 |
Create your own website in seconds with easy to use Visit http://geographicalmedia.org to build your own custom site! |
Egypt News - .geographical media - RSSSyndicated content powered by .geographical mediaRSS syndication makes it easy to receive content updates in My Yahoo!, Newsgator, Bloglines, and other news readers. |
Current Feed ContentYoussef Chahine, Egyptian film director dies at 82 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 Youssef Chahine, the Egyptian film director has died aged 82. He died from a cerebral hemorrhage in the early hours of the morning. Egyptian train crash at level crossing leaves dozens dead Saturday, July 19, 2008 At least forty people are reported to have died and another fifty are injured after an accident at a level crossing in Egypt. A truck failed to stop at the crossing near Marsa Matruh, pushing several vehicles waiting ahead of it onto the tracks. Perversion of justice - 25 face jail in Egypt Friday, April 18, 2008 An Egyptian military court sentenced 25 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood to jail on Tuesday - a verdict described by Amnesty International as a "perversion of justice". “This trial appeared to be politically motivated from the start, when President Mubarak sent the defendants for trial before a military court despite an earlier civilian court ruling that some of them should be released,” said Amnesty International. “Today’s sentences leave little doubt that the Egyptian authorities are determined to undermine what has become the main opposition group in the country.” The military court in Haikstip, northern Cairo, handed down prison sentences of up to 10 years against 25 defendants, including seven who are not in custody and who were tried in absentia. Fifteen other defendants were acquitted but are yet to be released. Khairat al-Shatir, the third highest ranking Muslim Brotherhood leader, and Hassan Malek, received seven years’ imprisonment. Sixteen others received prison sentences ranging from three to five years. Five of those who were tried in absentia received 10 year prison terms, while the other two each received five year sentences. The defendants were all tried on terrorism-related and money laundering charges, which they denied. Specifically, they were alleged to have financed a banned organization and provided students with weapons and military training. They can appeal to the Supreme Court of Military Appeals, but this can only examine procedural matters, not the substance of the case. The verdict, which had been postponed twice, came amid reports that some 200 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including relatives of the defendants, were detained by security forces when they sought to enter the military compound in which the court was located. Security forces prevented human rights observers and the media from entering the court and prohibited the presence of defence lawyers, other than the head of the defendants' legal team. Thousands of security forces were reported to have been deployed on the route to the court compounds in Haikstip, as well as on the main routes leading to Cairo centre, in an attempt to prevent any demonstrations against the military court’s verdict. The highly-publicised trial of the 40 men – all of whom are civilians – opened on 26 April 2007, after President Mubarak ordered in February 2007 that they should be tried before a military court. Earlier, a civilian court threw out charges against 17 of them. During the trial, international observers sent by Amnesty International and other organisations were prevented from attending. “Trying civilians before military courts, whose judges are serving members of the military, flouts international standards of fair trial and is inherently unjust, regardless of whether the defendants are allowed a right of appeal or not.” said Amnesty International. “All of those convicted should be promptly retried by a civilian court that conforms to international fair trial standards, or else released.” World Bank Supports the First Solar Thermal Hybrid Project in Egypt Monday, December 17, 2007
The World Bank today approved a US$327.57 million Power Project for the Republic of Egypt where the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is contributing US$49.80 million to finance the solar portion of a new hybrid power plant.
Source: World Bank EGYPT: Ten-year-old girl becomes 15th bird flu victim Monday, June 11, 2007 A 10-year-old girl has become the youngest person in Egypt to die of bird flu since the first human case was recorded in the country in March 2006. Hers was the 15th death of the 35 human cases reported to date. The girl, from Naqada village in Upper Egypt’s Qena province, died on Sunday morning from the H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus, officials reported. A spokesperson from Egypt’s health ministry confirmed that she was the youngest person to die of bird flu in the country to date. The previous youngest was a 15-year-old girl who died on 10 April. Though the 10-year-old first felt symptoms of the illness on 1 June, she was not admitted to hospital until 6 June because of poor diagnoses. "In terms of diagnosis, she went to four different private physicians before she was finally diagnosed. This issue [bird flu] needs more awareness and attention from doctors in the private sector," said Dr John Jabbour, International Health Regulations Officer and medical officer for Emergency Diseases, World Health Organization (WHO) Cairo. Jabbour said that it is crucial for people to know the symptoms of bird flu and for doctors to recognise and treat those symptoms as early as possible to avoid any fatality. But bird culling campaigns and fines for having so-called ‘backyard birds’ – domestic poultry – have deterred many people from reporting the potentially deadly illness. Another person from the same village as the girl is suspected of having contracted the H5N1 strain of avian flu. A 25-year-old housewife has been taken to Hemayat Hospital in Qena, according to Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper. Incidences of avian flu in humans are typically treated in Egypt with the antiviral drug Tamiflu. Health officials stress that the treatment’s success is highest if the patient reports the illness as soon as symptoms emerge. "In villages, people continue to give each other gifts as part of the culture. These gifts are in the form of poultry, ducks and so on, which become backyard birds. And this is another problem," said Jabbour. Earlier this year, Egypt authorities launched a major campaign to vaccinate backyard birds, which are the most common route of transmission of avian flu from animals to humans. In addition, the government has boosted its efforts to make the public aware of the risks of keeping poultry in the home. Although cases continue to be reported, the campaign appears to be limiting fatalities. Health officials remain vigilant for signs that the virus could evolve and be transmitted between humans, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.
