Daily Star: SPLM organizes, recruits Cairo refugees

SPLM organizes, recruits Cairo refugees

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 28, 2006

CAIRO: The crowded, narrow lanes of Souq El Tawfiqqeya are an unlikely spot for an embassy, located in one of the most dusty and noisy corners of the capital. But there, among shops selling spare auto parts and stands selling koshary for LE 1 a bowl, down a dim hallway in an unmarked apartment is the Cairo Office of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). To those working inside, it is a diplomatic outpost of the New Sudan.

Part embassy and part recruitment center, the SPLM office employs 34 people and enjoys generous financial support from State Security. According to the Egypt Representative of the SPLM, the jovial Tongun Sebat Faraj Allah, the Ministry of the Interior and Egyptian Intelligence allows the organization rent free access to a government-owned office and pays their utility bills.

Before the 2005 peace agreement between the North and South, the intelligence service also paid the salary of the office’s former Director, says Faraj Allah, who has only held the job since 1999. In the early nineties, he says, the Egyptian government even bought the former director a car.

This support has been crucial to the SPLM’s recruitment and organizing efforts in Egypt. Faraj Allah says that during the days of guerilla warfare against the Khartoum regime and foreign oil companies, Egyptian state funds allowed the office to operate in times when the SPLA did not want to send money away from the front lines to support advocacy work abroad.

The Ministry of Interior was unavailable for comment by the time of publication.

In those days, before the peace deal, the office was the outpost of a scrappy rebel movement. But the deal, signed in January 2005, completely changed the terrain of the conflict. It created a power sharing government and established a schedule for general elections in 2008 and an eventual independence referendum in 2011. But it did not require the disarmament of the SPLA, the movement military wing. The militia has vowed not to give up its arms until Khartoum has fully implemented the agreement, and views its weapons as a kind of insurance policy.

These days, the office has become an embassy of sorts for the most powerful party in southern Sudanese politics and a major center for the Sudanese refugee community. The movement’s refugee members in Egypt hope that the party can turn their war-torn country around. Members are drawn to the movement by its promise to fight for “a multicultural new Sudan, where governance is based on the general will of the people and the rule of law.”

The SPLM is also attractive to many for its willingness to divide Sudan between North and South if its lofty goals must come at the price of territorial unity. Faraj Allah describes the support his office receives from Egyptian Intelligence as part of the President Hosni Mubarak’s general approach to the conflict in Sudan. In the war between North and South, Egypt has tried to remain on good terms with both parties. Indeed, a framed photograph of President Mubarak meeting with late SPLA leader John Garang is prominently displayed in Faraj Allah’s office.

“They want to build a relationship with the movement, and now with the government of South Sudan,” he says, adding, with a smile, “They want to catch the stick in the middle, so that they don’t get hit by either end.”

If Egypt is concerned with not being struck by the sticks of Sudan’s conflict, the SPLM is concerned with making sure it always has enough sticks to fight with.

To that end, Faraj Allah says that one of the primary roles of his office is to recruit and organize members for the party. He says that the office has registered 10,000 members since its foundation in 1989, many of whom have returned to Sudan or moved to the West as refugees. Members are the life-blood of the SPLM, and the Cairo office has been very successful in its efforts to attract and mobilize them.

Members provide important financial and political support to the SPLM. Those in the West pay the movement a 5 percent tithe on their incomes, as well as sending remittances home to support their families. They are a potential source of much-needed funding and know-how for economic development.

“We ask the most educated ones to go home,” says Faraj Allah. “Those with money, those with proper education and proper technological experience should come back home and help with development.”

Politically, members living abroad are urged to organize in their new home countries and pressure the governments to be sympathetic toward SPLM positions. When asked by a visitor if the movement’s members in the West have been effective advocates, Faraj Allah grinned and his eyes grew wide.

“Oh yeah,” he says.

As an example, he cites the high-profile case of Talisman Energy, a Canadian oil company that was widely accused of human rights abuses by Sudanese, American and Canadian groups in the 1990s. In 2001, the Presbyterian Church of Sudan and the American Anti-Slavery Group sued the company in a Manhattan court for its alleged abuses, although the case was eventually dismissed in 2006 because of a lack of evidence.

But it was not all American court room drama. According to Faraj Allah, the SPLA played a central role. The case illustrates how its members abroad provide diplomatic and political muscle that can hit harder than military might alone.

“When the company was working in the fields at Bentliu before the peace, the movement forced it to stop working because the oil revenues were being used by the government to buy arms to fight the movement. The revenues were letting the government be obstinate and not accept the peace process,” he explains, “so we stopped them militarily and politically. They were terrorized first and then expelled by our current movement politically, when our people in Canada made demonstrations and pressured them.”

Today, the SPLM wants it members abroad to organize again. The movement claims that Khartoum is unwilling to fully implement the peace deal. According to Faraj Allah, the National Congress Party of President Omar Al-Bashir has blocked the full implementation of the treaty, specifically protocols addressing the demarcation of borders, the creation of a national oil commission and the equitable sharing of oil revenues. Under the deal, the South and North each take 49 percent of the revenues, with 2 percent of the total given to the village from which the oil was drawn.

“All people are supposed to be in the picture,” he says, arguing that the National Congress wants to keep opposition parties in the dark. “We’re all supposed to know how many barrels are produced daily, where they are sold and for how much. But the National Congress does not want this commission to be formed.”

The SPLM wants the world to pressure Khartoum to live up to its commitments. Now that the Bashir regime appears intransigent in its commitment to the deal, Faraj Allah warns of the dire consequences of a peace deferred.

