The Army Plc.

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The Army Plc.

Post by Who2 »

A couple of the village lads popped round for a beer and a cigarette whilst on leave, they've been in the 'Army Plc for about 9 months, one is in Cairo, he speaks pretty good English the other in Qeena they frequently chat to each other on their mobiles.
So, 'What's happening on the 30th ? Where will You be ?
"I'll be in Tahir Sq, "have you got a camera phone, because I can upload from there within 10 minutes"
They said, the Army will wait again to see which way the wind blows, so 'business as usual, the Yanks taught them well, when asked do all Generals speak English with an American accent they nodded and laughed....We talked a lot, last time is was about chasing tunnel digging beduin business men around the Sinai....:cool:
Ps: I alway's take the ****, "your Army makes fridges......'yes but they also make guns called Ali.


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Re: The Army Plc.

Post by Who2 »

Being nosey as I is: Mohammed Ali..Egypt
Ref: Joe Stork Middle East Research and Information Project

Egyptian arms production dates back to the period of Muhammad Ali’s rule in the 1820s. Comprehensive and of high quality, it included warships, artillery, rifles, bombs and ammunition. Both resources and market were strictly domestic. But under European pressure, facilities were disbanded in the 1840s.

Egypt began modern arms production after World War II with help from German, Swedish and French experts. The government built ammunition and small arms factories in the mid-1950s. An aircraft factory was set up at Helwan, near Cairo, in 1950 to produce primary trainers and prototypes of fighters, and the Helwan Engine Company was set up in 1960 to produce aircraft engines. The Sakr Factory for Developed Industries, set up in 1953 in Heliopolis, another Cairo suburb, was a munitions works which began to develop missiles in the 1960s. All of these efforts were based on imported technology. During the 1960s, Egyptian industry built several hundred aircraft; some were exported. But the Soviets, by then Egypt’s main arms supplier, discouraged local arms production. The arms factories ran into financial difficulties and many had closed by the end of the 1960s. Apart from light arms manufacture, Egypt’s military industry worked only on repair and maintenance of imported weapons.

Egypt broke its special relations with the Soviets after 1973 and turned to the West. The 1973 October war and the increase in oil prices spurred plans for expanded Egyptian military industries. So did the new economic program of infitah, with its goal of opening of the Egyptian economy to foreign companies and expanding exports. The Sadat regime proposed construction of a military-industrial complex called the Arab Organization of Industries (AOI). AOI was based on the idea that the Saudis and their partners would provide the capital; Washington, London and Paris would provide the technology and capital equipment; Egypt would contribute its four existing arms factories -- the aircraft and engine factories in Helwan, the Sakr munitions factory in Heliopolis and the Kader factory (aircraft and armor) -- and some 15,000 trained workers. AOI was formally set up in 1975 and some assembly and licensing agreements were reached in 1977-1978, but Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states cut off funding in 1979 in response to the Egyptian-Israeli-US peace treaty. Egypt assumed total control of the consortium at that point, with credits from the US and France and some money from arms exports. Since 1984, there have been reports of renewed Saudi funding.

AOI annual production was about $100 million in the early 1980s. Most of this output was for Egyptian forces, though Egypt exports to Iraq and some other Arab and African states as well. Military Production Industries (MPI) is a government-run arms complex under the Defense Ministry that is separate from AOI. MPI has 15 factories, mainly in Cairo’s suburbs. Its $240 million annual output of small arms and ammunition is mostly for local use. Together the two consortia oversee 24 factories and have a labor force of between 70,000 and 100,000.

