Defining anti-semitism and monopoly were featured in this week's coverage, writes Aziza Sami With his usual approach combining measured analysis which gauges government policy with his particular insights, Makram Mohamed Ahmed the editor-in-chief of the national weekly magazine Al- Mossawar, assessed the situation in Sudan. The writer directed strong words at the US and [leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army] John Garang for working "towards separatism in the Sudan". A headline alluded to "the double role played by John Garang" who was also described in the article as "the man with a thousand faces". Makram Mohamed criticised the US administration for insisting on intervening in Darfur despite the current efforts exerted by the Sudanese government "with its limited capabilities" to resolve the situation. He also blamed Garang for "offering to send troops to Darfur" while actually working to create a situation in which the region will become a potentially separate entity. This is an attempt to replicate what happened in southern Sudan, Makram Mohamed writes, where years of civil strife "ended in an agreement allowing the area to separate from the Sudan at any time that Garang wills." The writer then demanded that the Sudanese government be "given a chance" to resolve a problem deriving "from circumstances of famine and drought... not... as the US claims, ethnic cleansing." What is interesting in the article is that Makram Mohamed's criticism of the US and Garang seems to be a preamble leading to equally harsh words directed to the Sudanese government. The latter, writes Makram Mohamed, underscores that Khartoum has failed on many fronts including "its insistence on facing the problem alone and its failure to attain a national consensus on the Darfur crisis." The writer lists a plethora of shortcomings of which the Sudanese government is guilty, including, among other things, the failure to uphold a concept of citizenship respecting human rights. This, Makram Mohamed says, should be respected "regardless of discrimination based on ethnicity, race, language or religion". The writer's remarks might imply an exasperation which is perhaps understandable in view of the obstructions faced by the Egyptian government as it tries to mediate the Sudanese crisis. An article by Rifaat El-Said, the leader of the left-wing Al-Tagammu Party, constituted the lead of the party's weekly newspaper Al-Ahali on Wednesday. El-Said, whose front-page articles over the past months have consistently criticised the government's economic policies, this time chose to attack the National Democratic Party's Policies Committee. Its members, writes El-Said, have not only usurped the ruling party's prerogatives but have also "backtracked on promises of political reform, saying that economic reform takes priority." El-Said enumerates the indicators on standards of living in Egypt which reveal a sharp drop in income, services and employment rates over the past two years. He concludes with his favourite warning: "the Egyptian people might appear quiescent, but take care: when they rise it will be a flood that no one can stop." The Egyptian government's current preparations to convene an international conference on Iraq on 22 and 23 November in Sharm El-Sheikh grabbed the headlines during the week, the national daily Al-Ahram on Saturday referring to Egyptian efforts to "make the conference successful". The independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yom, which usually publishes news items without imbuing them with any particular political nuance, on Thursday wrote of an "understanding" between Egypt, the US and the Iraqi interim government over the conference's agenda. According to the newspaper, "The Egyptian and American points of view, which support the Iraqi interim government, triumphed with the [decision] not to invite the Iraqi opposition to the conference." The newspaper quoted Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit's statement that the conference would be a "governmental one". Al-Masri Al-Yom also cited an official source who asserted that Cairo was "understanding" of the European [especially French] and Arab demands for the opposition's participation. The source, however, then elaborated on the reason for not inviting the Iraqi opposition. This, it would appear, is because of a conceptual ambiguity as to what the meaning of national opposition is. "Is it factions affiliated to the legitimate opposition?" questioned the source, "or is it terrorist groups which must be confronted and never acknowledged?" The independent daily Nahdet Masr devoted two pages in its weekend issue on Thursday to American President George Bush's proposed anti- Semitism bill. The headline of one page read: "Is criticising Israel anti-Semitic?" Another read, "Bush's law to mute tongues and stifle voices". The newspaper scouted the views of Egyptian intellectuals who, it wrote, "are angry at this obscuring of issues. "There is a thin line between confronting Israeli policies and Zionist aspirations [for expansion] on the one hand and anti-Semitism on the other," wrote Nahdet Masr. Commentators' views ranged from the proposed bill being a usual courting of the Jewish vote in the upcoming US presidential elections, to it constituting a transgression on the freedom of opinion as regards Israeli policies. Political analyst Mohamed El-Sayed Said was quoted as saying that the proposed law consolidates racial and religious discrimination since "it elevates the Jews to a position of sanctity..." The national daily Al-Akhbar on Thursday picked up the topic of monopoly in the steel market when its editor Galal Dowidar wrote, "The construction steel curse reaches the Central Auditing Agency". Referring to what he described as "MPs anger at the superficiality of the report which the Auditing Agency ( Al-Muhasabat ) prepared on the subject, Dowidar wrote that the latter failed to demonstrate the magnitude of the harm inflicted by the steel monopoly on Egypt's construction sector. "There are reports moreover that the head of the agency, Gawdat El-Malat, removed his first deputy who had prepared a former report that was not published. The move, it is said, was in response to pressure [from parties] alleging that the report was intransigent in its outlook on the question of steel monopoly." The national weekly newspaper Akhbar Al-Yom on Saturday subsequently published in its parliamentary section a response by El-Malat. The head of the Auditing Agency was quoted as saying, "not one word of criticism expressed by MPs was objective." El-Malat asserted that his agency would not be "a scapegoat bearing the brunt of others' mistakes." The latter, it would seem, might have arisen again due to some conceptual ambiguities over what monopoly really is. Akhbar Al-Yom quoted El-Malat as saying his agency had proposed that the draft competition and anti-dumping law sent by the government to parliament be reviewed. He appeared to suggest that the law as it currently stands does not adequately define what monopoly is. "It is not proper that such fundamental aspects which should be absolutely clear in the law be left to executive bodies to decide," El-Malat was quoted as saying. The independent weekly Sawt Al-Umma on Sunday also picked up the refrain, publishing an article by Manal Lashin in which she alleged that the auditing agency had not properly monitored the market transactions of steel magnate Ahmed Ezz's companies. The writers, however, conceded the difficulty of implementing procedures to confront monopolies "when there is not even a law defining what monopoly is".
