ignored. Once it joins the PA in a unity government and potentially agrees to embrace the Arab Peace Initiative (which is tantamount to recognizing Israel) and as long as the ceasefire is holding, the United States should then reconsider its position toward Hamas. Once the US opens up a direct dialogue with Syria, Hamas may feel marginalized and consider joining the political process in some capacity. In Ireland, Mr. Mitchell stressed the need to talk to and deal with any radical movements in order to resolve a conflict.

He absolutely believes that one must talk to the enemy and spare no effort to reach a political agreement. That does not mean giving in to Hamas' demands or talking to them at a presidential level; it only means that all avenues must be explored before giving up on finding a peaceful solution.

Mitchell will be duty bound to find out precisely where Hamas stands, and he should be able to do so as he sees fit including possible direct engagement.

During this period the United States and Israel must take extraordinary measures to reward moderation and enhance the stature of the PA. This is something that Israel is more willing to do now especially because of the calm that the PA has been able to maintain throughout the Gaza war.

Indeed, peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on a two-state solution must be comprehensive, and it will not come to pass unless it includes both Gaza with Hamas in it and the West Bank.

Alon Ben-Meir is senior fellow at the Center for Global Affairs, NYU. He teaches courses on the Middle East and international negotiations.

On his second full day in office, President Barack Obama made a major gesture toward restoring the Constitution and the rule of law by signing two executive orders: one closed the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and the other restored America to the company of civilized nations by closing so-called “black sites” that facilitated state-sanctioned torture.

Nice start, and the credit goes both to Obama and to the millions of Americans who stood up and took risks to fight against gathering tyranny.

But it is not enough. There is a speech that we still need to hear, detailing five tasks that, in order to repair the damage to liberty caused by the previous administration, he must pursue as quickly as he handled the first two executive orders. Its substance should be something like the following:

“My fellow Americans, the Founders had the wisdom to guarantee our freedoms in many ways. They could not guarantee our souls. That is up to us and how we act.

“In every major religion, a version of the following question is asked: what does it profit us to gain wealth and power if we lose our moral values? In the past eight years, we have colluded with acts that jeopardized the very soul of our nation. The greatest crime we committed or tolerated was the savaging of our cherished Constitution.

“Without our Constitution, America is just another world power made great by wealth and weapons instead of by values and convictions; so we are at risk of collapse when our wealth and weapons fail us. It is our Constitution that is our true wealth and the true guarantee of our nation’s endurance.

“After closing Guantánamo Bay and forbidding torture, we must repeal the Patriot Act, thereby restoring the Constitution’s restraints against warrantless wiretapping and surveillance.

“Second, though we have closed the prisons, we must seek the forgiveness of our fellow nations for the horrors that we committed or with which we colluded by engaging in state-sanctioned torture and “extraordinary rendition” of detainees to countries that torture. I am appointing a commission to establish a truth and reconciliation process to put the accounting of these horrors before our own consciences and before the world.

“Third, we must have a special prosecutor to prosecute the culpable. Many in the military or the intelligence services now fear criminal liability for actions they took at the behest of those at the top of the chain of command. But the proper course of action is that taken in Nuremberg, The Hague, Sierra Leone, and after the Bosnian conflict: prosecute those who designed, approved, and implemented the policy of torture and rendition, however high the chain of commission goes — including the lawyers who justified legal perversions that led to torture and murder — rather than targeting those farther down the chain of command.

 “Fourth, let us once again outlaw the presence of the military on our streets, as the Founders intended. On October 7, 2008, more than 3,000 American troops were deployed from Iraq to the United States, in violation of Posse Comitatus, which has protected us from military policing for a century, and in violation of the Insurrection Act, which protected us for the century before that. Today, there are 20,000 soldiers — not accountable to the people, but only to the executive — on our streets.

“The danger of that situation is why the Founders adopted the Second Amendment, which is meant to restrict domestic policing to militia — the National Guard and civilian police — that are answerable to the people. America is neither a battlefield nor a police state, so we should send our soldiers to the actual front or else back home to their families.

“Finally, we must ensure that this darkness never descends again. Half of American children grow up with no civic education. Half of states no longer teach civics — the study of our Republic and how it works — in middle school. So half of incoming American college students don’t know what our democracy is, let alone how to defend it when it is threatened. I call on states throughout the land to re—institute the study of US civics so that we will produce citizens who understand our legacy and can defend liberty and the Constitution when it is threatened.

“Join me in accomplishing these next five tasks, and we can look at ourselves in the mirror again, recognizing ourselves as true Americans.”

Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project—syndicate.org).

Mobinil says Q4 profit up 25 percent

Mobinil, Egypt's largest mobile operator by subscribers, said on Sunday its fourth-quarter profit grew 25 percent to LE 551 ($99 million), beating analysts' forecasts.

Investment bank EFG-Hermes had forecast a profit of LE 526 million, Beltone Financial estimated LE 372 million, and CI Capital Research predicted LE 448.6 million.

The company said it had 20.115 million subscribers, up 33 percent from the number of subscribers at the end of 2007.

Revenue was up 24 percent in the quarter at LE 2.644 billion.

But the firm said average revenue per user had declined, in part due to its push into lower value markets.

Mobinil also said it had paid LE 62 million in the quarter for 3G installment payments.

The company's shares ended Sunday's session down 2.79 percent at LE 132, before the results were announced. –Reuters

Alexandria Mineral Oils H1 profit dips 22 pct

Egypt's Alexandria Mineral Oils Company (AMOC) made a first half net profit of LE 302.2 million ($54.3 million), a 22 percent decrease on the same period last year, the stock exchange said on Sunday.

The stock was removed from the benchmark CASE 30 index in the stock exchange's semi-annual rejig last week, which came into effect on Feb. 1.

At 1105 GMT shares in AMOC were trading 2.5 percent lower at LE 44.50 in low volumes.  Out of 86 million listed shares, just over 17 million are freely traded.

In the first quarter, the oil products company posted a 25 percent rise in net profit. –Reuters

Orascom Telecom decides against buying own shares

Egypt's Orascom Telecom failed to purchase any of the more than 23 million of its own shares it sought in the last three months, the stock exchange said on Sunday.

The statement said the firm had sought 23,592,074 shares in the period from Nov. 2 to Jan. 30, but had not executed any orders for the shares. It gave no further details. –Reuters

PPI down 4 pct

Egypt's producer price index fell 4.87 percent in December to 136.8 from 143.8 in November. The figure was down from 137.2 in December last year, the Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) said on its website.

Oriental Weavers to cut some export prices

Oriental Weavers, the world's biggest machine-woven carpet producer, will cut prices on exports to the United States and eastern Europe by around 10 to 15 percent to boost market share.

Declining oil prices had reduced the cost of polypropylene, the company's main raw material, investor relations manager Haitham Abdel Moneim said on Thursday, and Oriental Weavers saw an opportunity to reduce prices as an incentive to buyers.

Abdel Moneim added the group was seeking a larger share of those markets in light of the fact that some competitors had withdrawn from the market, but gave no further details.

Oriental Weavers said late last year that it would delay construction of a LE 1.3 billion ($233.5 million) industrial complex from mid-2009 to 2010 because of the global financial crisis.

But the company said it had not seen any decline in its growth rate, productivity, or sales. –Reuters

Kabo buys regional rights to Jil trademark

El Nasr Clothes and Textiles (Kabo) said on Thursday it had bought the regional rights to the Jil trademark from Jil International for around LE 22 million ($3.95 million).

In a statement to the stock exchange, the firm said the fee would be paid over 12 months starting from February.

Kabo would gain the right to use or license the use of the Jil trademark in Egypt and Arab and African countries, which the company said would generate revenues for the firm.

The company said in September it had made a net loss of LE 10.54 million in the first half of 2008, but gave no reason for the decline. –Reuters

Egypt M2 growth at slowest in 8 yrs as economy cools

Egyptian money supply posted its slowest annual growth in more than eight years on Thursday, suggesting inflation in the most populous Arab country would continue to fall as the economy slows.

Money supply as measured by M2 grew 10.49 percent in December compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching LE 791.377 billion ($142 billion). 

It was the fourth consecutive month that M2, Egypt's broadest measure of money supply and an indicator of future inflation, declined and its slowest rate of growth since September 2000.

Urban inflation in Egypt fell to an eight-month low in December and Egypt's statistics agency has said it expects inflation to fall again in January.

"We were already expecting inflation to be lower in January and this confirms that," said Reham ElDesoki, senior economist at Cairo-based Beltone Financial.

Beltone has said Egypt's central bank could cut interest rates by 50 to 100 basis points, its first cut in more than three years, when it meets in February. – Reuters

CAIRO: Egypt's main stock index recoiled on Sunday, with heavyweight Orascom Construction (OCI) providing selling impetus by shedding more than 5 percent in low-volume trade dominated by local investors.

"OCI is the leader, and everyone is following it," said Teymour El-Derini from Beltone Financial.