“We want more transparency in this area,” he says, sipping tea beneath a framed picture of the revered Garang in his stuffy office. “We are making a campaign of internal and external pressure, by telling the international community that the National Congress is not serious, and wants people to go back to square one. Otherwise, people will go back to war.”

Daily Star: Egyptian microfinance sector set to expand, says French NGO

Egyptian microfinance sector set to expand, says French NGO

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 25, 2006

CAIRO: The microfinance industry in Egypt has grown rapidly in the last several years and faces a potential eight-fold increase in the number of clients, according to figures compiled by Paris-based Planet Finance.

Planet Finance, an international NGO based in Paris, France, does not provide loans or direct aid to the poor, but provides know-how, training and financial support to microfinance institutions operating in the field. In effect, it microfinances the microfinanciers.

Microfinance is a relatively new development model, whereby microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide small loans to the poor so that they can establish a small business. Poor people are frequently unable to secure such loans from the banking sector because of a lack of valuable collateral and the very small amounts of money generally requested. Paradoxically, it costs a bank more to provide a small loan than a larger one because of the increased risk of default and the expense of processing small loans through a system of middle management designed to move larger sums.

According to Planet Finance, there are currently between 450,000 and 500,000 people in Egypt who have begun small enterprises thanks to these modest loans. The group estimates that, with a third of the Egyptian population living in some form of need, there is a market here for upwards of 4 million microfinance clients.

Mohammed Maarouf, the Middle East and North Africa Director for Planet Finance, credits the success of microfinance to the sustainability of the model and the strong relationships that MFIs develop with their clients. The institutions review the feasibility of an applicant’s business plan, and then after the loan is granted will check up on their progress several times.

“With a bank, clients go to the institution.” says Maarouf, with a smile, “But with MFIs, we go to the clients.”

These are both part of the reason, he says, why banks have an average default rate of 15 to 20 percent on their loans, while MFIs typically have a default rate of one to two percent.
“Microfinance is all about sustainability,” he continues. “Our clients don’t need one loan, they need multiple loans. Poor people need microfinance institutions because they cannot access banks, so they are carefully not to have problems with them. The challenge is sustainability, to be present near the poor for a long time.”

The number of microfinance clients has quintupled since 1999; a surge attributed to the development of new types of loans, in particular solidarity group loans. These allow a group of people to take out a loan as a group without putting down any physical collateral – the main motivation for not defaulting is the peer pressure exerted by other group members. If someone defaults on their share of a solidarity loan, they are not defaulting on the MFI, but on their friends and neighbours.

An individual version of this model has been developed as well, which allows an individual to take out a loan for themselves with other people as co-signatories. If the person receiving the loan defaults, they pass the responsibility of repayment on to his friends who co-signed for them.

Despite the great potential for growth in the sector, significant challenges remain. Planet Finance attributes the sector’s underdevelopment to several factors, in particular a lack of product diversification among clients and a lack of clear government policy compounded by harmful practices such as subsidized credit, client targeting and the existence of interest rate ceilings.

Planet Finance maintains that these obstacles can be overcome, and has a list of policy recommendations for doing just that. Chief among them are the creation of new funding opportunities through partnerships with commercial funding sources; the centralization of information and training resources; and increasing transparency and efficiency.

These proposals are closely related to the general trend of economic liberalization that the Egyptian government has increasingly adopted under the tenure of business-friendly Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. As such, Planet Finance is hopeful for the future of the sector in Egypt, both because of the possibilities for industry expansion and for the good work that can be done.

“If a man gets a loan to sell bread,” says Carole Serviere, providing an example, “Maybe with the second loan he takes, he can buy an oven. And then with the third loan he takes out, he can build a shop.”

Daily Star: Style over substance at Zamalek's Coffee Bean

Style over substance at Zamalek’s Coffee Bean

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 23, 2006

CAIRO: It is said that Cairo is a city of coffee shops. Of these, the overwhelming majority are familiar neighbourhood ahwas, complete with sawdust-strewn floors and old men sucking on battered shishas.

Over the last few years, Cairo’s wealthier neighborhoods have seen a sharp rise in the number of chic cafés, both foreign and locally owned. In Zamalek, it seems that a new café opens every week, providing fierce competition for the attention of the wealthy, largely foreign, clientele.

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is the newest, and most talked about, addition to the Zamalek café club. Unfortunately, it falls far short of the buzz generated by its opening. Its interior is one of the most comfortable in the neighbourhood, with large plush chairs, numerous outlets for laptops, free wireless Internet connection and many windows that let in plenty of sunshine. But The Coffee Bean is a classic case of style over substance, and the café’s slick interior is far and away the best thing about it.

The key to a good café is good coffee, and Coffee Bean’s brew does not disappoint. Unfortunately, it also does not stand out. A cafe latte (LE 9) or cappuccino (LE 9) has become a staple at Zamalek coffee joints, and The Bean’s are basically the same as any other you’ll find on the island. The one difference is that at Coffee Bean, you’ll be served your drink in a tall glass cup with a flourish of foam on top.

The Bean’s real weakness is in its food. Recently some friends and I spent an afternoon sampling the lunch and desert menu, and were left with a funny taste in our mouths – both literally and figuratively. I tried the chipotle roast chicken sandwich panini (LE 15) and the spicy chicken pasta salad (LE 16.) After an unnecessarily long wait, the meal arrived, and the adventure began.

To put it simply, both dishes were weird and neither resembled the descriptions or pictures on the menu. The grilled chicken sandwich was neither grilled nor served as a panini, but was a scoop of neon green chicken-and-soft-cucumber salad served between two thick and flavorless slices of focaccia bread. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t good.

