0 Articles
CAIRO: An Egyptian security official says a hot air balloon crash over the famed ancient temple city of Luxor has injured 16 tourists, mostly from Europe and North America. The balloon struck a cell phone transmission tower on Saturday near Gourna village on the west bank of the Nile. The injured tourists, who came from …
CAIRO: A 25-year-old woman from Cairo has died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the 25th reported death from the disease since it broke out in the country in 2006, according to the Ministry of Health. It is the second death in Egypt from bird flu this year. The woman died from respiratory failure …
CAIRO: An Egyptian boy has died of bird flu, the 24th reported death from the disease since it broke out in the country in 2006, state media reported on Tuesday. The six-year-old died of respiratory failure, the state-run MENA news agency quoted a health ministry official as saying. In a statement Tuesday, Health Ministry Spokesman …
MILAN: Lawyers for 26 Americans and seven Italians on trial for the alleged CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect asked a Milan court on Wednesday to throw out the case. The request is based on a March decision by Italy’s Constitutional Court, which threw out some key evidence, saying prosecutors used classified information to …
CAIRO: The North Cairo Appeals Court on Sunday exonerated a television station owner who was fined after his station aired footage of protesters stamping on pictures of President Hosni Mubarak. The state news agency MENA reported that the court decided to overturn the conviction because of a lack of evidence. Nader Gohar, the owner of …
CAIRO: The People’s Assembly’s religious committee Wednesday called for a strong stand in the face of the alleged “Hezbollah cell, the official MENA news agency reported. The committee, in a statement, said Egypt can very well defend its sovereignty and people against those who claim they are patriotic and take the Palestinian cause as a …
JERUSALEM/GENEVA: Israel on Tuesday slammed as one-sided a report by a UN human rights investigator which said its three-week war on the Gaza Strip was possibly a war crime. Unfortunately this is a further example of the very one-sided, unbalanced and unfair attitude of the (UN) Human Rights Council, government spokesman Mark Regev told AFP. …
RAFAH: Egypt reopened its Rafah border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Wednesday for two days to enable students and the sick to cross, a security official told AFP. The border has opened for two days to allow the passage of Palestinian students and the sick who are stuck on the Egyptian side, the border …
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is hosting the leaders of Egypt and Syria on Wednesday in an effort to persuade Damascus to move away from Iran and instead work with US-allied Arab countries to blunt Tehran s influence. Saudi Arabia hopes the one-day mini-Arab summit will help improve the frayed relations with Syria ahead of a larger …
ROME: Italy s constitutional court Tuesday began hearing arguments to throw out the trial of US and Italian secret service agents accused in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect in Italy. The Italian government charges that Milan prosecutors violated state secrecy laws by using wiretaps on the Italian agents in their investigation. The …
CAIRO: Three sailors perished and 17 are still missing after a cargo ship sank off the Red Sea coast of Egypt on Monday shortly after leaving port, a maritime official said. The cargo ship under the flag of St. Kitts and Nevis sank in bad weather, an Egyptian official said. Maj. Gen. Mamdouh Deraz, head …
AL-ARISH: The Egyptian authorities on Monday discovered 450 kilos of explosives and weapons caches near the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, security officials said. The weapons, including ammunition, were stored in three hideouts near the Egypt-Gaza border in the Sinai peninsula and are believed to have been destined for the coastal strip, the officials …
Rags-to-riches drama “Slumdog Millionaire swept the board at the 81st Academy Awards here Sunday, winning eight Oscars including best picture on a night of high-voltage Hollywood glamour. The feel-good film about a Mumbai tea boy who rises from poverty and enters a television quiz show to win millions and find the love of his life, …
CAIRO: Egypt s best-known political dissident Ayman Nour said on Thursday that the decision to release him from prison came as a surprise and that he hoped it was not the result of foreign pressure. I was surprised by my release, Nour, 44, told a news conference a day after the authorities ordered his release …
CAIRO: Egypt s foreign ministry spokesman says Israel s latest demand that a captured Israeli soldier be released before a long-term Gaza truce deal with Hamas is struck is a blow to Egyptian mediation efforts between the two sides. Hossam Zaki says linking Sgt. Gilad Schalit – captured in a 2006 raid by Hamas-linked militants …
