Nazif to Cabinet: Hold your tongues

STILL SUFFERING FROM blinding headaches and grand mal seizures when you recall former Prime Minister Atef Ebeids rosy promises, purple prose and syrupy-sweet statements about his governments accomplishments? Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief: Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif is schooling his Cabinet in a new code of conduct.

Nazifs order to his new recruits is that they avoid making anything even remotely resembling pie-in-the-sky promises particularly about the economy as a first step toward recapturing some public confidence.

(If Ebeid is worried well suffer withdrawal symptoms from the sudden end to our sugar-coated diet, he can always head to the recording studio and put his soothing words on tape. It would be a chart-topping bestseller, were sure.)

Nazif wasnt done with his pupils, though; his second piece of advice was about the virtues of humility. The PM, it seems, isnt about to spoil his ministers rotten: Security details have just gotten radically smaller.

Thats right, folks: Gone are the days of interminably long motorcades of Mercedes and black Cherokees filled with gun-toting bodyguards ordering you to the side of the road. From now on, Nazif said, an official car with a driver and bodyguard will do for the average member of Cabinet; the ministers of interior and foreign affairs are the only exceptions to the rule.

An advertising billboard goes up in front of the Pyramids (Amr Nabil/Associated Press)

There was no word at press time on whether those who have been left out are planning an appeal to the Supreme Constitutional Court on the grounds that the decree violates the constitutions provisions on equal treatment for all

IF YOU THOUGHT Nazifs belief that he can restore Cabinets credibility an ambitious notion, wait until you hear the latest from Ummah Party head Ahmed El-Sabahy.

You remember El-Sabahy, right? He last graced the pages of Newsreel with his suggestion that the Ebeid government fund a national project to interpret the political meanings of citizens dreams. (The project was based on a manuscript El-Sabahy had penned.)

This time around, our favorite political entertainer is back with a suggestion that Atef Ebeid use his last hours in office to issue a prime ministerial decree amending the elections law to include new sanctions up to and including the death penalty for those involved in electoral fraud.

(Egypt Today Archives) Sherif El-Shobashy

Thats one way to get some fresh blood into the political system; Ebeid, it seems, wasnt terribly interested.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH can call off the dogs Supreme Council for Antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass has good news for us about our ancestors.

At a seminar last month, Hawass declared that new scientific research has proven that the builders of the Pyramids of Giza were strong young workers who came, for the most part, from prominent families in the Kingdoms southern reaches. The notion that the Pyramids were built by slaves who worked for meager wages of bread and salt, Hawass claimed, is nothing less than an historical fallacy.

Next up: Hawass leads a team of scientists to prove the enthusiastic young workers survived primarily on a diet of caviar and crème brulée

(Mohsen Allam/Egypt Today) Misr 2000, anyone?

GONE ARE THE days of oppression and suffering if not for the average Egyptian, then at least for the nations donkeys.

Last month, a new home-grown NGO burst onto the stage claiming it would defend the nations hemir, working to ensure that every donkey and its family have the right to food, shelter and proper treatment.

Dr. Adel Keshk, the new groups chairman and head of the Giza Governorates Department of Veterinary Medicine, says the donkey lovers NGO will not rest until it restores the donkeys right to humane treatment.

Its outreach program includes a fully equipped mobile clinic already roaming Giza and Qalyoubia, handing out free medical and surgical treatment to ailing donkeys it spots in the streets. It has already treated a veritable herd of hemir, Keshk says. Most of those treated so far were reportedly suffering from beatings and malnutrition.

(Courtesy Min. of Tourism) Ahmed El-Maghrabi

And dont you dare describe donkeys as stupid beasts of burden: Keshk told a news conference last month that the brain of the average donkey is remarkably similar to that of a horse. Most hemir, he added, are smart enough to find their way to and from their homes and farms by themselves.

So heres a healthcare reform bill for you: Reclassify everyone without access to quality medical care as donkeys, then hand them over to Keshk.

YOU MAY WANT to think twice before wishing your co-workers a cheery Sabah el-kheir! in the morning, says writer and self-appointed moral guardian Bakr Abu Zeid, who claims that even a simple Sabah el-nour can be your very own one-way ticket to Hell.

Abu Zeids theories were delivered fresh to readers of Ambassador Adel El-Safdys weekly column in Al-Akhbar daily.

The cost of calls to Arab countries is set to fall (Dana Smillie/Egypt Today)

Sabah el-nour and sabah el-kheir, El-Safdy quotes Abu Zeid as saying, are actually curses because they symbolize the Magist salute (the Magi were members of the hereditary priestly class of the ancient Persians and Medes).

Dont believe him? Well, it seems Abu Zeid is the author of Moagem el-Manahy el-Lafzia (The Encyclopedia of Forbidden Words) and hey, that means the man must be on to something, right?

El-Safdy closed his column wondering about Sabah el-qeshta. Now were hardly as learned as the authors of encyclopedias, Mr. Ambassador, but were betting youll want to stay away from that one, too: After all, qeshta is cream, cream comes from cows, and cows are sacred in India

ABU ZEID MAY want to censor a few words from our vocabulary, but Sherif El-Shobashy, first secretary at the Ministry of Culture, wants to give the entire Arabic language a facelift, making it more flexible, trendier and a little less complicated.

