Doaa El-Bey sensed good vibrations emanating from the G20 summit, which could not be said for the Arab summit Writers who had time to look back at the Arab summit in Doha, Qatar, differ in their assessment of its outcome. Makram Mohamed Ahmed wrote that nobody could have hoped that the Doha summit would achieve beyond what it had already achieved, under the difficult circumstances surrounding its convening. It was good enough that the summit did not broaden the current rift between the Arabs or issue resolutions that could spoil possible Arab détente. However, in light of present Arab differences, Ahmed believes that what we need as Arabs is honesty and openness in examining all our differences in depth, rather than managing them especially if what the Arab leaders said in the summit was true. They reiterated agreement on their goals and interests and on most of their disagreements. In addition, every leader in the summit spoke about the necessity of reconciliation and the need to accelerate it, because Arabs cannot endure such differences in the face of current challenges. "We need frankness and honesty in order to draw up a roadmap of available options for the Arabs to face Israel's increasing extremism, the squandering of Palestinians' rights, rejection of any form of peaceful settlement, continuous building of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and finally the advent of a radical right-wing government," Ahmed wrote in the official daily Al-Ahram. Amin Mohamed Amin summed up the results of the Doha summit in Al-Ahram. He wrote that the only achievement of the summit was the signing of a document boosting reconciliation and Arab solidarity. However, Tunisian President Zein Al-Abidine Bin Ali did not sign it because of its similarity to the document of détente and solidarity signed by Arab leaders at the Tunis summit in 2004 and which was never implemented. The other achievement at Doha was the approval of the leaders to raise the Arab league budget to $51 million, an increase of $5 million. But the summit failed to present any financial support for the main cause of the Arabs' dilemma -- Palestine -- except the support pledged in the Kuwait summit and still not paid. The summit was overshadowed by surprises starting by the presence of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, the refusal to hold an emergency summit in Khartoum to support him, and Arab opposition to the International Criminal Court arrest warrant of Al-Bashir without reference to its annulment, a move which should have been taken. But the biggest of all surprises was the attack and call for reconciliation made by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi towards Saudi King Abdullah which the writer considered the most important achievement of the summit. Meanwhile, "the summit did not solve other issues, in particular the integration of Arab reconciliation, and the method of dealing with disagreements between Egypt and Qatar, Algeria and Morocco, as well as the methods for dealing with the ideological, sectarian and ethnic differences which threaten a number of countries. Also it did not deal with how to face regional interventions," Amin wrote. Mohamed El-Shabba described the Doha summit as a hollow television show that ended the way it began. It left the worst and most dangerous issues in Darfur, Palestine and Somalia unresolved. He compared it to the G20 summit during which the US president issued the strongest statement about Darfur. He said saving Darfur is a humanitarian international responsibility. Sublime dialogue and creative understanding were the characteristics of the G20 which showed signs of social solidarity that was absent in Doha. "The Doha summit failed to issue a statement or project support for the Somali people who are suffering from civil war, poverty and backwardness," El-Shabba wrote in the independent daily Nahdet Masr. The fires that erupted in several places in Egypt this week raised many questions. Mohamed Boghdadi wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom that most of the fires could have been avoided or at least extinguished quicker. He blamed poor Egyptian performance in dealing with fires because according to some victims, fire engines usually arrive late, and are either carrying too little water, so must go collect water from the nearest fire station, or their hoses are in poor shape. In two of the major fires this week, it was a clear case of arson in which the perpetrators committed their crimes without any fear of the government, a fact that, according to the writer, should shed light on the government which is not firm enough in punishing the perpetrators of such vengeful crimes. Abbas El-Tarabili looked at ways to protect historic buildings in downtown Cairo after fire gutted one in Ramses Street. The buildings were the property of the government until it turned over the responsibility of managing and maintaining them to insurance companies. However, most of these buildings do not render enough revenues that can cover the cost of their maintenance. El-Tarabili suggested that a plan to let the present tenants of these buildings own them could be a good solution. The tenant can pay the insurance companies in instalments over 20 years; half the revenues can go to the maintenance and the other half to the companies. Owners of shops can earmark part of their income to installing early warning fire systems and providing fire fighting equipment. Moreover, the government needs to build more fire stations in downtown Cairo because fire stations in Tahrir and Ataba are not enough. It also needs to provide the stations with fire engines with ladders and water reservoirs. The engines must move quickly to the site of the fire, El-Tarabili wrote in the daily Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of Al-Wafd Party. Wagdi Riad wrote about the thorny issue of Vietnamese fish which were claimed to be unsuitable for human consumption. Although the minister of agriculture quickly declared the claim false, people refrained from buying and our embassy in Hanoi stopped authorising Egyptian customs to release the imported fish. The writer pointed to the contradictory stand between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Egyptian embassy in Hanoi and to the quick confirmation from the ministries of agriculture and health that the fish are 100 per cent suitable for human consumption. Riad also expressed his concern that the committee formed of representatives from the ministries of agriculture, health and trade who were supposed to travel to Vietnam to inspect fish farms had not yet left. Although the writer received confirmation from the Ministry of Health and from one of the importers of the fish that it is not contaminated, Riad said in the official daily Al-Akhbar that he believed the truth about the Vietnamese fish is still lost at sea.
