CAIRO: After successfully orchestrating the April 6 strike, the organizing youth made their first collective public appearance declaring themselves a new political power on the local scene. More than 400 young people left their keyboards temporarily and gathered at the Journalists’ Syndicate to meet each other for the first time, following months of corresponding over …

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Africa s top conflict prevention body was to discuss Zimbabwe s crisis on Sunday amid growing calls for Monday s African Union summit to shun President Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe s one-man presidential election has been widely branded a farce after opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew because of violence, handing certain victory to incumbent …

TRIPOLI: Tension ran high in north Lebanon s capital of Tripoli on Sunday even as the army was deployed in force a day after a man died in an apartment block explosion. A security official told AFP that a tobacco shop run by an Alawite was set ablaze in the mainly Sunni district of Bab …

CAIRO: Seventeen inmates at Borg El Arab Prison in Alexandria, were physically attacked by prison guards on Tuesday to force them to end the hunger strike they began on Monday, a rights advocate and lawyer told Daily News Egypt. “Prison guards entered their cells on Tuesday and started beating them, said lawyer Ahmed Ezzat from …

GAZA CITY: Israel kept commercial goods crossings into the Gaza Strip closed Friday after a Palestinian rocket attack the day before tested a week-old truce and drew criticism from the territory s Hamas rulers. Meanwhile, two mortar rounds struck an open field on the Israeli side of the Gaza border on Friday, army radio said. …

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: The head of the African Union Commission said the continent must tackle its difficulties in running clean elections as African foreign ministers debated how to handle the crisis in Zimbabwe at a gathering here on Friday. The meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh was taking place as a one-candidate presidential runoff got underway in Zimbabwe. …

CAIRO: Activists condemned the negative effects of Egypt’s 27-year-old state of emergency on Thursday during a seminar at the Journalists’ Syndicate. Titled “The Negative Effects of Emergency Law on Egyptian Society, the seminar was attended by lawyers and journalists who outlined what they termed as the pervasive effects of emergency law on Egypt’s political, social …

PITTSBURGH: A Muslim nuclear physicist on Thursday accused the US Department of Energy of revoking his security clearance in retaliation for his criticism of the government s treatment of Muslims. Moniem El-Ganayni, 57, an Egyptian who moved to the United States in 1980, had worked at the Bettis Laboratory in the Pittsburgh-suburb of West Mifflin …

CAIRO: Three human rights organizations demanded an official police investigation into the alleged assault of Kamal Murad, a journalist at the opposition newspaper Al-Fajr. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), the Arab Council for the Support of a Fair Trial and the Hisham Mubarak Law Center submitted a petition to the deputy minister …

EL-ARISH: Egyptian authorities on Wednesday discovered a cache of weapons in the Sinai desert including mortars and hand grenades, a security official said. Authorities found a warehouse in central Sinai containing weapons left over from previous Arab-Israeli wars, the official told AFP. Authorities also found mortars and hand grenades in the warehouse. Israel and the …

WEST BANK: The Second Intifada is over and Palestinian politics are desperately polarized, but as Gaza grips the headlines it is important to remember that Qassam rocket fire is not the only contemporary expression of Palestinian resistance. As the construction of Israel’s separation wall nears completion, I travel with a group of young activists from …

CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) Guidance Office has announced that mid-term elections in its administrative offices in all governorates have been postponed. Osama Nasr El Din, a new member of the Guidance Office, told Al-Masry Al-Youm, that elections at the MB’s administrative offices, which were scheduled to take place this July, are postponed, but didn’t …

CAIRO: An Israeli negotiator was due in Egypt on Thursday in a bid to speed up indirect negotiations with the Hamas movement for the release of an Israeli soldier as part of a prisoner swap. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert s envoy Ofer Dekel was due to hold talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, an …

CAIRO: Israeli authorities do not allow the Special Committee to enter the Occupied Territories, said United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People at a press briefing. Following the Egypt leg of a regional tour that will take them to Jordan and Syria, the committee announced its …

