DROWNED, over 1,000 passengers aboard the ferry Al-Salam Boccaccio 98, which sunk in the Red Sea off the coast of Safaga in February. The ferry’s captain was initially blamed for the catastrophe, which began when a fire broke out aboard the ship. Ferry owner and Shura Council member Mamdouh Ismail denied charges of corporate negligence, saying the captain was clearly responsible.

The disaster caused an unprecedented public outcry as authorities were criticized for allowing a 35-year-old vessel that was allegedly in poor condition to leave its port in the first place. A People’s Assembly committee later accused the Egyptian Authority for Maritime Safety of not enforcing regulations on the number of passengers aboard as well as the number and quality of available lifeboats.

The ferry began to sink on February 3 at 1:30am, but the captain failed to turn the boat back to Duba, Saudi Arabia, or to send any distress signal until 3:09am. The ferry owners failed to contact the authorities for at least six hours, and search and rescue teams did not begin to arrive for another seven and a half hours.

BOMBED, during the Sham El-Nessim holiday in April, the Red Sea resort town of Dahab, in a series of three blasts. The bombs killed 24 people. Authorities blamed members of the previously unknown terror group Al-Tawheed wa Al-Jihad for the bombings. See our story on the bombings on page 114.

PERISHED, 58 train passengers and tens more injured in August when a train packed with commuters ploughed into another one which had stopped just outside a station in Qalyoub, 20 kilometers north of Cairo. Carriages transporting morning rush-hour riders were derailed and overturned, causing one train to catch fire.

Initial reports suggested one of the trains had failed to heed a stop signal outside Qalyoub train station, while later speculation claimed the drivers were given two sets of contradicting instructions. A police investigation later led to the arrest of 14 employees of the Egyptian National Railway (ENR) on charges of negligence. A People’s Assembly report on the crash blamed human, technical and administrative failures, including a breakdown in the railway’s signaling mechanism. The prosecutor’s office judged that officials failed to repair technical equipment that control train signals.

Hasan Jamali Will the Qalyoub train accident finally bring about long-overdue railway reform?

Families of each victim who died in the crash will receive LE 5,000 while those injured will receive LE 1,000.

The incident, which brought back painful — not to mention angry — memories of 2002’s train crash in which more than 370 passengers burned alive, seems to have woken the government to the need to overhaul the nation’s antiquated rail network, with authorities vowing to pull together LE 8.4 billion for the purpose.

After firing ENR head Hanafi Abdel Qawi, Transport Minister Mohamed Mansour announced he wanted a cut from the proceeds from the LE 16.7 billion sale of Egypt’s third mobile phone license to help pay for the rail revamp. Nearly LE 5 billion will be set aside, and the government will borrow the remaining LE 3.45 billion Mansour says he needs.

The funds will pay to upgrade equipment, improve maintenance and revamp old engines or buy new ones, Mansour said. It would also go toward installing automated crossings and linking the rail networks by computer.

SENTENCED, MP Talaat Sadat, to one year in prison for insulting the military, in October. The outspoken MP, who had gained notoriety for successfully defending the man charged with the Bani Mazar mass murders early in the year, was arrested after making statements on satellite TV implying top Egyptian army officials had conspired to assassinate his uncle, the late President Anwar Sadat. Although his parliamentary immunity was stripped before his arrest, at press time the People’s Assembly had not decided whether or not to strip Talaat Sadat of his seat in parliament. The Sadat family has distanced themselves from Talaat’s statements, saying he “is not authorized to speak about the president’s history.”

Nasser Nouri Thousands converged on the North Coast for the solar eclipse.

MINTED, new LE 1 and 50 piaster coins. The coins have not found their way into widespread circulation, possibly because they are redundant with the LE 1 and 50 piaster bills, which are still being printed.

CHARGED, Sawt Al-Ummah Executive Editor-in-Chief Wael El-Ibrashi, with libel, for publishing a “blacklist” of judges suspected to have colluded in vote tampering during the 2005 parliamentary elections. Although civil suits and misdemeanor charges for libel are not uncommon occurrences in Egypt, El-Ibrashi has the dubious honor of having been the first journalist in recent history to be charged with felony libel.

