1.
GV PAN Ship before launching
0.10

2.
SCU Sadat about to launch and pulling tape
???

3.
GV Ship sliding down slipway
0.37

4.
GV Cheering crowd at slipway after launching (2 shots)
0.50

5.
MV Sadat walking through crowd
0.56

6.
GV Cheering crowds
1.01

7.
MV Sadat walking in shipyard
1.05

8.
SCU Sadat meeting officials
1.14

9.
SCU Women at ceremony
1.15

10.
MV Sadat walks up to mike for speech
1.38



Initials BB/0144 SH/PN/BB/0200



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: President Anwar Sadat of Egypt launched the 8,000-ton freighter "Suez" on Friday (July 28) -- just a week after ordering the expulsion of Soviet military advisers from the country. The ship was partly built by Russians.

The vessel is one of twenty such ships the Soviet Union agreed to help build in an agreement signed earlier this year--and the launching was intended to emphasise President Sadat's hope for future development of heavy industry in the country.

Now, however, that development may have been impaired. A ten-year economic development agreement to be signed in Moscow in September could be shelved indefinitely unless the two countries can work out their differences.

At the launching ceremony, there were no Russians on the platform as President Sadat broke a bottle of River Nile water over the bows of the "Suez". And several hundred Russian technicians who helped build the ship were relegated to a back seat during the ceremony.