OCI dipped sharply in early trade and slid for the rest of the session to end down 5.44 percent at LE 106.02 ($19.06). "The market is dead," said Mohamed Ebeid from EFG-Hermes. "Volumes are extremely insignificant across the board," he said, citing a low level of foreign investor participation and a lack of direction typical of Sunday sessions.

Shares fell across the board with very few exceptions.

As the results reporting season approaches, Ebeid sees only the telecom and banking sectors escaping with decent figures.

"For everything else it is expected to be really bad," he said. "Both of them are defensive sectors, banks are not sophisticated at all ... in terms of the instruments they have."

Market heavyweight Orascom Telecom (OT) tumbled 6.4 percent to LE 21.20. OT did not buy back any of the 23 million shares it sought in the three months to the end of January, the stock exchange said.

Other telecom shares also absorbed some of the day's blows. Mobinil dipped 2.79 percent to LE 132.00.

Fixed-line monopoly Telecom Egypt shed 4.93 percent to LE 14.08.

"We are seeing less buying appetite," Beltone's Derini said. "We are going to retest the lows we got earlier in January."

He said that investors had priced in poor corporate results for 2009 and were more focused on macroeconomic data.

"Results that are good, bad or mediocre are not going to matter much as the market is based more on sentiment and local and global economic data," he said.

Construction-related firms Ezz Steel and Sewedy Cables also abated on relatively large volumes, down 10.56 percent to LE 7.54 and 6.52 percent to LE 50.02, respectively.

The benchmark CASE 30 index retreated 3.8 percent to 3,727.59 points and the rival Hermes index lost 3.83 percent to 360.69 points. The broader CIBC index fared better, dipping 0.18 percent to 275.4 points.

DAVOS: Key trade ministers agreed on Saturday to step up efforts to reach a new global trade deal and guard against protectionism to help pull the world out of economic crisis.

With the world economy in its worst state since World War Two, ministers met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos and agreed keeping trade open was a central element in any solution to the crisis.

"It is very clear that we have to be better at communicating the message to all the people across the world that in order to come out of the economic downturn we need to keep trade open," European Union Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton said.

Ministers from 17 economies plus the 27-member EU said completing the World Trade Organization's long-running Doha round to open up global trade was their top priority, and progress in 2008 meant remaining gaps could be closed this year.

But they did not agree on a date for ministers from the 153- member WTO to seek a breakthrough, not least because the new US administration does not yet have a confirmed trade representative, which some felt weakened Saturday's meeting.

Countries such as Egypt and Switzerland favor bringing ministers together before the next summit of G20 rich and emerging countries in London in April, which wants to settle on clear actions for tackling the economic and financial malaise.

But Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, one of the strongest supporters of a deal, said it would not be useful to have a full meeting of ministers in the first half of the year.

Egypt's Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid said Sunday that there was "no good news" on the Doha trade round from the latest meeting of global trade ministers, Bloomberg reported.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum following a meeting of trade ministers Saturday, Rachid also said the US position was "a challenge."

Biggest stimulus

The Doha round was launched in late 2001 to open up trade in food, in goods from cars to chemicals, and in services like banking and telecoms, and help developing countries trade their way out of poverty. But agreement has proved elusive in the seven years since then as countries haggle over the details.

Economists disagree about how much a deal would boost the world economy by, but it would stimulate output by creating new trade opportunities.

"The Doha round will be the biggest stimulus package ever," said Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard.

A deal would also prevent countries raising new barriers against imports — even measures allowed under current WTO rules — which could deepen the crisis, as happened in the 1930s.

Already trade has slowed sharply, with the United States, China and Germany all reporting steep falls in exports and air cargo volumes dropping by nearly one fifth in December.

"The only antidote against this disease of protectionism ... is to conclude the round quickly," said Brazil's Amorim.

Business leaders at the Davos forum agreed.

"We cheer 'em on. We believe in free trade. So anything that's going to move that forward, that's a good thing for business," said William Amelio, CEO of Chinese computer maker Lenovo.

Fears that protectionism could worsen the crisis have prompted the WTO to monitor trade measures by its members and report them regularly, a move applauded by the ministers.

In recent months several countries have raised tariffs and subsidies, while a spate of multi-billion dollar stimulus packages and bailouts are also under scrutiny to see whether they discriminate against foreign businesses. –Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis, Ben Hirschler, Emma Thomasson, Jason Subler and Lisa Jucca.

CAIRO: After more than a year of hardship, food vendors around Cairo are just now beginning to breath a sigh of relief as they see sky-high food prices receding.