GRANTED, to a consortium led by Emirati telecom operator Etisalat, the license to operate the third mobile telephone network in Egypt. The license went for an unprecedented LE 16.7 billion and included permission to operate 3G technology, which allows users to simultaneously send voice and non-voice information such as video and email. Etisalat had not announced the name of the new network by press time, and industry analysts believe the launch is unlikely to take place as scheduled in the first quarter of 2007.

PASSED AWAY, three close friends of Egypt Today. Mohamed Ragheb, former editorial director of et, helped make the magazine what it is today with his careful focus on Egyptian issues through his outstanding writing and talented editing. David Glen Petrescue, the exceptionally popular and beloved pastor of the Maadi Community church and a regular attendee of our parent company IBA’s monthly business luncheon, also died last year in a tragic accident at his Cairo home. He is survived by his wife and three children. Lastly, freelance photographer Khatchig Wanis, whose work raised party photography to a new art form, was a regular contributor to Egypt Today as well as Al-Ahram Hebdo. He died of a suspected heart attack while on a family vacation on the Sinai Peninsula. They will all be dearly missed.

EXECUTED, brothers Ezzat and Hamdi Hanafi in an Alexandria prison in June. The notorious Nekheila druglords made headlines in March 2004 after a days-long standoff with police in which they captured and threatened to execute tens of hostages from Nekheila in Upper Egypt. Authorities have claimed that leading members of the Hanafi clan have set up one of the biggest drug-trafficking operations in the country by forcefully misappropriating government-owned land to cultivate opium and marijuana.

Ariel Schalit No time for losers ‘cause we are the champions.

RELOCATED, the statue of Ramses II from the congested downtown square that remains its namesake to a more peaceful home near the Pyramids on August 25. The 3,200-year-old granite statue, which weighs some 125 tons, had been guarding Ramses Square since the early 1950s when it was taken from a temple at the site of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.

It had suffered greatly from the exhaust fumes from trains, cars and buses, the poor general air quality and vibrations from the Metro station under the square. Thousands of people showed up to watch the king’s slow early-morning procession through the city, carried by two specially rigged trucks. The process was also broadcast live on Egyptian terrestrial television.

SHAKEN UP, the leadership of the secular opposition Wafd party during an extensive power struggle which culminated in an armed assault on the Wafd party headquarters in April. The conflict between supporters of Noman Gomaa, the deposed party chief, and those of Mahmoud Abaza, his interim replacement, saw at least 23 people injured and at least one killed, as well as the arrest of Gomaa and 13 others on manslaughter, assault and gun charges. The 72-year-old Gomaa was later released on LE 100,000 bail for health reasons. Mostafa El-Taweel, previous head of the Alexandrian branch of the Wafd, was ultimately recognized as the legitimate president of the party by the Shura Council’s Political Parties Affairs Committee.

ANNOUNCED, the opening of the first Google office in the Middle East. At press time, the world’s leading search engine had charged Sherif Iskander, the regional head for Google Middle East and North Africa, to manage Google’s Cairo office, which will concentrate on the company’s Arabic services.

DISAPPEARED, the Sun from the daytime sky during a rare total solar eclipse in late March. Although the eclipse was visible from the more populated areas of the Nile valley, the event drew gawkers to the Libyan border, which witnessed the greatest duration of total eclipse.

LOST AND FOUND, 11 students from Mansoura University in August. The runaways were part of a group of 17 students who were supposed to be attending an exchange program at Montana State University. All of the students arrived in New York on July 29, but only six made it from there to Montana. The wayward students were rounded up in groups of twos and threes across the country after attempting to hide from authorities and look for work so they could stay in the US indefinitely.

WON, the Africa Cup of Nations by the Egyptian national soccer team. The tournament, hosted in Egypt for the first time in ten years, ended with a shootout between Egypt and Côte d’Ivoire. See our article on the Year in Sports, page 112.

