Under the auspices of Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Wazir, Australian Ambassador Robert Bowker, WFP Ambassador Against Hunger actor Mahmoud Yassin and several UN, official body and private company representatives and 400 members of the public celebrated a charity event catering to 300 million children who suffer from hunger all over the world at Al-Azhar Park, "Fight Hunger: Walk the World", initiated three years ago by TNT: songs and story-telling led to a climactic sunset followed by a spectacular concert. The series of which this event was part hopes to raise $5 million for the World Food Programme this year. PUS Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, and his wife Marie Ricciardone together with Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Wazir, visited the Al-Mounira Primary School in the neighbourhood of Al-Sayeda Zeinab, to celebrate the USAID-funded National Books Programme for Schools (NBPS) recent donation to the school library. NBPS started this year, providing 5,188 school libraries in Egypt with books. The programme aims to cover every one of Egypt's 39,000 Egyptian schools by 2007. Each collection contains approximately 700 books ranging from science and environment to encyclopaedias, with 80 per cent in Arabic titles and 20 per cent in English. All books were printed in Egypt by a publishing consortium. At Cinema Palace's "Star and Seminar", our favourite actress, Youssra, spoke to critic Nader Adli about her career, revealing her real name, Sevene, paying tribute to cinematographer Abdel-Halim Nasr, who first discovered her talent, and detailing her long standing collaboration with the well-known director Youssef Chahine. The hall, where Youssra 's Kalam Fi Al-Hob (Words of Love, scripted by Zeinab Aziz and directed by Ali Idris ), was full to overflowing. photos: Ghada Abd El-Kader This week the American University in Cairo Press hosted its annual Book, Art and Music Festival at the breath-taking Mohamed Ali Palace in Shubra. My colleague Ghada Abd El-Kader was fortunate enough to browse through the press's spring publications, brushing shoulders with Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and author, most recently, of the Press's The Golden King: The World of Tutankhamun, and admiring our very own Sherif Sonbol 's photos in Shirley Johnston 's Egyptian Palaces and Villas 1808-1960. Abd El-Kader also contemplated paintings by Maher Ali, Adel El-Siwi, Helmi El-Touni, and Al-Ahram Weekly 's very own George Bahgory, listened to an Um Kulthoum recital by the Opera's Reham Abdel-Hakim. Among the dear friends Abd El-Kader saw were the Press's Mark Linuz, Nabila Akl and Atef El-Hoteibi, the US Embassy's Manal Rezqallah, journalist Neam El-Baz, head of the Garden City Lions Club Awatef Serageddin, president of the Inner Wheel Club Samia Abul-Fotouh, Greek Embassy Press Councillor Costas Yiannakodimos, fashion designer Shahira Idris, archeologist Akram Allam, architect Mohamed El-Hadi, the Dominican Embassy's Andy Rafael Rodriguez Duran, Editor-in-Chief of the Italian newspaper Incontro Emanuela Innaro and from the Weekly, my colleagues Jill Kamel, Nevine Khalil, Amany Abdel-Moneim and Hala Halim. Accompanied by pianist Pablo Jiménez, Spanish singer Olga Maria Ramos held a concert at the Ceramics Museum. Ramos, the daughter of legendary composer Enrique Ram�rez de Gamboa ( El Cipri ), presented a concerto, La hija Del Cuplé to an audience that included Mexican Ambassador Miguel Orozco, Colombian Ambassador Giron Jaime, Dominican Ambassador Jorge Yeara Nasser and Argentinean Ambassador Osvaldo Pascual. photo: Ayman Barayez On the occasion of the Lebanese Ambassador Abdul - Latif Al-Mamlouk 's departure from Cairo, the Egyptian-Lebanese Friendship Association headed by my good friend Negad Shaarawi gave a party in honour of the diplomat at Semiramis InterContinental Hotel, Tiba Hall, in the presence of such dignitaries as Moroccan Ambassador Mohamed Farag El-Dokali, former Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon Hassan Shash, Palestinian Ambassador Zohdi Al-Qedra and former Miss Universe Georgina Rizk. Spanish Cultural Attaché and Director of the Cervantes Institute Louis Moratinos held a press conference and cocktail party to bid farewell to his friends in Egypt before he hands over his post and leaves for Spain. Present were our very own art critic Nagwa El-Ashri, Cervantes Institute media office head Safaa Ragab and my colleague Ghada Abd El-Kader. The Goethe Institute and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) celebrated the end of the first phase of their ongoing project on understanding progress across cultures. This celebration was held at the Goethe Institute, Doqqi, where our colleague Mahmoud Bakr reported on the results of workshops held in Alexandria and Cairo -- an opportunity for the young to freely express their opinions -- including a development magazine in Alexandria. photos: Khatchig Wanis Spanish author Antonio Cabanas presented his second novel La conjura Del Faraón (The Pharaoh's Conspiracy) at the Cervantes Institute last week, in the presence of Institute Director Louis Moratinos and publisher Carmen Fernàndez.
