CAIRO: The Palestinian economy was at its lowest point for a decade in 2006 as it continued to suffer from isolation due to the Israeli occupation and Israeli refusal to release customs revenues, according to a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report. The United Nations Information Center (Unic) in Cairo held a …

CAIRO: The four university students affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood that disappeared in Alexandria are now facing charges of belonging to a terrorist cell. Their lawyer claims they were tortured. “All the students were tortured, they were electrocuted for three days in Istekbal prison in Tora, Khalaf Ahmed Bayoumi, the student’s lawyer, told Daily News …

CAIRO: Israel is considering building a security fence along the border it shares with Egypt in an attempt to curb refugees and smugglers from crossing over. The idea was presented by the Israeli Prime Minister s Office Director General Ra anan Dinur to the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers last Tuesday. It is understood that …

CAIRO: In an interview with the state-run daily paper Al-Ahram, President Hosni Mubarak rebuffed the recent rumors that surfaced about his weakened health. For the past month, rumors and speculation spread among Egyptians and in the media regarding Mubarak’s health. Some said he was hospitalized, others claimed he had traveled for medical treatment. But the …

CAIRO: Fifty Sinai detainees in Borg El-Arab prison near the North Coast ended a hunger strike to protest their “unjust imprisonment and to precipitate their release. Khaled Aly from the Hisham Mubarak Center, which represents some of the detainees, told Daily News Egypt that the hunger strike had ended, but did not have further details …

CAIRO/TRIPOLI: A spokesman at the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli has said that the seven Egyptian workers being detained in a Libyan prison were released on Tuesday and will be returning to Egypt today. The workers were arrested ten days ago over a brawl with Libyan citizens in the town of Beni Walid, west of Tripoli. …

CAIRO: The Israel newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported that a delegation from the Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry was harassed by airport security in Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv. According to the Israeli paper, the delegation was delayed for two hours and had their passports confiscated even though they had valid visas issued by the …

CAIRO: The Supreme Constitutional Court announced Saturday that it will pronounce the verdict in a case appealing the results of a March 2007 referendum on recent amendments to the constitution this coming October. Filed by a number of opposition members of the People’s Assembly (PA) and some judges, the case also claims that the constitutional …

CAIRO: The military trial of Khayrat El Shater, deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood, and 39 other members of the organization continues today amid concerns over both the legitimacy of the proceedings and the defendants’ health conditions. El Shater, who is being tried for money laundering and membership of a banned organization, is a diabetic …

CAIRO: Mohamed El Baradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), criticized the recent arms deal between the United States and Middle East countries including Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia. According to local newspapers, in an interview with Austrian magazine Profile, El Baradei said that Washington’s strategy of helping build arms cache …

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: The Israeli Minister for Public Security Avi Dichter accused Egypt of allowing arms to enter the Gaza Strip, saying that the Egyptian government has an interest in seeing a “strong Hamas. Speaking about the problem of arms smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border, Dichter said that “the Egyptians can take immediate and decisive steps to …

In 1989, the officially banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood group decided to establish a political party. Since then, the group’s consultative Shoura Council have faced many political obstacles to declaring themselves, but with their strong belief in the importance of establishing a free political party with no government interference, the group still waits for a …

CAIRO: The expulsion of all but 500 Darfuri refugees from Israel back to Egypt has split opinion in the country about whether returning them was the right decision in light of Jewish history and the Holocaust. The Israeli Foreign Ministry released a statement saying that “Israel has an acute responsibility to carefully monitor its borders …

CAIRO: Muslim Brotherhood detainees Mohamed Hussein and Khayrat El Shater have both developed serious and possibly life-threatening illnesses in prison, according to Brotherhood sources and family members. The regime has so far refused to provide the men with appropriate medical treatment, they say, blaming the unhygienic conditions of Tora prison and its hospital for the …

In 1989 the officially banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood group decided to establish a political party. Since then, the group’s consultative Shoura Council, have faced many political obstacles to declaring themselves, but with their strong belief in the importance of establishing a free political party with no government interference, the group still waits for a …

