Education Ministry clamps down on private tutors; potato prices are down; Mubarak to testify in prison break case
It was another night of random selections on the airwaves, with topics ranging from the crackdown on private tutoring, to potato prices, and Habib El Adly’s ongoing trial.
The Education Ministry is cracking down hard on private tutoring. The ministry is two weeks away from presenting the Madbouly Cabinet with a law proposal that criminalizes the act of establishing an unsanctioned tutoring center, setting hefty fines and prison sentences, Deputy Minister Mohamed Omar told Al Hayah Al Youm. The bill would also require teachers to obtain a license that allows them to work at private tutoring centers, or face punishments that also include jail time and dismissal, he said (watch, runtime: 6:08).
Potato prices appear to have miraculously dropped overnight. Wholesale prices are down 30-40% and the retail price of spuds are following suit, the deputy head of the Obour market union, Hatem El Naguib told Hona Al Asema’s Reham Ibrahim. He said that the combined efforts of the ministries of supply and interior, as well as civil society groups, have helped convince traders to keep their profit margins on potatoes low at 10-20% to make sure the commodity remains accessible to the public. Prices should dip further after the upcoming November harvest (watch, runtime: 9:12). The Agriculture Ministry’s Mahmoud Atta said more of the same on Masaa DMC (watch, runtime: 7:45).
Subsidized baby formula imports: The Health Ministry will be supplying Egyptian Pharmaceutical Trading Company outlets with imported baby formula at EGP 50 apiece, the head of the ministry’s population and family planning division, Soad Abdel Meguid, told Hona Al Asema (watch, runtime: 7:18) and Masaa DMC (watch, runtime: 3:36). The ministry has provided some 1 mn units since last week, she said.
Egyptian-British cardiothoracic surgeon Magdi Yacoub established a new research center in Egypt, Eva Pharma Chairman Riad Armanios told Hona Al Asema. The center employs more than 80 scientists and is said to be the largest of its kind in the region. Yacoub is also planning to build a surgical cardiac center in the new capital similar to his Aswan facility (watch, runtime: 4:36).
Meanwhile on El Hekaya, Amr Adib followed up on the latest trial of former Interior Minister Habib El Adly. Adib shared snippets of Adly’s testimony, wherein the former minister talks about conspiracies and plots to bring Egypt down during the period leading up to 25 January 2011. Ex-president Hosni Mubarak is reportedly set to testify in the case as well, which also implicates his successor Mohammed Morsi, according to Adib (watch here, runtime: 22:07 and here, runtime: 3:28).