The pasta salad was even worse, so much so that when the waitress delivered the dish I was sure she had confused my order. Unlike many cafés in Zamalek which get pasta salad right, The Coffee Bean’s more closely resembles the mystery meat served in a grade school cafeteria. A mountain of limp, wilted lettuce, topped by a handful of cold, limp spaghetti and then another handful of bland chicken chunks, drowned in a gooey mess of generic Caesar salad dressing. The coup de grace was a long black hair at the bottom of my salad bowl. Charming.

Both dishes were certainly edible, but quite un-enjoyable. I recommend neither.

And my friend and I spent a few minutes at the counter trying to pick out a representative dessert sample. We chose a chocolate brownie (LE 10), a piece of carrot cake (LE 12) , a chocolate chip cookie (LE 7) and tiramisu (LE 15), as well as two “Ice Blended” drinks, one cinnamon and one caramel (LE 15). The iced drinks were by far the highlight of the entire meal, and are refreshing. But the rest of desert was as perplexing as lunch had been.

To begin with, all of the deserts we were served were stale. Carrot cake is supposed to be moist, but at The Bean it is crunchy and tastes days old. The icing is like barely flavored cream cheese and had the texture of glue. To make matters worse, the cake was flecked through with pieces of some unidentifiable, fibrous, candied root vegetable. It was clearly not carrot, and my friend guessed that it may have been turnip, parsnip or celeriac. Anyone care for some turnip cake?

The tiramisu did not taste like tiramisu, which is made with mascarpone cheese, espresso, lady fingers and rum. I did not expect to be served rum at a coffee shop, but the absence of the alcohol was the least of the dish’s problems. The Bean’s tiramisu tastes like it is made with a generous amount of gelatin, which fans of Italian cuisine will note is in fact completely absent from an authentic tiramisu recipe. Instead of espresso or rum, it was flavored with orange syrup. Instead of a layer of lady fingers, small pieces of cake were tossed pell-mell throughout it, as if the chef had thrown a handful of biscuits into the gelatin before it had time to set. The recipe was thrown on its head, and the result was a jiggling mess. It did not taste objectively bad, and if it had not been marketed as tiramisu it may have been enjoyable, but served as such it was both weird and disappointing.

The chocolate chip cookie was flavorless and over-cooked, and had the texture of sand. It began to crumble and disintegrate as soon as it was touched, and the flavor of the chocolate was indistinguishable from the grainy taste of burnt batter. Although the brownie was stale, it was the best of the bunch, because it was served warm and the melted icing was enough to soften its brittleness.

If what you are looking for in a coffee shop is a new, fresh place to see and be seen, where you can drink perfectly average coffee and suffer your way through the menu, then The Coffee Bean may be your place. As for me, I will be at another coffee shop.

Daily Star: Cairo-to-Camps highlights fundraising

Cairo-to-Camps highlights fund-raising

Activists differ on their level of confidence in governments

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 22, 2006


CAIRO: Members of the American University in Cairo club Cairo-to-Camps held an event on Wednesday, Sept. 20 which highlighted the many ways to raise awareness and aid money for the people of Lebanon. Each summer, the club sends a delegation of volunteers to perform community service in the Shatila and Burj El-Barajneh refugee camps in south Beirut, but this year the war forced the trip’s cancellation.

In response, they have refocused their efforts on solidarity, raising funds for post-conflict reconstruction and highlighting the specific plight of refugees in a newly war-torn country. Wednesday’s event brought together activists from several different campaigns, who each shared visions of activism and solidarity that differed sharply over the appropriate role of the state.

Before the war, the Palestinian camps in Lebanon were among the most dire in the region, says Muhammed Yousri of the Li-Beirut campaign. This was primarily because of the neglect of the Lebanese government.

“They lacked support from Lebanon and had almost no social services,” he told the audience, mainly composed of Westerners and African refugees. “The Lebanese government stops people from bringing new building materials into the camps so there can be no legal expansion. If this policy does not change, in places like Shatila and Burj El-Barajneh, they will never be able to rebuild after the attack.”

Reflecting this suspicion of the government, the Li-Beirut Campaign chose not to work with the Egyptian or Lebanese states. The campaign organized a series of cultural and artistic events to highlight the suffering of people in Lebanon. Rather than asking for donations, which would require legal registration as a charity, Yousri says his campaign decided to sell products like postcard-sized artwork. All profits were then donated to a charity of the campaign’s choosing, and were not given to a state agency.

Sawsan Mostafa, of the T-Shirts for Lebanon Project, highlights a different approach. Mustafa was in Lebanon for an interfaith dialogue camp when the war began, and had to flee the country through Syria and Jordan over the course of 10 stressful days before finally returning to her family in Cairo.

“I never thought I would witness a war,” she said, telling the crowd that her ordeal taught her the power of intercultural understanding and the importance of standing up for what you believe in. When she returned to Egypt, she was struck by “the passiveness and negativity of all governments, especially Arab governments.”

Frustrated by the apathy she saw around her, Mustafa decided to do something. She and two
friends designed and printed the first 100 T-shirts in their campaign, which bore the slogan: “Silent No More: Stop This War.” The shirts sold out in a day, and the more they printed, the more they sold. At first, all proceeds were donated to Caritas, a charity that was giving aid to refugees and other stateless persons, such as Palestinians, Sudanese and Iraqis inside Lebanon who were unable to flee the country and were often among the neediest.

But as the project garnered more and more attention, Mustafa decided to sign an agreement with the Lebanese embassy.

“What we were doing wasn’t completely safe until we signed the deal with the embassy,” she said. “We were just three girls in a room making T-shirts, we weren’t registered as an NGO, and if someone wore one of our shirts to a protest in Tahrir and someone asked ‘Where did you get that shirt?’ it could have led to trouble for us.”