UNITED NATIONS: A majority of people in 14 countries favor a total ban on torture, but in four others they find the practice acceptable when dealing with terrorists, according to a survey released here Tuesday. The poll, conducted in 19 countries, found that a majority of respondents in Spain, Britain, France, Mexico, China, the Palestinian …

CAIRO: Steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz has been in the media spotlight – or more accurately, under the microscope – this past week as he confronted rumors surrounding his wealth, accusations of monopolizing the local steel market, and what many see as his conflicting positions as both businessman and influential politician. Ezz spoke to several media …

CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak said on Tuesday that linking the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to Israel s current fragile truce with Gaza militants is unrealistic. To link the fate of one soldier to so many dead on both sides is unrealistic , Mubarak said during an interview with Israeli television of which …

TRIPOLI, Lebanon: Lebanese soldiers and police patrolled areas of the northern port city of Tripoli on Tuesday to enforce a truce after fierce sectarian clashes which killed eight people. Civilians who had fled returned to the densely-populated Tripoli neighborhoods of Bab Al-Tebbaneh, Jabal Mohsen and Al-Qobbe but many shops remained closed, an AFP correspondent said. …

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Israel obtained a pledge from Egypt on Tuesday that the Arab country will not re-open its border crossing with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip until a captive Israeli soldier is set free, officials said. The pledge came during talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Hosni Mubarak at the Red Sea resort …

BEIRUT: Fierce sectarian battles raged in north Lebanon for a second day on Monday as the army vowed to use force if needed to contain the violence threatening to derail an accord to end the country’s political crisis. Two people were killed and two others died of wounds sustained a day earlier, bringing to eight …

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrives in Egypt today for talks with President Hosni Mubarak focused on the Gaza truce and Cairo’s efforts to mediate a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas. The meeting in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh was announced by Olmert’s office just hours after the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire …

KAMPALA: An Arab human rights panel on Friday scolded the Islamic world for its silence on the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. The suffering of Muslims in Darfur is as real as that happening in Iraq and Palestine, said the Arab Coalition for Darfur in a statement on the sidelines of an …

JERUSALEM: The father of an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants has asked the Supreme Court to ensure the blockade of the Gaza Strip is maintained, public television reported on Saturday. Noam Shalit, the father of 21-year-old Gilad, who was seized on June 25, 2006, asked the court to ensure the government does not open …

CAIRO: Two separate appeal hearings involving journalists convicted of publishing offences continued on Saturday and Sunday, one adjourned till early July while the other till September. On Saturday the Agouza Misdemeanours Court adjourned the appeal hearing launched by four newspaper editors until September 6, 2008 when pleadings will be made and an official copy of …

CAIRO: Hundreds of Muslims threw stones at Christian houses and shops in the village of Al-Nazla in Fayoum Friday after a woman who had converted to Islam went missing. The woman had reportedly run off two years ago with the Muslim man who became her husband, in defiance of her Christian family. Five people were …

CAIRO: Two Egyptian teenaged boys were killed in the Sinai Peninsula on Thursday by an unexploded mine dating from the 1967 or 1973 war with Israel, a hospital official said. The mine exploded when Mussa Hamdan, 14, and Abdallah Goma, 13, from the village of Al-Maqdaba, threw stones at it, the official said, adding that …

MIAMI: An Egyptian student who placed a video on the Internet showing how to convert toy cars into bomb detonators pleaded guilty Wednesday to providing material support to terrorists, the central Florida US attorney s office said. Tampa, Florida resident and former University of South Florida engineering student Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, was arrested …

CAIRO: The next American president must implement a new foreign policy that will bridge the current gap between the US and its allies, Governor of New Mexico and potential Obama vice president candidate Bill Richardson said. “To adapt to the new world, I propose what is called the new realism in our foreign policy, Richardson …

CAIRO: Egyptian border guards shot and killed a man attempting to cross the Egyptian border into Israel, news agencies reported Thursday. An unnamed official from the North Sinai police department told the Associated Press that the man died from a gunshot wound to the chest sustained after he ignored calls to stop. The official also …