Egypt’s border with Gaza stays closed. protest continues

Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip remained closed Sunday as the families and colleagues of seven Egyptian soldiers who were kidnapped in the northern Sinai Peninsula last week continued a sit-in. (more…)

lawyer calls Mubarak’s Alwatan interview ” fabrication”

The lawyer of Hosni Mubarak has denied that a recent interview with the deposed president, published in privately-owned Egyptian daily Al-Watan, took place.

Farid El-Deeb told Ahram Online on Sunday that the interview was a fabrication.
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Egypt foils terror plot. 3 militants arrested

Egyptian security forces have arrested three militants with ties to Al Qaeda who were planning terrorist attacks in Egyptian cities and against a foreign embassy, theinterior minister said Saturday.

A Western official said the Egyptians had privately identified the embassy as the United States Embassy in Cairo. (more…)

Egypt’s Mubarak arrives in court for retrial

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was back in court on Saturday to face a retrial on charges of complicity in the murder of protesters, reopening a case that has shown the difficulty of transitional justice in post-revolutionary Egypt.

Mubarak and his former interior minister, Habib el-Adli, were (more…)

UAE pardons more than 100 Egyptian prisoners

The United Arab Emirates pardoned more than 100 Egyptian prisoners on Monday in a move hailed by the Egyptian ambassador to Abu Dhabi as a gesture that will improve strained relations between the two countries. (more…)

Egypt’s Mubarak wants to go free, appeals his detention

Deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who faces charges involving the killing of nonviolent protesters during the uprising that brought him down, wants to go free.

On Monday, a day after a judge scuttled Mubarak’s scheduled retrial, his lawyers petitioned an appeals court to release him, (more…)

Two more dead after sectarian clashes in Egypt

Two more deaths were reported on Monday after sectarian violence at Cairo’s Coptic cathedral that the Egyptian government and Muslim and Christian leaders scrambled to calm.

A security source said a 21-year-old Muslim man, named only as Mohamed, died of a fractured skull in hospital (more…)

Egypt Suspends Flights From Iran

Egypt has halted commercial flights from Shi’ite power Iran until mid-June, days after the first such flight in 34 years between the countries provoked protests from hardline Sunni Islamists in Cairo.

That first commercial flight, from Cairo to Tehran, took off on March 30 in the latest step towards normalizing ties broken after the 1979 Iranian revolution, when Egypt gave sanctuary to the deposed shah of Iran. (more…)

How Lebanon dodged the Arab Spring

The Middle East, you may have noticed, has been an inhospitable place over the past several years for family dynasties. Egyptians revolted when it became increasingly obvious that Hosni Mubarak would attempt to pass the presidency off to his son, Gamal. Syrians are fighting a bloody war to rid themselves of Bashar al-Assad, (more…)

Egypt seizes Iranian ship carrying a huge quantity of arms

Egyptian maritime authorities seized an Iranian ship carrying a huge quantity of weapons heading for Egypt, NOW reported on Thursday.

The ship, which was seized about ten miles away from the Ras Mohammad national park in the Sinai peninsula reportedly was carrying more than 50,000 light and medium weapons as well a huge quantity of ammunitions. (more…)