CAIRO: The American University in Cairo (AUC) again denied reports by independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, binding it with the US Army through a federal contract. AUC said that a federal contract stipulating it "provide consultations and administrative services for the US Army in exchange of a monetary amount is a mistake. "We were alerted with this story late [Sunday] by Al-Masry Al-Youm and we informed them at that time we could not identify the contract and asked that they wait until we were able to determine if it was factual, said Nanci Martin, associate vice-president for institutional development at AUC. "We have now been able to check and I was just informed [by usaspending.gov] that the listing was a mistake and AUC did not receive this grant, she said, "we regret that the newspaper did not wait to ensure that its facts were accurate before going to print. The contract published in Monday's edition, was also provided by the America in Arabic news agency, and further implies that there are discreet deals and a hidden agenda between the university and the US government. The US Embassy refused to comment on the issue, instead advising Daily News Egypt to contact AUC. In its report, the America in Arabic news agency said that it received a summary of the contract from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), a governmental body providing the public with more than 12 million contracts signed by all US departments since 2004. In a statement released by the Student Union, the representative body of AUC students, they explained the impact those reports had on the university. "We believe that what happened damaged the reputation of AUC and its students, most of whom are Egyptians and all of whom are patriotic. In addition, the safety of students, either on or off campus, was also threatened due to the misinformation published in the media with no concrete evidence, the statement read. They also demanded that AUC be transparent in its partnerships to avoid any type of misinterpretation. In his Monday column titled "AUC.in defense of transparency, Magdy El-Gallad, editor-in-chief of Al-Masry Al-Youm, discussed AUC's insinuations of a conspiracy theory behind Al-Masry Al-Youm's "exclusive reports. He also accused Washington of preaching concepts of freedom of the press and transparency to the world and at the same time blaming "an independent paper for publishing an article about an unannounced deal between a civil body (AUC) and a military body (the Pentagon.) El-Gallad also claimed that AUC was forced to admit to the deals, after initially denying them. His words conflict with the fact that the university had released a statement on March 30, the day the first article was published, explaining that AUC is in agreement with the US Naval Medical Research Unit in Egypt (NAMRU - 3) to recruit and provide scientific staff in support of infectious disease research throughout the region, specifically relating to Avian Flu.
