Al-Ahram Weekly takes stock of the confused domestic scene of the last 12 months and examines the prospects for 2007 Diplomatic challenges As 2006 comes to an end, Egypt's eastern and north-eastern borders, qualified by Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit as "historically" a permanent source of concern, pose accentuated security challenges. Threats are cropping up from Iran to Lebanon and beyond to the east. Occupation, failed military invasion, strife and the seeds of a civil war in Lebanon, economic sanctions, Iran's nuclear ambitions and their possible repercussions, Israel's uninspected military nuclear programme, India's new nuclear deal with the US and its impact on rivals Pakistan and its radical Islamists, and the declaration of a US military beef-up in the Arab/ Persian Gulf, have presented the country's diplomatic apparatus with ever more challenges. The sluggish pace of European cooperation with Arab countries to the south of the Mediterranean and the growing, even if sometimes sugarcoated, scepticism the North has shown towards the South in its newly perceived capacity as a source of immigration leading to the expansion of Europe's Muslim communities, have not been of great help to Egypt which, as a central regional state, was already preoccupied with fluctuating relations with the US, unsatisfactory ties with Africa and other Third World countries, especially in southern America, and growing worries about the stability of Nile Basin states. The good news has been restricted to reinvigorating relations with old allies from the 1950s and 1960s. This year Egypt managed to firmly cement its ties with Russia and China, described by Abul-Gheit as rising powers. Speaking on Saturday at the International Law Society in Cairo, Abul-Gheit was keen to assert that despite the many challenges, "the continuously evolving dynamics and typography of international relations", Egypt remained committed to playing a leading regional role. Egypt, he said, would continue to focus on the immediate Arab "circle of interest" through close bilateral ties and the Cairo-based Arab League "which should bring all Arabs closer together". The statement did, however, fall short of accommodating a clear failure in communication between Cairo and its traditionally close Arab partner Damascus, the negligible input of Egyptian diplomacy in Iraq, its hesitant influence in Sudan, Egypt's vulnerable backyard, and impact on the Arab Gulf -- despite the controversial alliance of Egypt, Jordan and the six Arab Gulf states that the US forged during the last quarter of the year as part of Washington's efforts to establish an "axis of moderation" in the region -- as well as its half-hearted rapport with Arab countries in North Africa. If Egyptian diplomacy is to fulfil all the demands of Egypt's leadership it will have to ensure that 2007 sees a revival in Cairo's close coordination with Riyadh and Damascus irrespective of US reservations, Israeli incitement and Cairo's own apprehension over Syrian involvement in Lebanon. For many commentators, the return of the Egypt-Syria-Saudi Arabia alliance forged in the mid-1990s is a prerequisite for stability, not just in Lebanon but in Iraq and across the entire eastern wing of the Arab world. The return of this three-way cooperation would certainly be helpful to inducing a semblance of order between Fatah and Hamas. Egyptian diplomacy, say commentators, must also strengthen its ties across North Africa. Forging stronger Mediterranean, Abul-Gheit insisted in his lecture, is a priority for Cairo. While the foreign minister expressed cautious satisfaction with Egypt's ties with the rest of Africa he remains aware that much needs to be done to secure "Egypt's vital interests", an action that has become increasingly urgent in the light of the deteriorating situation in Somalia, an Arab League member state, which could see it has become embroiled in a war with Ethiopia, and perhaps Eritrea. Strengthening economic and cultural cooperation is also a pressing task, argue Egyptian diplomats in African states. Abul-Gheit's schedule of overseas visits for the new year highlights the priority being accorded to African states. And judging by recent comments, he is fully aware of the need for a higher Egyptian profile across the Islamic world. This is not just about Egypt's traditional interests from Morocco to Indonesia and up to the Central Asian Muslim states, but also about containing the crisis in the Muslim world, beset by radicalism, poorly managed confrontations with the West and rivalries between Muslim nations. "This Islamic circle is producing, and being subjected to, many currents that require maximum attention," said Abul-Gheit, who also underlined the need for Egypt to pay more attention to the growing Muslim communities in Europe. It is hard to see how Egypt could score points across the Muslim world given its meagre diplomatic rapport with leading Muslim states, including Middle Eastern neighbours Iran and Turkey, and the declining influence of Al-Azhar. Nor have closer ties with Europe been a highlight of 2006 due, largely, to Europe's own reluctance. Given the growing interest of both Egypt and leading European players to re-initiate dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis, the endgame being establishing a Palestinian state, such cooperation is likely to be given a higher profile during the first part of the new year with German chairmanship of both the European Union and the