TORONTO: Burying his face in his hands, a 16-year-old captured in Afghanistan sobs and calls out Oh Mommy! in a hidden-camera video released Tuesday that provides the first look at interrogations inside the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Lawyers for Toronto-born Omar Khadr released the tapes in hopes of generating sympathy for the …

CAIRO: Lobby group Doctors Without Rights have described wage increases promised by the government as “untrue. Government representatives met with head of the Doctors’ Syndicate Hamdy El-Sayyed on Tuesday to discuss doctors’ continued demands for wage increases. According to the syndicate’s website, LE 400 million have been allocated to “overhauling doctors’ working and pay conditions …

CAIRO: The Israeli Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a warning Tuesday advising its citizens to avoid traveling to Sinai because they claim terror cells in the area are planning to abduct Israeli tourists. The bureau updated its travel advisory on Tuesday and additionally requested that Israeli tourists already present in Sinai leave immediately. In a statement issued …

CAIRO: Egyptian rights groups collectively condemned a draft law on audio-visual transmission which lays down prison sentences for broadcasters and ordinary media-users that violate its provisions. Fourteen Egyptian NGOs issued on Tuesday a statement calling on the government to open up a public debate on the proposed legislation and consult civil society and experts on …

CAIRO: Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said that the decision to export gas to Israel was not subject to pressures from any external sources, whether from the United States or the World Bank. “Egypt has its will, even though some are saying the US and the World Bank are pressuring us. We don’t accept pressure from …

CAIRO: The Arab League s envoy to Sudan on Tuesday described the indictment of the country s president on genocide and other charges as a serious blow to peace efforts in Darfur. The Egyptian diplomat, Salah Halima, told reporters at his office in Cairo that the indictment filed by a prosecutor at the International Criminal …

GAZA: Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip is anything but peaceful. And for the Salach family, living on the border between Israel and Gaza, ceasefire is a foreign concept only because it comes along in the rarest of times. However, the current Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has brought some days of calm to …

CAIRO: Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad admitted that relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia were “strained in an interview he gave Al Jazeera Sunday night. The Syrian leader, long ostracized in the international arena, seemed to have transcended this image somewhat with a coming out at the Euro-Med Conference in Paris, where his visibility outshone other …

PARIS: Big gatherings can be complicated, but try seating 43 of the planet s very important people – some of whom bear longstanding grudges or have fought wars – at a giant table for a feel-good summit. The French, masters at protocol, did it and pulled off a diplomatic feat Sunday that might have challenged …

KHARTOUM: The filing of genocide charges against Sudan s president at the International Criminal Court is unfair and politically motivated, said a senior member of Sudan s ruling party Monday. One of the rebel groups fighting the government in the western Darfur region, however, welcomed the move and pronounced themselves ready to help arrest and …

CAIRO: Referring to world reports and a warning by the British embassy about sexual harassment, Member of Parliament Mohsen Radi issued an “urgent call to the Minister of Tourism before the People’s Assembly’s (PA) annual break, with a list of demands to improve the tourism industry. Radi referred to the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report …

PARIS: More than 40 nations home to 800 million people were set Sunday to join in a Union for the Mediterranean, a vast though vague body its boosters hope can nudge this disparate and conflicted swath of the world toward peace and stability. Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian leaders were among those attending an unprecedented gathering …

PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and more than 40 leaders opened a summit on Sunday to launch a new union of Mediterranean nations amid hopes it could bring fresh impetus to Middle East peace efforts. Flanked by President Hosni Mubarak and United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon, Sarkozy urged the leaders – representing some 756 million …

AL-ARISH: Egyptian authorities on Saturday swooped on a suspected people trafficking safe house detaining 30 African migrants, and in a separate raid shot dead an Egyptian smuggler. Police arrested the Africans in a safe house close to the Suez Canal suspected of preparing to sneak across the frontier into Israel, in the first raid of …

