The Guardian – Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak has appeared on state television in a bid to lay to rest premature rumours of his death. The Egyptian leader is currently in Germany recovering from surgery on his gall bladder.

 Since news broke of his “routine” surgery on 6 March, Egypt has been filled with speculation about the real state of Mubarak’s health and, with reports that a benign tumour was also removed, there have even been wild rumours that the president is actually dead and that the government has been covering this up to buy time.

 Against this backdrop of uncertainty, the Egyptian stock exchange lost around 5% but the latest footage has brought calm to the jittery market.

 While the death of a president would be disruptive in any country, in Egypt it carries a special significance because Mubarak has been the only show in town for the past three decades and the ageing and ailing dictator has no clear successor.

 At nearly 82 years of age, Baba Mubarak, as he is mockingly known, is certainly no spring chicken and could die at any moment. With such a realistic prospect on the horizon, many Egyptians are rightly apprehensive about what would happen if the president suddenly passed away before next year’s presidential elections.

Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/19/hosni-mubarak-egypt-presidency

(IRIN) – A new report by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Egyptian government says the number of children living in income-poor households is increasing, causing poorer living conditions and a greater deprivation of their rights as children.

Entitled Child Poverty and Disparities in Egypt, and released on 16 February in Cairo, the report said Egypt’s economic growth in the years leading up to the 2009 financial crisis had not adequately benefited the nation’s estimated 28 million children.

“This growth has not led to a proportionate reduction in income poverty or deprivation,” said the study, which is part of a global series of UNICEF studies on child poverty and disparities.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88203

Hesham Gohary says he has been coming to the Health Ministry in central Cairo for weeks in the hope of getting free kidney dialysis treatment, but always leaves empty-handed.

IRIN – The 54-year-old farmer is one of 35,000 low-income kidney failure patients whose collective US$118 million health bill used to be footed by the government, until it recently declared its coffers empty.

“I badly need the dialysis,” Gohary told IRIN. “But it seems so difficult to get free treatment in this country these days.”

Around 35 million of the country’s 80 million people are in the state health insurance system, according to the Health Ministry, and most of the rest are supposed to get free health care.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88097

IRIN – A report on flood damage in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsular was submitted to the Egyptian Cabinet on 28 January.

It said flash floods on and after 18 January left 780 homes totally destroyed, 1,076 submerged and the area suffered material losses of over US$25.3 million.

The destroyed homes would cost the government $3.5 million in compensation, said the report produced by the Crisis Management Centre in north Sinai in cooperation with the Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Centre.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87944

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group approved on Wednesday, 7 October 2009 in Tunis, a loan of Euro 53.33 million, equivalent to 48.56 million Units of Account (UA) to finance the Gabal El Asfar Waste-water Treatment Plant (GAWWTP) Project in Cairo, Egypt.

The project objective is to improve the quality of waste-water discharged into the drainage system in Cairo East, thereby contributing to improved sanitation and a clean environment for nearly 8 million people living in the area.

This phase will provide an additional waste-water treatment capacity of 500,000 cubic meters per day. The waste-water will undergo full treatment, including preliminary, primary and secondary treatment. Provisions are also made to chlorinate the effluent when all the waste-water reaching the drains is adequately treated. The proposed extension will bring the total treatment capacity at the Gabal El Asfar plant to 2.5 million cubic meters per day.

Read more – http://www.afdb.org/en/news-events/article/egypt-afdb-approves-eur-53-million-loan-to-finance-waste-water-treatment-project-5160/