Ain-Al-Yaqeen - February 10, 2006

		February 10, 2006

THE INDIAN PRIME MINISTER PRAISES KING ABDULLAH IBN ABDUL AZIZ'S VISIT TO INDIA.
THE PAKISTANI MEDIA LAUDS THE SAUDI LEADERSHIP AND STRESSES THAT KING ABDULLAHS' STANCES TOWARDS PAKISTAN CAN NOT BE MATCHED.
THE SAUDI LEADERSHIP OFFERS ITS CONDOLENCES TO PRESIDENT MUBARAK ON THE SINKING OF THE EGYPTIAN FERRY AND THE DEATH OF A LARGE NUMBER OF ITS PASSENGERS.
THE SAUDI NAVY AND THE ROYAL AIR FORCES TAKE PART IN THE RESCUE OPERATIONS.

Saudi-Indian relations got a big boost with the signing of 15 agreements, including a landmark anti-terror pact, on the second day of the historic visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held one-on-one talks at Hyderabad House. Manmohan described Saudi Arabia as "an important partner in combating global terrorism."

King Abdullah set the tone for his four-day visit by describing India as a "second home" and hoped his visit would take bilateral ties to new heights. King Abdullah was earlier given a warm ceremonial welcome at the presidential palace, complete with military regalia and pomp and a 21-gun salute.

King Abdullah told Manmohan his country had "declared a war on terror.".

"It might be a long-term struggle, the battle will continue unless this scourge is eliminated," a foreign ministry spokesman quoted the king as saying.

The anti-terror accord focuses on strengthening cooperation in tackling transnational crime, terrorism and the smuggling of narcotics. The two sides also signed an agreement to eliminate double taxation, a pact on investment promotion and cooperation and an agreement relating to youth and sports.

The accords underline the growing close ties between the two countries and are expected to provide a major boost to bilateral relations.

"This visit will renew historic ties between India and Saudi Arabia," the King said before beginning talks with Manmohan. "I would like to thank the president, the prime minister and the friendly people of India for their warmth and hospitality," the king said.

"I consider myself to be in a second home," he told reporters.

The two sides also signed 11 commercial agreements at a joint business council meeting. The memoranda of understanding between Saudi and Indian firms were in the energy, financial and health care sectors.

Premier Manmohan underlined the importance India attaches to the royal visit and to its relations with Saudi Arabia "which have deep-rooted civilization links and have tremendous potential of great economic possibilities." He said a strong Saudi-India relationship would have great impact on many issues of global concern.

King Abdullah, on the other hand, stressed the Saudi government's sincere desire to move this special relationship forward for the benefit of both countries. Manmohan thanked the king for increasing the quota of Indian pilgrims coming for Haj from 137,000 to 147,000.

Abdullah and Manmohan later witnessed the signing of four government-level accords. The first was the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, which was signed by Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf and Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The second was the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement signed by Al-Assaf and Mukherjee.

The third agreement was on combating crime, which was signed by Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal and Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patil. Minister of Culture and Information Iyad Madani and Indian Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Oscar Fernandes signed the fourth accord for cooperation in youth and sports.

On the other hand King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz emphasized the strong brotherly relations between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. He hoped the current Indo-Pakistani peace talks would lead to desired results. "A just settlement of the Kashmir issue will reinforce regional peace and stability," the king told the gathering.

King Abdullah said he had discussed the issue of Kashmir with Indian leadership. The king stressed the need for promoting economic and scientific cooperation between the OIC member countries.

From his side Musharraf underscored the historic Saudi-Pakistani ties. "Both countries always stood by each other during every test and trial," he said. Saudi Arabia offered SR500 million in emergency financial aid for Pakistan to rebuild infrastructure facilities in areas hit by a devastating earthquake in October.

"Our friendship is constant and transcends the changing international environment and expediency of international politics. We maintain and consolidate our cooperation with Saudi Arabia as a cherished value of our foreign relations," the president said.

President Musharraf said Abdullah's visit would provide new impetus to the strategic partnership between the two countries. He noted the king's role in organizing the recent Islamic summit in Makkah, which he added could become "a defining moment" in the efforts to bring unity and harmony to the Muslim world.

Referring to the Kashmir issue, Musharraf hoped that the improved Indo-Pakistani relations and a conducive international environment would provide "a unique opportunity to address this longstanding issue in a manner acceptable to all parties, especially the people of Kashmir."