Source: IRIN YEMEN-HORN OF AFRICA: Government combats wheat killer disease Sunday, April 22, 2007 Yemen’s government has launched a campaign to combat a virulent and potentially devastating wheat disease after the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently warned of its spread to the Arabian Peninsular from east Africa.
"Yemen, in particular, should be on the alert, step up field monitoring and training and prepare for direct control interventions in disease hot spots,” FAO said in a statement on 12 April. “Most important, control measures in affected countries should include the introduction of more resistant wheat varieties and restricting planting dates to break the disease cycle." The disease is known as wheat stem rust, wheat black rust or puccinia graminis. FAO confirmed in a recent field mission to Yemen that a particularly virulent strain of the disease, called Ug99, had affected wheat fields in the country for the first time. Ug99 gets its name from its place and date of discovery – Uganda in 1999. It subsequently spread to Kenya and Ethiopia, according to FAO. “It appears that the Ug99 strain found in Yemen is already more virulent than the one found in east Africa. Samples of the pathogen were sent to the US and Canada for further analysis. There is a high risk that the disease could also spread to Sudan," FAO said. The spores of wheat rust are mostly carried by wind over long distances, according to FAO specialists. Wheat stem rust is capable of causing severe agricultural losses by destroying entire wheat fields. The disease attacks wheat stems and shows rust-colored orange patches on infected plants. It is estimated that as much as 80 per cent of all wheat varieties planted in Asia and Africa are susceptible to the Ug99 strain. Government fights back In response to this potential threat, the Yemeni Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation has begun a programme to combat wheat stem rust. Dr Mansour al-Aqil, general director of the General Department for Agricultural Information at the ministry, told IRIN on Sunday that the programme aims to plant detection samples among crops, which help discover the existence of the disease. Al-Aqil said two experts from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and FAO come to Yemen in February and visited nurseries where they saw samples revealing wheat stem rust in different provinces. According to al-Aqil, there are three kinds of wheat rust disease in Yemen: yellow rust, orange rust, and black rust. Yellow and orange rust mostly attack leaves, while black rust attacks the stem, he said. The disease affects the southern parts of Yemen more than the northern areas, which are colder, he said. Wheat is the third most grown cereal in Yemen. It is planted in more than 86,000 hectares in most provinces of the country. In 2005, Yemen produced 115,000 tonnes of wheat. A wheat rust epidemic in Yemen would be devastating to the food security of the impoverished nation and to other major wheat-producing countries should it spread. “Global wheat yields could be at risk if the stem rust spreads to major wheat-producing countries," Dr Jacques Diouf, FAO director-general, said in a recent statement. In the late 1980s, a virulent strain of yellow rust emerged in east Africa and crossed the Red Sea to Yemen, according to FAO. It then moved into the Near East and Central Asia, reaching the wheat fields of southern Asia within four years. Major yellow rust epidemics were subsequently recorded in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, with wheat losses of more than US $1 billion in value. "The fungus can spread rapidly and has the potential to cause global crop epidemics and wheat harvest losses of several billion dollars. This could lead to increased wheat prices and local or regional food shortages. Developing countries that are relying on wheat and do not have access to resistant varieties will be particularly hit," Diouf said. Source: IRIN
AFRICA: Worst hit by global warming, least prepared to tackle climate change - experts Wednesday, January 24, 2007 Africa is the continent most affected by global warming, but is the least prepared to tackle the causes of climate change, experts said on Sunday ahead of a major international environment conference.