G8. Ongoing negotiations between Egypt and the EU, within the framework of the New Neighbourhood Initiative, are likely to prompt greater Egyptian-European dialogue. The big question mark of 2006, and perhaps 2007, hovers over Egypt's relations with the US and Israel. Commentators have dwelled at length over the decline of bilateral Egyptian-US ties despite the many signs of accommodation Cairo has shown Tel Aviv, Washington's number one ally, and the stand it has adopted to US adversaries in and outside the Middle East. It is unclear whether President Hosni Mubarak will undertake his once annual trip to Washington, or whether the current neo-con US administration, despite its failures in Iraq and with Syria, is willing to breathe new life into its relations with Egypt. Egypt is still watching the impact of Democrats in Congress though to judge by statements made by Egyptian diplomats and think- tanks, not much is expected before 2008, the year of US presidential elections. Whatever happens, Abul-Gheit said on Saturday, "we cannot ignore the fact that the US is the world's single superpower not just today but for decades to come." Abul-Gheit's visit to Israel yesterday comes against the backdrop of the recent meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whom Egypt has been strongly supporting, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, perceived in Cairo as a "reasonable" head of the Israeli government, Abul-Gheit's talks in Israel may thus open the door for a new phase of active Egyptian-Israeli contacts. Dina Ezzat ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NDP in the balance The repercussions from the poor performance of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in the parliamentary elections of 2005 continued to be felt this year. In the first post- election meeting of the party's powerful Policies Committee, led by Gamal Mubarak, a major shake-up was announced. The NDP's veteran parliamentary whip Kamal El-Shazli was fired, and the business clique surrounding Mubarak promoted, with Ahmed Ezz and Hossam Badrawi assuming responsibility within the party for organisational and business affairs respectively. Gamal Mubarak was himself promoted within the ranks of the party, becoming assistant secretary-general in February 2006. "In 2005, Gamal Mubarak's slogan, New Style of Thinking, became increasingly redundant as an election call with voters opting for candidates on the grounds of their perceived distance from corruption and the kinds of services they might offer constituents," said Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies analyst Amr Hashem Rabie. The result, he added, was that the NDP won only 38 per cent of the People's Assembly seats while the opposition, on the back of Muslim Brotherhood successes, boosted their share of seats to 25 per cent. A shocked NDP reacted by coaxing a large number of independent candidates into its ranks, increasing its parliamentary ranks to a majority 73 per cent. Gamal Mubarak's meteoric rise in the NDP fostered ongoing speculation that he is being groomed to succeed his 78-year-old father. "President Mubarak's adamant refusal to appoint a vice-president and the meteoric rise of his son will inevitable lead people to believe the younger Mubarak is being groomed to inherit power," said Rabie. Jitters over the poor performance of the party led the NDP to exploit its parliamentary majority and delay local council elections to 2008. The delay, argued Rabie, was necessary for the NDP to mobilise its ranks. "Don't forget," he says, "that running in presidential elections requires that independent candidates obtain the recommendation of 200 members of local councils." "For the NDP the outlawed Brotherhood winning a large number of seats in local council elections remains a red line since they would meet the conditions imposed on presidential candidates." The NDP's poor performance in the last parliamentary elections was reflected in the deteriorating relationship between Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and NDP MPs. Given that the NDP retained its majority by recruiting successful independent candidates it was only to be expected these new MPs would be among the assembly's most capricious. They have refused to toe the party's line on more than one occasion, attacking Nazif's annual policy statement and accusing the government of painting a far too rosy picture of the economy. Accusations were hurled between members of the assembly when it voted on prolonging the emergency law, with rumours circulating that multi-millionaire NDP MP Ahmed Ezz had paid MPs LE40,000 in cash to approve the extension. In May, Gamal Mubarak visited Washington and met in "secret" with US President George W Bush. Later Bush praised Gamal Mubarak, describing the businessmen surrounding him as "young reformers", leading to speculation that Washington approves the inheritance of power. During the NDP's fourth annual conference, held in September under the slogan "New thinking and a second leap towards the future", Gamal Mubarak took a central role. He was the man chosen to announce the revival of Egypt's nuclear energy programme, a flagship project. During the conference it was the younger Mubarak that set out the route to be followed towards President Hosni Mubarak's 2007 constitutional amendments, a fact viewed by the opposition as further proof he would be imposed as Egypt's next president. Yet as the year drew to a close, President Mubarak told parliament he