BRUSSELS: European Union foreign ministers were divided Monday over their response to Israel s military tactics in the Gaza Strip, which led to the deaths of 19 civilians last week. At talks in Brussels, diplomats said Germany, Britain and the Czech Republic opposed publicly condemning Israel in a statement meant to be issued by foreign …

AMMAN: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is due in Jordan Monday to update top officials on efforts to form a Palestinian unity government before heading to Cairo on a similar mission, an official said. Abbas was expected in Amman late Monday and would meet with Jordan s King Abdullah II on Tuesday to discuss the latest …

US backing away from insistence on abidance to UN security resolution CAIRO: French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy confirmed with President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo yesterday his country’s willingness to arbitrate and resolve the Darfur crisis peacefully. Douste-Blazy arrived in Cairo on Saturday to discuss regional issues as well as map out a strategy to resolve …

Agence France-Presse CAIRO: French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy conferred with Egyptian officials Sunday ahead of a trip to Khartoum aimed at finding a compromise with Sudan on the deployment of peacekeepers in Darfur. The French diplomat held talks with Khartoum s Egyptian allies in a bid to explore new solutions after the Sudanese government made …

Agence France-Presse CAIRO: Iran s rising regional influence has emboldened Egyptian Shiites to demand more rights, but has also left them vulnerable under a regime that questions their loyalty and treats all religious groups with suspicion. The post-Saddam Hussein rise of Iraq s long-downtrodden Shiites, the popularity of Lebanon s Hezbollah movement and Iran s …

For the fourth consecutive week, Egyptian security forces said they had seized a quantity of explosives from a man planning to smuggle them into the Gaza Strip in a tunnel dug under the border. The explosives were found in a car in the Egyptian part of the town of Rafah straddling the Egypt-Gaza border, a …

CAIRO: Arab foreign ministers convened in Cairo Sunday for an emergency meeting to discuss Israel s devastating raids in the Gaza Strip, an AFP correspondent reported. The meeting was convened at Lebanon s request to discuss the current situation in the Palestinian territories and the escalation of Israel s aggression against the Palestinian people, especially …

Republicans trying to appease public on unpopular Iraq policy after Congressional losses CAIRO: The resignation of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld after the Democratic sweep to power in both houses of the Congress – the House of Representatives and the Senate – signals a change in American policy towards Iraq and more positive outlook …

The few who follow midterm elections are not optimistic regarding American plans for the region CAIRO: In the United States, excitement over the midterm elections reached fever pitch on Tuesday night as the Democratic Party was poised to overrun the Republicans in both branches of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. But for …

MOSCOW: Iran s top nuclear negotiator said Friday that his country wanted talks on its disputed nuclear program, but would not relinquish its right to pursue atomic energy, Russian news agencies reported. We want to use our rights under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and in this context, there will be no retreat, but we are …

CAIRO: Over 250 people protested in front of the Press Syndicate on Thursday calling on the government to be held accountable for the allegedly widespread sexual harassment downtown during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday. Surrounded by hundreds of soldiers and armored vehicles, the crowd was composed of women from all walks of life, including Egyptian and …

CAIRO: Parliamentarians voted their speaker another term Wednesday as he faced his first serious challenger, from the Muslim Brotherhood, since taking the post in 1990. Fathi Sorour began another year-long term with 80 percent of the vote, winning approval from 319 deputies, while his contender, Mohammed Saad El-Katatny, received 79 votes, Egypt s official Middle …

Associated Press An Egyptian cleric who disappeared from a Milan street in 2003 in an alleged CIA kidnapping said he was tortured with electric shocks, left in a cell where rats crawled on his body and threatened with rape when he was taken to Egypt, an Italian newspaper reported Thursday. Corriere della Sera said Osama …