AOI projects have built up the Egyptian aerospace industry. Between 1982 and 1985, the Helwan plant assembled some 37 French Alpha jets with almost half local components including flaps, rudders, tailcones and some avionics. Helwan is now assembling Chinese F-7 (MiG-21) fighters, and is beginning to assemble Mirage 2000 fighters. The Kader factory, perhaps with Saudi financing, is producing 110 Brazilian EMB-312 Tucano trainers, 80 of them for Iraq. The new privately financed Arab-British Helicopter Company is assembling two or three Gazelle light helicopters per month, and Aerospatiale has also agreed to provide technology for assembly of the Super Puma helicopter. Three factories at Helwan assemble, repair and overhaul aircraft engines. Benha Electronics Factory, in a co-production arrangement with Westinghouse, is assembling radar systems. It has a work force of 3,000 and annual turnover of 70 million Egyptian pounds. Egypt designed and developed the Walid armored personnel carrier in the 1960s. A new version, the Fahd, came off the assembly lines in 1984 and several Arab states have placed orders. General Dynamics, the US firm, won a contract in 1984 to build a tank factory outside Cairo. US and British firms have competed for contracts supplying tools for upgrading Soviet artillery. In 1982, Egypt sold Iraq $1 billion worth of refurbished Soviet military hardware, and the arms trade to Iraq has remained brisk.

Egypt currently assembles the British Swingfire anti-tank missile, and versions of the Soviet SA-7 and SA-2 portable surface-to-air missiles, as well as several kinds of air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles. These missiles are mostly built at the Sakr works. Egyptian factories are also turning out increasing quantities of guns and ammunition, some for export. And they are producing military electronics such as radios and telecommunications. France is Egypt’s major partner in developing more sophisticated assembly and production facilities. According to one French executive, “Egypt has become a profitable relay between France and the other countries in the region.” At a time of declining foreign exchange revenues, Egypt is counting on increasing its arms exports. Since Iraq takes two thirds of Egypt’s military exports, an end to the Gulf War could affect Cairo’s export plans significantly. Egypt also needs to increase arms exports to make its military industries cost-effective. Gamal al-Sayyid Ibrahim, minister of state for military production, discussing which main battle tank Egypt might assemble, remarked that the choice would not only have to meet Egyptian army requirements but would also have “to satisfy the market around us.” Apart from Iraq, some of Egypt’s main clients have been Somalia, Oman, Sudan and North Yemen. Shipments to these countries, including Chinese jet fighters and Soviet and US tanks, have been financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Other important customers have been the Afghan mujahidin and the Washington-backed forces of Hissene Habre in Chad.

Pss: They also build fridges and own the Lotus Hotel Luxor, and bake some very fine breads there....:cool:
"Interesting eh ? Business is business, recommended viewing; Nicholas Cages' Lord of War: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399295/
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Re: The Army Plc.

Post by Hafiz »

Thanks for the article. I didn't realize that the army military businesses were so hi-tech.

The army makes/owns lots. Humidicribs, chicken farms, hotels, factories, petrol stations, supermarkets, soccer stadiums etc. They use conscripts to work in their businesses and use military law and military tribunals to deal with union activities.

Estimates of the total size of their business are never less than 7% of GDP.

Whether the profits of those businesses go back into government coffers is very doubtful. The management of their businesses (retired military officers) is often derided by US think tanks.
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Re: The Army Plc.

Post by A-Four »

Hafiz wrote:Thanks for the article. I didn't realize that the army military businesses were so hi-tech.

The army makes/owns lots. Humidicribs, chicken farms, hotels, factories, petrol stations, supermarkets, soccer stadiums etc. They use conscripts to work in their businesses and use military law and military tribunals to deal with union activities.

Estimates of the total size of their business are never less than 7% of GDP.

Whether the profits of those businesses go back into government coffers is very doubtful. The management of their businesses (retired military officers) is often derided by US think tanks.
Hold it there Hafiz, up until the 'trouble' of two years ago the military accounted for a staggering 40% of GDP in Egypt. I think you may agree, if this has fallen in the past couple of years, it will certainly rise in the next few months.
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Re: The Army Plc.

Post by Bombay »

With 30 June rallies around corner, all eyes turn to Egypt armed forces

On the eve of next week's mass protests against President Morsi, along with planned counter-rallies by Morsi's Islamist supporters, all eyes turn to Egypt's armed forces and the role they will play in the looming showdown

As 30 June looms closer, it looks like nothing will alter the inevitable that lies in wait for this country one year after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) handed power to a civilian president.
It was a year filled with dire assessments regarding most political, economic, social and security concerns. Perhaps the only positive development was that achieved by the military establishment, which, over the course of the past year, has succeeded in turning around its public image from that encapsulated in the slogan 'Down with military rule' to almost the very antithesis.