Now, all proceeds from the T-Shirts for Lebanon Project will be deposited into the bank account of the Lebanese embassy, and the project has gained the legal protection of working with an international embassy. There are drawbacks to this, though.

Ahmed Abdullah, an Egyptian physician who was in Lebanon during the war, points out some of the potential dangers of working so closely with a government.

“There is always the fear of regional discrimination against the south,” he says. “Aid needs to be distributed with transparency and justice. Right now there is no transparency in distributing aid, the money goes to the state and there is no accountability, nothing.”

A fourth speaker, a Lebanese businessman based in Cairo, Marsel Amineddine, took issue with Abdullah’s worries. “All aid money will go to a government authority, the High Commission for Refugees, which distributes money according to a list of high priorities,” he says. Concerns about graft and regional discrimination – how the Lebanese government will choose what places would be put on the high priority list – were left largely unaddressed.

Amineddine organized a very lucrative fundraiser in Egypt, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Telecommunication, Mobinil and Vodafone, which allowed people to donate money by calling a hotline. In his experience, “There were no problems with the Egyptian government. All the authorities tried to facilitate whatever we needed. Everything was free, and all user fees were rescinded.”

In closing, Abdullah reminded the panel that, despite their differences, they should continue in their solidarity work, and could even learn a few things from the Lebanese. “The movement among young Lebanese is amazing,” he says, “across all the different sects and backgrounds. Egyptian solidarity efforts are important, but most of them are not well known to people in Lebanon. We must do more to let them know that we are here.”

Daily Star: Leaders warn of looming Darfur crisis

Leaders warn of looming Darfur crisis

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 18, 2006

CAIRO: As the Sept. 30 deadline for the withdrawal of African Union troops from Sudan’s Darfur region looms, world leaders and humanitarian organizations have begun to sound the alarm about the approaching potential for disaster.

“The situation in Darfur is desperate,” said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, at a New York press conference earlier this week. “The government continues to refuse to accept the transition to the UN. The presence of the African Union forces is itself not certain, and we are going to continue our efforts and I have appealed to all the governments with influence to work with the Sudanese government, and get the government to change its attitude and its approach because, if the African Union forces were to leave, and we are not able to put in a UN follow-on force, we are heading for a disaster.”

“When we had Rwanda, almost everyone said we should not let it happen again,” he continued, “So, we have a big challenge in Sudan.”

Violence in the Darfur region can be traced back to the late 1980s, when persistent drought in the region led to competition between rival ethnic groups for natural resources. It was worsened in 1988, when the government began supporting militias drawn from the local Arabic-speaking population to fight an incursion by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, a rebel group fighting for control of the oil-rich south.

On Aug. 31, the United Nations voted to send a 20,000 man peace keeping force to Darfur to reinforce a 7,000 man AU presence which has been widely criticized as ineffective. This larger UN force would add to the 10,000 peace keepers currently stationed in the south of the country.

Khartoum immediately rejected the proposal, calling it an attempt at “regime change,” and has refused to allow the UN force to enter the country. For its part, the African Union has announced that without the UN reinforcements it will withdraw its under-funded and badly organized force, leaving hundreds of thousands of Darfurian civilians with out international protection.

Violence has escalated in the conflict-torn region in recent months, and the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement on May 4 appears to have made the situation worse. The fragile alliance of rebel groups that had been battling the government and its janjaweed militias fragmented after the peace accords were signed, creating a dizzying and frequently changing array of militias, political factions, and acronyms.

It is estimated that between 70 and 80 percent of Darfurians support the various splinter groups that have rejected the deal and vowed to continue the war against Khartoum. In response to the persistent militancy and rebel activity in the region, the central government is preparing to send 10,000 uniformed soldiers into the region, raising the ghoulish specter of fresh civilian massacres and further destruction.

According to African Middle East Refugee Assistance, a Cairo-based NGO which provides legal and psycho-social aid to the city’s large refugee population, two to three million people have been displaced since February 2003 and 200,000 have been killed. Government-backed militias have deliberately attacked civilians with tactics including abductions, systematic rape, burning of villages and looting. Attacks have also taken place inside refugee camps and have targeted humanitarian workers, a dozen of whom have been slain in targeted killings since May. In response to these threats, many aid organizations have withdrawn from the region, and according to AMERA nearly half a million people have little or no access to food.

The war in Darfur has broad regional implications as well, with the potential to threaten all of northeastern Africa. AMERA warns that the threat of violence hangs over refugee camps in Chad, currently home to 240,000 Darfurians, and that tensions could also spread further south into the Central African Republic as well.

The implications of renewed violence for Egypt are unclear, but Maher Nassar, Director of the UN Media Office in Cairo, offers a similar warning.

“There are serious implications for all of Sudan’s neighbors,” he says. “If the situation deteriorates, there is bound to be further movement of civilians escaping conflict, and this kind of instability will discourage investment and development.”

Over the weekend, AUC held a candle light vigil for peace in Darfur in a large open courtyard, where a crowd of over a hundred refugees and Western supporters gathered to listen to brief speeches. As their candles began to burn out, the crowd burst into chants of “International troops! International troops!”

Eventually, their small lights blinked out, and the crowd was quickly dispersed by AUC security. For now, it seems, the region must wait and see whether Khartoum will allow peace keepers to enter the country, or whether a conflict with the potential to overwhelm the region will begin anew.