would stay in power so long as "his heart beats in his chest". Rabie believes 2007 will hold two major challenges for the NDP. "The first is to show that the constitutional amendments will lead to a healthy multi-party system and a transparent system for the rotation of power." The second will come with mid-term elections for the Shura Council in April 2007. "This is another test for the NDP, and will show whether it is ready to face truly competitive and transparent elections." The NDP's ninth congress will be held in 2007, and Rabie expects it will be with Gamal Mubarak as the party's secretary-general. Gamal Essam El-Din ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bad year for the Brothers When the "outlawed" Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats -- a fifth of the total -- in parliament at the end of last year it was heralded as a political earthquake. In many ways 2006 was a test year for both the Brotherhood's performance following its election victory and the government's commitment to its rhetoric on reform. Following two major security clampdowns and a smear campaign against the Brotherhood at the end of the year the coming stage seems likely to herald a different agenda for both. A quick run through the MB's fortunes over the past 12 months reveals a pattern that could well explain the security apparatus's escalation of action against the group. By February 2006 the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc had already begun to make an impression, and an impressive one at that. Joining forces with Nasserist MPs, they pointed an accusing finger at the corruption and cronyism of senior officials in the ruling NDP. Committing themselves to freedom-related issues in parliament, the group's MPs were all but silent as the backlash against the Danish cartoons mocking Prophet Mohamed took Cairo by storm last spring. By March there were signs from Washington -- which had earlier pressed the government to democratise -- that the adminstration's neo-cons were reviewing their support of democratic elections in the Arab world, a shift that had been exacerbated by Hamas's electoral victory in January. In Cairo arrests targeting dissidents from the reform movement and the Muslim Brotherhood ensued, provoking pundits to speculate about a possible "green light" from Washington which was loath to see Islamists in power. On 13 February the NDP-dominated parliament voted to postpone the municipal council elections initially scheduled in 2006 to 2008. The move was widely interpreted as a ploy to prevent the Brotherhood from making further gains following their parliamentary successes. A month later, parliament extended the emergency law for another two years. By the first week of March, 20 Muslim Brothers, including university professors and high-ranking members of the group's Guidance Bureau were arrested. In May security forces intervened to prevent Muslim Brotherhood candidates from contesting the chambers of commerce elections in Alexandria. Arrests continued throughout April and May when more than 600 Brotherhood members were detained after participating in solidarity demonstrations with reformist judges. They included the group's outspoken leader Essam El-Erian. Further police crackdowns targeting prominent, and often elderly, figures in the group continued in June. The confrontation escalated in the summer following Israel's attack on Lebanon. The government blamed Hizbullah; in response the group's supreme guide, Mahdi Akef, said that if Arab presidents were not Muslims the group would have "liquidated" them for their "shameful stance" in the war. By mid-July Akef was quoted as saying the Brotherhood could send "trained" volunteers to Lebanon to join the resistance. In what appeared to be a retaliatory warning, police arrested 17 MB figures, including two members of the Guidance Bureau, on 25 August. The group failed to field candidates in both the Trade Workers Union and Student Union elections in October and November when security forces interfered to prevent them. Yet just as the biggest news story of the closing months of 2005 was the Brotherhood's parliamentary election success, 2006 seems to be ending with the group dominating the headlines. When hundreds of university students were barred from contesting the Student Union elections, they resorted to the Free Students Union (FSU), a parallel, un-official body formed last year parallel to the police-controlled official union. FSU elections on 12 and 13 November turned bloody when thugs armed with machetes, knives, Molotov cocktails and acid were allowed into Ain Shams University and clashed with students, injuring 17. In response tens of students were expelled while others -- including university teaching staff who supervised FSU elections -- were referred to questioning. Most of, if not all, the expelled students are affiliated with the MB: their colleagues in Al-Azhar University launched a solidarity campaign with them two weeks ago, staging a martial-arts demonstration at which masked students clad in black performed six- minute exercises and posed for cameras and TV crews. Photographs of the students were published on the front page of the independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yom, which described the demonstration as a gathering of "militias". The following day TV stations began airing footage of the exercises, which they described as dangerous and frightening. The anti-Brotherhood TV campaign was spearheaded by