This has been expressed in calls for the army to assume control again in order to stabilise the situation, so that the post-revolutionary clock might be turned back to zero and the interim phase can begin afresh with the army acting as the trustworthy temporary administrator of the nation.

Defence Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has advanced the army as a political player again. His charismatic speech at an awareness-raising seminar in Cairo's Galaa Theatre on Sunday signalled that the army could step forward again to play a role in the political process at this critical juncture.

Former deputy chief of Egypt's General Intelligence Service (GIS) General Hossam Kheirallah told Ahram Online: "With this speech, General El-Sisi has presented himself as an alternative for the near future. Without going overboard in praise, his speech reflects many virtues in his character. He is the only person who succeeded in bringing his institution [the army] back from the brink of disaster in a state in which virtually everything else had collapsed within the space of a year."

He added that the defence minister "is the only one who could speak to the street, bolstered by his success in this institution. We believe that 30 June will usher in the beginning of a new phase, which will begin with negotiations over arrangements for when the president will step down. The fear that chaos and civil strife is inevitable has been dispelled, although perhaps it was natural to expect that this would be louder than the voice of politics."

Armed Forces spokesman Colonel Mohamed Ahmed Ali summarised El-Sisi's speech in 11 points, "each of which builds on the previous points logically and cohesively." Indeed, all the sources that Ahram Online spoke to agreed with Ali that "the speech was formulated with consummate care and precision at a time when the country needs consummate care and precision."

Ali added: "It was also shaped by astute military expertise and with the unanimous approval of all the [military] leaders with whom General El-Sisi began to consult at least two days beforehand, since the [Islamists'] No to violence' rally on Friday in front of Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque. What Al-Sisi said in his speech reflected the current sense of the situation and a unanimity of opinion among all quarters of the armed forces."

Perhaps some of the political forces misinterpreted the points in the speech. The Muslim Brotherhood reacted with alarm, as though it feared that El-Sisi was signalling an imminent "soft coup" against the president. For at least eight hours, they held their breath as they attempted to assess the situation.

During this period, Muslim Brotherhood members were instructed not to appear in the media. According to sources in the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the party put everything on hold as they awaited word from the office of the group's supreme guide. As one FJP source described the mood among the party leadership at the time, "it was like awaiting a sentencing."

Finally, they received a message from the office of the group's supreme guide, delivered by Muslim Brotherhood Secretary-General Mahmoud Hussein, who was in contact with Deputy Supreme Guide Kheirat Al-Shater and the president. The message said: "Relax. No need to worry." No further details were offered.

However, Hussein said he had spoken with other leaders, and the conclusion had been that the Muslim Brotherhood could deal with the situation more flexibly by calling for an unconditional dialogue in which everything would be negotiable except for the need for the president to remain in office until the completion of his term.

El-Sisi's speech, published on the military spokesman's webpage on Sunday, was also, for the first time, rebroadcast via the internet so as to give viewers the opportunity to catch the details of the speech and to sense the atmosphere in the hall as El-Sisi delivered it live. For example, the room was filled with seven-minute applause after he said, "Death is preferable to those who threaten the Egyptian people or spill their blood."

Later that day, El-Sisi arrived at the presidential palace for a meeting with the president. A source at the palace revealed that Morsi had been unaware of El-Sisi's speech and that the meeting had been prearranged. According to an informed source, Morsi had assured El-Sisi during that meeting that he and the Muslim Brotherhood guaranteed that its members would remain peaceful on 30 June and that they would not carry arms or incite violence.

The president was then said to have cautioned that the army should keep its eyes on the "other side." The two agreed that there had to be a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC).
In the interval between the meeting between Morsi and El-Sisi and the NSC meeting, there was a flurry of contacts between various parties.

However, the most important and most frequent were those conducted with or via the US embassy in Cairo, which has sought to sustain good relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in spite of the reservations embassy officials have voiced over its performance and in spite of the refusal to heed much of the advice coming out of Washington.

Although few details have been revealed about these communications, the embassy reproached the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau for revealing details about the relationship between them. It also came to light recently that there had been a meeting between El-Shater and US Ambassador to EgyptAnne Patterson.

