Interior reshuffle MINISTER of Interior Ahmed Gamaleddin has announced one of the largest reshuffles covering 21 police generals and security directorates. Monday's reshuffle covered security directorates throughout the country, including Gharbiya, Alexandria, North Sinai, Assiut, Aswan and Sohag. Moreover, two new sectors were created within the ministry: a human rights section headed by Major General Hussein Othman, the former ministerial aide for the West Delta zone, and a social networking sector headed by Major General Abu Bakr Abdel-Karim, the former secretary of the media and public relations department. The human rights section came after the ministry was subjected to recent criticism for committing human rights violations against citizens at police stations across the country, according to rights organisations. Major Marwan Mustafa, ex-media relations assistant, becomes assistant to the minister for legal affairs. Major General Khaled Ghoraba, ex-assistant minister for security in Alexandria, will now be assistant secretary for the social security sector. Many activists objected to some of the decisions made in the reshuffle, especially the promotion of Ghoraba who is accused of supervising the torture of activists during the Mubarak era. In addition, Major General Osama Ismail was appointed general director of management and administration and assistant to the minister of the media sector and public relations. General Saleh Al-Masari was promoted to assistant secretary to the Sinai region. New driving licence THE GENERAL Traffic Department has begun issuing the public a new driving licence, according to the ministry's media centre. The move is to make things easier for both citizens and the Traffic Department since the new layout of the licence makes it impervious to fraud and will be linked to the national ID by including the ID number in the licence. Moreover, the licence will be used abroad as its data will be consistent with other countries, being displayed in both Arabic and English. The holder's name, nationality and date of issue as well as an expiry date, will be written in English. As a result, it will be used in countries that have signed bilateral treaties with Egypt and which will allow the use of Egyptian licences on their territories. Editor returns THE ADMINISTRATIVE Court issued a ruling that has forced the Shura Council to reinstate the editor of Al-Gomhuriya state newspaper whom the council sacked last month. Gamal Abdel-Rehim was dismissed on 17 October by Ahmed Fahmi, head of the Shura Council (the upper house of Egypt's parliament) after publishing an inaccurate report stating that Egypt's former ruling generals — Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and Chief-of-Staff Sami Anan — had been barred from leaving the country. On 6 November the court ruled in Abdel-Rehim's favour and denied the Shura Council the right to dismiss state newspaper editors-in-chief without a probe first being conducted by the Press Syndicate. Abdel-Rehim had to contest the Shura Council for the second time last week after it refused to implement a first court ruling. “The Shura Council is obligated to implement this court ruling and reinstate Abdel-Rahim to his position as editor-in-chief of Al-Gomhuriya daily,” the court ruling said. Tuesday's ruling is to be implemented immediately. Train crash kills four AT LEAST four Egyptians were killed and 48 injured in a train crash in Fayoum on Saturday when a train travelling south from Cairo hit another heading in the opposite direction, a report from the Ministry of Health said. Ahmed Ali Ahmed, governor of Fayoum, situated 91 kilometres south of Cairo, told the media that a criminal investigation had been launched “to find out the reasons that led to the accident”. The Fayoum prosecutor also ordered the detention of one of the train's drivers on charges of negligence for 15 days. Of the injured, 19 received first aid and were discharged. Six were taken to Cairo and five were moved to a hospital in the Haram suburb of Giza and 18 remain hospitalised in Fayoum. “We were expecting more injuries. We got ambulances from Beni Sweif and 6 October but we handled the situation in record time,” Ahmed said. Egyptians have long complained that successive governments have failed to enforce basic safety standards on the country's railways, leading to a string of deadly accidents.