Daily Star: Intel launches innovative vPro Technology to high expectations

Intel launches innovative vPro Technology to high expectations

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 15, 2006

CAIRO: Intel Corporation introduced an innovative new package of hardware and software on Wednesday at a lavish event at the Grand Hyatt Cairo. Called Intel vPro, the new technology is poised to remake the way that businesses of all sizes use their personal computers and wider networks by providing IT professionals with higher levels of computing performance, greater energy efficiency and more proactive security mechanisms. According to Intel, early trials with select businesses showed an average potential cost savings of 40 percent.

“Very simply, vPro is a change in the way businesses and IT managers view and use PCs,” says Khaled El-Amrawy, Intel Country Manager for Egypt, Levant and North Africa. “We are packing in features that address what plagues businesses most – security threats, cost of ownership, resource allocation, asset management and uptime – into a single platform that is powered by the greatest multi-core processor in the world.”

In an exclusive interview, El-Amrawy explains the major concerns addressed by vPro and the innovative mechanisms on which the technology package is built. “We address some of the major problems IT departments face today,” he says, “Especially in a department with multiple PCs in many different places. Those are repair and upkeep, security and data protection.” These concerns are addressed by what El Amrawy calls “virtualization,” the idea at the heart of the Core2 Duo processor.

“If someone has old software run on DOS,” offers El Amrawy as an example, “and they don’t want to change software or are concerned about data transfer, but they want to use newer features that DOS will not support, Core2 Duo will allow their computer to act like 2 different machines by creating a second virtual machine. One can run on DOS, and one can run on Windows or Linux.”

vPro’s main thrust is in the realm of security. Intel Active Management Technology (IAMT) allows IT professionals to remotely diagnose, quarantine and repair PCs, even when they are turned off or their operating system is down. This allows IT managers to nip a potential system-wide problem in the bud before it can seriously damage productivity. Intel has released over 20 case studies of vPro trials from large and small businesses, whose outcomes point to a potential maintenance and labor cost savings ranging from 7 percent to a staggering 95 percent, resulting mainly from a drastic reduction in the number of desk-side tech support visits.

Intel has also introduced common sense yet innovative approaches to internet security through its Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which stores sensitive innovation like passwords on the motherboard rather than on the more easily hacked or stolen hard drive. In addition, the Core2 Duo allows IT managers to run more frequent and thorough virus scans without interrupting user activity by seamlessly switching user function between the two virtual machines.

The third area of vPro and Core2 Duo innovation is data protection, critical for businesses of all
sizes to maintain smooth operations.

“If data is only on one hard drive it is vulnerable to crashes,” explains El Amrawy. “vPro provides more frequent back-ups, and Core2 Duo is like having two hard drives on one machine; one in the background and one in the foreground. If one hard drive crashes, the processor seamlessly transfers data from one to the other, and the user will only see a small notification that repairs are under way. This is critical for financial and bank applications, when you cannot afford to lose your data.”

vPro and Core2 Duo are all part of what El Amrawy describes as the “more holistic” approach to IT that Intel has begun to take. At one time known primarily for their microprocessors, the corporation is now gaining attention for their platforms as well.

“Rather than bring consumers just the microprocessor, we are now bringing them the whole solution, the platform itself,” he explains. “We provide the software, the network chip and the microprocessor all in one package.”

“Consumers want mobility,” he continues, “and that means light weight, small size, long battery life and wireless capability. We provide all those things, and work with other companies to provide the ecosystem to support them, for example, by encouraging internet service providers to establish more and more wireless hot spots.”

The world of IT is moving toward more wireless connectivity at faster speeds, lower prices and more efficient energy use. The introduction of vPro provides Intel a strong opportunity to lead the way, and El Amrawy predicts that the new package will be received well by consumers at large. Worldwide sales projections for vPro are in the tens of millions, although there are no sales predictions for the local Middle Eastern market.

“Our product road map is extremely solid for the second half of 2006,” he says. “Core2 Duo was only introduced last month, but is a key ingredient in multiple platforms to come. We are in an extremely strong position to serve the market for the next few years, and our share price on the stock exchange has increased over the last few weeks to reflect that strong position.”
That position is made even stronger by Intel’s move toward holistic IT, a field in which vPro has helped the corporation to excel.

“Our competitors provide basic pieces of vPro, but only we offer the complete solution. And it is a scalable solution which can support a very small company of maybe three or four people, or a major multinational with hundreds of thousands of employees,” says El Amrawy. “Managing IT is not new, fixing computers remotely is not new. But the way that we do it is a real innovation.”

Daily Star: Business competition first step in creating an innovative culture, EBF chairman says

Business competition first step in creating an innovative culture, EBF chairman says

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 11, 2006

CAIRO: Amr El-Abd, the young chairman of the Alexandria-based Entrepreneurs Business Forum, has big plans. Only a year old, EBF is organizing an ambitious nation-wide business plan competition which wraps up in November. The competition, and the organization itself, are the first of their kind in Egypt, and El-Abd is both ambitious and optimistic about their role in the future of the country.

“We are the first Egyptian organization to target entrepreneurship and try to spread entrepreneurial knowledge through the rest of society,” says El-Abd, who at 27 has already become a successful Alexandria business leader.

“In the United States there are business plan competitions, and it’s an important idea,” he continued. “AUC [American University in Cairo] has one, but only AUC students are eligible to enter. So we wanted to begin a competition at the national level, so people can begin thinking about ideas, studying them, and writing business plans.”

The contest itself is an opportunity for young people, under the age of 35, to research business ideas and prepare business plans. The plans are submitted to a panel composed of expert faculty of the University of Alexandria as well as prominent businessmen. There were 100 entries this year, and each one is paired with a mentor to teach them about entrepreneurship and to aid them in applying for start-up funds from the Fund for Social Development.