General Hamdi Bakhit, a military expert, maintains that there are a couple of points with regard to El-Sisi's speech that should be borne in mind before considering what took place in the NSC meeting.

Firstly, it was the second time the army called upon Egyptian political forces to engage in dialogue. If the first dialogue, which the president had prevented, had succeeded, Egypt would have avoided many risks and dangers. In Bakhit's opinion, the second call for a dialogue is unlikely to succeed because "now the parties are so far apart that it has become impossible to find common ground between them."

The second point is that the army feels that the president has failed in the military establishment as commander-in-chief. A strong indication of this is his failure to stem the indignities inflicted against the military establishment by "spiteful members of his 'family and tribe'," as Bakhit put it, quoting the terms with which Morsi addressed his Muslim Brotherhood supporters in a speech at the presidential palace last year.

Therefore, he said, El-Sisi had a strong sense of the pulse in the military establishment, which is united in its confidence in General El-Sisi and the SCAF, while it feels that the president's affiliation with the army is simply in name only. Bakhit stressed that this general feeling has been confirmed by precise and reliable opinion polls conducted in the military establishment.

"The army, at present, no longer feels confident that the current political entities are capable of realising the ambitions of the people and that the army will have to step in sooner or later," he said.

Surprisingly, the NSC meeting failed to produce a spark of hope in the possibility that the opposition could be persuaded to engage in dialogue. However, military expert General Talaat Muslim understands this.

"The repeated calls to dialogue have lost their glimmer," he said. "Even such basic demands as the call for a new government, the dismissal of the current public prosecutor and the appointment of an alternative by the Supreme Judicial Council, and a general dialogue over amending the constitution have gone unheard."

He added: "Now I'm afraid that it might be too late to discuss even these measures. It is clear that the president and his group have shut their ears to all advice and persisted on their course, on their own. I do not believe they realise the consequences of that way of doing things."

A Muslim Brotherhood official told Ahram Online that his group would not initiate violence because it feared the wrath of the army. However, based on discussions with this official, it appears that the Muslim Brotherhood is unaware of the state of apprehension within the armed forces.

At the same time, according to this source, "there are intentions that some Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya members are trying to export in political corridors."

This corroborates what a military source reported to Ahram Online: "Safwat Abdel-Ghani, a former leader of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and currently an official in the Construction and Development Party, accused the Muslim Brotherhood, at a meeting with El-Shater, of being too lenient with the liberals and leftists. He said that this language won't work with that trend – the 'liberals and leftists'."

A highly placed official told Ahram Online that the weapons reports that were submitted to the NSC were extremely worrying and fed the belief that certain parties were preparing for an armed engagement.

"It is essential that there is a party that can stop those forces if the demonstrations turn violent," he said. "I believe that the army has said what it has to say on this matter and that the message came across to those whom it may concern, that if the army is compelled to resort to force of arms, the losses will be great. But it has no desire to go this way."

Another source with knowledge of what transpired at the NSC meeting suggested that the meeting did not focus on what it should have. On the other hand, he pointed out that El-Sisi's attendance at that meeting did not indicate a change in position since his Sunday speech.

"On the contrary, he brought the president into the picture and effectively told him that he had to stop taking decisions on his own or through the Muslim Brotherhood," the source said. "In other words, from now on, every decision had to be taken in full view of the NSC."

The source continued: "According to my assessment of what transpired at the meeting, we are headed toward 30 June in a way that Egypt would not wish. The Islamists are playing with fire and it will burn them. Their decision to take to the field on Friday, two days in advance of the forthcoming Tamarod protest, is effectively a declaration of war against the other side and a sure sign that they will initiate violence as was confirmed in last Friday's 'Kandahar III' demonstration at Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque."

He went on: "They lack all sense of responsibility, for which reason a clash is imminent. The army has lost all confidence in them because it realises that the promises that Morsi gave to El-Sisi were mere words, and that the call to dialogue is mere words. But the army is at the ready and it has detailed contingency plans."

The source said that the plans range from how to safeguard vital infrastructure and protect public services to how to respond to attempted infiltrations of army ranks, rioting and armed violence. The plans also cover possible side battles in the Sinai, for example, as well as possible attempts to ignite trouble beyond our borders.

