China steps in IN EFFORTS to boost bilateral ties, Egypt and China have reached several economic and political agreements. During Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's two-day visit, he met his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Nazif on Saturday and signed 10 trade and investment accords, including pacts that covered cooperation in energy and other economic and technology fields. Nazif urged Wen to boost Chinese investment in Egypt and push the creation of a planned joint industrial zone near the Egyptian port city of Suez. China also agreed to give Egypt a $50 million loan. On Sunday, President Hosni Mubarak met Wen and agreed that Beijing and Cairo should work toward peace in the Middle East, using their own economic advantages and maintaining high-level exchanges and visits. Egypt and China also agreed not to have any official ties with Taiwan or supporters of Taiwanese independence. Wen also delivered an invitation to Mubarak from Chinese President Hu Jintao to attend the Afro-Chinese Forum to be held in Beijing in November. Wen and Nazif had attended celebrations at the Pyramids to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of relations between the two countries. Wen, who left on Sunday, continued his African tour of Ghana, Angola, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. Hanafi brothers executed TWO BROTHERs of Assiut's Hanafi clan were executed on Sunday for charges ranging from drug trafficking and murder to illegal possession of weapons and land. Ezzat and his younger brother Hamdan, along with 78 others, received sentences in a court in Alexandria following their arrest in February 2004 after a week-long standoff involving a hostage situation. Police had raided the village and freed the 107 hostages that were captive in the Hanafi fortress-like residence. The Hanafi brothers were also fined LE100,000 each in September of last year. The Awlad Hanafi family, led by Hamed Mohamed Hamed, or Ezzat, had basically controlled the Nile island of Nekheila in Assiut, around 320 kilometres south of Cairo, for more than three decades. The family ran a massive drug trafficking and illegal gun trade business, creating an empire dubbed by locals as the "Awlad Hanafi era". Three of the 78 defendants were given life sentences and LE100,000 fines, while others received sentences between three and 15 years. Twenty defendants were acquitted, including two in absentia.
