CAIRO - Egypt's Finance Minister Youssef-Botrous Ghali is angry at US media for seeing what he called the “negative” parts of Egypt's political life only, vowing to use his position in the World Bank and his Christian faith to defend the Government in which he has served for more than 20 years now. Ghali said on Friday that a few American writers insisted on describing Egypt as a “backward” country and one that suffered political recession. “The people who write this rarely visit Egypt,” he said. “They do not know anything about the changes taking place here,” he added in a televised interview with Egypt's private Mehwar satellite TV. Ghali, a bespectacled old face in the Government who is always equipped with numbers and studies about economic growth rates and inflation, conceded that there is pressure on the Egyptian administration from other countries. He added that each of these countries wanted Egypt to take a particular course of action. “The fact is that in a country like Egypt change can only come from within,” Ghali said. “The people who live inside this country know it best,” he added. He downplayed the importance of the protests and worker-strikes that take place in Egypt day after day. He even said these protests and worker-strikes spoke for the presence of freedom in this populous Arab country. “We respond positively to those who have rights,” Ghali said. “We also say “No”to those who do not have rights,” he added. Referring to a recent article he contributed to the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/ content/article/2010/11/04/AR201 0110406655.html), Ghali said he decided to write the article to come to the defence of the Government, in which he served for more than 20 years. He disclosed that he had consulted with the Egyptian Minister of Information Anas el-Fiqqi before he wrote the article where he defended Egypt's political system and the developments happening in it. Egypt has recently come under attack from several American writers for what they described as the “lack” of political reform in it. Some of these writers have even lashed out at the Egyptian electoral system and the stagnant waters of its political life ( http://www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2010/11/12/AR2010111206448.ht m1).