Many warn, though, that the effects on the street level have not been as dramatic as statistics may suggest.

A survey of vendors in different sectors indicated that food prices had come off their high but were still in bad considering the broader context of food prices.

Mahmoud Abdel Hadd runs a fruit and vegetable shop. Just a couple of months ago, he was driven to the point of desperation because produce prices at the Obour market, one of Cairo’s largest, had grown nearly out of reach for the small business owner.

“A couple of months ago, prices were high so I couldn’t buy the goods I needed,” he said.

Abdel Hadd said that at their highest, produce prices meant that people weren’t buying. Business came nearly to a standstill.

Today, though, some of the pressure has been released, he said. Cucumber and zucchini prices are down significantly. Fruit prices have started to slide. Tomatoes cost today LE 2.5 per kilo as opposed to LE 4 several months ago. And now the customers are coming back.

“Everything was reaching a peak [late last year], including tomatoes and potatoes which are usually the cheapest, but now prices are coming down a bit,” he said.

But, as Abdel Hadd describes it, the current economic crisis has given consumers a whole other reason to save, rather than spend. Low prices, he lamented, have been replaced by consumer worry.

Abdel Hadd has the numbers to back up his assertions about the recent decline of food prices.

Chatham House, a London-based think tank, in its December report “Feeding the Nine Billion,” noted that global food prices actually hit a high in March 2008 but didn’t begin declining until the fall.

Food prices in December, says the report, are back down to mid-2007 levels thanks in part to the decline in the price of oil and to the global economic woes.

Despite the decline in prices, most vendors who spoke with Daily News Egypt indicated that prices had been falling, in some cases sharply, but beginning really only with the start of the new year.

“Throughout the country,” said Metro supermarket branch manager Wael Nabil, “prices have been coming down in the last month.”

Metro sets its prices at the corporate level and employees confirm that many items, including produce and cooking oil, have slid dramatically from their highs over the last month.

Increased sales of certain food items, argue some store owners, indicate food prices that, though off their high, are still out of reach of many at the street level.

Hany Hassan owns a bakery that, as it was yesterday, is always jammed with people. When asked whether this was a sign that food prices were coming back into reach for many people, Hassan dismissed the idea.

“People will always buy bread,” he said, adding that bread sales can be among at their best when other foods become too expensive.

Hagg Sayid, who runs a falafel store, said that his fuul has never sold better.

He noted that fuul served as a low-end food staple, affordable to nearly all ranks of the population.

Hassan noted that despite his bakery’s success, his neighboring convenience store had fared less well despite declining food prices.

When asked whether the sliding prices had allowed him to reconstitute any of his business, Hassan tried to put them in broader context. He noted that a liter of milk cost LE 5.5 now as opposed to LE 2.5 four years ago. Oil cost LE 4.5 four years ago and LE 10 now.

Despite the less than optimistic commentary at the street level, many indicators are pointing in the right direction. When figures are released experts expect January to mark the fifth straight month of inflationary decrease.

Urban inflation fell to 18.3 percent in December of last year, down from 20.3 percent the previous month.

A decrease in inflation, in this case, is likely not a driver of food prices but rather reflective of a decline in those prices.

Food prices will likely face a challenge this month when, experts predict, the Central Bank will cut interest rates in an effort to stimulate the ailing economy. If overdone, rate decreases might create inflationary pressure and threaten food prices.

Overshadowing all the pressures on food prices is the government’s food subsidy program, which is the single greatest mover of food prices.

With the outbreak of the economic crisis, the government postponed plans to scale back its subsidies and to date has not indicated when it will resume them. Those watching the various food industries should keep an eye on the government’s subsidy plans.

Though the indicators have been there for months, it is only recently that the street level is reporting a bit of relief from the grueling food prices of 2008.

And though prices may be off their all time high, many are quick to comment about how far they might still be able to fall.

CAIRO: African champions Al-Ahly stretched their lead in the Egyptian Premiership to three points Saturday despite being held 2-2 by relegation-threatened Al-Gaish.

The Cairo ‘Red Devils,’ winners of the African Champions League a record sixth time last November, finished the first half of the season three points ahead of Petrojet.

Ahly won their previous four league matches as they played catch-up after a number of fixtures were postponed due to Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup commitments.

Mohamed Barakat gave Ahly an early lead, but goals from Ghanaian Ernest Arko and Togolese Mikael Dogbe edged police club Gaish ahead before Angolan Flavio Amado rescued the defending champions with a 58th-minute equalizer. –AFP

JERUSALEM: Israel vowed to strike back at Hamas on Sunday after renewed rocket fire from Gaza two weeks after the end of a bloody war in the battered Palestinian territory.