Already, the army has stepped up border security and is coordinating with the presidency and the interior ministry on many other security-related tasks. A fully-equipped and comprehensive operations room is up and running for these purposes, as well as for handling political dimensions, such as the army's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood or a dialogue with the diverse secularist political forces.

For the moment, however, the army is on standby in anticipation of whatever happens on 30 June. Afterwards, it will assess the situation and determine the course it will follow in the future, including whether or not Morsi remains in power, in accordance with the principles that have been agreed upon by the commanders of the armed forces, the source concluded.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... rn-to.aspx
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Re: The Army Plc.

Post by A-Four »

.....................in short, as I said above, if the military's GDP has fallen in the past two years, it will CERTAINLY rise in the next couple of months,..................
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Re: The Army Plc.

Post by Hafiz »

A-Four Very droll.

As you know, no one knows how big the army's assets are. Big, but how big? Who did the measurement and did they survive the task. You will remember a long winded post I did some time ago which quoted a number of estimates but these have always varied widely with none less than 7% although Who2's post came as a bit of a shock because I thought that the Army had stuck to simple big earners rather than anything which would require them to actually have to go the office. I'm surprised about the complementary (?) tone of the article - I'd previously read that they did basic assembly and they were really bad at it. Who2's source, Middle East Research and Information Project, is a top shelf body with lots of free downloads.

The good point about the Who2 article is that it shows that 'public ownership' of some of these businesses goes back to Nassar's nationalizations and to his loopy self sufficiency programs and that he used his mates in the Army to run. Its easy to forget that the Army has been playing capitalist for over 60 years. Changing the habits of 60 years will be a big call.

I would bore you by explaining why some assets are bigger than others. The problem, however, is that there is no map and lots of businesses are hard to define. So, in measuring the Army's assets it is generally not clear whether the business is owned by the state and managed by the brasses, a business conducted by the military acting alone ( who owns the assets unclear) or, and this is new, joint ventures with multinationals (think motor cars for example) or with state owned bodies from the Gulf. The last are the new big earners with the Army probably getting equity in return for sourcing the land, 'getting' the permits, providing some dozy management whilst the European executives do the real work and, importantly, providing physical security for the asset and, most importantly, guaranteeing that the Army will 'protect' the asset from any 'Government' intervention. Some commentators have said that some of these joint ventures, with for example China, may not be renegotiable by the Government of Egypt because those state parties prefer the Army and don't trust Egyptian Governments. In other cases the Army sells 'patronage' to investors and gets equity for this.

Accurate measurement of assets is always distasteful and sometimes either unhygienic or likely to produce death.For those interested in such things there are, alas, no published books, audits, annual general meetings. The Military budget is a state secret and its publication treason: no ex-generals have talked and most western analysts go on guess work. Its a mystery greater than any of the pharonic ones put about in breathless travel brochures. The generals are more silent than the grave and anyone who broke their silence would likely end up in their own grave.

The Army's line is that most/all are held for the country.

If you are feeling sad for Egyptians about all this mess and worry that it will never be fixed then think about how Margaret Thatcher felt in 1979 when faced with privatizing 1000's of broken public trading bodies, her humor came to the fore when she realized that she be able to remove the dead hand of socialism from those great strategic national assets: The Gleneagles Links Hotel and Pickfords Home Removalists. So, in the case of Egypt, the sale of government/army owned hotels might have the same positive purging effect and also do something good for tourism.

Talking about hygiene and the undoubted public and private assets of the military - al Ahram has either reached a new low in extreme forms of submissive intimacy or it has suddenly developed a commendable new line in irony. Here's the grovel/wit taken from Bombay's post above:

Defence Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has advanced the army as a political player again. His charismatic speech at an awareness-raising seminar in Cairo's Galaa Theatre on Sunday signalled that the army could step forward again to play a role in the political process at this critical juncture.

Defence Minister Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has advanced the army as a political player again. His charismatic speech at an awareness-raising seminar in Cairo's Galaa Theatre on Sunday signalled that the army could step forward again to play a role in the political process at this critical juncture.