Of those initial 100 entries, from fields like technology, industry and agribusiness, 20 semi-finalists were chosen in July. On Sept. 15, another round of competition will select five semi-finalists, who will be ranked during the final round in November. The winner will receive a LE 50,000 start-up grant to help them take active steps in starting their business venture. The competition itself is being funded by a grant from the Canadian International Development Agency, although the prize money will be provided by EBF itself.

El-Abd emphasizes that the point of the competition is not to pick one winner from among the many contestants, but to encourage all contestants to learn about business. Even those who do not make it to the final round stand a good chance of receiving start-up capital by virtue of the hard work they put in to writing their business plans, meeting with their mentors, and working with the Fund for Social Development.

“Our strategy is not to create one start-up,” he explains. “We want to create many success stories to inspire people. We want to make people think of themselves as entrepreneurs. We think that by tying practical, real-life experience to success, people will rush to entrepreneurship.”

EBF’s driving motivation is to encourage the development of an entrepreneurial society in Egypt, and the competition is the center piece of the young organization’s efforts to do so. Behind this ambitious effort at cultural change lies a strong desire to improve the economic and social outlook of the country. El-Abd hopes that the creative energy of Egypt’s youth, channeled into entrepreneurial projects, can be the engine that propels such a change.

“Two-thirds of our population is under 30 years old – that’s 45 million people. And 24 million of those are under the age of 14,” he explains. “Every year 890,000 new job seekers graduate from universities and technical institutes. The private sector absorbs about 300,000 of those new workers, and the public sector can’t take anymore.”

The public sector employs 5.6 million people, making it by far the largest employer in the country. But it cannot provide jobs for the many that need them. The lack of jobs and the abundance of university graduates is a well-known factor that contributes to Egypt’s high unemployment rate, which the government places at 10 percent but which many independent analysts claim is closer to 20 or 30 percent.

“Take the 10 percent unemployment figure used by the government – that’s 2.2 million people unemployed. Those are lost opportunities, and that is just not efficient management of resources,” says El-Abd. “But you cannot look at unemployment just as a statistic. People’s lives are devastated, and you must think of the personal effects. Think of the social and psychological effects.”

For El-Abd, these social and cultural effects of Egypt’s economic woes are the most dangerous for its future. “To be unemployed and university educated can be personally devastating, after years of hard work in school,” he says, “and it can lead to crime, extremism, drugs and social deterioration.” According to El-Abd, Egypt’s poor economic situation creates a culture in which a “depression” takes hold, and innovation is discouraged.

“The whole atmosphere here discourages innovation, and is intellectually not stimulating or innovative,” says El-Abd. “We have a problem with brain drain. All of the talent is moving to places with a better standard of living, towards financial and intellectual growth, like Dubai or America. People want to be in an environment that will get the best out of them, and which also attracts the best people from around the world.”

In addition to cultural barriers, entrepreneurs face structural challenges as well, he says. “There is bureaucracy, corruption, red tape. As an entrepreneur, this hurts you because time is money. You have no income before your venture actually starts up, so at this stage it’s all spending.”
“The government view of entrepreneurship is not encouraging,” he continues. “Their idea of economic development is to give you five acres in the desert. This is a formula for failure. They are more interested in attracting foreign investment, and they act like domestic entrepreneurs are not important. The government thinks that Egyptians cannot innovate or produce. They underestimate the capabilities of local entrepreneurs.”

El-Abd hopes that by encouraging entrepreneurship, EBF can help produce a sea change in Egyptian culture. He would like to see innovation and creativity celebrated, and looks at American innovators like Henry Ford and Michael Dell as an example of what Egyptians could achieve with the right attitude.

“In Egypt, gravity pushes you down, but in America it pushes you to succeed,” he says. “In the United States, there is no stigma attached to failure. If you have a business and it fails, you start another business. In Egypt, failure is a big stigma. If you fail, it is the end.”

“The U.S. media talks about the entrepreneur all the time, he is a hero,” explains El-Abd. “In Egypt, the hero is the government, the Minister. In America people are told ‘the sky is the limit.’ Here there is much less cultural support. Egyptians want the government to give them a hand-out and take them out of harm’s way, but in American people do everything for themselves.”

EBF hopes that it can promote this do-it-yourself spirit through the Business Idea Award, which will be held annually. In addition, it is planning a seminar series on management skills, a book of case studies focusing on successful Egyptian entrepreneurs and events with powerful multinational firms like PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

In 2007, El-Abd says that EBF will launch a start-up advisory center focusing on the emerging IT industry. He wants to encourage Egyptians to invest in call centers. There are also plans for a newsletter or small magazine to further educate Egyptians about the potential of entrepreneurship.

“We are hoping for a big cultural change,” El-Abd says. “We want to reach a wider audience, to talk to the masses.”

Daily Star: Hepatitis B a threat warn prominent physicians, but Egypt can overcome

Hepatitis B a threat warn prominent physicians, but Egypt can overcome

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 11, 2006

CAIRO: In the late 1990s, Egypt became infamous in the world of public health as one of the most hepatitis C-infected countries in the world. This unhappy distinction was gained through a public health campaign gone awry. From the 1950s through the 1980s, the government led a massive effort to eradicate the gastrointestinal bacterial infection bilharzia.

The program backfired badly.

Doctors involved in the effort recycled the same needles through a large number of patients, rarely sterilizing them beforehand. If one patient was infected, the needle sharing virtually ensured that many in his village would soon be as well. The highly contagious hepatitis C virus spread rapidly throughout the rural population and, today, according to British medical journal The Lancet, between 15 and 20 percent of the population has been exposed to the potentially lethal disease.