Orbit's Al-Qahira Al-Yom, with the programme's presenter demanding the authorities resolve the MB issue as he wondered if we were "living in one or two states". In the same week the pro-government Rose El-Youssef newspaper devoted its entire front page to "the Brotherhood's army", displaying photographs of the demonstration alongside pictures of the Iraqi Shia Al-Mahdi army, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hamas militants. It accused the group of "reviving" the military wing it had abandoned in the 1950s. In a dawn raid on 14 December security forces arrested 140 MB students and leaders, including 55-year-old Khairat El-Shater, the Brotherhood's deputy supreme guide, on suspicion of plotting to "infiltrate" student and worker organisations. This was followed by another dawn raid on 24 December in which five businessmen were arrested, including Hassan Malek, who runs 20 Turkish franchises in Egypt. Police also shut down four publishing houses and a pharmaceutical company belonging to MB members. Twenty workers who were present in two of Malek's apartments were also arrested. While on the surface the arrests seem to be targeting the group's sources of funding. Deputy Supreme Guide Mohamed Habib thinks otherwise. "This is just a smokescreen to distract from the constitutional amendments that parliament is expected to pass soon and which fall into the tawreeth [Gamal Mubarak's succession of his father] scenario," Habib told Al-Ahram Weekly. Diaa Rashwan, an expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, believes the constitutional amendments, which will include reducing judicial supervision of elections and devising a law that clearly bans the religious parties, will aim at shaping the future of Egyptian politics for a generation. "The amendments are bound to provoke political dissent movements," he said, "and depending on the Muslim Brotherhood's contribution to the expected protests, the security apparatus will escalate its actions against the group or allow it to remain further where it is." To Rashwan, the Al-Azhar students exercise was a "historic opportunity" for sectors of the Egyptian intelligentsia which are "hostile" to Islamic movements. "It was their incitement against the group that encouraged the government to escalate. Therefore, I am not sure it was planned all along." Whatever the motives or political message of the recent clampdowns, they seem to have further congested the political climate. Asked how the Muslim Brotherhood will respond if the regime escalates the confrontation, Habib said the group is studying "all options that do not violate the law". Is taking to the street one of them? "Everything is possible," he responded. Amira Howeidy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ More hangover than party The parliamentary elections of 2005 set off deafening alarm bells in the offices of opposition parties. The poor performance of the legal opposition, which won just nine seats, led many to demand a complete overhaul. Opposition party leaders were accused of presiding over the decline as rank and file members demanded reform. The leftist Tagammu Party threatened to change its leaders should they fail to implement plans submitted by reformist members and last March a six-month deadline was given to Tagammu leaders to implement reforms that included a major revision in the Tagammu's relationship with both the Muslim Brotherhood group and the NDP. The Tagammu, argued the reformers, must not lend itself to the NDP's battle with the MB. Rifaat El-Said -- who became party chairman in 2003 -- was asked to stop moving closer to the regime, a shift which many believe lies behind the party's losing credibility. Although the six-month deadline expired without tangible progress, El-Said promised to "implement the reform plan to restore the party's lost glories". The liberal Wafd Party went further than the Tagammu, ousting a leader whose members said behaved like a dictator. It was in January when a group of Wafdist reformists, led by Mahmoud Abaza, 58, decided to sack Noaman Gomaa, 71. Gomaa responded initially by questioning the legality of his opponents' actions and denouncing them as US agents. Then on 1 April Gomaa, in a desperate attempt to retain his position, stormed the party's headquarters accompanied by supporters. The 10-hour battle between the two camps left the offices ablaze and 28 people injured. Gomaa was arrested and remanded in custody for two weeks pending investigations on charges of intimidation, instigating a riot and using unlicensed weapons with intent to kill and cause damage to properties . He was eventually released for health reasons and fined a sum of LE10,000. In June Abaza was elected as the Wafd's new chairman and pledged that elections would be held as a first step to the party reforming and renewing itself. "The party has turned over a new leaf," Abaza said, adding that "the coming period will witness greater democracy inside the party". Yet it seems that Gomaa is still determined to recapture his lost position. After an absence of nearly six months he has started once again to try and attract Wafdists back into his camp. The pattern of splits and paralysing divisions was repeated in the Nasserist and Ghad parties. It is an open secret that many members of the Nasserist Party want to replace 80-year-old Diaaeddin Dawoud with a younger chairman, though the discontent has yet to boil over into action. During party elections held last week, Sameh