The death of the Palestinian leader and all the uncertainty that it generates competed with the African summit in Algiers for headlines, writes Gamal Nkrumah Stately matters featured prominently this week. While Yasser Arafat's last funerary rites and his possible successor, Mahmoud Abbas's close brush with death dominated the headlines, the focus this week was on the African summit meeting in Algiers and the Sharm El-Sheikh conference on the future of Iraq. However, the fallout from the battle of Falluja still resonated strongly and vied for attention alongside the upcoming Iraqi elections and post- Arafat Palestinian aspirations and concerns. In general, Arafat's passing dominated. There was something blood-curdlingly final about the image of Arafat's coffin, draped in the black, red, white and green of the Palestinian flag, that is splashed on the pages of practically every paper. "The symbol of Palestinian struggle has passed away," ran the front-page banner of the opposition daily Al-Wafd. "Only five Arab leaders participated in Arafat's official funeral," it lamented. "The secret of Arafat's death is still unknown." "Thousands of gun-toting Palestinians roamed the streets of Gaza firing shots in the air and burning tyres even as flags flew half mast," is how Al-Wafd described Arafat's funeral. The paper also noted the anger and suspicion expressed by various Palestinian factions about the precise nature of Arafat's illness. " Kataeb Shohadaa Al-Aqsa [the armed wing of Fateh, the largest Palestinian political organisation headed by Arafat] blamed Israel for Arafat's death," the paper noted. The mystery surrounding the precise nature of Arafat's illness and death continued to preoccupy the pundits. But in jack-in-the box fashion, news broke out on Monday that, according to a 558-page French medical report, the late Palestinian leader's body contained no trace of poison. This might silence the conspiracy theorists who abound throughout the country. Be that as it may, the French authorities have now handed over the documents to the Palestinian Authority which has set up a committee to study Arafat's medical report. But one has the feeling that the medical report will not be the finale -- rather many acts now seem set to follow. Other news turned to the man who might replace Arafat. The front-page of Al-Akhbar read "Abu Mazen denies being the target of an assassination attempt." "An exchange of fire between armed, hooded men and Abu Mazen's bodyguards." The three Egyptian border policemen killed by Israeli troops who claimed they mistook them for Palestinian freedom fighters made the headlines of all the major national and opposition papers over the weekend. "Egypt protested and Sharon apologises," wrote Al-Ahram in a front-page banner. The inside pages of the paper displayed a photograph of the distraught family members of the victims. "Intifadah in the People's Assembly," screeched Al-Wafd. "MPs demanded a freeze in political and economic dealings with Israel," the paper angrily continued in much the same vein. Perhaps the most widely read article in all of Egypt was published by Al-Wafd, then reprinted upon popular demand. Al-Wafd published a full- page commentary by the celebrated poet Abdel- Rahman El-Abnoudi on the front page of its Saturday edition in which he appealed to President Hosni Mubarak to bring to book those who pulverised Abdel-Halim Qandil, the editor of Al-Arabi, the opposition weekly newspaper of the Nasserist Party. "There is no doubt that we are all delighted with the ushering in of a new era of political reform in Egypt," El-Abnoudi wrote. "We have long awaited these reforms." But, he added, the beating up of Qandil exceeded the worst atrocities of state terror, and "exposed the true nature of the state that governs us." "Qandil's stature has been greatly enhanced by their wicked deed. The state has, in sharp contrast, been diminished in stature. It has disgraced itself and sullied its reputation, exposing its weakness before the Egyptian people and the Arab world. Moreover, it has earned the contempt of the international community and especially of its masters in the White House." Here El-Abnoudi veered off to launch a scathing critique of US foreign policy and of Al- Horra, the US-backed satellite television station that has tried, in vain, to lure viewers away from Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, two Pan-Arab television stations that the eminent writer has much respect for. Tuesday's press was dominated by coverage of the summit in Algiers of the New Partnership for African Development, better known by its acronym NEPAD, the continent's home-spun blueprint for African economic development and partnership with wealthy Western countries. "An African development summit kicks off in Algiers discussing the challenges facing the African continent. Twenty-two African heads of state and government attend," noted Al-Ahram on Tuesday. The paper's Editor-in-Chief Ibrahim Nafie wrote from the Algerian capital on the summit in upbeat tones. President Hosni Mubarak attended the summit as part of a wider two-continent tour that also took him to Spain. Nafie noted that NEPAD set several high priority tasks for itself, including transparent management of political and economic institutions. He had full faith in the continent's ability to confront the crises it was confronted with. The national daily Al-Gumhuriya also focussed on the NEPAD summit. "African leaders discuss security, development and political reform," ran the paper's front page headline on Tuesday. "The president discusses Iraq, Palestine and European-Mediterranean cooperation with his host Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero," ran another head. In engaging albeit acerbic fashion, Reda Mahmoud in the national daily Al-Akhbar poked fun at the government's failed attempts to tackle three big challenges this year. "The first was the black smog appearing every autumn for the sixth consecutive year," Mahmoud explained. "Despite their rosy statements, the smog had taken its toll on three successive ministers," he said tongue-in-cheek. "Then came the 2010 World Cup. Egyptian officials were hugely optimistic about Egypt's chances of hosting the championship primarily because of the country's unique cultural heritage. But we were rudely awakened by the shock of Egypt's humiliating defeat: the most famous zero in our history. "And now locusts. They are invading our arable land, devouring our crops and destroying all in their wake. While officials claim that the locusts are not a threat, satellite channels showed snapshots of the devastation inflicted by the locusts on our fields," Mahmoud wrote. "Defeat is not the problem. Denial is the disaster," he concluded. Al-Ahram 's columnist Salama Ahmed Salama continued with the same anti-establishment theme. "The way our officials dealt with the red locusts crisis is far from efficient. Just like they handle other pressing issues, they made a big mess of things. They exhibited the usual irritating incompetence and ineptitude," Salama wrote.
