SIX FROM U.S. GO ON TRIP
By Bob Van Leer

  (CAIRO, EGYPT, March 18, 1989) - Our Air Egypt Boeing 747 landed today at the Cairo airport. ending a journey that took two days and brought me nearly half way around the world from Gold Beach. It's 11 p.m. in Cairo as this is written, but the time is only one in the afternoon at home.

   This evening we had a briefing on the coming week's activities from our program coordinator, Dr. Said Seif-Elyazal at our hotel, the Heliopolis Sheraton and then dined on prawns fresh from the Red Sea.

  I left Gold Beach Thursday afternoon in a rainstorm and found snow on Oregon Mountain. At Cave Junction I stopped briefly to visit Bob Rodriguez. former publisher of the Brookings Curry Coastal Pilot and now owner of the Illinois Valley News. He put in a new Macintosh computer system a little before we did and I wanted to compare some notes. At Medford I had dinner with Steve and Mary Ryder.

COUNTRY RECEIVES LOANS, GRANTS
By Bob Van Leer

  (CAIRO, EGYPT, March 19, 1989) - Our key meeting today was with Frank G. Wisner, a career foreign service officer and the U. S. ambassador to Egypt for nearly three years.

  Wisner said that the economy of Egypt is moving and the pace accelerating. But he said, "More needs to be done to give this country some hope". Egypt is a nation of 55-58 million people today, Wisner said, and will be over 70 million in the year 2000. The Egyptians live on just four percent of the country, along the Nile and its delta. He said a great deal of the economy is ''off the books'', perhaps 30- 50 percent. 

  Wisner predicted that Egypt will be the "hot spot'' for tourism in the 1990s. He encourages tourists to come to Egypt and said it is a pleasant place to live and there is no reason to be afraid.

ARTICLES FROM THE CURRY COUNTY REPORTER, GOLD BEACH, OREGON -
MARCH 29, APRIL 5 & 12 1989
By Bob Van Leer

  In this and last week's issue of the Curry County Reporter are several columns I wrote on a recent trip to Egypt. The tour was sponsored by the American Egyptian Cooperation Foundation for myself and five other journalists from small towns around the U. S. Our host was Dr. Said Seif-Elyazal, the director of the foundation, an Egyptian by birth who now has dual citizenship.

  The trip was a great opportunity for exposure to another culture in an area of the world that has occupied much of the news for more than a generation.

  The week-long trip was preceded by an intense study of Egypt and the region from materials sent to us. Our own resident Moslem, David X Mohammed, also supplied me with background information on the Moslem religion that was very helpful. 

  Pres. Jimmy Carter arranged the truce between Egypt and Israel 10 years ago. It continues until today and, from what we heard, will continue indefinitely. There was no sabre rattling at all. Indeed, Egypt has cut its armed forces in half in the last 10 years and is still continuing to do so.