Ashour, the chairman of the Bar Association, backed away from his decision to stand for the post of party chairman when Dawoud revealed that he intended to run for yet another term after dithering over the decision for months. Much to the chagrin of many Nasserists there will be no change at the top of the party with the secretary-general and the four deputy chairmen all remaining in their posts. And while Dawoud insisted during the party's conference that such continuity was necessary "to keep the unity of the party at such a crucial time" many expect it is just a matter of time before the rifts begin to threaten to tear the party apart, the faultline occurring around the position of the party's secretary- general, Ahmed Hassan. Hassan, who is Dawoud's age and effectively runs the Nasserists, has been accused by party members of abusing his powers and misusing party funds. The Ghad Party, whose leader Ayman Nour is serving a five-year jail sentence on forgery charges, fared no better than the Nasserist. Two camps are battling over the future of the Ghad, one led by Gamila Ismail, Nour's wife, backed by Ghad's chairman, and the other by former diplomat Nagui El-Ghitrifi, the second angry that Ismail's appointment to the post of the deputy chairwoman was "unjustified". Divisions within the party have led to it indefinitely delaying the general conference which was scheduled for last November. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Judges continue to battle The ongoing conflict between judges and the state is expected to reap a share of 2007's headlines. Despite the state's attempts to pressure judges to abandon their campaign for reform, which began in March 2005, they seem determined to continue. Last May Mahmoud Mekki and Hesham Bastawisi, two judges who have been leading calls for greater guarantees to ensure fair elections and who were instrumental in exposing the electoral fraud which marred last year's presidential and parliamentary polls, were referred to a disciplinary hearing. Mekki and Bastawisi were accused of violating judicial rules by leaking to the press a list including the initials of judges who colluded with the authorities in falsifying election results. The hearing ended with Mekki being acquitted and Bastawisi receiving a reprimand for harming the image of the judiciary. Bastawisi was later vindicated when the Court of Cassation ruled the election results in the constituency supervised by Judge Seddiq Borham, whose initials were included on the list and who had filed the initial complaint about the two, should be annulled. Many viewed the trial of Mekki and Bastawisi as an attempt to divert public attention away from the new judicial law endorsed last June against the will of judges. The law singularly fails to secure judicial independence from the executive, a core demand of the reformists. In August, judges received another blow, when Mamdouh Marei -- known for his hostility to reformist judges -- was appointed justice minister. Marei embarked immediately on a campaign to neutralise his critics, suspending financial grants to judges' clubs. More recently officials from the Central Auditing Agency (CAA) were dispatched to examine the annual budgets of clubs since 2001. Zakaria Abdel-Aziz, chairman of the Cairo Judges Club, said he welcomed the audit, stressing that the clubs have nothing to hide and suggesting that the auditors remit be extended to include budgets since 1991. Yet still the CAA claims a lack of cooperation on the part of judges, leading many to speculate that the ultimate goal of the move is to pave the way for the sequestration of the clubs. Despite the pressures, judges are standing firm and "will oppose any amendment of the constitution that seeks to diminish the role of the judiciary in supervising elections," says Abdel-Aziz. The new year will begin with judges filing a lawsuit against Marei and the Ministry of Justice. "Judges will also press for the opening of investigations into those members of the judiciary responsible for supervising constituencies in which the Court of Cassation has found evidences of malpractice during the 2005 parliamentary elections," says Abdel-Aziz. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Syndicates in turmoil This year saw protests from professional syndicates as the state continued to turn a deaf ear to their demands, with heated general assemblies, sit-in strikes and work stoppages increasingly becoming the preferred way to express dissent. Journalists have been battling for greater press freedom and engineers for the lifting of the judicial sequestration that has been in force since 1995. They were joined by doctors, who are demanded the holding of fresh syndicate elections, the first since 1993 when the current law governing elections in professional unions was passed, setting conditions which many claim are virtually impossible to meet. Doctors and dentists have been campaigning for an increase in salaries, while pharmacists have opposed plans to privatise state-owned pharmacies. Though their complaints differ, the syndicates squarely place the blame on the shoulders of the state which they claim has been interfering in their internal affairs for far too long. Engineers have embarked on legal measures to set up a parallel syndicate. "In a society where freedoms are absent and despotism rife, it's understandable that people begin to think of establishing parallel organisations to replace those in the control of the state," says engineer