CAIRO: The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, a branch of the US Department of Defense, notified the US Congress Friday of potential arms sales with Egypt and Israel possibly worth a combined $1.5 billion. According to the Agency’s official website, Egypt has requested kits for 125 M1A1 Abrams tanks – which Egypt co-produces – at a …

Imam Mahdi Bray is the Director of the Muslim American Society’s Freedom Foundation, the human and civil rights project of the largest grass-roots Muslim organization in the United States. He was in Cairo this week to express solidarity with Muslim Brotherhood detainees on trial before a military court and to call for an end to …

CAIRO: Lawmakers Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zaid were released from detention on LE 10,000 bail on Thursday, one day after their arrest in a midday raid on their Menufiya homes and accused of ” terrorism and possession of banned materials related to their membership of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Hamdi Hassan, the spokesman for …

CAIRO: In a nod to current regional politics, a meeting organized by the opposition Tagammu party on Wednesday to address the plight of the remaining Palestinians in Rafah and Al-Arish was disbanded when no Palestinians showed up. “A lot of the Palestinians are affiliated to Hamas, Tagammu party member Ashraf El Hefny told Daily News …

CAIRO: US President George W. Bush s conflicting remarks on the effectiveness of the Iraqi government prompted comments in the Arab media which described them as yet another sign of the failure of US policies in the war torn country. Bush on Wednesday said he supported Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, calling him a good …

CAIRO: The leading opposition Muslim Brotherhood should have its place in politics and should not be listed as an outlawed group, an executive of the ruling National Democratic Party said this week. Mustafa Al-Feqi, chairman of parliament s foreign affairs committee, made the comments during a committee meeting attended by a delegation of US Congressmen. …

AMMAN, Jordan: Former Iraqi President Abdel-Rahman Aref, overthrown more than 35 years ago in a coup that brought Saddam Hussein s Baath party to power, died in Amman early Friday at the age of 91, an Iraqi diplomat in Jordan said. Aref died at the King Hussein Medical Center in the Jordanian capital at dawn, …

CAIRO: A YouTube video has surfaced of US Vice President Dick Cheney explaining in 1994 why Iraq was too fragile to invade, prompting criticism across the internet. Cheney, then Defense Secretary, tells the interviewee in an American Enterprise Institute video that the US was right not to move into Baghdad during the 90-91 Gulf War …

CAIRO/GAZA: A senior United Nations official voiced concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation inside the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, joining an anxious chorus of international figures worried about the effects of the two-month closure of the Strip’s borders. The main border crossing between Gaza and Israel, Karni checkpoint, has been shut since June 9, when …

CAIRO: The EU has agreed to resume funding to Gaza’s main power station on a provisional basis after receiving guarantees that Hamas would not apply taxes to the electricity bills. The funding resumed after EU officials met with Fatah-appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. A statement was released Tuesday by the two parties announcing that audits …

CAIRO: One of Egypt s most outspoken government critics, Egyptian-American academic Saad Eddin Ibrahim, said he cannot return to the country of his birth for fear of arrest or worse, amid a government crackdown on dissidents. In an opinion piece that appeared Tuesday in the Washington Post, the 68-year-old sociologist described a regime cracking down …

CAIRO: The government crackdown on opposition groups continued this week with the arrest of Sabri Amer and Ragab Abu Zaid, two members of the People’s Assembly who also belong to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group. State security police raided the two lawmakers’ homes in Menufiya governorate around midday on Wednesday, according to Brotherhood sources. Both …

CAIRO: Around 80 tons of medical aid destined for the Gaza Strip have become unusable after being held up at the border with Egypt for more than a year, a security source at the frontier said on Tuesday. The aid consisted of medicine, powdered baby milk and unspecified medical equipment and had been donated by …

CAIRO: The United Nations Information Center (Unic) in Cairo commemorated Monday the fourth anniversary of the attack on the UN building in Baghdad where 22 staff members were killed, including Egyptians Nadia Younis and Jean-Pierre Kanaan. “The UN was targeted for being the UN, Unic Director Maher Nasser told Daily News Egypt, and the attack …

KHARTOUM/GENEVA: In a statement from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations has accused the Sudanese military of abducting women and girls and keeping them as sex slaves for a month following an attack on a Darfur village. The office said that the crimes were so severe that they may …