Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi says opponents of the Suez Canal mega project are working off static data that’s probably inaccurate
He says opening the canal to bigger ships going in both direction is vital to meet expected growth in maritime traffic.
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Constructing what is being called the Second Suez is being likened to not so much to first building the canal 150 years ago but to President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalising the waterway in 1956.
Sisi’s engaged journalists invited for the opening of the second canal.
One of them asks if he regards himself as the new Nasser.
He replies he hopes to be as great as Nasser.
He plans to engage Africa as vigorously as Nasser did during the the period of decolonisation.
He says moving ships more quickly through the new Suez will benefit the whole continent.
El Sisi says he wants to be like Nasser
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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.
Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.
Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.
Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.
He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.
He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.
He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.
In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.
In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.
He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.
Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.
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