Public health in Egypt is also threatened by the less famous, but still very dangerous, hepatitis B virus (HBV), but it is a challenge that can be overcome. HBV can be treated and the spread of the disease can be stopped. That was the warning issued by physicians Dr. Ali Monis and Dr. Serag Zakaria at last week’s meeting of the International Association for the Study of the Liver (IASL), held in Nasr City on Sept. 8. If Egyptians work together to put an emphasis on prevention and education, they say, Egypt can avoid further public health catastrophes like the hepatitis C problem.

“We need to do more to make our citizens aware of this disease,” says Monis, a professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Ain Shams University. “The hepatitis B virus is 100 times more infectious than HIV, and it can easily be passed from pregnant mothers to their newborn children or from infected family members to the rest of the family. We owe it to the future of Egypt to help fight the spread of the virus in our country. The top ways to do this are awareness, vaccination, testing and treatment. Just one small step – such as ensuring that pregnant mothers are tested for hepatitis B – would make a big difference in curbing the rate of infection.”

Studies by the Egyptian Ministry of Health indicate that there are around 2.5 million Egyptians living with chronic HBV, a condition which is usually asymptomatic. Because of this, most infected people do not realize that they have the disease. Monis claims that there are an estimated 75 million people in the Middle East and Africa living with chronic HBV, although only four percent are expected to seek diagnosis or treatment. That figure is alarming because, when symptoms do arise, they can be serious. Symptoms can include muscle and joint pain as well as chronic fatigue. But left unchecked, the disease can also lead to life-threatening ailments like cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer.

Zakaria, chairman of Tropical Medicine and professor of Hepatogastroenterology at Cairo University, pointed out that Egypt has seen a sharp decline in the number of chronic HBV cases in young children, a highly vulnerable group. He attributed this to the Egyptian government’s aggressive efforts to fight the disease in the young, in particular the decision to make vaccination of newborns mandatory in 1992. While this has been good news for Egypt’s children, Zakaria warns that there is still much more that can be done. The key to further fighting the spread of the disease is education, especially among at-risk populations.

“The medical community and everyday citizens need to be aware of simple steps that they can take to avoid or minimize the chances of infection,” he explains. He emphasized the important role that doctors and nurses have in educating their communities. “That includes educating patients, as well as ensuring that all medical professionals are taught the proper safety and hygiene practices required to reduce infection, and keeping doctors aware of new methods for testing and treatment.”

Zakaria outlined some specific steps that can be taken to prevent the spread of the disease. The most important way to fight HBV, he said, was to raise awareness of the risk of HBV in Egypt.
“We should raise the awareness of families of the importance of vaccinating newborns; and raise awareness among families and doctors of the importance of testing pregnant women to curb the spread to their children. We should launch an awareness campaign amongst Egyptian society and medical community on sound and hygienic habits to curb the spread of HBV, and also work on treating HBV patients to prevent the progression of the infection.”

Both Zakaria and Monis insist that with a strong effort, Egypt can accomplish these goals. More than that, the country must overcome the threat of hepatitis B to ensure a better future.
Zakaria closed his talk by urging the audience, “Let’s work together for a brighter future for our children.”

Daily Star: From Pashas to the People: Egyptian Photography Enters the Information Age

From Pashas to the People: Egyptian Photography Enters the Information Age

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 1, 2006

CAIRO: As an art form, photography in Egypt was once the province of a handful of Armenian artists who brought the first cameras to the country and established small downtown workshops. Their work was funded by the pashas and princes that once dominated the country’s cultural life, some of whom also began taking pictures as a fashionable hobby. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Egyptian photography was an elite world that few were allowed to enter.

Today, according to Adel Mansour, the vice president of the Egyptian Salon of Photographers, everything has changed. Now, photography is something that almost anyone in Egypt can enjoy.

“The more people we let know about exhibits and other photography activities, the more come,” says Mansour.

The Egyptian Salon of Photographers is an association of professional photographers and accomplished hobbyists founded in 1994 by Dr. Baha Madkour, Adel Gazareen and the late Adel Taher. In the years since its foundation, the Salon has seen many changes in the field of photography. Today, it is clear that photography in Egypt has come a long way from the days of princes and pashas.

Photography has moved to the forefront of the Egyptian art scene, and has entered the everyday lives of people across the country. Technological advancements like digital cameras and camera-phones have turned a once elite hobby into a more affordable past-time. And while the country still faces wide spread economic inequality and a 17 percent poverty rate, according to the World Bank, many members of the urban middle class have taken to these new gadgets in a big way.

Sitting inside his airy Garden City home on a bright summer day, Mansour excitedly explains these changes to a visitor.

“The new equipment is so inviting,” he says. “Let me give you an example. A father buys a digital camera to get some family pictures, and then either himself or his wife, or daughter or son, get interested in photography, or more into it. Digital technology is a good bait to attract more people to photography.”

The growth of photography’s popularity has fed the growth of organizations like the Salon, both in terms of membership and exhibition opportunities. In 1994, the group began with 30 members. Today, it has over 200, as well as 20 to 25 more “Friends of the Society,” considered members in training. Some members are prominent artists, like professional photographers Adly Zaki or Walid Kamal. Others have careers outside the arts but are talented hobbyists, such as Wahid Nur Al-Din or Reda Danaf.

“I think that Egyptian photography is more advanced than other art forms in our country,” argues Mansour. He notes that a number of Egyptian photographers, including Nur Al-Din and Danaf, have won first prize and critical acclaim in international exhibitions. Egyptian artists working in other media have not garnered such widespread praise.

“They even win in Japan,” Mansour laughs, “The land of photography!”