International action to reduce the effects of global warming should include helping improve Africa's climate change monitoring capacity, Achim Steiner, executive director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), told a news conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. "The countries on the continent can better tailor their response in areas from agriculture to health care, and international donors can better understand Africa's needs now, and in the future," Steiner said. Rising sea levels could destroy an estimated 30 percent of Africa's coastal infrastructure, according to a new UN report on the impact of climate change on the continent. Coastal settlements in the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, Gambia and Egypt could be flooded, according to the report produced by the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). By 2080, global warming could lead to a 5 percent fall in the production of food crops, such as sorghum in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Zambia; maize in Ghana; millet in Sudan; and groundnuts in Gambia. Climate change could also lead to natural disasters in the form of severe droughts and devastating floods that would threaten the lives of Africa’s 812 million inhabitants, the report added. Ironically, however, Africa produces the least amount of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Other major concerns include the problem of water shortages, which could affect up to 480 million people. The report claims that between 25 percent and 40 percent of natural habitats in Africa could be lost by 2085. "Part of the action, part of the adaptation response, and part of this responsibility to Africa, must include significant improvements in Africa's climate and weather monitoring capabilities," Steiner said. An estimated 25 percent of global climate observation stations in East and Southern Africa are not functioning, while most of the remaining facilities are working in a less than an optimum manner, the UNFCCC report said. "Africa is the largest of all tropical landmasses and, at 30 million square km, is about a fifth of the world's total land area. Yet the climate observing system in Africa is in a far worse and deteriorating state than that of any other continent," Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organisation, said in a statement. "There are also major impacts in highly elevated areas like Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro whose glaciers, ice caps and run-off are important for water supplies. Overall it is estimated that Africa needs 200 automatic weather stations, a major effort to rescue historical data, and improved training and capacity building on climate and weather reporting," he added. The UN Climate Change Conference will coincide with the second session of the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty committing signatories to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. More than 6,000 delegates from around the world are expected in Nairobi for the 6-17 November conference. Author: IRIN Source: IRIN AFRICA: Multi-tier approach to bird flu Saturday, December 09, 2006 The United Nations doesn’t have a special agency to prepare for the disaster that could occur if a deadly strain of influenza that is currently killing hundreds of millions poultry and wild birds were to start killing millions of humans, but the world doesn’t need such an organisation, experts say.
“This is a problem that’s just too complex for any one organisation to handle,“ John Underwood, a senior adviser for the World Bank, told IRIN in Bamako during a three-day conference on avian flu attended by representatives from more than a hundred governments and international organisations. On Friday donors announced pledges worth US $475 million for 2007 to prepare for bird flu, adding to some $2 billion pledged since the first outbreak in Asia in 2003. Since then avian flu has been reported in dozens of countries in Asia, Europe and Africa, killing hundreds of millions of birds and poultry while authorities have culled at least 240 million more to prevent the disease from spreading. Only 258 people are known to have contracted the virus so far but half of them died, thus if the disease were to spread widely amongst humans experts predict a humanitarian catastrophe. Underwoood, who led the World Bank team that set up a system to finance and monitor national and international efforts to cope with a possible global pandemic, said an array of international organisations are involved as well as many government ministries. Technical expertise is required in animal disease, human disease, food security and disaster management. Other experts need to prepare for the economic and social effects of a pandemic. The potential fallout was seen when an outbreak occurred in Egypt and the poultry industry collapsed. Communications experts are also preparing to inform and mobilise the public for when outbreaks occur. The coordinator of all of these activities is David Nabarro, who heads a unit in the UN called the System Influenza Coordination, know by the acronym UNSIC. It has laid out the roles and responsibilities of various UN and partner organisations in an action plan published in November that donors used to decide how they would allocate funds. The key technical organisations are the World Health Organisation (WHO) the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). Both the FAO and OIE are charged with strengthening veterinary services in developing countries, boosting their abilities to monitor the virus and improving crisis management. WHO’s responsibilities include assisting countries in setting up health systems that can respond to epidemics and pandemics. As outbreaks could cause malnutrition in some areas, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is working to identify and address possible food security needs. UNICEF has the job of working with governments, and other UN organisations to develop communication strategies and behavioural change to prevent bird-to-bird, bird-to-human and human-to-human transmission. Other organisations also have small but still important roles. For example, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is preparing contingency plans if flights need to be stopped in areas where there is an outbreak to prevent or at least minimise its spread. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is charged with providing support to workers in the poultry industry, which has already suffered losses of up to US $10 billion from bird flu outbreaks around the world. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) are helping to create Pandemic Influenza Contingency Support Teams around the world, which provide technical support to governments so that they are ready to respond to avian and human influenza and have effective disaster management plans. Financing the activities of a dozen different organisations and some hundred governments is a complicated matter, Underwood said, particularly as money must sometimes be dispersed very quickly. Also priorities change quickly, he said. “In January when donors met in Beijing we agreed that Africa was a low priority, but then in February outbreaks started in Nigeria, Egypt and several other African countries and we had to suddenly re-estimate and reallocate funds.” The World Bank has an emergency trust fund that has some US $10 million grant money available for outbreaks that occur anywhere in the world. It also has about US $200 million in loan money available, some of which was released in March to help Nigeria cope with its outbreak. Underwood said that a loan can be dispersed quicker than a grant but he didn’t think loans were fair. “Developing countries shouldn’t have to become indebted in order to help solve a problem that could potentially affect the whole world,” he said. How money is dispersed to various organisations is even more complicated. “That’s what you get with this interagency approach,” he said. “Some agencies and countries can get too much finding while others get too little.” Also monitoring the money is more difficult when it goes to many institutions than when it goes to one big one, he said. “But the world doesn’t need yet another new international organisation,” he said. “It needs existing organisations to adapt to new situations.” UNSIC coordinator David Nabarro said at the conference that flexibility is the key to managing a potential crisis, which could start anywhere in the world and may or may not be catastrophic to humans. “We are dealing with an uncertain threat but one we know we must prepare for,” he said. Source: IRIN Video Games & Sports Monday, October 30, 2006 Like novels, video games can be categorized into different genres. One of the genres of video games that exist is the role-playing games. Before there were video games, role-playing games were played, usually using dice.
