A US congressman's claim to be Egypt's friend is being regarded with scepticism while a leading construction engineer continues to inspire sympathy as the country's "everyman", writes Aziza Sami The cesspool revealed by corrupt practices in the housing sector continued to be looked at this week. Engineering consultant Mamdouh Hamza garnered sympathy as the victim of systemic corruption and nepotism. The national and opposition papers carried interviews with Hamza's family and descriptions of the man himself. Hamza was forbidden by his lawyers from making any press statements prior to his trial which will start on 1 September in London. The furor inspired by the case was best described by editor of the independent weekly Sawt Al-Umma Adel Hammouda who on Sunday wrote, "The most massive and fiercest press campaign to be launched in the history of any Egyptian government has exploded in the face of Minister of Housing Ibrahim Suleiman (Suleiman has been rumoured to have been involved in bringing about Hamza's predicament due to long-standing feud between the two). It is a campaign never faced by any minister before, in which all newspapers -- national, independent, partisan or licensed in Cyprus -- are in total agreement." As for the sentiments of the majority of Egyptians (towards the minister) Hammouda wrote, "It is difficult to even start envisaging them but every one knows full well what they are." On the Wednesday before, the independent newspaper Al-Masri Al-Yom had published on its front page news of "the searching of the office of Ibrahim Suleiman, and orders given to the minister to halt all of his activities until the investigation is complete." According to Al- Masri 's Ministry of Housing sources, "a highly placed supervisory agency had searched the minister's office while he was vacationing in the north coast resort of Marina. The inspectors collected important documents and papers, as well as files related to operations delegated by the ministry to companies and consultancy firms, especially that owned by the minister's brother-in-law Diaa El-Muniri." Al-Masri added, "Ministry sources say the minister has been ordered to halt all activities and statements until investigations in the case of Mamdouh Hamza and El-Muniri are completed." The opposition weekly Al-Ahali issued by the left- wing Al-Tagammu Party on that day reported in its banner "Expectations that parliamentary immunity will be lifted from the minister of housing". The government was quick to officially deny that the minister's office had been searched, and with this, the press was left to continue speculating. However, with the government obviously not enjoying its most glorious moments, the opposition daily Al-Wafd issued by the Wafd Party, on Friday gave prominence on its front page to an interview with Al-Ahram columnist Fahmi Howeidi. In response to a question by Al-Wafd on his reaction to the new Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's alleged criticism of the Egyptian press, Howeidi said: "I sympathise with Prime Minister Nazif when he makes political mistakes. [When he talks about political matters] it is exactly like (late singer) Mohamed Abdel-Wahab giving his views on the Camp David peace accords. Do not embarrass the prime minister because such matters should be dealt with with pity, not anger. But the problem is: how can a man so limited deal with the problems of 70 million Egyptians?" Nazif's by now notorious statement to the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa that it is the freedom of the Egyptian press which has allowed it "to perceive and magnify (presumably non-existent) problems" had won him several stinging remarks in the press. On Wednesday, in the national weekly Al-Musawwar the magazine's columnist Abdel-Qader Shuhaib asked: "If increasing political freedom -- and nothing else -- was the cause of press criticism of general affairs, then why was the government changed and Nazif appointed prime minister? Why does he talk about the necessity of finding new and unconventional solutions to problems? Nazif's attitude to the press is worrisome because he ignores what is published and does not interact with it." Congressman Tom Lantos, who visited Cairo last week, was received in fiery style by the national daily Al-Akhbar 's Editor-in-Chief Galal Dowidar who on Wednesday wrote of the "stunted US congressman who is bent on enmity with Egypt." Dowidar launched a double-pronged attack on Lantos and American University in Cairo Professor Saadeddin Ibrahim. "It was natural that Lantos, the Jewish congressman who is antagonistic to Egypt, would head towards the Ibn Khaldun Centre directed by Saadeddin Ibrahim -- of Egyptian origin and US nationality -- and who is notorious for leading anti- Egypt campaigns. This Lantos does not seem to want to comprehend, out of either ignorance or design, (the latter being the more probable) that Israel's aversion to peace is the cause of its problems and of violence and lack of security in the Middle East. And so with great arrogance and rudeness he comes to Egypt, days after he attempted to undermine its national interests. But Lantos' request to Congress to halt military aid to Egypt was refused by the US administration which despite its bias towards the Sharon government, knows Egypt's role and its importance in stability. Why does this Israeli agent not demand the cessation of military aid to Israel, assessed at $3 billion (for four million Israelis) compared to the $1.3 billion allotted to Egypt, with its population of 70 million?" The weekly newspaper Al-Arabi issued by the opposition Nasserist Party on Sunday published, "The enemy of Egypt demands decreasing the size and armament of the Egyptian military." In its report which consistently referred to Lantos as "the enemy of Egypt," Al-Arabi could not, as usual, resist jibing at Al-Wafd. " Al-Wafd criticised Lantos' invitation to visit Egypt and his reception by government members. Yet it is strange that one of the four who participated in the meeting with 'Egypt's enemy' in his capacity as a star of civil society was former ambassador Mahmoud Qassem, the head of Al-Wafd's Arab Affairs Committee." Al-Akhbar on Monday reported a decrease in steel prices after Minister of Industry and Trade Rashid Mohamed Rashid ordered the lifting of dumping fines on steel imports. However, over the week, virtually every publication continued speculating on the fate of the eternally postponed competition and anti-dumping law. On Wednesday, the independent daily Nahdet Masr published a full page on "the mystery of perpetual procrastination of the anti-dumping and competition draft law (whose inception was in 1995). In an interesting departure from the prevalent theory that steel magnate Ahmed Ezz is the culprit behind the situation, Nahdet Masr offered yet another revelation. The newspaper quoted Abdel-Sattar Ishra, a consultant for the General Federation for Chambers of Commerce as saying, "A main cause for the delay of the law is disagreement over the very meaning of monopoly. The question is when is someone a monopolist?" Conceding that the time for such philosophical debate had run out, Ishra asserted, "Drafting the law will surely be in the interests of the producer, consumer and Egyptian economy at large." Where others would cautiously tread, Al-Arabi positively stomped . On Sunday its two editors, Abdallah El- Sinnawi and Abdel-Halim Qandil, directed criticism at the Presidency itself. Questioning: "Where is the president?" the paper's editor El-Sinnawi wrote: "It is said that he is in his residence at Ras Al-Hikma on the north coast but there is an official silence fuelling rumours that he might go back to Germany for treatment. It is the president's right to rest but it is not his right to leave the country in a vacuum, when the existing political elite is so faded and weak, and chaos threatens. It is time for democratic change, and establishing elections between a number of candidates for the presidency, otherwise, hell awaits us at very corner."
