Today’s news opens with cause for celebration as women are finally granted the right to serve as judges of the Administrative Courts, according to the headlines of all three state-owned papers. “The term ‘Egyptian’ applies to men and women alike,” proclaims Al-Ahram’s headline, with similar sentiments echoed across the front pages of both Al-Akhbar and Al-Gomhurriya.
The issue of female judges, the cause of much recent controversy within the State Council, was settled yesterday by the High Constitutional Court, which ruled in favor of women seeking to secure a right they had previously been denied. In near-identical stories, Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar and Al-Gomhurriya all report that the decision, which was made during a session under the supervision of Councilor Farouq Sultan, came as a response to repeated calls from various high-ranking officials for the “clarification” of Item 1 of Article 73 of the State Council Law, which states that any aspiring member of the council “must be an Egyptian enjoying the privileges of full citizenship.”
Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar also report on further Israeli-Palestinian clashes, with the latter providing a heart-wrenching photograph to accompany its headline denouncing the “brutality of Israeli crimes.” According to the paper, Israeli police forces ran over a 14-year-old boy during last Friday’s chaotic confrontations, stopping only to “chase his friends away” and arrest the teenager, who suffered a broken leg. Allegedly, members of the Israeli police initially blamed the incident on an Arab driver, before being exposed by a report in local daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
Al-Akhbar also reports on what the Israeli media has been calling an “open crisis” between Israel and the US, a result of Israel’s announcement of the construction of 1600 settlements, which coincided with US Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit to Israel to discuss the Middle East peace process. The American government took the gesture as an “insult,” summoning Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in order to “express their anger,” according to Al-Akhbar.
“Intense Egyptian and international efforts to rescue the peace process” are detailed in Al-Ahram, with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit scheduled to meet with Catherine Ashton, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union. According to the state-owned paper, Abul Gheit and Ashton will discuss Israel’s “attempts at the Judaization of Jerusalem and encroachment of ancient Islamic territories,” measures which the Egyptian FM claims threaten any potential peace in the region.
Police heroics continue today in Al-Akhbar. The paper reports on an officer who saved a girl from rape. Supercop Mohamed el-Gohary was “passing through” Omraniya when he witnessed three “thugs” chasing a young girl who had just left a pharmacy. El-Gohary cornered the delinquents and “brandished his gun,” forcing them to immediately surrender. El-Gohary then escorted the would-be rapists to the police station where they were promptly arrested, according to Al-Akhbar. The heroic officer has received a cash reward for doing his job. Following yesterday’s account of the blood-donating traffic cop, this may be the start of a new regular segment in Al-Akhbar’s otherwise action-free daily news.
Independent papers are concerned with an entirely different set of stories. Al-Dostour leads with the headline “Egypt awaits a photo of President Mubarak from Germany.” The president traveled to Germany earlier this month for emergency gallbladder surgery and has not been seen since. “Reliable sources” have since confirmed that the president is in stable health, according to Al-Dostour, but there has been a lack of visual evidence to support this claim.
Al-Shorouq promises “Mubarak soon on Egyptian television,” in one of its headlines, but news of an Austria-based Egyptian company that will provide Egypt with the components for build its first nuclear reactor takes top billing. The company, which will be formed by a league of Egyptian businessmen headed by Mohamed Abul Enein, the president of the National Council’s Industry and Energy Committee, will start with LE1 billion in capital. Tentatively called GS Nuclear Services, the company will also include on its board of directors Mohsen Fathi Afifi, CEO of Iskan Misr and Pharaoh Cement, as well as advertising mogul Tarek Nour, among others. The government is enthusiastic about the plan, Al-Shorouq reports.
Al-Dostour also includes a report on the leaked Thanawiya exam papers and Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki’s subsequent decision to penalize all teachers who took part in writing the test with a 15-day pay cut. Besides being leaked, the second-term exam papers were also full of factual and grammatical errors, and had entire sections copied directly from first-term tests, Al-Dostour reports.
Al-Dostour also features a report by the Office of the US Inspector General stating that the American government spends LE5 million a year on training “elements of Egyptian National security forces.” The report, which was written last November but only recently declassified, claims that the US allocated US$900,000 for 2008 and a similar amount in 2009 in an attempt to “expand on border patrols on the Gaza Strip and the development of a wider strategy to combat weapon smuggling into the Strip.”
In related news, Al-Shorouq cites an anomymous source saying that the underground wall along the Egypt-Gaza border is in its "fourth and final stage" of construction. "Cameras and alarm systems" are being added to the wall, the source told Al-Shorouq. Once the final stage is complete, the wall will be “tested”, in a process supervised by “Egyptian and foreign specialists.”
Al-Wafd leads its front page with fighting words: “Al-Masry Al-Youm lies and knows that it lies!!” The independent paper took offense to a story published yesterday in Al-Masry Al-Youm that accused the Wafd Party and the ruling National Democratic Party of hoarding parliament seats in an effort to stifle any potential efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood or Mohamed ElBaradei. Al-Wafd rants for three columns on the "injustice done to its name," as well as questioning Al-Masry Al-Youm’s motives.
“What compelled this ‘independent’ paper to abandon the ethics of journalism and professional etiquette?” asks a broken-hearted Al-Wafd. “There have been many previous occasions in Al-Wafd’s long history where it was the target of malicious conspiracy and attempts at subversion,” the paper continues. “But the sons of Al-Wafd have always been able to protect their party from cunning traps, and will continue unabated on the path determined by and insisted on by party loyalists.”
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
