From the Jerusalem Post:
Egypt has imposed severe restrictions on Hamas officials crossing into the country, sources close to Hamas told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. Israeli defense officials said the decision to impose the restrictions was part of a general Egyptian “crackdown” on Hamas, which also included increased efforts to prevent weapons smuggling from Sinai into the Gaza Strip.
Many Hamas officials who traveled abroad through the Rafah border crossing over the past few months have complained that they were delayed for several hours on the Egyptian side of the border. The restrictions have created a crisis between Egypt and Hamas, whose leaders accused Cairo of humiliating senior Hamas leaders.
The 5th Cairo Anti-War Conference’s final statement is available in Arabic.
And here’s a report about the Conference from the Guardian’s Comment is Free:
The rich and powerful have their conferences and we who oppose them have ours. For example, some very rich and powerful characters were meeting in Saudi Arabia last week.
But as the tyrants met in Riyadh, delegates from 17 different countries gathered in Egypt for the Fifth International Cairo Conference incorporating the Third Middle Eastern Social Forum under the slogan: “Building an international coalition for resistance” – resistance against colonialism, globalisation, imperialism and Zionism.
There was a lot to discuss: the catastrophe of Iraq, the clear build-up against Iran, the on-going agony of the Palestinian people and the almost universal despotism which characterises the Middle East.
The conference met in a country on the brink of revolt. Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt as a police state for over 26 years, has recently increased his people’s suffering. Last December he announced changes in the constitution to “rid Egypt of socialist principles launched in the 1960s (and) also seek to create a more favorable atmosphere for foreign investments”.
This was the usual neo-liberal bullshit for slashing wages and forcing people to work harder. The workers resisted with massive strikes. Some 20,000 mobilized to defend their bonuses at the Ghazl el-Mahal factory in Mahalla el-Kubra, north of Cairo, 8,000 at Kafr al-Dawwar factory did the same, followed by similar strikes at Zifta and Shibin al-Kum in Alexandria.