Musharraf believed that King Abdullah's visit to New Delhi would boost the peace process. "Your strong and constant commitment toward the resolution of the Kashmir dispute reflects your abiding support for just causes and your deep concern and compassion for Muslims in distress and struggling for their inalienable rights," he pointed out.

The president reiterated his country's commitment to fight terror. "More than ever before, we need to work for harmony among diverse faiths and cultures at the global level and counter prejudices against Islam and Muslims," he said. He called for rooting out extremism in Muslim societies through education and reforms.

Meantime Pakistan's leading newspapers published special supplements to mark the visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz to Pakistan.

The special editions carried large photographs of King Abdullah, highlighting his life and achievements for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Ummah, and his love for Pakistan.

"Warm Welcome to Khadim Al-Harmain Al-Sharifain His Majesty King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud; The life of Khadim Al-Harmain Al-Sharifain; A Model of Islamic Solidarity: Pakistan-Saudi Relations; Long Live Pakistani-Saudi Friendship; Saudi Arabia - The Heartland of Islam; Saudi Aid to the Developing World; Leading role in serving the suffering humanity; and The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on way to Progress," are some of the headlines in the supplements, published by the English and Urdu languages dailies.

Besides, all newspapers carried the curtain raisers of King Abdullah's visit on their front pages with the monarch's photographs.

"King Abdullah arrives today to a festive welcome; 5 accords to be signed during visit of Abdullah; and Islamabad wears a bridal look to receive King Abdullah," were headlines of the news stories splashed by the papers.

Dailies also carried photographs of King Abdullah, President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, displayed in various parts of Islamabad and its roads, and pictures of other welcoming preparations for the visit.

A number of columns also appeared in newspapers, eulogizing the services of King Abdullah for Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Ummah.

Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh Asseri told reporters that during King Abdullah's visit Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed five agreements on avoidance of double taxation, vocational training, higher education, science and technology and political consultations.

He said that ministers accompanying the king discussed with their Pakistani counterparts a host of issues relating to them to cement cooperation.

The ambassador said that the visit produced tangible results because Saudi-Pakistan relations are very profound and deep, which cannot be matched with the ties of any two countries of the world.

King Abdullah held talks with Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz and graced the state banquet and lunches hosted by them respectively in his honor.

Asseri said he was very much impressed with the huge preparations made by the government and people of Pakistan to accord a historic reception to King Abdullah.

"The visit is a reaffirmation of the long, historical and fraternal relations that have existed between the two brotherly countries for almost six decades now," the ambassador said.

He said that this was King Abdullah's second visit to Pakistan in a short span of just over two years, which signifies the importance that he attaches to the relations with brotherly Pakistan. Indeed, it is a special relationship that does not exist between any other two countries in this world.

"It is unique, profound and special. It is an extraordinary relationship that encompasses the parameters of religious, social and cultural domains. It dates back to the times when Pakistan came into being in 1947 and each day since then has witnessed a gradual strengthening of this special bond between our two brotherly countries," Asseri said.

On another scale the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz has offered condolences to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the sinking of Egyptian Ferry Al-Salam-98, and the death of a large number of its passengers.

"On behalf of the Saudi Government and people, we would like to offer our condolences, and we pray to Almighty Allah to grant mercy to victims of the incident," said King Abdullah in a cable he sent to President Mubarak.

King Abdullah prayed to Almighty Allah to enable the Muslim countries avoid all forms of disasters.

Meanwhile, Crown Prince Sultan Ibn Abdul Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General has also sent a similar cable of condolences to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the sinking of Egyptian Ferry Al-Salam-98, and the death of a large number of its passengers.

The Red Sea ferry Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 carrying over 1,300 people, mainly Egyptian workers returning home from Saudi Arabia, sank. The ship disappeared off radar screens 62 km from Hurghada while en route to Safaga on the Egyptian coast at the northern end of the Red Sea.

At least 295 survivors have been plucked out of the water and brought ashore at Safaga, where the 35-year-old ship was scheduled to arrive at 2 a.m. last Friday morning, official Egyptian sources said. One hundred and eighty-five bodies have also been recovered, they said.

A Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman said there were 1,318 passengers and 80 crew on board the ship. He said there were 1,200 Egyptians, 100 Saudis, six Syrians, four Palestinians, an Omani, a Yemeni, an Emarati, a Sudanese, a Jordanian, a Filipino, an Indonesian and a Canadian. He said people in Riyadh may contact Tel. No. 408-2558 to get more information on the accident.

"A massive air and sea rescue is under way," involving the Egyptian and Saudi armed forces, Ayman Al-Kaffas, a spokesman for the Egyptian Embassy in London, told Sky News in a live interview. "This is a vast area of water that you can't cover in a short period of time."

He said no distress signal was received from the ferry, but at some point during the night it disappeared from radar screens.

Four Egyptian rescue ships reached the scene in the afternoon, around 10 hours after the most likely time of the ferry's sinking.

Saudi Ambassador in Cairo Hisham Nazer said he had set up a working team to monitor the tragedy. "The team will identify the Saudis who died in the accident and those who have been rescued. It will also visit hospitals and provide necessary assistance to the victims' families," the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying.

The ferry was on a trip between the Saudi port of Duba and Safaga, both at the northern end of the Red Sea. It was carrying both returning Egyptian workers and pilgrims who had performed Haj.

Capt. Mahmoud Al-Harbi, director general of Duba port, said the accident could have occurred as a result of the ferry carrying more than the permissible weight. "The weather was fine when the ship left Duba and was following the right international route," he said, adding that the accident occurred while the ship was in Egyptian territorial waters. Egypt's state news agency MENA said the Saint Catherine, another ferry on the reverse route, received a distress message in which the Al-Salam captain said his ship was in danger of sinking. The agency did not say how the Saint Catherine reacted.

Coastal stations received no SOS message from the crew, said Adel Shukri, head of administration at the Cairo headquarters of El-Salam Maritime Transport Company.

Farid Al-Douadi, the ship's agent in Saudi Arabia, was quoted as saying there were around 220 vehicles on board and that the ship had the capacity for 2,500 passengers.

The ship sank while most of the passengers were asleep, plunging them into waters that average 19 Celsius (66 F) in February. Survival time in these waters can be as much as 40 hours, though unconsciousness can set in after seven. Flotation devices that keep unconscious victims afloat greatly increase the chance of rescue.

"President Mubarak wants an immediate probe into the causes of the accident of the Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 ferry and guarantees that other similar ships comply with safety regulations," his spokesman Suleiman Awad told public television.

"The speed at which the ship sank and the fact there were not enough life rafts on board confirm that there was a (safety) problem but we cannot anticipate on the results of the investigation," he said.

However, Egyptian Transport Minister Mohammed Lotfy Mansour told MENA that the ship complied with all necessary safety measures: "The reasons (for sinking) remain unknown."

"It's a roll-on, roll-off ferry and there is big question mark over the stability of this kind of ship," said David Osler of the London shipping paper Lloyds List. "It would only take a bit of water to get on board this ship and it would be all over... The percentage of this type of ferry involved in this type of disaster is huge."

The head of the Egyptian Maritime Authority, Mahfouz Taha Marzouk, said the ship was built in 1971 and renovated in 1990 in an Egyptian shipyard. The Al-Salam 98 received a safety management certificate from an Italian organization in October 2005, covering safety drills and other on-board procedures. Osler of Lloyds List said that last June the ship passed a structural survey test conducted by the International Safety Management Code.

The Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 is owned by El-Salam Maritime Transport Company. The company's owner, Mamdouh Ismail, said before the sinking was confirmed that the ship was registered in Panama.

A ship owned by the same company, also carrying pilgrims, collided with a cargo ship at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal in October, causing a stampede among passengers trying to escape the sinking ship. Two people were killed and 40 injured.

An official source at the Ministry of Interior said that upon receiving the regrettable news of the missing of the Egyptian ferry Al Salam 98 which has departed Dhuba port, Tabuk Region, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday February 2, 2006 (corresponding to Muharram 3, 1427 H.) heading for Egyptian port of Safaga, the Research and Rescue Operations Coordination Center for the Red Sea, Makkah Region, was placed on full alert.

