Close call IN A TELEPHONE conversation that has broken the ice, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad called President Hosni Mubarak Saturday to express condolences over the loss of lives from the Dweiqa rockslide. It was the first time the Egyptian and Syrian presidents had talked in over a year after ties were downgraded from warm to lukewarm due to differences over a set of regional political issues including relations with Iran, support of the Islamist political movements Hizbullah and Hamas, and the exercise of Syrian political influence in Lebanon. The cold rapport between the two countries prevented the participation of President Mubarak at the Arab summit chaired by Syria in March of this year and produced a cold handshake between the two leaders in Paris in July when Mubarak was co- chairing the first summit of the Union for the Mediterranean with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy. Mubarak and Al-Assad held no meetings in Paris despite their joint participation in the Mediterranean summit. It is not clear whether Al-Assad's phone call will produce a breakthrough. Doha is currently trying to mediate a better rapport between Cairo and Damascus but the efforts of Qatar could meet the same fate as previous attempts exerted by Algeria, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Libya. Pirates to be paid ASSISTANT Foreign Minister Ahmed Rizq has said intensive negotiations were being held with pirates who hijacked an Egyptian ship off Somali shores this week. Rizq said Egyptian authorities had reliable information that the 25 Egyptians on board the ship were in good condition. A ransom of an unspecified amount that has been demanded will be paid in return for the sailors and their ship. Riot from rumour A PRISON riot and an attempted jailbreak in Assiut failed after the killing of one prisoner. More than 25 people were injured in Monday's incident. The Interior Ministry said the riot broke out after a rumour spread among inmates that one of them, identified as Ali Mohamed Abdel-Salam, had died after being tortured. Three officers were taken hostage and several prisoners attempted to break through the main gates before being captured. Lieutenant General Mohsen Murad, security director for the province, said one prisoner was killed and more than 25 inmates and three prison guards were injured during the clash. Some 2,000 security forces used tear gas to quell the rioters. The hostages have since been freed. Assiut is 320 kilometres south of Cairo. Cost of cheating FOURTEEN people, including officials and parents, received jail sentences ranging from three to 15 years for involvement in leaking secondary school, or thanawiya aama, exams, Reem Leila reports. The Minya Criminal Court on Monday convicted the group for trying to cheat in the dreaded thanawiya aama exams which largely determine a student's future. The court found the accused guilty of having organised the leaks, which damaged the principle of equality of opportunity between pupils, in English and mathematics tests held in June. Ezzat Khalil Mansour, head of Minya's examinations committee, was jailed for 15 years. A friend, Ayman Rabie, was given 10 years for having bought exam papers for LE300 and subsequently selling them. Four of the accused, including a policeman and a headmaster, were jailed for seven years and fined LE5,000 each. Others, including parents who bought the exam answers, were jailed for periods ranging from three to five years. Five suspects were acquitted, including the owner of a bookshop whose photocopier was used to copy the exams. Allegations that the thanawiya aama, Egypt's feared national high school certificate exam, was leaked in June in Minya triggered a flurry of condemnations, an arrest and overdue government intervention. Minya police questioned a number of students who bought the exam, the majority of which were children of police officers. When the story broke, Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud said the problem was limited to Minya and did not affect the majority of the 800,000 pupils who sat for the exams nationwide. According to a press statement issued by the Ministry of Education at the time, a special committee of high-level officials from the ministry was sent to the thanawiya aama exam administration in Minya to monitor the distribution of the exams. In addition, another committee, led by the head of the legal department at the ministry, was sent to Minya to investigate and report directly to Education Minister Yossri El-Gamal. The ministry also decided that the Minya exams will be graded by a special committee to check for similar answers and indications of cheating.