The cost of calls to Arab countries is set to fall (Dana Smillie/Egypt Today)

As if being in the hot-seat over antiquities missing from the Egyptian Museum wasnt enough, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny found himself being grilled by an MP in the court of public opinion last month as Alexandria MP Hamdi Hassan assailed the linguistic theories in El-Shobashys book Letahia El-Logha El-Arabia yasqout seibou (Long Live the Arabic Language).

Hassan growled that El-Shobashy was being completely illogical by comparing Arabic to English and French, let alone questioning the languages rich vocabulary.

Since more is always better, Hassan says, El-Shobashy had no reason to complain that Arabic includes some 1.9 million words compared with 300,000 in French and just 250,000 in English. Moreover, the MP took issue with the cultural administrators discomfort with the fact that many words in Arabic have far too many meanings, only complicating a language whose grammatical rules including noun el-neswa and el-mothana make it unacceptable in an age of technology.

Perhaps, Hassan concluded, Hosny would be better off telling El-Shobashy to focus on devising his own funky language instead of picking on the language of the Quran.

POOR MISR 2000: The nascent political party took the time to print a newspaper, but couldnt find anyone to read it.

According to party chieftain Fawzi Gazal, the weekly paper folded after just 17 issues (and LE 60,000 in losses) because it couldnt find proper distribution channels. (It had nothing to do with the papers inability to pay its journalists salaries, of course.)

Gazals creative solution to get the paper back on the streets: Enlist volunteers to sell copies to passers-by on the streets.

LAST MONTHS CABINET shuffle brought muckraking opposition MP Ayman Nour (a Newsreel favorite of sorts) a brand new target of opportunity: Freshly minted Minister of Tourism Ahmed El-Maghrabi has (at least temporarily) replaced Youssef Boutros-Ghali as Nours favorite punching bag.

How is it, Nour wondered, that we strip MPs of their seats for holding dual citizenship, but we allow cabinet members to be something other than 100 percent Egyptian?

So began Nours questioning of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, demanding to know why El-Maghrabi (who inherited Saudi citizenship from his grandfather) was allowed a seat in cabinet despite a Higher Administrative Court ruling saying that members of the PA cannot hold anything other than Egyptian citizenship?

Sources tell us El-Maghrabi was the last to accept his cabinet post because he was worried about headaches like this. Now that hes in the lions den, he might want to start stocking up on Panadol Extra.

AT LEAST ONE NEW member of cabinet is already collecting brownie points from the nations students.

Minister of Transportation Essam Sharaf won hearts last month with one of his first acts in office when he overturned his predecessors decree ordering a 30-40 percent increase in the price of a student railway pass.

The National Railway Authority had earlier begged then-Minister of Transportation Hamdy El-Shayeb (now deceased) to jack up fees for student and public-sector employee rail passes.

Sharaf promptly declared he would focus on finding creative ways of improving the railways services rather than adding to citizens burdens.

With students off the hook, were waiting for the stampede as public-sector employees apply for night school.

NANCY AGRAM and her fellow pop starlets are officially personae non grata on state television.

Last month, state-run Channel 7, which broadcasts programming targeting Upper Egyptians, announced it would no longer air risqué video clips.

Agram and her ilk, a channel spokesman said, are simply too offensive to the traditions of Upper Egyptians.

Until she and her naughty friends start donning galabeyyas and the burqa, it seems, the boycott will go on.

IF YOU THOUGHT Channel 7 was tough, you aint seen nothin yet: Students at Zagazig University are facing a new, mandatory course this fall.

Zagazig University President Abdel Hamid Fayed declared last month that students in every one of the universitys faculties will be taking a mandatory pass-fail course in human rights when term starts. The course will run two hours a week for the full academic year and will be based on a new textbook prepared by experts in the field.

Maybe Zagazigs students will pick up enough human rights law to help Agram prepare her freedom of expression lawsuit against Channel 7?

AS A TRIBUTE to Ahmed Nazifs last days as a lowly cabinet minister, we have some quality news for our favorite e-minister.

The Council of the Arab Ministers of Communication voted last month to cut the cost of calls between Arab countries. According to a statement released by the Council (by e-mail, of course), the decision should translate into a 70 percent cut for landline-to-landline calls and a 50 percent dip in the cost of calling from mobile-to-mobile.

Now we can talk freely to our Arab brothers about the joys of an Arab Common Market, Arab solidarity and Arab unity for as long as we want.

WERE A LITTLE hesitant to make fun of e-government; after all, we have a soft spot for Dr. Ahmed, our first e-prime minister, and his vow to bring us kicking and screaming into the electronic age.

For a while now, weve all been able to request a new national ID card, apply for courses, get exam marks, and pay phone bills over the net. Now, it seems, the good people at the Traffic Authority are online, too: As of last month, you can pay your traffic fines online.

Were not so sure this particular initiative will be a resounding success, though. Last we checked, people preferred to pay their fines in person, all the better to appeal to the district prosecutors better nature and get a discount on those (heavily inflated) fines. You know the ones were talking about: that LE 1,000 infraction you apparently got in Zamalek last month when you havent left Nasr City and Heliopolis since Sadat was president?

It seems Minister of State for Administrative Development Ahmed Darwish had the same concerns. As the local press ridiculed the traffic fine program, Darwish announced he had already spoken with the Prosecutor Generals Office and devised a program under which those wishing to contest their fines online could e-mail the district prosecutor to request a break.

Prosecutors in El-Agouza Traffic Office are already testing the system.

What more could you ask for? Coffee or tea while you wait for a response? Surely that, too, is just a click away e-government is at your service. et