State-owned Al-Ahram starts off with a report on a mystery which overwhelmed yesterday's Israeli ministerial council meeting to discuss the extension of the settlement freeze. The report says that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was due to reach a final decision during the meeting on whether his state will freeze or resume the construction of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory. However, he instead issued an official statement urging Jewish settlers to display restraint, hours before the West Bank construction freeze was due to expire. The ten-month moratorium on building Israeli settlements, a result of US pressure on the Netanyahu coalition, ended on Sunday. Netanyahu's request, according to the report, seemed aimed to continue the direct peace talks between Palestine and Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened previously that he will quit the negotiations if the moratorium freeze is not extended. Moreover, in the Israeli Prime Minister's statement, he called on his ministers to refrain from making statements regarding the settlement constructions. On a different front, both state-owned and independent newspapers lead with news of a four-hour meeting headed by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif yesterday, in which Egypt's Council of Ministers agreed to invalidate the contract between the Urban Development Authority and Talaat Mustafa Group (TMG). However, state-run newspaper Al-Gomhorriya reports that the Urban Development Authority will resell the land to TMG under Article 31 of the amendment law of tenders and bids, which allows contracting through direct order under necessary conditions. Al-Ahram adds that the spokesman of the ministers council announced that no changes will be introduced to the provisions and texts of the previous contract between the Urban Development Authority and TMG, while the resale of the land will not be for less than LE9,979,200,000. Reporting on the same issue from a different angle, independent Al-Dostour writes that during the same meeting, one of the ministers, whose name the paper does not mention, strongly objected to the resolution, and demanded that the resale of the land be carried out through auction instead of by direct order. In other front-page news, Al-Shorouk, also independent, reports that Bishop Bishoy, secretary of the Coptic Church's Holy Synod, issued a statement on Sunday in which he expressed his respect for all Egyptians' religions, saying “Our Muslims brothers are our fellow citizens in our homeland.” The statement is a semi-apology, according to the report, for his controversial lecture at a Fayoum conference on 22 September, in which he described Muslims as “guests in Egypt.” The paper quotes him as saying, “The teachings of Jesus and the Apostles call on us to respect the other and I confirmed these principles in my lecture,” adding that he did not mention the Quran except during his speech last week in Scotland, in which he condemned the idea of burning the copies of Quran by Western extremists. Al-Dostour, who also runs the story, bears on the top of its front page the headline: “Bishop Bishoy did not officially apologize.” The paper, which does not add anything substantial to this news, reports that Bishoy endorsed a statement issued by the Islamic Research Academy last Sunday, calling for the Bishop's apology for his “offensive words to Islam” as well as demanding that Muslim and Christian thinkers regard the religious beliefs of Egyptians as a “red line” that cannot be crossed. Egypt's papers: Al-Ahram: Daily, state-run, largest distribution in Egypt Al-Akhbar: Daily, state-run, second to Al-Ahram in institutional size Al-Gomhorriya: Daily, state-run Rose el-Youssef: Daily, state-run, close to the National Democratic Party's Policies Secretariat Al-Dostour: Daily, privately owned Al-Shorouk: Daily, privately owned Al-Wafd: Daily, published by the liberal Wafd Party Al-Arabi: Weekly, published by the Arab Nasserist party Youm7: Weekly, privately owned Sawt el-Umma: Weekly, privately owned
