Today the front pages of state-owned papers Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar share identical headlines, photographs and reports on President Hosni Mubarak’s inauguration of three "enormous" projects for irrigation and transportation improvements in Qanater, a city in Qalyubia Governorate.
During his trip to the area, the president said the incipient projects would ultimately provide Qanater with the "highest standards of security" in transportation, guaranteeing "safety, protection, and comfort."
Mubarak also demanded more stringent enforcement of speeding and traffic violations, and requested that improvements be made to the infrastructure near Cairo's city limits, in an effort to reduce traffic congestion within the capital. Al-Ahram also reports that the rate of road and rail accidents has decreased by 50 percent, but the paper neglects to mention the measured time frame.
In other news, Al-Ahram reports on the workers’ union elections. The poll could be postponed for a year if a new law is passed in the upcoming parliamentary session. The law, created by President of the General Association of Labor Unions Hussein Mogawer, would push the elections back to the end of 2012–instead of 2011–in an effort to avoid coinciding with the next presidential election.
Al-Akhbar reports on the current round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Ghait attributing the stalled talks to Israel’s intransigence. Abul Ghait, according to the coverage, insists on the "necessity" of intensifying international pressure on Israel to "change its position" in order to ensure that the Palestinian population receives rights recognized by the global community. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas also added a word of warning to Israel, stating that another failed attempt at peace could encourage "extremists". Both Abul Ghait’s and Abbas’s statements came during Monday’s meeting with a panel of judges presided over by former US President Jimmy Carter.
Al-Akhbar’s front-page also features a report on and picture of conjoined twins born yesterday in Alexandria. According to the paper, the twins "have two heads but share one body…two separate necks, one chest, one umbilical cord, and one penis with two openings." According to doctors at Al-Shatbi Hospital, where the twins were born, separation is "not a preferred option," and instead, the medical team would focus on "nurturing the baby in a normal fashion over the next few days."
Independent daily Al-Shorouk leads with a headline announcing a "plan to develop Ramses Square," which would result in the redirection of 95 percent of trains coming into Misr Station, the capital’s main railway station, located adjacent to the square. According to the proposed plan, trains arriving in Cairo from the north would only reach as far as Qalyub, while those approaching from the south would reach the end of their line at Mounieb, both destinations a fair distance from Cairo’s city limits. A new metro system will be constructed to connect Cairo to the new train stations. The plan was proposed by Cairo governor Abdel Azim Wazir who explains in Al-Shorouk that "trains will no longer be allowed to pass through or stop at Misr Station, except in the rarest of cases." The governor then added that the renovation will be an attempt to "preserve the cultural and architectural integrity" of the station and its surrounding neighborhood, the buildings of which he described as having a "unique blend of western and eastern architecture."
For its lead story, Al-Wafd brings attention to the "very serious report" printed in Monday’s edition of a Kuwaiti newspaper that claimed a "group of Zionist businessmen successfully trounced Egyptian laws and were able to purchase land and tourism establishments in Sinai and the Red Sea!!" According to Al-Wafd's Tuesday coverage as well as Monday’s reporting from the unnamed Kuwaiti paper, three Israeli businessmen purchased five resorts, and secured partnerships in seven others. The Israelis, according to the coverage, also acquired ‘vast’ areas of land along the Red Sea coast in close proximity to the coastal towns of Sharm al-Sheikh, Hurghada, Ras Mohamed, and Taba.
The independent daily also says Egyptian security forces had previously warned of this phenomenon–Israeli entrepreneurs purchasing plots of land and businesses in the Sinai Peninsula–and the "expansion of an operation" to bring in and employ Israelis within Egypt’s borders.
Egypt's papers:
Al-Ahram: Daily, state-run, largest distribution in Egypt
Al-Akhbar: Daily, state-run, second to Al-Ahram in institutional size
Al-Gomhorriya: Daily, state-run
Rose el-Youssef: Daily, state-run, close to the National Democratic Party's Policies Secretariat
Al-Dostour: Daily, privately owned
Al-Shorouk: Daily, privately owned
Al-Wafd: Daily, published by the liberal Wafd Party
Al-Arabi: Weekly, published by the Arab Nasserist party
Youm7: Weekly, privately owned
Sawt el-Umma: Weekly, privately owned