“We’ve said that if there is rocket fire against the south of the country, there will be a severe and disproportionate Israeli response,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the weekly cabinet meeting.

In response head of Hamas’s politburo, Khaled Meshaal, on Sunday ruled out any “permanent ceasefire” until Israel ends its crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip.

“The resistance is against a permanent ceasefire,” he said at a news conference in Tehran, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported.

“While the occupation continues, a permanent ceasefire has no meaning,” Meshaal said at the conference, jointly held with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Israel — which goes to the polls on February 10 — has been hit by several rockets since a Jan. 18 ceasefire brought an end to its 22-day war on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

“We will act according to new rules that will guarantee that we are not dragged into an incessant tit-for-tat war that will not allow normal life in the south of the country,” Olmert said.

“The situation... in recent days has increased in a manner that does not allow Israel not to retaliate in order to make sure that our position... is understood by those involved in the fire.

“The response will come at the time, the place and the manner that we choose.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that “Hamas was given a very serious blow and if necessary it will be given another blow.”

And Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, infrastructure minister and a member of Israel’s powerful security cabinet, said the Islamists had to pay for each rocket fired.

“We have set a price for each rocket fired and now Hamas has to pay,” he told army radio.

The officials spoke after four rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel within the space of a few hours on Sunday.

But Hamas slammed the Israeli threats as a “campaign stunt” before the election.

“This is an attempt... to destroy the Egyptian efforts to improve the calm,” Taher Al-Nunu said in a statement in Gaza.

Next week’s election is expected to bring the Israeli right-wing back into power, according to opinion polls.

Olmert, forced to step down in September amid corruption probes, is not standing and his centrist Kadima party — now led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni — is trailing behind the right-wing Likud of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the aftermath of the Gaza war, the issue of security has jumped to the forefront of the election campaign.

The Hamas spokesman did not say whether the group who rule Gaza were behind the rocket fire, but called on “all groups to respect the national decision concerning the ground situation in Gaza.”

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group loosely linked to president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for firing two projectiles on Sunday.

In all, at least seven rockets had been fired since mutual ceasefires by Israel and Hamas on Jan. 18 ended Israel’s massive three-week onslaught on the territory that left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead. Thirteen Israelis were killed.

Egypt has been leading international efforts to consolidate the ceasefires into a lasting truce, and Abbas is to head to Cairo on Sunday for talks on the situation. Hamas officials are also due in the Egyptian capital.

Ahmed Yussef, a senior Hamas member, told AFP that the talks in Cairo were proceeding in a “positive direction,” without elaborating.

A senior Israeli defense official would only say that “Israel demands two conditions — the total cessation of fire and an end to arms smuggling. Israel is only holding talks with Egypt on this issue.”

Abbas’s secular Fatah party and its rival Hamas have been at odds since the Islamists violently seized power in Gaza in June 2007, kicking out pro-Abbas forces after days of ferocious street battles.

The schism has been accentuated by the Gaza war, with Hamas’s exiled supremo Khaled Meshaal calling in its wake for a new leadership to replace Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organization, long internationally recognized as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

Meshaal was in Tehran on Sunday for his first post-Gaza war visit to the Islamic republic that staunchly supports his movement.

CAIRO: Members of the official trade union representing train drivers said that they accept the Ministry of Transport’s decree issued last month concerning pay allowances.

Mahmoud Saber, head of the trade union committee which is part of the state-controlled Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU), announced the end of the dispute.

On Tuesday Jan. 20, train drivers in Cairo and other parts of Egypt launched a strike in protest at the Egyptian National Railway’s failure to uphold its promise to pay them the ‘kilo’ allowance, a payment based on the number of kilometers traveled.

Management offered workers 50 percent of the kilo allowance in July 2009 and the remaining 50 percent in 2010 — an offer which workers originally rejected.

The strike only ended when train drivers were promised that their demands would be re-examined 10 days subsequently.

The decree issued last week by Minister of Transport Mohamed Lotfy Mansour upholds the original offer. Train drivers will receive payments of LE 200, 150, 100 or 75 (depending on rank).

They will receive 50 percent of this allowance in July and the other half next year.

Saber said that strike action had been ruled out because drivers did not wish to “harm the country.”

“There is a balance of interests at stake: our interests versus those of passengers. A strike will affect passengers. We don’t want to harm the country,” Saber told Daily News Egypt.

