CAIRO: The detention of Muslim Brotherhood blogger and journalist Abdel Moneim Mahmoud was extended for the third consecutive time since his arrest on April 14 by the public prosecutor in Nasr City on Tuesday. He is held pending investigation into his membership of the banned organization. While Mahmoud has officially been accused of belonging to …

STOCKHOLM/CAIRO: The Swedish government revoked last week its decision to extradite Egyptian citizen Ahmed Agiza. Back in 2001, Agiza was deported to Egypt with the help of the US secret service where he was allegedly subject to torture. The decision came only months after the Swedish authorities revoked the extradition of Egyptian Mohamed Al-Zery in …

Solana in Egypt before heading to hotspot CAIRO: At the behest of the Palestinians, the European Union (EU) has agreed to take on a greater role in monitoring the Egypt-Gaza border especially at the Rafah crossing. Speaking in Cairo Wednesday after a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak, the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign …

CAIRO: National Democratic Party (NDP) MPs voted against Al-Wafd party’s request to withdraw confidence from the government after the investigations committee of the People s Assembly (PA) implicated the government in the Al-Salam 98 ferry disaster. The ferry sank two years ago on its way from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, leaving 1,033 passengers dead. In …

An Egyptian policeman was wounded in the Sinai Peninsula on Monday when he was shot by smugglers near the border with Israel, a security official told AFP. Alaa Eddine Khalifa Ali, 23, was wounded after sustaining three shots to his leg near the Israeli border, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The policeman, …

CAIRO: It was not only American anti-terrorism legislation that changed dramatically after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Canada too underwent a process of considerable legal change. Having struck so close to home, the attacks forced Canada s lawmakers to give serious consideration to their country s own legal system, and how to prevent such incidents …

BEIRUT: A UN relief convoy carrying supplies was hit in renewed fighting Tuesday as it tried to enter the besieged Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared, a relief official said, adding that there may have been at least one casualty. The official from the UN Relief and Works Agency said a pickup truck and a …

Associated Press CAIRO: Egypt s once largest militant group has appealed to the Al-Qaeda terror network to renounce its violent ideology and rally behind the Egyptian Islamic militants conversion to a peaceful struggle. According to a statement posted on the Egyptian group s Web Site, Nageh Ibrahim, a leader and one of the founders of …

CAIRO: A decision on whether to release Egypt s jailed opposition leader Ayman Nour on medical grounds was postponed on Tuesday pending a medical examination. A judge announced that a committee of medical experts appointed by the ministry of justice will carry out further tests on Nour, an insulin-dependent diabetic, before giving its decision on …

Associated Press NAIROBI: Africa s largest trade bloc endorsed a tax plan Tuesday designed to make it cheaper and easier to do business on an impoverished continent struggling to lure foreign investors. The tax union endorsed at a summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, known as Comesa, was set to take …

Go on, then. Find a Palestinian – man, woman, child . irrespective; refugee and downtrodden preferred. Now give them a good wallop and make sure it smarts. There, chalk one up for freedom. But freedom or the war on terror cannot be measured in the successful killing of innocents. Take the recent debacle in Lebanon …

CAIRO: The Egyptian security forces prevented Muslim Brotherhood members from applying for the upcoming Shoura Council (SC, The Upper House of Parliament) elections by force in Menufiya, said Hamdy Hassan member in the People s Assembly (PA) affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group to The Daily Star Egypt. According to Hassan, the Egyptian security …

Mubarak dismisses plans of Egypt-Saudi bridge CAIRO: A purported bridge to be built linking Saudi Arabia and Egypt has caused consternation in recent days over whether it will actually happen or not. Talk of a bridge being built between Ras Humaid in the Saudi region of Tabuk and Sharm El-Sheikh in Sinai kicked off in …

Associated Press CAIRO: Police arrested 14 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood as part of Egypt s ongoing campaign against the country s strongest opposition group, the interior ministry and the group said Sunday. The interior ministry said in its statement that the group was arrested Saturday for holding a secret organizational meeting in Sharqiyya …

Associated Press UNITED NATIONS: Egypt, Angola and Qatar easily won seats on the council despite opposition from human rights groups that said they did not deserve a spot on the council because of their bad human rights records. Belarus was defeated for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday after a campaign …

CAIRO: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has indicated that Iran is willing to restore full diplomatic relations with Egypt the “very day Cairo agrees, in comments made on Tuesday. Quoted by the Iranian Isna news agency the president told reporters that Iran would re-open its embassy in Cairo if Egypt is willing to restore relations that …

Mubarak calls for Palestinian infighting to end CAIRO: As recent fighting between Palestinian factions continues, regional and international support for Fatah over the elected Hamas is the reason behind the tenuous hold of the unity government, Waleed Kazziha professor of political science at the American University in Cairo told The Daily Star Egypt Egypt has …

CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak has approved the final list of candidates representing the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) in the coming Shoura Council (Upper House of Parliament) elections scheduled to start on June 11. According to Al Ahram daily newspaper, Safwat El Sherif, NDP secretary general, said the party will nominate 97 candidates, among them …

CAIRO: On Monday May 14, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled it lawful to put civilians on trial in military courts, thus rejecting an earlier verdict that was taken by the Administrative Court. The new verdict came as an appeal of another verdict that the Administrative court announced two weeks ago indicating it illegal for the …

CAIRO: An Egyptian nuclear engineer charged with betraying secrets to Israel insisted on Tuesday that any information he had divulged was already in the public domain and had been handed over with the blessing of the authorities. Mohammed Sayyed Saber, 35, acknowledged that he had supplied information about the Egyptian atomic energy authority where he …

CAIRO: Alexandria head judge Abdel Fattah Mourad, who is pushing to block 21 Egyptian websites and blogs on the basis that they ‘defame Egypt and the Egyptian President,’ has amended his lawsuit in the Administrative Judiciary Court, adding a demand to shut down 29 similar more website on the same grounds. Like the previous 21 …

Egypt has called on the international community and the United Nations to work for a document which condemns the crimes of offending and defaming religions, reported the Italian news agency AKI. The request was made by Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit during the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference …

CAIRO: The investigations committee of the People s Assembly filed its final report on Al-Salam 98 ferry that sank two years ago on its way from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, leaving 1,033 passengers dead. The committee found the Ministry of Transport, the Marine Safety institution, the Egyptian rescue unit and the owner and operator of …

CAIRO: An Egyptian initiative has been proposed to bring Sudanese rebel factions to Cairo in an attempt to get them on board the Abuja agreement for Darfur, according to Sudan’s National Democratic Alliance leader Mohammed Othman Al-Merghani. Al-Merghani was in Cairo meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit to discuss the situation in Darfur …

TEHRAN: Iran said on Sunday it has agreed to a request from the United States for talks on Iraq, just over a week after the two archfoes failed to have substantive contacts at a conference in Egypt. Iran has agreed to talk to the US side over Iraq, in Iraq, in order to relieve the …

CAIRO: “I was taken out of the van and put in a place where I heard motors. I soon realized that I was on an airplane. I heard a lot of footsteps . it was cold. They put plastic shackles on my hands and feet, he says. Abu Omar continues saying that he was severely …

President Hosni Mubarak announced on Friday that the first round of elections for the country s upper house of parliament will be held on June 11, the official MENA news agency reported. The second round will be on June 18, Mubarak said in a presidential decree. The Shura – or advisory – Council has 264 …