Word: mubarak
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Last week, Peres and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held a two-day summit in Alexandria, Egypt. They agreed Friday to form a preparatory committee for convening an international peace conference...
...Helsinki talks to deny Peres a foreign policy triumph. Hence, they say, Shamir pushed hard to put Soviet Jewry on the agenda. But if Shamir upstaged Peres in Helsinki, Peres played an impressive card of his own: on Thursday he announced he would meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak next month to warm up the cold peace between Cairo and Jerusalem. Mubarak has not yet confirmed the engagement...
...Mubarak's recent pleas have garnered no new funds. The IMF, the U.S. and other Western governments instead have insisted that Egypt take bolder steps to reform its bloated, inefficient economy. They are pressing Cairo to encourage more private investment. But their most frequent target is Egypt's vast system of government subsidies, which could consume as much as $7 billion of the country's $15 billion budget this year. The subsidies are a growing burden, especially since Egypt's population, now 50 million, is increasing by 1 million people every nine months...
...Mubarak has therefore inched cautiously toward reform. Gasoline prices have been raised twice in the past year. Electricity rates were hiked an average of 35% a year ago, and taxes on luxury imports have been imposed. Such steps are not nearly enough. Mubarak's dilemma is that sterner measures, which might save Egypt from the embarrassment of defaulting on its foreign loans, could provoke a popular uprising that the fundamentalists are poised to exploit...
...moment, Mubarak will have to depend on the ability of his long- suffering people to muddle through the current crisis. Though the Egyptians are renowned for their patience, they will not wait forever for economic improvements. "The doomsayers have been around for quite a while," says one Western analyst. "But this time, the day of reckoning may come...