13 Brotherhood dissenters unlikely according to head of Islamist Labor Party It is unfair, unfair, unfair, chanted members of Egypt’s opposition and Muslim Brotherhood MPs in front of the parliament building in Kasr El-Aini Street Wednesday. Magdy Ahmed Hussein, head of the Islamist Labor Party, said results indicating that National Democratic Party’s Ahmed Fathy Sorour …

The Egyptian government is cracking down on bloggers and writers who cover sectarian issues, journalist and website owner Hossam El-Hamalawy has said. “To be frank, all the bloggers who have been arrested from their houses have been detained for [touching upon] religious matters. If other, [more politically oriented] bloggers are arrested, they are arrested at …

But will the agreement materialize, analysts ask CAIRO: Following a week of speculation that Egypt was readying to make a major foreign policy shift away from the US and towards Asian-European powers, President Mubarak and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao announced the two countries would work together to boost Egypt’s nuclear capabilities. The president was …

Muslim Brotherhood’s student members face uphill battle CAIRO: Salah is a clean-shaven young man dressed in worn-out jeans and a casual beige jacket. His grades imply that he is an above average achiever. He studies trade at Cairo University, regularly pays school fees and dreams of running for student union elections. In so many ways, …

Abdel Karim Suliman Amer, also known as Kareem Amer, a student blogger, was detained Monday by state authorities and is being held in custody for four days awaiting prosecution for his secular online writings in which he criticizes Islam, his lawyer told The Daily Star Egypt. Freedom of expression is a basic human right. We …

The chants have become familiar: National Security, out, this is our university and it will remain free; who runs the university, the dean or Internal Affairs, shouted protesting university students on campuses throughout Cairo and the governorates. In the latest such protest, students at Helwan University demonstrated against the arrest of 28 of their colleagues …

Political rights activists rally public support for protection of religious minorities CAIRO: Following the mob attacks on Alexandria’s St. George’s Coptic Church last year, Dr. Mounir Megahed, general manager of feasibility studies at the Nuclear Power Plants Authority and a few of his colleagues decided to take action against attacks on religious minorities in Egypt. …

CAIRO: While reaction to the execution verdict handed down to Saddam Hussein has been split along sectarian lines in Iraq, Egyptians had mixed reactions. “I’m for the verdict in essence but I’m against the form, Samer Soliman, assistant professor of political economy at the American University in Cairo said. “I don’t have any doubt that …

CAIRO: Despite the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear program and with US efforts to isolate Iran over its reactors, several countries in the Arab world are looking to nuclear power to provide energy. And Egypt is leading the pack. According to the Middle East Economic Digest, Egypt’s program – though stalled since 1984 – is more …

CAIRO: Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit said on Saturday he was dismayed at what he called Israel s excessive use of force in a four-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip that has killed 39 people. Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, including four militants in air strikes and clashes during one of …

CAIRO: Thirty members of Egypt s opposition Muslim Brotherhood, mostly students, have been detained in Cairo s southern suburbs, security sources and the movement s website said Sunday. All detainees are residents of the Helwan neighborhood in southern Cairo and most of them are students, a security official said on condition of anonymity. The arrests …

CAIRO: Saddam Hussein was a despot but his crimes are dwarfed by those of the occupiers, the leader of Egypt s Muslim Brothers said Sunday after the ousted Iraqi leader was sentenced to death in Baghdad. There is no doubt Saddam Hussein was a tyrant and a despot who harmed Iraq and generated the disastrous …

CAIRO: Egyptian police sources reported finding at least two tons of explosives hidden in three separate caches in the Sinai village of Raythan. The find comes less than 10 days after police along the Gaza border seized 195 crates of automatic weapons and ammunition believed to be readied for smuggling to Palestinian factions in the …

Sunday’s vote seen as opposition challenge to NDP CAIRO: On Sunday Egyptian workers begin the first round of voting in elections for the national basic union, electing new representatives to a number of worker organizations meant to represent their concerns to the state. But opposition figures and independent analysts warn that the voting process used …