Saber rejected the suggestion that the decree did not satisfy workers’ demands.

“Yes we did want 50 percent of the allowance to be paid immediately but it has to be remembered that the railways are funded using public money so we have to wait until July when the new budget is issued and there are funds to finance the payments.”

The decision was not however met with unanimous acceptance.

“Of course I don’t agree with the decree: we were demanding payment of 50 percent of the allowance immediately,” train driver Walid Abdel Hady told Daily News Egypt.

“The union just wants to wrap up the issue — it has never presented our interests properly.

“Under the allowance pay scales I’m a level 4 driver which means that I get LE 75 per month on top of the LE 600 I get every month. I’m married, have one child and pay LE 300 rent. At the end of the month I’ve got nothing left.

They’re humiliating drivers with this allowance which in any case we didn’t want. We wanted a pay rise of a different form.”

Abdel Hady said that drivers will consider their response later in the month.

“We can’t really do anything until pay day on the 20th which is when drivers meet together at one place to pick up their salaries.

“It wouldn’t make sense to do anything before that because there wouldn’t be enough people, but we are currently discussing our response.”

CAIRO: Security forces on Saturday detained Magdy Ahmed Hussein, secretary general of the Labor Party, for allegedly entering Gaza illegally.

Magdi El-Kurkur, a member of the Labor Party, said Hussein was arrested as he attempted to cross back into Egypt through the Rafah border Saturday, with no source of identification except a driver’s license.

Hussein reportedly entered Gaza illegally through a tunnel in Rafah, and, according to El-Kurkur, is currently being held at a military police station in Al-Arish.

Speaking to Daily News Egypt, Naglaa El-Kalyubi, Hussein’s wife, said, “He believed it is important that they [Egypt] open the Rafah border to support the Palestinians.”

He was there “to support the resistance,” she said, and to “provide aid to the Palestinians.”

Hussein has been an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian resistance for years. On an Al Jazeera program four years ago, he denounced Egypt’s “passivity” and the fact that it Israeli tourists into the country.

“The Israeli army kills in Palestine in the morning and then comes to relax and gamble in Taba [an Egyptian Red Sea resort],” he said. “Abominations that are forbidden in Israel, such as gambling, are allowed. It is inconceivable that Egypt has become a resort for the Israeli army.” 

In May 2000, Egypt halted the Labor Party’s political activities due to alleged links with the banned-but-tolerated Muslim Brotherhood.

Authorities also froze publication of the Labor Party’s mouthpiece, El-Shaab, saying the party’s activities were a threat to national interests.

El-Kalyubi said she has been in contact with her husband and he is reportedly in good health.

Hussein’s arrest comes as Egypt intensifies efforts to curb arms smuggling via underground tunnels between Egypt and Gaza.

Egypt has installed surveillance cameras along its border with Gaza as part of efforts to curb arms smuggling into the Palestinian territory, an Egyptian security official said on Saturday.

“Alarms and surveillance cameras were installed last week along the 14-kilometer border” to detect activity through smuggling tunnels, the official told AFP, declining to be named.

He said it was the first phase of a high-tech security system being installed with US assistance.

The United States has pledged $32 million in detection equipment to unearth smuggling tunnels, and US army engineers have been providing technical assistance on the ground, AFP reported.

The tunnels were primary targets of Israeli airstrikes during its 22-day offensive on Gaza. –Additional reporting by AFP.

CAIRO: Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmy said that the gas used for exports is not the same one used in butane gas cylinders domestically, according to local press reports.

Fahmy was responding to recent criticism about Egypt exporting gas while the local market has been dealing with an ongoing shortage of butane gas cylinders since this past December.

More than 300 distributors in Daqahleya reportedly waited days to fill up truck loads of cylinders and called on the gas company to increase supply to face the shortage.

“It is really shameful that our dear Egyptian government exports natural gas to Israel while it does not provide [gas] to its own citizens,” Member of Parliament Ahmed Diab told Daily News Egypt.

“The government provides butane gas cylinders to Israelis at LE 0.50 while we [Egyptians] are not able to have it,” he said. “Even if we find one, we have to pay around LE 25 [up from LE 3] for it … while 40 percent of our population lives under the poverty line,” Diab said.

Last week, MP Hisham Al-Kady called for an investigation into the soaring prices of butane gas cylinders as well as their constant shortage in the market.

In his request, Al-Kady placed the blame for the “crisis” on the Ministries of Petroleum, Social Solidarity and Local Development.

Al-Kady and National Democratic Party MP, Gamal Al-Zeiny, filed the request to the aforementioned ministries and expect an “immediate response,” Al-Kady said.

