Nadeen Shaker - Assignments Editor

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf arrived in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, late last week in a bid to boost bilateral relations and trade with particular emphasis on appropriation of Nile River waters.

“It is time to turn a new page in our relations,” Sharaf said Wednesday about cooperation with Nile Basin countries.

The prime minister’s visit comes a few weeks after a similar diplomatic initiative to Sudan and South Sudan.

The Nile River runs through both states.

In early March, Burundi joined five other African countries in signing the 1997 Entebbe Agreement, which is designed to reallocate water distribution and increase their share of the Nile River.

What began as a ramshackle uprising on February 17 in Libya, 34 days after the ousting of former Tunisian president Ben Ali and six days after former Egyptian president Mubarak resigned, has quickly become another Arab country on the brink of revolution.

In less than a week since former President Hosni Mubarak stepped down and handed all power to the military, economic and political changes have come in rapid succession, often catching the media off guard.

But political analysts agree that the military is faced with a herculean task of stabilizing the country, re- sponding to ever-growing protests in the govern- ment sector and rehabilitating an economy that has been battered by the sudden drop in foreign invest- ments and tourism dollars.

AUC workers and students gathered on campus January 9, to await the outcome of further meetings between workers and the administration concerning workers’ as of yet unmet demands.

“People might not care because this issue might not touch their personal interests…we need to show them it is important,” said Nour Ayman, a student who was present.

The demands had been presented to the administration last October after discontent over pay and working hours led to a four-day workers strike.

The meeting with Brian MacDougall, vice president for planning and administration, specifically addressed demands for every Saturday to be granted as a day off, with workers pushing for equality as staff, faculty, and students are given this day of the weekend off.

MacDougall promised the formation of a committee within 10 days, made up of workers' representatives, administrators, and faculty members, to study the impact of meeting their demand, which could result in placing more pressure on workers, and prolonging their work hours.

Looking back at this long trek of a semester, one shouldn’t be surprised to find that many in the AUC community probably have worms in their brains.

So much has happened, stringent, but hopeful for some like in the Student Union (SU), and for others who called for workers’ rights, active and frustrating.

The very first clue that we were in for a semester of bumpy rides was when our vice president for student affairs, Ashraf El Fiqi miraculously emerged unharmed from a car accident that could have been fatal.

Tapestries, pottery, and metal art installations produced by artists from the village of Harraneya along the Sakarra Road offer a glimpse into the social ties and customs that have endured for generations.

Currently on display at the World of Art Gallery in Maadi, the wall of tapestries made of lamb wool and cotton threads in the exhibition portray the festivities of the Eid El- Adha holiday, while others celebrate the practice of Henna tattooing.

Mickey Mouse, hormonal abnormalities, and even roaming donkeys feature in the humorous and ab­stract projects of the Sharjah Gallery’s new exhibi­tion A Survival Guide debuting at the Performance and Visual Arts Center on December 9.

A Survival Guide is a collaboration of works by young artists, which attempts to address their sur­vival defense mechanisms in the megacity of Cairo.

Ibrahim Awad, the former director of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) International Migration Program, says that there is a need to develop a global system to govern worldwide migration and prevent its negative consequences on migrants.

“Tensions between the principle of [state] sovereignty and the need for an international cooperation exist in almost all policy areas,” said Awad during the “The Governance of International Migration” panel discussion, last week.

Hesham Shafick, the Student Union (SU) president, has rejected a Student Senate decision to impeach him days after the union’s activities were frozen pending an investigation.

The Senate had been scheduled to hear in an extraordinary session on November 10 accusations that Shafick breached the AUC code of ethics and student constitution.