PASSED, the Consumer Protection Law, which went into effect August 21. Since last summer, the “Sold Goods Can Be Neither Returned Nor Exchanged” signs gracing many storefronts have all come down, with consumers guaranteed the right to return or exchange defective goods within 14 days from the date of purchase.

SOLD, a majority stake in Egypt’s Bank of Alexandria to Italy’s Sanpaolo IMI in October. With 188 branches and assets worth $6.9 billion, BOA, which was established in 1957, has five percent of the local banking market. Sanpaolo, which paid for $1.8 billion for its new purchase, beat out Egypt’s Commercial International Bank, France’s BNP Paribas, a joint venture by Jordan’s Arab Bank and Saudi Arabia’s Arab National Bank, and a Dubai-based partnership to grab the 80 percent stake on auction.

Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin has announced the revenues will go toward restructuring Banque Misr, Banque du Caire and the National Bank of Egypt.

NAMED, one of Time magazine’s “100 most influential people of the year,” Dr. Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, ardent advocate of antiquities and regular Egypt Today contributor. Elizabeth Peters, author of mystery novels set in Egypt, wrote in the April Time article that the SCA head has a passion for Egyptology and a penchant for controversy, “[y]et those regulations [restricting excavations] as well as his focus on conservation may be Hawass’ most lasting legacy. There are already too many monuments in danger of destruction, both by natural forces and by the tourism on which Egypt’s economy largely depends — and which Hawass has done so much to encourage.”

LAUNCHED, Al-Jazeera’s English-language channel. The channel hit airwaves November 15, with the intention to bring an Arab news perspective to an English-speaking audience. The service will have a rotating management at broadcasting bureaus in Kuala Lumpur, Doha, London and Washington and can reach 80 million homes worldwide, including Israel, the UK and Germany. US cable networks have refused to carry the service.

DIED, renowned musician Samha El-Khuly in February at age 80. El-Khuly was one of the founding members and former dean of the half-century-old Cairo Conservatoire. As dean, she is credited with helping form the first-ever all-Egyptian orchestra in 1975, as well as the country’s first orchestra for the blind. She is survived by her daughter, Basma, a violin player, and son, Hamada, who plays guitar.

The world bade farewell in August to beloved author and 1988 Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. The prolific Egyptian novelist and short-story writer left behind 35 novels, 15 short-story collections and hundreds of unpublished “Dreams.”

The ailing 95-year-old writer was rushed to the hospital after falling and hitting his head near his home a month earlier. He was given stitches and later discharged after several days. Mahfouz was soon re-hospitalized and spent long periods on artificial respiration. Despite suffering from severe hemoglobin deficiency and malnutrition, the author never once lost consciousness. Mahfouz died on August 30.

The son of a civil servant, Mahfouz was born in the Cairo district of Gamaleyya, which later became a frequent backdrop for many of the author’s stories. Mahfouz studied philosophy at King Fouad I University (later renamed Cairo University), graduating in 1934. After a year working towards an MA, Mahfouz began working as a journalist for Al-Risala, and contributed to Al-Hilal and Al-Ahram.

From 1939 until 1954, he was a civil servant at the Ministry of Religious Endowments. He became chairman of the Censorship Authority for Artistic Works in 1959 and later served as director of the Foundation for Support of the Cinema, the state’s cinema organization. From 1969-71 he was a consultant for cinema affairs to the Ministry of Culture.

Unlike the novelists that preceded him, Mahfouz, often called “Egypt’s Balzac,” was part of Egyptian discourse: He reacted to outside events and actively tried to influence the contemporary culture. He remains one of the best chroniclers of the development of Egypt in the twentieth century, having combined intellectual and cultural influences from East and West.

Mahfouz was condemned by Islamist fundamentalists for his controversial plots and characters, seen as subversive by his critics. In 1994, he was stabbed in the neck with a kitchen knife by Islamist militants, an attack which left his arm impaired.

