Letter from the Editor

Al-Ahram Weekly is an independent English-language newspaper issued by Al-Ahram Organisation. Since it first hit the newsstands on Thursday 28 February, 1991, it has rapidly established itself as the leading English-language newspaper, not only in Egypt, but also -- as we know from the many letters we receive from our readers -- throughout the Arab world. As we launch our electronic edition, we hope that a new and ever larger public will come to share their opinion -- and particularly those readers who in the past have had difficulty obtaining access to the print edition of our newspaper.
  From the start, Al-Ahram Weekly set out to provide the English-language reader with objective, in-depth coverage of the Egyptian and Arab scenes: politics, economy, culture and society. The challenge we set ourselves was to do this from "an Egyptian perspective". As we hope our readers will have realised over the past years, this has never meant whitewashing or propaganda, but rather providing as honest and objective a look at contemporary Egyptian and Arab reality as possible -- as seen through Egyptian and Arab eyes.
  Moreover, Al-Ahram Weekly has also sought to provide, through guest columns and in its opinion pages, an open platform for the free expression of a wide range of different views and analyses. We may safely claim that no other English-language newspaper from the Arab world provides as comprehensive and wide-ranging a picture of the manifold ideological, political and cultural currents which characterise the region today.
  Al-Ahram Weekly is proud to have hosted in its pages many leading international political commentators, both Arab and non-Arab. Our regular contributors have included Noam Chomsky, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Edward Said, Eric Rouleau and Eqbal Ahmad. Top Egyptian political commentators with regular columns include Ibrahim Nafie, Mohamed Sid-Ahmed and Salama Ahmed Salama.
  Your feedback, on both the content and the form of our web edition, will be invaluable in maintaining and developing the standards of the paper as a whole, both on the net and in print.
  Welcome to the electronic edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

Hosny Guindy
Editor-in-Chief
13 June, 1998