Category: Blog

Egypt resumes pumping gas to Israel

Posted on By 3arabawy

Via Zeinobia:

Egypt has resumed pumping natural gas to Israel after technical difficulties brought supply to a halt for a week.
The Israeli press had reported at the time that Egypt was struggling to cope with the demand on its gas exports and had scaled down the supply specifically to countries who are buying it at lower than market prices such as Israel.
However, Egyptian experts attributed the halt to a technical failure in the compression system, and correctly predicted that the supply would flow again once the error was fixed.
“This [halt] is due to a technical fault in the compressors and they are fixing it,” petroleum expert Ibrahim Zahran previously told Daily News Egypt.
The gas deal to Israel has been met with widespread condemnation in Egypt, not only because of the recipient but also due to the extremely favorable price of the contract, a fraction of the market price for natural gas.

The Doweiqa disaster

Posted on By 3arabawy

I received news about the Doweiqa disaster, via SMS, when I was in Tanta. I haven’t gone there yet, but the pictures we are seeing are horrific, with 31 up till now confirmed dead, and hundreds still trapped.

Yet the pictures are also familiar. Corruption, corruption, corruption, corruption. We cannot blame mother nature or luck in these situations, and neither the families of the victims are. The residents slammed the authorities and Mubarak himself in interviews to the press, blaming the government and its local representatives: the Cairo Governor, and the local council officials. The latter were chased away from the neighborhood, by angry residents, when they dared to visit the scene.

Police was also stoned amid accusations of incompetency. The army had to be called in with its equipment to help with the rescue efforts, while police troops have put the area under siege, banning journalists from entering.

I received unconfirmed news, also via SMS, around 20 mins ago about another collapse in Doweiqa. I hope it’s wrong.

The Egyptian Center for Housing Rights has called for a candlelight vigil, in solidarity with the victims and to protest the state’s housing policy, tomorrow Monday 9pm in Talaat Harb Square.