The medium’s increasing popularity has made exhibition spaces in Cairo easier to come by for the Salon. Mansour joined the group seven years ago when he returned to Egypt after working in the United States for 35 years. At that time, the Salon was able to organize an exhibit every two or three months, often in cramped galleries. Now, their exhibits are monthly, and there are many galleries to choose from.

The group’s members are eager for more exhibits and larger spaces, and according to Mansour, that is something that Cairenes want as well.

“You can’t even imagine,” he says. “Especially our exhibits with a cultural theme – like Pharaonic, or Coptic, or Islamic – they are really, really popular. The bottleneck for exhibits was because of lack of space for shows, but now galleries are more attuned to the idea.”

With the expansion of its membership and the growing number of shows, the Salon could use more space for itself, too. The group currently meets once a month in a space donated by the Color Lab Association, a group of photograph developers based in downtown. Now, Mansour says, that space is almost too small for the 60 to 70 people who come to the monthly meetings.

“I hope that we can move to a football stadium soon,” laughs Mansour. “That would be utopia.”

Daily Star: In Cairo, Boom Times for Arabic Language Schools

In Cairo, Boom Times for Arabic Language Schools

Demand for Arabic-Language Speakers Fuels Surge in Language School Enrolments

By Liam Stack
First Published: August 26, 2006

CAIRO: Tomader Rifaat has been in charge of the International Student Service Offices at AUC for 21 years, and she has never seen anything like this. “I remember 21 years ago, there were only 40 students in our study abroad program. And just a handful studied here over the summer.” This week, AUC begins advising and orientation sessions for this year’s study abroad students – in total, over 400 of them.

The number of foreign students coming to Egypt to study Arabic has significantly increased over the last several years, and language schools around the city are expanding to deal with the boom. Last year, according to Rifaat, AUC did not have enough space in its 10-story Zamalek dormitory to house all the international students, so it rented an entire hotel in Doqqi to house the overflow. This year, the university has rented two hotels and moved many faculty members from university-owned apartments to make way for the new arrivals. Renting out all this space in central Cairo is a significant expense for the university, says Rifaat, “but our number one priority is accommodating international students.”

Rifaat credits AUC’s popularity with international students to many factors, including the strength of its programs and its accreditation in the United States. But perhaps no other factor contributes as strongly to this trend as the demand for Arabic speakers and others with regional experience, which has sky-rocketed in America, Europe and the countries of East Asia. Without a doubt, she says, “There are more opportunities for Arabic speakers and Middle East experts now.”

Figures kept by the American Association of Teachers of Arabic show that the number of students enrolled in Arabic courses in U.S. universities leapt by 92 percent between 1998 and 2002. Political factors such as the American “War on Terror” and the conflict in Iraq have kept the number of new Arabic students surging ever since. And at least some of those Arabic students spend some time in studying in Egypt. According to the U.S.-based Institute for International Education, the number of Americans studying abroad in Egypt grew by 26 percent between 2004 and 2005. Most estimates are that the growth held at that rate last year, and look steady for the upcoming year as well.

There is a great demand for Arabic speakers in international business and politics now, and the ever-increasing number of Arabic students reflects this trend. Some governments are even paying for their citizens to learn the language. Concerned by the shortage of Arabic speakers in the U.S. government – the State Department lists only 10 of its 34,000 employees as fluent in the language – last winter President George W. Bush launched the ambitious, $114 million National Security Languages Initiative. According to the U.S. State Department, the program helps to pay for American students and educators to study abroad and learn “critical need foreign languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Farsi and others.”

In addition to government encouragement and funding, many students are tempted by the possibility of literally making a fortune as a translator or interpreter. Since the “War on Terror” began, demand for Arabic speakers at defense contractors such as DynCorp International and Calnet, Inc. has grown sharply. Some of these firms offer salaries of up to $250,000 a year to qualified Arabic translators or linguists willing to work in places like Iraq or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, translating documents and interpreting during meetings, interviews and interrogations.

All of these factors have propelled the number of Arabic students in Egypt to record highs. According to Barbara Hassib, the director of the Sahafayeen-based International Language Institute, “There have never been so many Arabic institutes in the Middle East. Arabic is ‘fashionable’ now, like French, Italian and Spanish.”

The increased demand for lessons has been felt at ILI, too. The Institute, an International House affiliate, has seen enrollment increase by 25 percent in the last two years. According to Hassib, the average enrollment at the school has nearly doubled in the last six years, from 70–100 students per session in the late 1990s to 130–150 students per session now.

To meet this increased demand, within the last year ILI has added several new classes, as well as six new classrooms and a small residence. Arabic schools across the Middle East are going through a similar growth spurt, says Hassib.

“Universities that once sent five or six students now send us 10 or 15,” says Hassib. The Institute’s study programs are very flexible, and attract a broad mix of people including many professionals with specific goals in mind. “For example, embassies, too, have an interest in having language specialists. We’ve had students in programs of 20 months sent to us by embassies and foreign offices; they start from the beginning and leave almost two years later as specialists.”

Both Hassib and Rifaat hope that by studying Arabic in Egypt, international students will bring a greater understanding of the country back home with them.

“I think increased interest in the Middle Easy and Arabic is a good thing,” says Rifaat, “It’s high time that people learn about each other’s cultures. You have to see the other side of the mountain and see other people’s media and understand their points of view.”

“For many people who stay longer than three months, it is hard for them to go home,” says Hassib, “Because they have gotten to know the life-style here and how nice people are, and have corrected many wrong ideas they may have had about the area.”

But political motivations are unavoidable. “The conflicts in the Middle East do add interest to Arabic,” says Hassib. “If it were not for these factors, we would have fewer students.”