EGYPT

Sweating it out in daily traffic jams is worth the trouble if that saves Egypt's national treasure and the only surviving wonder of the world - the 4,500-year-old Giza pyramids; Cairo's residents feel. Egypt and the United Nations have agreed to reroute a nearly complete highway which passes within km of the 3 pyramids and the Sphinx. The monuments are built of limestone and are already suffering from massive weather erosion and air pollution. The damage would have been unthinkable if the 8-lane highway brought in high-volume traffic breathing down their necks. "What we have done is historical ... even if we've lost a billion pounds, that is not important, 11 said AbdelHalim Noureddin, chief antiquities officer of Egypt.