AL-ARISH: A security official says an Egyptian border guard has been shot and wounded by suspected human traffickers in an area close to the Israeli border in the Sinai Peninsula. The official says the guard was shot in the shoulder early Monday when he tried to stop a party of Bedouins trying to sneak African …
GAZA CITY: Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters exchanged their first shots on Sunday in Gaza, where dozens of bodies were pulled from the rubble after Israel ended a deadly war on Gaza. As Israeli air strikes and Hamas rocket fire punctured the tenuous truce in the territory, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned the unilateral ceasefire …
GAZA CITY: Israeli warplanes pounded more Gaza homes as ground troops edged closer to the Gaza Strip s densely-populated urban center Monday, in an escalation of its devastating two-week offensive. From downtown Gaza City black smoke could be seen rising over the eastern suburbs, where the two sides skirmished throughout the night. At least six …
JERUSALEM: Israeli jets and helicopters bombarded Gaza early Friday, as Israel’s government said it will press forward with its offensive despite a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. One Israeli airstrike killed two Hamas insurgents and another unidentified man, while another flattened a five-story building in northern Gaza, killing at least seven people, including …
JERUSALEM: Insurgents in Lebanon fired at least three rockets into northern Israel on Thursday, ripping through a crowded nursing home and threatening to open a new front for the Jewish state as it pushed forward with a bloody offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed over 700 people. Lebanon’s government, wary of conflict, quickly …
DAMASCUS/CAIRO: Palestinian groups based in Syria, including Hamas, believe the Egyptian plan aimed at securing a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip “has no valid basis, a Palestinian official said on Thursday. “Palestinian organizations, notably Hamas, see no valid basis in the Egyptian plan for a solution to the crisis in Gaza, Khaled Abdel-Majid, spokesman …
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other senior ministers discussed the possible expansion of the ground offensive launched on Saturday night deeper into Palestinian towns, despite appearing to welcome a Franco-Egyptian initiative to end the 12-day-old war on Gaza, stopping short of endorsing it. “Barak has instructed the army to prepare …
GAZA CITY: Three Palestinian brothers aged seven to 10 were killed in an Israeli air raid on southern Gaza on Friday, medics and witnesses said. Iyad, Mohammed and Abdelsattar Al-Astal died in an Israeli missile strike that appeared to have targeted a rocket launching pad near their home in Al-Qarara close to the city of …
ANKARA: At a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Monday that there is an open war by some satellite channels, countries and individuals against Egypt and the Egyptian people. Aboul Gheit added that the Egyptian people will stand up to such a war. The remarks were …
CAIRO: The Egyptian Foreign Ministry is protesting demonstrations held in Syria over Egypt s role in the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The state-owned Middle East News Agency says Deputy Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Salah expressed concern about the demonstrations to the Syrian ambassador after summoning him to the ministry Tuesday. The Syrian ambassador was summoned …
CAIRO: An Australian has been arrested in Egypt for allegedly trying to smuggle a 2,000-year-old mummified cat and other antiquities out in his suitcase, a security official said on Thursday. The man was arrested on Wednesday trying to board a plane to Bangkok, the Cairo airport official said, after a mummified cat and ibis were …
DAHAB: Seven Russian tourists were killed when their coach overturned on a highway near the Red Sea resort of Dahab, according to a new death toll on Tuesday. Eighteen other people were injured in Monday’s crash, including three Egyptians, a medical source said. Five of the injured remain in critical condition. “The tourist coach seems …
CAIRO: Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit lashed out at the Iranian government on Sunday, accusing the Islamist regime of trying to dominate the Middle East. Aboul Gheit s statement signaled an escalation in a simmering diplomatic dispute between the two countries, which have both vied for a dominant role in the region. The Iranians …
BAGHDAD: A reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush was being held for questioning by the Iraqi prime minister’s guards, an Iraqi official said Monday, as Arabs across the Middle East hailed the incident as a proper send-off to the unpopular US president. Muntazer Al-Zaidi was being interrogated over whether anybody paid …
CAIRO: Egyptian border police shot dead a Togolese migrant as he tried to enter Israel illegally, a security official said on Saturday. The 25-year-old was shot in the head near the border, just south of the Gaza Strip, the official said. Egyptian police have killed at least 28 migrants, most of them Sudanese and Eritrean, …