Premier's wife dies PRIME Minister Ahmed Nazifs wife, Mona El-Sayed Abdel-Fattah, died on Tuesday. Abdel-Fattah, 57, had been suffering from cancer. She was the principal of Manor House School in 6 October governorate. President Hosni Mubarak attended the funeral that was held on Tuesday. Brazil backs Hosni BRAZIL has officially announced its full support for Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, Egypts candidate for the post of UNESCO director-general in elections scheduled for October this year. Brazil is a prominent member of the executive board of UNESCO, exercising a measure of influence on other South American countries which are also expected to announce their support for Hosni in the near future. Hossam Nasser, the minister of cultures consultant for international affairs, said that Cuba and the Dominican Republic had previously endorsed Hosni along with African, Arab, Asian and European countries. In recent Arab and African summits, leaders expressed their backing of Hosni. Gas hearing stopped AMID unprecedented security, the Supreme Administrative Court heard the governments appeal contesting a ruling which banned the export of natural gas to Israel. At the end of the hearing, the presiding judge motioned to block the lawsuit after plaintiffs asked that the current court panel be replaced, alleging that a court panel member was a legal advisor of the presidency bureau. More than 20 security trucks surrounded the court early in the morning. Camera crews were banned from entering the courtroom. A planned sit-in by campaigners of no for gas setback was derailed by security personnel who reportedly attacked some campaign members. In November last year, the Administrative Court banned the export of Egyptian natural gas to Israel. Inside job POLICE ARE holding in custody the alleged killer of a bank executive who was stabbed to death. Hala Fayeq, head of Bank Misr's credit department, was found stabbed to death in her Giza residence on Sunday morning. On Tuesday, police officials announced that the suspected murderer, Sameh Naguib Mohamed, the husband of Fayeq's maid, had been arrested. It is not yet known whether the maid collaborated with her husband but she remains in custody as the Weekly went to print. According to police reports, Mohamed confessed to the murder. He said he had stabbed Fayeq as she opened her apartment door, took her safe deposit keys from her purse and about LE4,000, then took off. The murder weapon, a Swiss knife, was found with his brother. Fayeq was the owner of the flat. Her 90-year-old mother came to live with her three days before the murder but she did not witness the crime or suspect anything unusual happening in the house at the time. Her maid said she found Fayeq's body lying in a pool of blood when she came for work on Sunday morning. Fayeq's neighbour, a doctor, was called in but it was too late. Quick conviction IN A RARE first session verdict, the Cairo Criminal Court on Saturday found the engineer who killed his family members in January guilty and sentenced him to death. It was one of the few times when a ruling was passed in the first session of a murder trial. During the hearing, which began at noon, Sherif Kamaleddin, sitting in a wheelchair behind bars, confessed to the grisly murders, describing the incident in detail without apparently showing any remorse. Kamaleddin submitted to the presiding judge a letter which he wrote himself affirming his guilt and calling for his execution. Representative of the general prosecution stressed that all the evidence, first and foremost his confession, convicted the suspect. Kamaleddin hit each of his victims on the head with an ax, then cut his arteries. He was hospitalised but was left crippled from the self-inflicted injury. First-aid kit free THE MINISTRY of Interior has started distributing first-aid kits and reflective stop triangles for free to drivers. A press release issued by the ministry said only drivers who are renewing their licenses or issuing them will get the two items free of charge. The countrys traffic departments have announced that the ministry will continue distributing the equipment for the next 12 months. Drivers who fail to produce either item during that time will not be fined. Major General Kamel Yassin, head of the Giza Traffic Department, said drivers whose licence renewal is due after more than one year will be requested individually to visit the traffic departments to which they are affiliated to acquire the kits and stop sign. But a LE100 fine will be paid if the vehicle owner does not possess them while renewing the licence after the beginning of May 2010, says Yassin.