Former deputy chief of Egypt's General Intelligence Service (GIS) General Hossam Kheirallah told Ahram Online: "With this speech, General El-Sisi has presented himself as an alternative for the near future. Without going overboard in praise, his speech reflects many virtues in his character. He is the only person who succeeded in bringing his institution [the army] back from the brink of disaster in a state in which virtually everything else had collapsed within the space of a year."

He added that the defence minister "is the only one who could speak to the street, bolstered by his success in this institution. We believe that 30 June will usher in the beginning of a new phase, which will begin with negotiations over arrangements for when the president will step down. The fear that chaos and civil strife is inevitable has been dispelled, although perhaps it was natural to expect that this would be louder than the voice of politics."

Armed Forces spokesman Colonel Mohamed Ahmed Ali summarised El-Sisi's speech in 11 points, "each of which builds on the previous points logically and cohesively." Indeed, all the sources that Ahram Online spoke to agreed with Ali that "the speech was formulated with consummate care and precision at a time when the country needs consummate care and precision."

I think you will agree with me that this probably isn't intended to be ironical (a quality sadly lacking in most Egyptians) and, if I'm right, its probably your garden variety grovel which kicks off when any impressionable journalists are brought into close personal contact with the undoubted talents and great assets of the army. In this case it's grovel squared with quite a bit of time on all fours. All as unhealthy as it unphotogenic, think about the droll, and you can normally rely on even the worst journo to give you a good shot. Drool on the lens might have been a problem. Whatever has been going on in that (unphotographed) interview it would seem to have been deeply moving and quite inspirational for our tender Muhammad Olson. The whole piece is pitched at such a foaming mouth/fevered level that you're not quite sure whether it was a religious experience or something altogether more ambiguous - you know all that stuff about the army's assets and lead me my charismatic leader.

There's a good privacy argument for not publishing any such personally embarrassing things. The fact that its garbage is another good reason for flushing it. But I've got another idea, I bet I could get the fool to self-censor and to do it with real desperation. Say, for example I explained to him the 'obvious' meanings read into his army articles by certain western readers and the shamefulness of this etc. You know, like old style crooked Freudianism where x is always y and y is really embarrassing and it's all hidden meanings and symbols. He'd be self censoring until the camels came home. His mates who thought of writing puff pieces presenting the army in its best and most attractive light (soft focus, heavy makeup, very, very shallow depth of field, fake backdrop and quite a lot of careful padding and corsets, not to mention the hair and mustache dye for their excellencies) would also start to panic a bit lest their true feelings for the army were revealed, through the miracles of Freud, to all. Success in this would mean 'straight' reporting, facts no grovelling or charismatic experiences. How good could it get? Tasteless journalism off the street could also be sold as family friendly but only in a deeply ironic way which would not be understood in Egypt.

A complete red herring. Has anyone thought about a freedom of the press/good journalism index as a function of alcoholism amongst journalists. The theory might be that its a bit hard to be gagging for a story on the army at the same time as you're gagging in the other direction. Missed deadlines and general Fleet Street slackness would make the generals management of public opinion neutered. Being tipsy mostly means that you take nothing seriously and ask unprepared questions and embarrass the 'big man'. When shickered there are likely more jokes in the copy a feature sadly lacking in Egypt. Lazy drunk journalists meet in their boozer pool their info and decide how to do the story from their meager resources and work. That's got to be better than being told the line by the editor or general. The point of this is that all high quality journalism is associated with alcoholic journalists and for the good reasons above.

Thankfully the argument doesn't work the other way. Think Russian alcoholism (1 in either 8 or 12 children with alcohol fetal syndrome) producing useless Russian alcoholic journalism. So this goes to show that you've got to be more than an alcoholic to be a good journalist which gets us back where we started that journalism in Egypt is both really, really bad and very sober.

A-Four - an afterthought or rather a return to forgotten point - Army ownership and management is unlikely to change soon - no major party would risk it and any change in party policy would face problems with public opinion where the army (unbelievably) rates very high in Egyptian affections although not so high as in the uncontrolled affections of the grovelling and infatuated al Ahram journalist.

I've got no idea whether they are doing well or bad but I do know that they are very liquid. My memory is that over 12 months ago they 'loaned' the government one or two $USbillions. How does this work when a servant of the government loans its boss money derived from doing a job your boss paid you to do an so on and so on.
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