He claims that there is a “secret agreement between vendors and traders to increase prices and [in turn] increase their profit.”

The sheer distance between butane gas cylinder factories — mostly located in Cairo — and their distributors all over Egypt’s governorates compounds the problem, he said.

He also bemoaned the absence of an official monitoring authority to oversee the distribution process.

However, according to Yehia Mahmoud, media consultant at the Ministry of Social Solidarity, “All butane gas cylinder distribution points are closely monitored,” placing the onus for the shortage of cylinders in some governorates on the Petroleum Ministry.

Meanwhile, MP Diab, representing the Qalioubia governorate, told Daily News Egypt Sunday that while the problem may be easing up in some governorates, “we [PA members] urge the minister of petroleum to speed up the ministry’s project to provide natural gas nationwide,” to avoid the dependence on butane gas cylinders in the future.

The Ministry of Social Solidarity created a hotline where disgruntled consumers can report “exaggerated cylinder prices,” Mahmoud said.

Another hotline (19096) was created for consumers to report defective cylinders.

According to one operator who responded to a call from Daily News Egypt, “the consumer is only obliged to pay LE 4 for a cylinder to be delivered to his home.”

Mahmoud added that the ministry imposes harsh punishments on vendors taking advantage of the current shortage.

“Cabinet is currently discussing new regulations that would substitute butane gas with natural gas which is cheaper, cleaner and will avoid the eternal problems of butane gas cylinder shortages,” Mahmoud said.

CAIRO: Independent MP Hamdeen Sabahy censured Hezbollah leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah for attacking “the Egyptian political regime.”

“Nasrallah’s statements seek to engage Egypt in a war and that is something that we will never allow,” Sabahy said in a press conference organized by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Saturday.

This is seen as a rare show of support by the MB for the government against another Islamist group.

Sabahy’s statement came just days after Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused Nasrallah of “being an agent of Iran.”

Aboul Gheit previously said that both Hamas and Hezbollah “have tried to force the region into a confrontation in the interest of Iran, which is trying to use its cards to escape Western pressure ... on the nuclear file.”

Nasrallah responded to Aboul Gheit’s comments in a press conference Thursday, saying that the Arab world is indeed split, with some wanting to continue the resistance while others — alluding to Egypt — wanting to end the struggle completely.

Egypt came under a barrage of criticism at the onset of the war on Gaza because of its perceived lack of support for Hamas and the people of Gaza.

“There is a limit to criticizing a big nation like Egypt,” Sabahy said, adding that Nasrallah should recognize Egypt’s strategic importance to the region.

Nasrallah “should know better how to choose proper language when attacking a great country like Egypt,” said Sabahy.

The Brotherhood conference, which was attended by several independent MPs, was originally held to discuss Egypt’s refusal to give access to special delegations heading to Gaza to provide aid. A delegation of MB members and independent MPs were reportedly stopped at the Rafah border Friday.

According to Al Jazeera, Egyptian authorities have also refused to allow five other MPs from entering Gaza.

CAIRO: As thousands in Istanbul gave Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a hero's welcome for storming out of the World Economic Forum in Davos, his actions are being met with similar enthusiasm in Egypt.

Erdogan had left a forum panel on Thursday after a heated discussion on Gaza in which he was refused equal time to respond to Israeli President Shimon Peres' defense of the Gaza offensive.

"Erdogan was strong and courageous. He took a moral, humanitarian and honest stance," said Abdel Alim Mohamed, head of the Israeli Studies program at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "The Arab people wish they had leaders as strong and credible as Erdogan. They wish all their leaders would take Erdogan as an example and counter Israeli lies."

According to independent MP Gamal Zahran, he and a group of other opposition Members of Parliament are scheduled to meet with the Turkish ambassador Monday to personally express their appreciation for the Turkish PM's stance, encourage Turkey to "return to the Eastern embrace" and not veer towards Western influence.

According to Zahran, Erdogan's support for the Palestinians and his strong stance against Israel’s aggression in Gaza was an attempt by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to turn a new page with the Arab and Islamic world.

"It was a historic stance," said Zahran. "His actions will not be forgotten by the Arab and Muslim people."

In a similar statement on Friday, PA speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour was reported to have also called the Turkish PM's action "historic."

Though Israel and Turkey have traditionally shared a history of strong economic and diplomatic ties, analysts say they may be headed for a strain.

Israeli-Turkish relations are probably never going to return to normalcy, said Mohamed.

