Gas pipeline explodes for 13th time THE GAS pipeline located in Arish which provides Israel and Jordan with natural gas was on 5 March bombed for the 13th time since the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. The attack was in the Massaeed area west of the Mediterranean coastal town of Arish in North Sinai. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, however there is one anonymous group believed to be responsible for the attack as well as the 12 others. Immediately after the attack, Abdel-Wahab Mabrouk, governor of North Sinai, along with the peninsula security head, Gaber El-Arabi, went to the site of the bomb blast. Egypt's 20-year gas deal with Israel, signed during the Mubarak era, was unacceptable to officials and activists who have accused Israel of not paying enough for the gas. At the same time, Egyptians criticise the fact that Egypt supplies Israel with gas amid a gas cylinder shortage throughout the country. The pipeline has been consistently attacked due to the lack of security in Sinai following Mubarak's ousting after the police presence decreased across Egypt. Previous explosions sometimes forced week-long shutdowns along the pipeline run by Gasco, a subsidiary of the national gas company EGAS. Gasco said it had resumed pumping gas to households and industrial factories in Arish and began experimental pumping to Jordan and Israel last week. The pipeline has been shut since the last explosion on 5 February. Tycoon might return to Egypt SPANISH authorities have agreed to extradite the business tycoon Hussein Salem, who fled after the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak. Salem was tried in absentia and received 15 years in jail for illegally acquiring public property, however, he has appealed the verdict. Omar Roshdi, the Foreign Ministry's plenipotentiary minister, revealed that the Spanish general prosecutor's office called the Egyptian ambassador in Madrid to notify him of the Spanish court's decision to send Salem and his son Khaled back to Egypt. Throughout the past 30 years, Salem who enjoyed close ties with Mubarak, is facing several charges of corruption and money laundering in Egypt and Spain. Salem has dual Spanish/Egyptian citizenship. His son and daughter, who were arrested in Spain last summer, are also accused of laundering some two billion euros. Egypt had requested Spain to extradite the family to face trial. Salem was arrested in his mansion in Majorca, Spain, in June of last year. FM radio station closes? MINISTER of Communication and Information Technology Ahmed Anis is expected to terminate the licence of radio station Nogoom FM frequency 100.6. Nogoom FM, the first privately owned radio station in the country, is owned by businessman Taher Helmi who was also a close friend of Gamal Mubarak, for president Hosni Mubarak's son. A source at the Ministry of Communications confirmed that negotiations are currently taking place between the government-owned Egyptian Television and Broadcast Services (ETBS) and the Nile Company for Broadcast Services (NCBS), the mother company of the station. The negotiations are about the renewal of the radio station's licence. The NCBS, Nogoum FM and its sister English radio station, Nile FM (frequency 104.2), operating under the NCBS, were formerly owned by media magnate Amr Adib, host of the Cairo Today show on the Saudi-owned private channel Orbit TV. Nogoum FM was authorised in 2003, making it the first privately owned station granted approval by the ETBS to air on Egyptian radio frequencies. Along with its sister station Nile FM, Nogoum FM, remains the only privately owned radio station granted approval by the ETBS.
