Images of President Hosni Mubarak touring an industrial zone near his summer beach home in Alexandria were published Thursday in Egypt's main state-owned newspapers, as government media sought to dispel speculation about his deteriorating health.
Images of the president, who is 79, accompanied by his ministers as he toured textile factories in the northern industrial zone of Borg el-Arab on Wednesday, also ran on Egyptian television.
The highly publicized visit to the zone near the Mediterranean coast came the same day that the state-owned weekly magazine al-Massawer published a cover story discounting the widespread health speculation across Egypt in recent days. "Political rumors are being used as a weapon to incite people's worries," wrote the magazine's editor Abdel Qader Shouheib, according to the AP.
Aly Eldin Helal, a spokesman for Mubarak's ruling party, blamed the independent and opposition press for the speculation. Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for more than a quarter century, is known to have some knee, ear and back problems.
