The president is slowly resuming his duties. Dina Ezzat reports Almost three weeks after his return home from a medical trip to Germany, which took three weeks in itself, President Hosni Mubarak received his first few Arab visitors -- still at his Sharm El-Sheikh residence where he is supposedly finishing off his firmly prescribed convalescence. On Sunday and Monday, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were respectively received by the president in Sharm El-Sheikh. Both appeared on national TV and, through photos made available by the presidency, were seen chatting with the president in the comfort of a living room at the president's residence. Following the Mubarak-Saleh meeting, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Qerabi told reporters that the head of the Yemeni state was pleased to meet the president of Egypt who is recovering well. The two heads of state, Al-Qerabi added in Sharm El-Sheikh on Sunday, had a tour d'horizon of some Arab and regional affairs. Meanwhile, on Monday, Abbas told reports in Sharm El-Sheikh that he discussed with Mubarak the current hurdles obstructing the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, especially the unchecked Israeli construction of illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank. On Wednesday afternoon Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi arrived in Sharm El-Sheikh to meet with Mubarak. Mubarak, according to officials, is still set to receive another long line of Arab leaders, including Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Qatari Emir Hamad bin Jassim whose ties with Cairo have been strained recently due to disagreements over the management of the Arab-Israeli struggle, the humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip and Arab relations with Iran. Also in line to visit Mubarak sometime soon, according to the same officials, are the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz and Abdullah II. Mubarak's televised meetings this week were among the otherwise few similar appearances since he underwent an officially announced operation to remove his gall bladder in Heidelberg University Hospital on 6 March. The first two appearances were at his room in Heidelberg Hospital -- only one video and one video-audio. Then Egyptian TV broadcast a few minutes of his homecoming from Germany with his family members. Last Thursday, Mubarak was shown in a limited ministerial meeting, attended by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and then, on the same day, receiving Defence Minister Hussein Tantawi. The appearances of the president, few as they have been, serve the purpose of dispelling speculation over the progress of his health which had caused panic that led to a sharp decline in the market exchange more than once during the past seven weeks. No official announcement has been made as to when the president will resume his full routine or when he plans to return to the capital. "Obviously not all questions have been answered. Still, there is a growing sense of reassurance that the president is well and that he is gradually picking up his regular routine. This is crucial," said Gamal Abdel-Gawwad, director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. According to Abdel-Gawwad, who also sits on the influential Policies Committee of the ruling NDP, "The image that is being shown to us now is that for the near future and for medium-range plans the president is in shape and is and will be running things himself." Abdel-Gawwad agreed that Mubarak will need to do more than just make appearances on TV or even a public appearance for the traditional May Day speech. "Streamlining government policies that seem to lack certainty and to suffer from confusion during the past weeks might be a top priority," he said. During the first few weeks of the presidential medical treatment, which included a week where his powers were delegated to Prime Minister Nazif, national affairs were smoothly managed for the most part. However, the past couple of weeks were marked by some escalation of the otherwise regular problems, especially those related to prices of some commodities and the management of the call for political reforms. "One cannot say that there were major policy breaks but what one could say is that the government's policies, even when right, were not properly promoted. This was the major problem," Abdel-Gawwad added.