One example of role-playing in the real world was Dungeons and Dragons. In this game, you pretended to be a person who existed in a world where dragons, magic and other fantastical elements existed. Each of your actions in that world was mostly determined by the roll of the dice. You played with other people and they took on roles as well in that world as well. In the video game version, you take on the role of a person and use joystick or game console to do your actions on the screen. They just translated games that existed in the real world into video. Sports video games are just video versions of games like tennis, football and American football. You can be Michael Jordan and play against other superstars of the NBA. Do you want to be favorite American football player? You can be that player or any other player in the video game version? You can be Tiger Woods in a video game version of golf. Video game version of real sports let you pretend to be a super star that you will probably never be in real life. Sim is short for simulated and the video or computers usually have the word Sim in their title. It probably all started with a game called in Sim City. In Sim City, you pretend to be a person running a city. You had to build everything that made up a city and had to deal with disasters that would come out of nowhere so you wouldn’t get so bored just building things. A fire would happen in a building and would have to deal with that disaster. Some sim games deal with you being roller coaster or train baron. The popular games in this genre are simply called Sims these days. In these sim games, you pretend to be a person going through the stages of life and the troubles that you have in each stage of life. Puzzle video games are games where you simply have to solve the puzzle to move to the next level. Some games are like the famous game called Concentration where you have to match all the pieces. Once you match all the pieces, you can go on to the next level. It can be like tic-tac-toe where you have to put three matching things together and then you can move on. Some are actually video game versions of jigsaw puzzles. One popular genre is the strategy game genre. In this genre, you must you’re your mind against the computer or other opponents to win the game. One example of this game is the Civilization game series. In Civilization, you pretend to be a civilization like the Egyptians, Russians, Germans or any past civilization. Your civilization starts out at the cave man and you must find ways to evolve your civilization. While you are trying to evolve, other civilizations exist and they exist to destroy your civilization. You won this game by either beating all the other civilizations or by entering the Space Age. All you have really is your mind and you must use it or be destroyed in a strategy game. About The Author Taisha Grant writes about http://www.videogamesbox.com, http://www.videogamesbox.com/Coupons/eToys.html and http://www.videogamesbox.com/Coupons/MadCatzStore.com.html Author: by: Taisha Grant Source: Articlecity.com
GFA Prexy Appointed in CAF Committee Monday, October 02, 2006 The President of the Gambia Football Association, Seedy MB Kinteh has been appointed by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to serve as a member of it’s Standing Committee and a member of it’s Judicial Bodies for the period of 2006-2008.
According to a press release from GFA Mr Kinteh’s appointment was taken by the executive committee of CAF in its recent meeting in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
Below is the full text of the press release from GFA: At its recent meeting in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), decided to appoint Mr Seedy MB Kinteh, President of the Gambia Football Association as a member of the CAF Standing Committee, and a member of its Judicial Bodies for the period of 2006-2008. According to the letter conveying the information, signed by Secretary General Mustapha Fahmy, Mr Kinteh will be among old and new members whose experience and availability and loyal service to football could be counted on in the mission to develop and promote African Football. The GFA boss would start his continental career in the organising committee for the inter- club competitions. Reacting to his appointment Mr Kinteh expressed surprise but said he felt privileged to be included in this prestigious body. “I think this is an honoured to the Gambia not just me” he said. Source: The Point
|
| Site created with .geographical media. |  |