Year: 2007

US Poll: 66% want US to withdraw some or all troops from Iraq

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Newsday….

At least eight Americans have died in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent days, it emerged yesterday, as a new poll showed a majority of Americans, 66 percent, want the United States to withdraw some or all troops from Iraq.
…While 12 percent of Americans said they want more U.S. troops to be sent to Iraq and 15 percent said the number should stay the same, 30 percent said the number of troops should decrease, and 36 percent said the U.S. should remove all troops, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll out yesterday.
Fifty-three percent of Americans polled said Bush’s recent strategy to send more U.S. troops to Iraq to quell violence has had no impact on the situation, and 66 percent said the war is going badly, down from 74 percent the week before.
The survey of 889 U.S. adults was conducted July 20-22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Egyptians still feeling the effects of last year’s hike in fuel prices

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the Daily Star Egypt:

“Ever since last year’s increase in fuel prices, I spend an extra LE 8 each day on gasoline consumption alone, and the majority of customers does not want to bear that increase,” said Atteya Eid, a Cairo taxi driver.
“It wrecked my living,” Eid said.
Last year, the government abruptly raised the prices of gasoline and oil products in an attempt to reduce the sizeable budget deficit — forecast at more than 9 percent of GDP in the 2006-07 fiscal years.
Amid last year’s Revolution Day Anniversary celebrations, the price of 90-octane fuel rose 30 percent from LE 1 per liter to LE 1.30, while the price of diesel — widely used in trucks and minibuses — rose 25 percent from LE 0.60 per liter to LE 0.75.
The new prices took affect on the Friday preceding the July 23 celebrations, when many Egyptians escape Cairo’s heat and flock to the North Coast for the long weekend. The government had strategically marked its calendar so that the surge would pass smoothly without public unrest.
A year on, B- and C-class citizens as well as taxi-drivers suffer the most from the rising energy costs. “On a daily-basis, problems arise with customers, particularly [government] employees,” said Eid. “Some customers consider the hike and increase the fare without being asked, while others — also overburdened with soaring prices — refuse to pay one extra piaster.”
…. A further reduction in energy subsidies is currently in the works. Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali said earlier this month that the government planned to announce fresh cuts in energy subsidies within the next three to four months, a step that will further stoke inflation.

Ill and hungry, Palestinians in Egypt long for home

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the Daily News Egypt:

The thousands of Palestinians stranded in Al-Arish and Rafah are broke, hungry, and homeless, but you won’t hear a single one asking for these basic necessities.
“We just want to go home,” is the anthem among these Palestinians, young and old, poor and less poor.
“We don’t want their food,” shouts one woman, “we won’t eat or drink, just get us back.” “The Palestinian people don’t get hungry,” she adds.
She stays in one of the better types of accommodation — at an outdoor community center where tents were pitched up — along with about 70 others.
When asked for her name she responds, “My name is Palestine!”
She has been in the camp for over a month and a half and says she has developed diabetes during her forced stay in Egypt.
Everybody here knows the exact number of days they have been away without thought or hesitation. One child even responds “since Wednesday,” by which he means Wednesday nearly two months ago.
Nine-year-old Maged and his younger sister have been in Egypt with their father for 46 days, returning from pilgrimage in Mecca, while their mom waits for them back in Gaza. He is visibly tired and reticent, uneager to discuss his thoughts and feelings on their situation.
Other children are more willing to talk but all have the same thing to say: they miss their siblings and families and only know they are here because the border has been closed.