"As long as the war on Gaza continues and as long as Israel continues its occupation of Palestinian territories and its siege on Gaza, Turkey will not change its position," he said. "Turkey no longer trusts Israel."

Mahmoud Amer, a Muslim Brotherhood MP, sees Erdogan as a politician all Arab leaders can learn from.

"He felt the moderator was being biased when he was denied the opportunity to respond to Peres' defense of Israeli crimes in Gaza, so he withdrew from the conference," said Amer while emphasizing the importance of balance in diplomatic relations.

However, according to Mohamed, Arab leaders are not likely to take such a confrontational position towards Israel. "They don't have the [political] independence to make such a change," he said.

Meanwhile, some have questioned why the Gaza operation was being discussed at the World Economic Forum.

"I think Israel was being given the chance to defend its crimes in Gaza, which is why Erdogan wasn't given equal opportunity to speak," said Mohamed.

CAIRO: The Arab Commission for Human Rights has blamed Egypt amongst other Arab countries for voting in favor of its one-year suspension from the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

The dispute began when Algeria filed a secret complaint against the NGO for allowing Rachid Mesli, of Alkarama NGO, to speak on its behalf in front of the UN Human Rights Council last June.

Alkarama tracks human rights violations in Algeria and furthermore, Mesli was charged of terrorism by Algeria in 1999 and is also on the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1267 terrorism list.

On Jan. 26, a total of 18 member states voted for the group’s suspension with one abstention. Amongst the countries that voted in favor of the group’s suspension were Egypt, Sudan, Qatar and Algeria.

The group would also have to submit a list of all its members to be considered for reinstatement in a year’s time. This motion was filed by Egypt.

The commission is currently part of a coalition of NGOs trying to bring Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes committed during its 22-day offensive on Gaza.

Spokesman for the commission Haytham Manna told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Egypt now had united with countries it had disagreed with over the handling of the Gaza crisis such as Qatar to stop the commission’s attempts to take Israel to the ICC.

“Egypt is against us because we have covered the military trials of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Qatar sees us as enemies due to the campaign that we launched with Al-Mora Bedouins and that enabled most of them to regain their lost nationality,” he said.

“Algeria's representative at the UN Economic and Social Council has a personal problem with our representative at the United Nations. Moreover, we have made a report on torture in Algeria,” he added, “As for Sudan; it fears that our pressure to prosecute Israeli leaders may affect the trial of the Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir before the International Criminal Court.”

The Arab Commission for Human Rights is a Paris-based group formed in 1998 with members from various Arab countries, including former editor of Al-Badeel Mohammed Sayed Said. It does not have any political affiliations.

CAIRO: The Cairo Appeals Court overturned a one-year jail sentence and upheld a LE 20,000 fine for each of the four newspaper editors convicted for insulting President Hosni Mubarak and defaming government officials.

The four editors of opposition and independent newspapers received a one-year jail sentences and a LE 20,000 fine in September 2007 after the court found them guilty of “publishing false information likely to disturb public order.”

The case was brought by two lawyers affiliated with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) against Adel Hamouda, editor of the weekly Al-Fagr, Wael Al-Ibrashi, of the weekly Sawt Al-Umma, Abdel Halim Qandil, former editor of the weekly Al-Karama, and Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the daily Al-Dostour.

When contacted by Daily News Egypt, Hammouda refused to comment on the verdict. "I have no comment…. I don't want to comment," he said.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said punishing the journalists was a "black stain" on the government and called for the verdict to be overturned.

“The Egyptian government is notorious for its human rights record and for its hostility to press freedom in particular,” said an ANHRI statement, “We believe in the solidarity of civil society to support the journalists, and stand by the people's right to knowledge and to express their opinions.

“If the National Democratic Party and its hypocritical lawyers want to deny us the right to independent journalism, we will remain equally determined to support freedom of the press and the journalists who report their opinions.”

Yehia Al-Alash, secretary general of the Journalists’ Syndicate had previously told Daily News Egypt that "nobody has the right to file a lawsuit on behalf of a political group or public political figure of authority."

The four journalists were tried at a time when several other editors and journalists were also taken to court. On Oct. 8, 2007, numerous opposition and independent newspapers participated in a non-publishing day in solidarity with their convicted colleagues.

The People's Assembly had debated scrapping jail sentences to journalists from the publishing offenses law, but NDP members voted against it despite fervent objections by opposition currents in parliament.

In a separate case, Eissa was sentenced in March to six months in prison for reporting on rumors about the president's health. The sentence was later reduced to two months and then scrapped when he received a pardon directly from President Mubarak in October 2008.