Who stole the World Cup?

"The son of the miserly Jew Cohen died. Cohen went to the newspaper to announce the death of the boy. 'Cohen mourns his son', he wrote. But at the paper, they insisted that the minimum amount of words for an obituary is five words. 'So write Cohen mourns his son and also repairs watches.'"

This joke was not intended this time to ridicule Jews. Wail Lutfi, a senior writer at the important Egyptian paper, Rose Al-Youssef, used it to poke fun at the Saudi millionaire, Saleh Kamel. He, according to Lutfi, "took away from the Egyptians in particular, and the Arabs in general, their joie de vivre."

What's the connection to the joke? Kamel is the owner of the Arab media conglomerate, ART (Arab Radio and Television), which was set up in 1994 and holds the rights to broadcast the World Cup in Arab countries. The pleas of millions of Arab fans to broadcast the games for free were to no avail.

"Business is business," Kamel said. "Six million Egyptians are robbing me today," the millionaire charged in an interview with the Egyptian television station Dream TV, because according to him, many are getting around the coding of the Mondial games using various electronic means.

Thanks to the World Cup, he and his television company have become a symbol of exploitation that is usually used in reference to Jews. And his great contribution to the world of Arab film and song has been forgotten.

Kamel, 59, is a man of contradictions. He has four wives, one of whom is an Egyptian singer, Safa Abu al-Saud, who hosts a popular television program.

He is a business partner of a wealthy Saudi businessman, Al Walid bin-Talal, who owns shares in Disney and the largest music company in the Middle East. Kamel is also involved in respected Islamic institutions: he is the chairman of the board of the Council of Banks and Islamic Financial Institutions and he is the one who established the Islamic Banking research institute at Al-Azhar University. Like many wealthy Saudis, Kamel made his fortune as a contractor and quickly moved on to banking and financing. Three years ago the Dallah al-Baraka Group, which he headed, was the focus of a U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into its links to funding for Osama bin Laden's businesses in Khartoum. Kamel in the 1990s helped set up in Sudan the small Islamic bank, al-Shamal, through his businesses. Bin Laden had accounts there in which some $50 million had been deposited, through a contracting company called Al-Hajira. It supposedly was indeed involved in developing infrastructure and paving roads in Sudan, but also financed the U.S activities of terrorists. In 1996, Bin Laden was expelled from Sudan due to American pressure and relocated to Afghanistan. His bank accounts in Sudan were closed with a mere $100 left in them. According to the testimony of Assam a-Ghidi, an Al-Qaida activist captured after the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, Bin Laden transferred $320,000 from the al-Shamal Bank to a bank in Arizona, to purchase a plane for training purposes.

A-Ghidi related that the intention was to use the plane to transport Stinger missiles from Pakistan to Sudan. These Stinger missiles are apparently leftovers from the missiles the U.S. transferred to the Afghani mujaheedin who fought against the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. Kamel, who denies any connection to Bin Laden, opened an Islamic bank in Pakistan that is now suspected of being a conduit for funds to Al-Qaida operatives.

The financial ties got even more complicated when it turned out that Kamel's partners at the Sudanese Shamal bank also included Mohammad al-Faisal, the brother of Princess Haifa, the wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Faisal is also the president of the Saudi bank, Dar al Mal al Islami, whose headquarters are in Geneva and which was established in 1981 with some $2.5 billion in shareholder equity. This bank would distribute funds to religious institutions around the world. "On the side," Faisal also owned shares of another small bank called Al Tikwa, which is registered in the Bahamas and has its main operations in Switzerland. This bank was closed at the request of the U.S. due to ostensible ties with Al-Qaida.

The ostensible ties with Al-Qaida did not stop Kamel from setting up and financing newspapers that are considered liberal, such as the Saudi papers, Ukaz and Al-Watan, from being a partner in the MBC network which broadcasts television games, or from acquiring the rights to broadcast the World Cup despite rulings from some of the more radical clerics that the games should not be watched. Kamel, whose assets are valued at around $8 billion, is now enjoying the new Egyptian image: "Cohen the miser."

Ala's test

What's the connection between environmental protection and desertification in Egypt, and President George Bush? The answer may be found in an end-of-the-year composition written by Ala Jabar Mujahad, a 16-year-old high school student from the Dukhaliya region in Egypt. Bush, she noted, is responsible for the terrible condition of the environment in Egypt and other Arab countries, because he supports despotic regimes and thereby makes the situation difficult for the local population. "Bush not only is slaughtering in Iraq and Palestine, but also quietly killing the citizens of Egypt by mixing into its internal affairs."

Ala was sure that she would pass her composition test with flying colors. But when she searched for her name on the list of grades, she was told that not only had she not passed the test, she was also being summoned for questioning by the district education supervisor. There she was asked to explain whether she is a member of a secret anti-government organization and asked who are its other members. At the end of the interrogation, she was informed that she would have to repeat the entire school year, because that is what the law stipulates. This law, No. 41 from the year 2000, is not something dating from the era of the Turks nor is it a remnant of colonial legislation; it stipulates that "a student who harms public discipline shall lose the credit for that school year." What is this "public discipline" that is referred to here? That is subject to interpretation.

Ala was beside herself with panic over the fact that she would lose the whole year of school and told her parents, who were not permitted to be present at her interrogation, what happened to her. Luckily for her, the opposition press took an interest in her story and gave it banner headlines that mocked President Hosni Mubarak's reform program and the "democratization" he had announced.

As usual in those cases where the president feels that something in the relationship between him and the public has been affected, he makes a fuss and ordered the minister of education to instruct the Dukhaliya education supervisor retract his decision. Still Ala's composition was disqualified, but she will not lose the whole year. All in all, it is a case of a technical error on the part of the education supervisor: she did not violate the said law; she just violated the law banning political involvement at school.

Youth corps era ends

Every summer first-year students at Syrian high schools are required to attend a military summer camp where they study several fighting disciplines, train in orienteering and in one-on-one combat and receive a certificate. This certificate was a prerequisite for continuing their studies and completing the high school. This year, students were informed that this requirement will no longer apply, and the budget for the Syrian youth corps will be transferred to civilian programs. The requirement of wearing khaki school uniforms at elementary schools was also eliminated and the subject of "military education" has been removed from the curriculum. Nevertheless, something has shifted in Damascus, if someone thinks that in another 15-20 years the state will no longer need a generation that was raised on the tenets of Ba'athist military education.