Al-Ahram leads with a report from The Associated Press stating that Israeli’s nuclear arsenal may be subjected to scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In what was described as a victory for Muslim states, and a slap in face to Israel and the US, the agency said it plans to discuss investigating Israeli’s secret nuclear capabilities in a meeting on 7 June.
The report said that the decision to include Israel on the meeting’s agenda was due to pressure from concerned Arab states, though it was also suggested that the agency’s decision may be retracted if met with strong opposition from the US and Israel.
State-owned papers also led with reports on the death of two Egyptian soldiers in the Darfur region of Sudan. The bodies of the soldiers, who were in the conflict-ridden region as part of a UN peace keeping force, returned to Egypt yesterday. The government is calling on Sudanese authorities to track down the perpetrators and punish them.
Al-Shorouq leads with a story denying reports yesterday stating that 17 leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood–who had presented documents to run independently in the upcoming Shura Council elections–were arrested. The same article quotes an anonymous source saying that the group’s election campaign program is being delayed due to internal conflicts regarding the status of Copts in the state.
The independent daily also leads with a report on an article by acclaimed journalist and author Robert Fisk writing in the British dailyThe Independent. Fisk’s article is called “The Arabs have their Gulags, too” and in it Fisk says that there are “Guantanamos galore in the Muslim world and, by and large, we don’t care a damn about them.” Fisk goes on to list a number of disappeared political prisoners and unjustly held captives detained in “black prisons” in the Middle East.
Egypt’s newspapers:
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-Shorouq: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