Immediately, the center managed to send distress messages to vessels and boats sailing the region to contribute to rescue efforts. The authorities concerned undertook their duties according to the center's previously-designed plan. A task team was also formed at Dhuba port to follow-up the incident. This was in complete coordination with the authorities concerned in the Arab Republic of Egypt who are exerting strenuous efforts as regards search and salvage operations. The Saudi embassy in Cairo has dispatched a team to follow-up and coordinate the efforts as regards the Saudi missing citizens.

According to official records of the ferry, the total passengers on board that voyage amounted to 1318 in addition to 80 crew members. The figure out of passengers in terms of nationalities are as follows: 1200 Egyptians; 100 Saudis; six Syrians; four Palestinians; and one passenger from each of Oman, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, the Sudan, Jordan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Canada.

The official source at the interior ministry said in line with the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz and in coordination with the Egyptian officials, two frigates and a supply ship from the Royal Saudi Naval Forces in addition to four rescue boats from the frontier guards have left to the incident area.

Meanwhile, a transport plane and helicopters from the Royal Saudi Air Forces and the Civil Defense are taking part in the rescue operations.

The Frontiers Guards Center undertook coordination for the search and rescue operations in Makkah region in coordination with the concerned authorities.

Dozens of survivors of the Red Sea ferry disaster were rescued. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has instructed authorities to airlift survivors of the tragedy including Saudis, Egyptians and other nationals for treatment at the Kingdom's hospitals, an official source at the Interior Ministry said.

The royal gesture covers not only the airlifting of Saudi survivors receiving treatment at Egyptian hospitals to the Kingdom but also Egyptians rescued by Saudi coast guards, the source said. The king also urged officials to facilitate transportation of bodies soon after the completion of rescue operation.

A working team set up at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo identified 11 new Saudi survivors of the tragedy. The Saudi Coast Guard rescued a number of passengers and also picked unidentified bodies, the source said.

For relatives gathered in Safaga, the doomed ship's destination, the hope of more rescues was slowly giving way to a grim wait for bodies as controversy mounted over the safety of the vessel, the actions of its captain and the rescue operation itself.

Survivors told of a fire that broke out on the packed 36-year-old Panamanian-flagged ferry shortly after its departure from the Saudi port of Dhuba. After the crew failed to extinguish it properly, the ship started to list and went down within 10 minutes, they said.

In Safaga, a slide-show of bodies was organized for a group of around 350 relatives to identify their loved ones. Angry relatives destroyed an ambulance.

In the resort of Hurghada, medics acknowledged that time was ticking away for any survivors still waiting to be pulled out of the sea.

Several witnesses have accused the captain, Omar Sayed, of refusing to acknowledge the risk posed by the fire. "He could have gone back to Saudi Arabia, but he's madman, he wanted to prove that he's the hero," said Cairo teacher Mohammed Sharaf Mustafa. The captain, who according to witnesses was one of the first to abandon ship, remains unaccounted for.

The ship was modified in the 1980s, with two extra passenger decks placed on the top of the vessel. As a result, says David Osler from the London shipping paper Lloyds List, the ferry had an "unusually high profile", sitting much taller in the water than it was originally designed to do. The extra weight of passengers concentrated on the bridge or upper decks would have further destabilized the vessel. There were strong winds on the night of the disaster that could have been a factor in the sinking.

Meanwhile, the Director General of Frontier Guards, Lieutenant General Talal Ankaawi, said the symposium on disasters that was held in the Eastern Province three years ago issued recommendations to create a national plan against sea disasters.

Major General Abdul Hameed Al-Mowrooie, head of the Frontier Guards in the Makkah region, said there is an open communication line between the search and rescue center in Egypt and the Kingdom pointing out that the Saudi team is participating in the search along with 10 marine vehicles, five helicopters, an A-30 airplane and several boats.

Naval Lieutenant Colonel Ali Al-Ghamdi said search operations are being carried out according to specific plans, and indicated the location of the sunken ferry was at a distance of 65 miles from the Saudi border and 43 miles from the Egyptian side.

Ankaawi confirmed search efforts will not stop until the Egyptian authorities ask. He said the bodies of the victims are floating on the sea even three days after the sinking.

Ankaawi, who is following the search operations from the rescue center in Makkah, said the center was established to oversee sea disasters in the Red Sea and its work extends from Jizan to Al-Hakl.

He also revealed that a committee was formed a year ago to coordinate efforts in case of sea disasters with frontier guard authorities of neighbouring countries.