CAIRO: Security forces arrested 16 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition group in Egypt, during by-elections in the north of the country on Sunday, a security official said. Twelve Islamists were arrested in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and four in Dessouq, in the Nile Delta, for belonging to a banned organization, …

CAIRO: If, as is expected, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announces today the indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Beshir for war crimes in Darfur, it will be the first time in history an incumbent ruler would be taken to task for human rights violations committed during his reign. Moreno-Ocampo …

CAIRO: Mohamed Salah Marei is a 23-year-old student in his fourth year of veterinary science at Mansoura University who doesn’t really want to be a vet. “I wanted to study political science, but my father was determined that there should be at least one person in the family able to call himself doctor. Marei will …

AL-ARISH: Egypt has sent 400 police to bolster security at its Rafah border terminal with the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned Palestinian protest on Thursday, a security official said. The officers were deployed around the crossing point – the sole Gaza frontier post that bypasses Israel – to prevent a new violation of the …

EL-ARISH: Egyptian authorities on Friday found 250 kilos of explosives in the Sinai desert which they believe were probably destined for the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, a security official said. The cache was found in the Sheikh Zuwayed region near the border town of Rafah after a tip-off from local Bedouins who said smugglers were using …

CAIRO: Thirty-eight members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) were detained Thursday for a further 15 days pending investigation. The arrests early last week came after a crackdown on a march in the governorate of Kafr El-Sheikh in support of a parliamentary candidate. Security forces had arrested 100 MB supporters during an 8,000-strong march Tuesday in …

GAZA CITY: Israeli troops killed an unarmed Palestinian man along the border in the southern Gaza Strip early on Thursday, the first fatality since a fragile truce went into effect three weeks ago. A Palestinian armed faction claimed the man was one of its members and vowed to retaliate. Troops “identified a suspicious person crossing …

PARIS: President Nicolas Sarkozy has pulled off something of a diplomatic coup in assembling about 40 leaders, some nursing age-old Middle Eastern enmities, for the grandiose launch of his pet project: The Union for the Mediterranean. But don t expect a group photo. Although Syrian and Israeli leaders will sit at the same table for …

CAIRO: Nearly 70 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition group in Egypt, have been arrested and detained in two days north of Cairo, a security service official said on Thursday. Thirty Islamists were arrested on Thursday at Dessouq, in Kafr El-Sheikh province, where a by-election was being held, said a security official, asking …

GAZA CITY: A Palestinian health official says two Palestinians have been killed in the collapse of a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border. Health Ministry official Moawiya Hassanain said Thursday that five people were pulled out of the tunnel alive. Local residents say the tunnel was used for smuggling drugs and fuel into Gaza. Gaza …

CAIRO: Abdel-Galeel Mustafa was temporarily appointed the coordinator of the Kefaya movement following the passing of Abdel Wahab El-Messiery earlier this month. Kefaya member Ahmed Bahaa Shaaban welcomed the choice. He told Daily News Egypt, “Thankfully he agreed to be the temporary coordinator of the movement, to fill the void until a permanent one is …

TRIPOLI: Two people were killed and dozens wounded in street battles between rival sectarian camps armed with rockets, sniper rifles and grenades in the north Lebanese city of Tripoli on Wednesday. Panicked residents were fleeing the scene of the fighting which first erupted late on Tuesday in two districts in northeastern Tripoli, while several roads …

CAIRO: Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday strongly condemned an Iranian documentary about the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, calling such works irresponsible. We condemn this film in the strongest possible terms, Aboul Gheit told reporters in Cairo, two days after Egypt summoned Tehran s envoy in Cairo to lodge a formal …

CAIRO: An Egyptian request to Israel to reopen crossings into the Gaza Strip was agreed to as Egypt invited Hamas to Cairo in an attempt to keep hold onto a tenuous truce it had arbitrated between the group and Israel. The crossings had been shutdown Tuesday after a Palestinian rocket attack. The tahdiyeh (Arabic for …