Category: Blog

Suez Food Industries workers stage sit-in

Posted on By 3arabawy

Around 250 workers (out of a total force 450) from Efco Food Industries are continuing their sit-in which they started two days, in Suez, demanding:

1-Their annual shares of profits which they haven’t received from 1999, the year the company was founded

2-Food allowance or a meal, as the workers are given neither

3-Health insurance, especially as industrial safety procedures is almost non-existent according to the workers, who say accidents and severe injuries (which lead to the amputation of limps) are common in the workplace.

4-Night-shifts allowance (badal wardeya): The company’s factory in Ataqa, Suez, operate 24/7 on three successive eight-hour daily shifts. The night shifts should have a higher pay than the morning shifts, but the company are paying flat rates.

5-From the total work force of 450, only 150 workers have contracts. The protesters are demanding contracts and job security

6-A worker by the name Fathi Afifi will be interrogated by an administrative penal board. The workers are demanding this move by the management to be revoked.

Judge Murad Vs Bloggers: Verdict out on 29 Dec

Posted on By 3arabawy

On Dec 29, we shall finally get the verdict in Judge Murad‘s lawsuit against the govt, demanding the banning of 51 websites and blogs including mine, under the claim that they are harmful to national security and insulting to the president.

The Arabic network for human rights information and Hisham Mubarak Law Center, two human rights organizations, stated today that the next Saturday December 29, 2007, will witness a very significant event. The administrative court will issue a sentence that will affect the future of internet & its freedom in Egypt. The sentence will be issued in the case that was filed by the judge Abdul Fattah Murad last February. Judge Murad launched his case demanding the banning of 51 websites in Egypt. He alleged that such websites defame, in their contents, the Egyptian government. The case came as a consequence of the detection of an assault against the intellectual property of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information by Judge Murad, as he published a profiting book containing dozens of copied pages pages of one of the network reports without referring to the source.

Govt study: Six water brands found unsafe in Egypt

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Reuters…

Six water brands found unsafe in Egypt govt study
CAIRO, Dec 26 – Egypt’s Consumer Protection Agency found six locally produced brands of bottled water, including Schweppes, unfit for human consumption, agency chairman Said el-Alfy said on Wednesday.
Alfy said at a news conference that a study financed by his one-year-old agency and conducted over two months by the Central
Egyptian Society for Consumer Protection and the Health Ministry took samples of 21 bottled water brands and discovered bacteria in six of them.
The study said the contaminated samples are the 1.5-litre bottles of Schweppes and el-Nada and the 19-litre bottles of Nahl, Aquastone, Aquamena and Hayat.
The study also found seven other brands were fraudulently labeled — meaning the ingredients on labels did not match what was in the water — but said they were still fit for consumption.
Those include the 1.5-litre bottles of Baraka, el-Manar, Delta, Hayat, Aquamena and Nahl and 19-litre bottles of Siwa.
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce said in a statement on Wednesday that it had formed an emergency committee to inspect the factories as soon as possible.
Schweppes Egypt officials did not return multiple calls for comment and to discuss if there is a connection between that company
and London-based Cadbury Schweppes plc . No one was available to comment at Cadbury’s office in Cairo.
The Coca-Cola Co lists Schweppes on its Web site among brands that it owns or uses under license, but a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola could not immediately comment on any relationship with the Egyptian Schweppes.
Thousands of Egyptians suffer from kidney failure every year mainly because of lack of a reliable source of clean drinkable water.
Many Egyptians believe tap water is contaminated and unhealthy.