Despite the Copenhagen conference, global warming might not be subdued, and though still far off, Egypt's presidential campaign is already starting to heat up. Doaa El-Bey makes the rounds Schools started this week after the Eid Al-Adha holiday. In spite of the long break, swine flu spread further among school students. Many parents decided to protect their children by keeping them at home. "Strict measures to combat the disease" said Al-Ahram. Al-Wafd had "Havoc in schools after Eid break, attendance between 20 and 30 per cent" while Al-Akhbar blared "Schools reopen without students and the Ministry of Health expects cases to triple". The editorial of the official daily Al-Akhbar said schools restarted after a 10-day break and after the Governors Council declared that there was no reason to keep schools closed despite the increase in swine flu cases, but the return of pilgrims and the advent of winter have led to an increased risk to the students. The edit added that the most important issue is to protect students from the epidemic. Thus, it called on parents to take all necessary measures to protect their children including cleanliness and to deal with any suspected cases calmly for there is no need to panic. "Parents should realise that extending the holiday or keeping children at home will not protect them from H1N1," the edit concluded. The collision of two Nile ferries near Rosetta city in Beheira governorate in north Egypt was regarded as a human catastrophe by the official daily Al-Ahram although there were no deaths. The newspaper called for reorganising Nile transportation to avoid a repetition of such accidents. It said passenger ferries which used to transport people between governorates are in need of reorganisation and continuous supervision from the local authorities especially in perilous areas like Rosetta. Thus, the edit added, we are in need of an official body that monitors the safety of boats and ferries and ensures that first aid procedures are in effect. In addition, we are in need of reorganising Nile transportation in general in order to fully benefit from such an important artery in transporting passengers and goods safely. In order to avoid similar incidents, the edit called for giving priority to reorganising transportation via the Nile and the cooperation among the ministries of transportation, irrigation, health and local bodies according to a carefully outlined plan that is regularly reviewed. The plan is important and urgent because the number of victims of accidents in Egypt is one of the highest worldwide and most accidents can be attributed to human error. Thus, accidents can be avoided by continuous supervision, introducing safety measures and retraining workers in various modes of transportation. The former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei was subjected to a fierce attack because he laid out a series of tough conditions before agreeing to run in the 2011 presidential elections. Alaa Uraibi wrote that the attack was not because of the conditions El-Baradei set, but because he dared to expose the political regime before the world. The state first welcomed the calls for El-Baradei's nomination because it expected that he would decline because either he was busy or because of his esteem for President Hosni Mubarak. But he surprised the regime by his conditional acceptance. By so doing, he proved that he is serious in responding to the calls for his nomination. "Thus it was expected that many newspaper articles and TV reports would tarnish El-Baradei's image by holding him responsible for the Iraq war, or the Iranian nuclear issue or accuse him of having dual nationality or that he is not aware of the problems of the people," Uraibi wrote in the daily Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the opposition Wafd Party. The reaction to the Swiss decision to ban building minarets continued this week. Essam Omran wrote that the Swiss decision together with the French decision to prevent students from wearing the hijab or head scarf underlined that the West's claims of respect for democracy and freedom are mere slogans and hollow words. "What harm would befall the European citizen if a mosque is built with a minaret or a Muslim lady wore a hijab ? Isn't that a personal choice?" Omran asked in the official daily Al-Gomhuriya. After these unfair decisions, it is difficult to believe the West's slogans and more important, we should expose them before the national as well as international public opinion, he added. Yasser Abdel-Aziz described the Swiss decision as a shock to the Islamic world, which received another jolt immediately afterwards when the result of another referendum in France showed that 41 per cent of the people participating were against building mosques in France and 46 per cent were against minarets. These consecutive actions against an Islamic cultural presence in the West points to a rejectionist trend among the public who read news like "flogging a Sudanese journalist for wearing trousers", "stoning a Somali woman for adultery", and "state bans churches from ringing their bells". "Public questionnaires show that the picture of Islam and Muslims has worsened in the wake of 9/11 and that should be a cause for concern. It should prompt us to look for ways to confront those who tarnish our image via black propaganda, chauvinistic practices and radical application of a religion that every sane person knows is based on tolerance and freedom," Abdel-Aziz wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom. Neither Makram Mohamed Ahmed, the current syndicate chairman, nor his opponent Diaa Rashwan managed to get the majority needed to get the position of Press Syndicate chairman for the next two years. As a result, a second round will be held on Sunday. Mohamed El-Shabba focussed on the fact that not all journalists cast their vote either because the result of the election was known in advance or because they are fed up with the promises of all the previous candidates that they will save the profession. The problem of the syndicate is not who its chairman is but how he thinks regarding its future and the future of the profession in general. The catastrophe is that the syndicate refuses to recognise that there is a new trend in journalism and still banks on national newspapers as the main source of votes that can help a candidate win the position of chairman. The sad truth is that half of all journalists who work in independent or electronic journalism are not syndicate members. "The problems of these journalists will aggravate unless the syndicate hastens to resolve them by drafting laws and regulations that could protect them from professional mistakes that happen too often," El-Shabba wrote in the independent daily Nahdet Masr. But the bigger catastrophe is that chairmen come and go and the syndicate is going from bad to worse. And they either do not believe that or decline to acknowledge it.
