State-owned daily Al-Ahram tops its front page with news relating to the African Union summit taking place in Kampala, Uganda. President Hosni Mubarak isn’t attending, sending Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif instead as head of the Egyptian delegation. But despite his absence Mubarak still weighed in on the state of the continent; Al-Ahram’s top story quotes Mubarak as reaffirming Egypt’s commitment to aiding fellow African countries and appealing for them to “protect women and children from armed conflicts.”
Further down the front page, Al-Ahram brings us comments from Minister of Housing Ahmed el-Maghrabi, saying that 20 percent of the state budget goes toward health system expenses and the cost of providing clean drinking water.
Al-Ahram also devotes front-page space to what could become a mushrooming controversy in US and Middle Eastern politics. Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, a close friend of President Obama dating back to their days together at the University of Chicago, intends to take part in yet another siege-busting Gaza aid flotilla. Khalidi’s friendship with Obama became an issue late in the 2008 campaign when John McCain’s camp attempted to use it to cast doubt on Obama’s loyalties.
Privately-owned daily Al-Dostour brings us more comments from Ali Eddin Hillal, the National Democratic Party’s primary spokesman. Hillal seems to have been unleashed these days, providing aggressive new quotes almost daily. In Monday’s article, Hillal seems focused on internal NDP politics, saying that, as long as the current president is still with us, any discussion of future leadership of the party is rude and inappropriate.
Elsewhere Al-Dostour provides details on a rare happy moment between the Wafd Party and the Muslim Brotherhood. New Wafd leader el-Sayyed el-Badawy traveled to the Brotherhood’s headquarters in Manial to visit Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie. Of course it remains to be seen what concrete developments will come out of the meeting, but the mere fact that el-Badawy met Badie (and the symbolic respect paid by meeting him on Brotherhood turf) indicates that harsh relations between the two venerable Egyptian political heavyweights may be softening a little.
(Strangely, the Wafd’s Party’s own mouth-piece newspaper doesn’t carry any news of the Badie-Badawy summit or its implications. But in fairness, this might be due to earlier production deadlines.)
Al-Dostour’s editor-in-chief Ibrahim Eissa’s front page editorial discusses the current international obsession with Mubarak’s health and the future of a post-Mubarak Egypt. With typical Eissa flair, the headline reads, “Western reports on a family farm called Egypt.”
“[The Western press] writes, referring to intelligence officials and diplomatic sources, that there is fear of chaos after Mubarak,” Eissa says. “But Gamal Abdel Nasser died and Egypt continued, and [Anwar] Sadat died and Egypt remained stable. And Mubarak will die and Egypt will weep. But Egypt will live on.”
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-Shorouq: 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
