ABDEL-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, a physician and a former 2012 presidential candidate, has called on Eyptian president Mohamed Mursi to heed the demands of medical doctors.
The doctors have been on strike for almost a month.
During a meeting with Mursi on Saturday, Abdul-Fatouh, a former Muslim Brotherhood member and founder of the Strong Egypt Party, argued that they should be granted better working conditions to improve the country’s health care system.
The doctors are calling for pay rises and an increase in spending on health care from 4 per cent of the budget to 15 per cent to deal with deteriorating public health services.
President Mursi met with the main three former presidential candidates, Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi and Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, on Saturday.
The meeting was held in an effort to kickstart a national dialogue between varied political forces.
The discussions mainly revolved around the newly proposed constitution, the revolution’s demands, and the need to reach consensus during the transition period.
Abul-Fotouh also stressed to Mursi the importance of reaching consensus in the Constituent Assembly suggesting that articles creating the disagreement within the assembly should all be reconsidered as well as those that infringe upon the rights of Egyptian citizens.
Mursi held separate talks with the three former candidates at the presidential palace in Heliopolis.
The one hour meetings focused largely on the drafting of the constitution, while internal issues such as politics and the economy were secondary priorities.
Mursi met with Amr Moussa, leader of the Conference Party and foreign minister for a decade under Mubarak.
According to Ahmed Kamel, Moussa’s spokesperson, the meeting focused on Egypt’s internal political and economic issues and, more importantly, the drafting of the constitution.
‘Time,’ Kamel said quoting Moussa, ‘is not the most significant factor for drafting the constitution.’
He argued that what is more important is the opinion of the public and whether they accept the final draft.
Moussa had told Mursi that it would be dangerous to focus on the final voting process surrounding the constitution given the current composition of the Constituent Assembly.
He also stressed it was important for there to be no pressure on the constitutional committee in order for them to be able to work unimpeded.
‘These meetings are an attempt to bring closer the different points of view, rather than to apply pressure on or intervene in the Constituent Assembly,’ Kamel said.
Moussa stressed that the public must be given the time to voice their opinion on the final draft of the constitution before the Constitution Assembly reconvenes.
Mursi held talks with Hamdeen Sabahi, the Nasserist founder of the Dignity Party and former independent presidential candidate.
During their brief meeting, Sabahi expressed his desire to see the Constituent Assembly restructured in a balanced way so that it may be more representative of all Egyptian people.
Sabahi advised Mursi to stick to the social justice demands that came from the revolution.
He said the president should ensure there is a minimum and maximum wage system, progressive social taxation and the immediate cessation of the suppression of union strikes and other social movements.
He also advised the president should revisit the farmers’ plight to aid those ‘still suffering from poverty, marginalisation and neglect,’ according to a statement by Sabahi.
Sabahi was also critical of the government’s decision to impose retail closing times, saying the closure of commercial premises would have a detrimental effect on thousands of ‘poor and simple people’ in Egypt.
The drafting of the constitution has been met with criticism from both liberals and conservatives, which have felt the constitution in its current state does not adequately reflect their desires.
l Four groups of military personnel representing the Ministry of Defence and Military Production departed overseas on Sunday to contact Egyptians living abroad with regards to fulfilment of their mandatory military service.
The groups will travel to Europe, America, the Gulf and other Arab states for two weeks, according to state run news Agency MENA.
MENA reported that the General Commander of the Armed Forces and Minister of Defence and Military Production General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi approved the formation of the four military panels.
The first panel will visit European countries including England, Belgium, Spain and Italy. The second will be travel Arab countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.
The third will travel to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and the fourth will be based at the Egyptian Embassy in Washington.
The purpose of sending these representatives abroad is to locate young Egyptians living abroad who have not completed their mandatory military service and try to settle their status regarding military service.
Those over 30 will be considered to have defaulted on their service and will be fined, reported MENA.
The sources from the ministry told MENA that families who have relatives living abroad can go to the department for recruitment and inform them of which country their family member is currently in and to begin the legal process of settling the issue.
• The foreign ministers of Egypt and Cyprus have said the prospect of cooperating to exploit offshore hydrocarbons reservoirs is vast.
However a ‘dispute between Egypt and Israel might ensue’, petroleum agreements expert and member of the Association for International Petroleum Negotiators at Zaki Hashem & Partners, EssamTaha, warned.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister, Mohamed KamalAmr, said during his visit to Nicosia last Friday that there is an enormous potential to promote economic cooperation between Egypt and Cyprus.
‘The Egyptian-Cypriot talks focused on means to develop and promote bilateral relations,’ spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister plenipotentiary Amr Roushdy stated.
Foreign minister of Cyprus, Erato Kozakou Marcoullis, said the prospect of cooperation between the two countries in the energy sector is enormous, adding that Cyprus and Egypt will start working on a unitisation agreement, to allow both states to operate jointly in exploration and development of hydrocarbon reservoirs.
There is a potential for a maritime dispute between Egypt and Israel as a result for a prospected unitisation agreement between Egypt and Cyprus, Taha said.
Taha explained that there is a legal predicament stemming from the absence of maritime delineation agreement between Egypt and Israel.
Cyprus has signed a delineation agreement with Egypt, Israel and Lebanon. Egypt was the first country to sign a delineation agreement with Cyprus to demarcate its maritime borders in 2003, said Marcoullis.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday that both the Egyptian and the Cypriot governments agreed to complete the contractual framework on joint exploitation according to the agreement signed between them in 2006.
The Egyptian and Cypriot governments have been working on strengthening cooperation in the field of oil and gas exploration. Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Osama Kamal visited Cyprus in mid-October.
Egyptian press reported that the two countries would swap delegations to boost energy cooperative efforts.