His most famous works include The Trilogy (Palace Walk, 1956, Palace of Desire, 1957, and Sugar Street, 1957), El-Harafish, Zoqaq El-Midaq (Midaq Alley, 1947) and El-Less Wal Kilab (The Thief and the Dogs, 1961).

Egyptian audiences said goodbye to two of the nation’s most beloved entertainers in the past year — veteran comedians Abdel Moneim Madbouli and Fouad El-Mohandes. Known as the weeping comedian, Madbouli died in July of a heart attack after slipping into a coma at the age of 85. For the past 50 years or so, Madbouli carved a niche for himself in Egyptian cinema, stage and television history not only as a comedian but also as a tragic hero. Among his most famous contributions have been plays such as Raya wi Sekina (Raya and Sekina), Madraset El-Moshaghbeen (School of Rebels) and Hello Shalaby! TV classics include Golfidan Hanem (Lady Golfidan), Ana wi Howa wi Heya (Me, Her and Him) and Geddo Abdu (Grandfather Abdu). On the silver screen Abdu gave unforgettable performances in El-Hafid (The Grandson) and Moulid Ya Dunia (The World’s a Carnival).

Deeply saddened by Madbouli’s death, the Arab world was shocked when just two months later El-Mohandes also passed away. Although the 82-year-old comedian had been battling a number of ailments, including a heart condition and liver problems, he could not cope with the severe depression that hit him after the death of his lifelong friend actor Madbouli.

Born in 1924 to an affluent family in Cairo, El-Mohandes began playing supporting roles in movies and on the radio while studying in the Faculty of Commerce at Fouad 1 University. He was catapulted to fame after forming perhaps the most successful Arab comedy duo with his wife, actress Shouweikar. He devoted half a century of his life to his acting career and took part in numerous plays, films and television dramas, most memorable among them the plays Sok Ala Banatek (Protect Your Daughters) and El-Sekertere El-Fanni (Technical Secretary) and Fawazir Ammo Fouad (Uncle Fouad’s Riddles).

Many breathed a sigh of relief in November when an Iraqi court sentenced former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to death for crimes against humanity, bringing to an end a closely followed nine-month trial that saw three defense lawyers and a witness murdered in the course of its 39 sessions.

The former Iraqi dictator and six senior members of his Ba’ath party were convicted and sentenced for the 1982 killings of 148 people in the Shi’a town of Dujail in retaliation for an attempt on Hussein’s life.

“Long live the people and death to their enemies! Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!” Hussein cried out after the verdict, before bailiffs took his arms and walked the once all-powerful leader from the courtroom. Hussein’s lawyers have appealed the verdict.

Earlier in the year, American forces finally managed to eliminate another prime Al-Qaeda target, the Jordanian Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. The head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq had eluded capture for years, leading a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in an attempt to rid Iraq of the United States-led occupation. He was killed in a US air strike on June 7.

Although the capture and prosecution of Hussein was one of the primary goals of the US-led invasion, it has done little to bring stability to the troubled country. While Iraqi National Security Advisor Mowaffak Al-Rubaie claimed that Al-Zarqawi’s killing signaled the beginning of the end for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, militants proclaimed it would only strengthen their will to fight the occupation.

At press time, violence in Iraq continued to spiral out of control, with military and civilian casualties reaching record highs as even American policymakers started using the dreaded words “civil war.” As the US military death toll edged closer to 3,000 on the eve of the November midterm elections in America, then-US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote a classified memo to US President Bush admitting that the war in Iraq was going badly.

Not as badly as for Iraqis, though: A recent demographic study published in The Lancet found that 655,000 Iraqis, or 2.5 percent of the total population, have died as direct or indirect result of the war.

“Clearly, what US forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough it is time for a major adjustment. We could begin modest withdrawals of US and coalition forces conduct an accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases in Iraq,” Rumsfeld wrote.

In the months following Zarqawi’s demise, Bush had maintained that the US had only two options: either “stay the course” or “cut and run.” Rumsfeld has since resigned his position as secretary of defense. At press time, his successor, Robert Gates, had not yet begun his duties, and the administration had not made any clear statements concerning changes to its policy on Iraq. et