Omar Abdallah. A lawsuit contesting the prolonging of the judicial sequestration of the Engineers' Syndicate and the delay in holding fresh elections is currently heard by the Administrative Court. Several dates for elections have already been set by Irrigation Minister Mahmoud Abu Zeid in his capacity as the Engineers' Syndicate's supervisor, and each time legal pretexts have been cited as the reason why elections could not go ahead. It is not only engineers who are up in arms about broken promises. In 2004 President Mubarak pledged to abolish custodial sentences for publishing offences yet journalists continue to appear before criminal courts and receive prison terms. Last June parliament passed a new press law, introducing some amendments related to publication offences in response to pressure though maintaining articles in the penal code that can be used to imprison journalists. "We won the first round. Yet, the battle is not over. We'll press very hard until all articles that subject journalists to be imprisoned are dropped," said Yehia Qallash, secretary-general of the Press Syndicate. Ibrahim Eissa, chief editor of the independent Al-Dostour, is currently appealing a 12-month jail sentence handed down after his paper accused President Hosni Mubarak of misusing government funds. Last week the trial of Eissa and Adel Hammouda of Al-Fagr, Abdel-Halim Qandil of Al-Karama and Wael El-Ibrashi of Sawt Al-Umma, began at the Gammaliya Misdemeanour Court. They are accused of libelling the president, his family, the prime minister and the interior minister. The petitioner is a member of the ruling NDP. Last June, El-Ibrashi was embroiled in another libel case after Sawt Al-Umma published a list of the initials of judges who reportedly colluded with the authorities in falsifying the results of last year's parliamentary elections. The case was dropped by the Cairo Criminal Court after the claimant -- one of the judges whose initials were included in the list -- withdrew his suit. Mona El-Nahhas ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A year of man-made disasters Administrative corruption was blamed for the series of disasters that punctuated 2006 when an Egyptian website held a poll. Tragic accidents, that claimed the lives of thousands, were a regular feature of the headlines of the last 12 months. On 2 February the country woke up to news of Egypt's worst maritime accident. More than 1,000 passengers drowned when the ferry Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 sank in the Red Sea on its way from the Saudi port of Duba to Safaga. The public's shock was compounded by the way the government handled the immediate aftermath of the sinking, and soon turned to anger. Those responsible for the tragedy would be held to account, said officials, and new regulations would be enforced to ensure that such a thing could never happen again. Yet the owner of the ferry company, Mamdouh Hamza, said to be closely connected senior officials, was allowed to leave Egypt for London, and eventually compensation was paid to the families of victims but only on condition that they waivered the right to pursue legal action against Hamza. In August a train travelling from Benha to Shubra clashed with another Cairo-bound train from Mansoura, claiming the lives of 58 people. The head of the Railways Authority was sacked in the aftermath of the tragedy. Yet it appeared that the fatal crash was not enough for officials to take action. Two weeks later a second crash occurred on the country's ailing rail network, killing two and leaving 36 injured. In an attempt to absorb public anger the government earmarked LE8 billion towards the renovation of the rail network, and the minister of transportation, Mohamed Mansour, was immediately dispatched to China on a buying spree to acquire new locomotives. Even if the government manages to rescue the railway system, how it will solve the growing problem of road accidents is unclear. Traffic accidents claim 6,000 lives a year and leave more than 30,000 people injured according to a report issued in September 2005 by the Ministry of Transportation. Road accidents are the second highest cause of death, after heart disease, and cost an estimated $520 million in lost revenue, three per cent of Egypt's GDP. Allegations of the mismanagement of crises were a common feature of the past year. Despite the fact that the government knew in advance that Egypt was particularly vulnerable to bird flu, critics say the government remained ill-prepared, and eventually had to resort to mass culling to contain the virus. Egypt's multi-billion pound poultry industry was destroyed, and still the virus claimed seven lives. Following the Qaliobiya train crash, MPs demanded that a crisis management council be established, apparently unaware that such a body, headed by former prime minister Atef Ebeid, had been in existence for six years. "Three months have passed since the train crashes and nothing has changed. Nor have the issues surrounding the sinking of the ferry been resolved," leading columnist Salama Ahmed Salama told the Weekly. "The political leadership wants to improve the deteriorating condition of the transport system to stop these recurrent disasters but the problem is that government bodies are crumbling under the weight of endemic corruption and as a result cannot deal with chronic problems. The government does not have the tools necessary to reform the sectors usually afflicted with disasters." Mohamed El-Sayed
