CAIRO: Al-Qaeda s top deputy Ayman Al-Zawahri called on Muslims to launch holy war to break the siege of Gaza, in a new audio recording posted Wednesday on a militant website. In the 11-minute recording, a voice purportedly by Osama bin Laden s deputy spoke in Arabic and said the salvation of the Muslim nation …

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is criticizing some of its closest Arab allies for not doing enough to combat human trafficking. The State Department s annual Trafficking in Persons Report raises concern about seven allied Arab states, including key Middle East peace partners Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Four of the Arab countries are cited for …

ROME: Pledges of almost three billion dollars of emergency aid were made at a food price crisis summit on Wednesday but UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned up to $20 billion a year would be needed to avoid disaster. We simply cannot afford to fail, the UN secretary general said at the food security summit. Hundreds …

CAIRO: Participants at the discussion “An Objective Look at the Child Law, organized by the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc, condemned the recent amendments made to the Child Law currently being debated in the People’s Assembly. “The new child law is part of a global trend of westernizing laws, particularly in the Middle East, said Manal …

CAIRO: Amidst heated debate, the People’s Assembly continued discussing amendments to Child Law 12/1996, which aims to extend the legal protection of children. On March 4, President Hosni Mubarak signed the final version of the amendments to the law, which were drafted by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, before it was sent to …

CAIRO: A huge poster appeared in downtown Cairo’s central Tahrir Square recently, not long after April 6. “Young people love Egypt, it declares next to an image of a delicate sapling held in a cupped pair of hands. “El shebab el gadd yebny be kol gohd, (young people who mean business use all their efforts …

CAIRO: The privatization process in Egypt has complied with all standards and laws, Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin told parliament yesterday during a discussion of the Central Auditing Agency’s report on the privatization process between the early 1990s to 2006. The government only sold seven companies in this time span, the minister continued, and none of …

AL-ARISH: An Egyptian police official says boxes of ammunitions, RPGs and anti-aircraft missiles have been uncovered inside a mountain in the northern Sinai peninsula. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the weapons were to be smuggled into the neighboring Gaza Strip. The …

CAIRO: Three men detained in connection with the events of April 6 in Mahalla were released Saturday, lawyer Ahmed Ezzat told Daily News Egypt. Kamel El-Fayyoumy, Karim El-Beheiry and Tareq Amin arrived home at 1 am early Sunday morning after their release, said Ezzat. The men were being held in the Borg El-Arab prison where …

CAIRO: Hundreds of angry lawyers staged a demonstration outside the Lawyers Syndicate Thursday, protesting against the lawyers’ reform law initiative. Members of the syndicate are also threatening to hold a second demonstration this Monday as well as sleeping inside the syndicate until Tuesday, the day in which the prospective laws will be formally discussed at …

CAIRO: The Israel lobby in the US has managed to veer foreign policy in the Middle East in a direction that has been harmful to the interests of both the US and Israel, co-author of “The Israel lobby and US foreign policy Stephen Walt said. “The Israel lobby is an interest group like any other …

CAIRO: The Ministry of Interior holds around 18,000 administrative detainees in “degrading inhumane conditions, Amnesty International said in its 2008 report on human rights in Egypt. “Some had been held for more than a decade, including many whose release had been repeatedly ordered by courts, the report said. The report said the conditions in which …

GAZA CITY: Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Thursday said he was shocked by conditions in the Gaza Strip after months of Israeli sanctions. The South African Nobel peace laureate said the coastal strip has become “desolate and scary as a result of shortages of fuel and other basic goods. “No people were in the streets. We …

CAIRO: Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, a candidate to head UNESCO but under fire from the Jewish state, said on Tuesday he “dreams of normal ties with Israel once it has made peace with the Palestinians. Hosni has drawn fire from Israel and the Wiesenthal Center for saying he was prepared to burn Israeli books. “I’d …

CAIRO: Four people were killed, including a child, and 13 wounded when an old mine exploded in a scrap metal shop in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria on Tuesday, a security official said. The mine, thought to date from World War II, exploded as workers in the shop tried to take it apart, not realizing …

WASHINGTON: Washington described Egypt’s decision to extend its decades-old state of emergency as “disappointing and urged Cairo to enact counter-terror laws, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday. “Yes, it’s disappointing that they did decide to extend the state of emergency. This was a campaign promise by President Mubarak, that he was going to repeal the …

CAIRO: The Mahalla public prosecution office Tuesday began investigations into five workers from the Ghazl El-Mahalla spinning factory in connection with the events of April 6. Gehad Tammam, Mostafa Fawda, Gamal Abul Assad, Kamal El-Fayyoumy, Karim El-Beheiry and Wael Habib are members of the group within the factory which attempted to organize a strike early …

CAIRO: Egypt has urged both Hamas and Israel to show flexibility in efforts to reach a ceasefire. The official Middle East News Agency reports the message was relayed to an Israeli security official who met with Egypt s powerful intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, to discuss the truce. Amos Gilad, who heads the Israeli defense ministry …

KHARTOUM: Sudan and Darfur rebels on Tuesday dismissed as baseless a claim by an Egyptian state-run newspaper that Iran was behind a brazen rebel attack on Khartoum earlier this month. Iran played an important role in the coup attempt by the Justice and Equality Movement, Al-Gomhuria alleged in a front-page report, attributed only to unnamed …

CAIRO: The Mahalla public prosecution office Tuesday began investigations into five workers from the Ghazl El-Mahalla spinning factory in connection with the events of April 6. Gehad Tammam, Mostafa Fawda, Gamal Abul Assad, Kamal El-Fayyoumy and Karim El-Beheiry and Wael Habib are members of the league within the factory which attempted to organize a strike …

CAIRO: Opposition groups in Sinai near the station that is pumping gas to Israel are convening next week to begin a campaign against the exportation of gas across the border. The Tagammu party in North Sinai is organizing a conference on June 4 titled “What’s after the subsidy of Israel? which will include representatives from …

CAIRO: The People’s Assembly (PA) approved Monday the government’s request to extend the emergency law for two years, and while human rights activists were not surprised, they were furious that the majority voted in favor of the decision. The PA’s attributed the decision to the fact that the anti-terrorism law set to replace the current …

CAIRO: A protest against the building of the Agrium plant in Damietta was stopped by security forces Sunday prior to a conference discussing the repercussions of the plant that took place at the Journalists’ Syndicate. A 350-strong crowd that gathered in front of the syndicate on Sunday was dispersed by security forces. The economics committee …

CAIRO: The People’s Assembly (PA) approved the government’s request to extend the state of emergency for two more years, since the anti-terrorism law set to replace the current emergency law is still incomplete. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif addressed the PA Monday saying that “terrorism poses a threat to the security and existence of any nation …

CAIRO: A mock trial organized by the campaign to prevent gas exportation to Israel at the Lawyers’ Syndicate on Saturday was called off after the janitor disappeared with the key for the meeting hall. Squabbles erupted as a result and members of the campaign and syndicate lawyers had to be pulled apart. “There were pressures …

AL-ARISH: Egyptian authorities on Thursday received the body of a Bedouin who was shot dead by Israelis for illegally crossing the border with Egypt, a security official said. Egypt today received the body of Ayesh Suleiman Mussa, 30, a Sinai Bedouin who was shot and killed by authorities in Israel, the official told AFP. He …

CAIRO: An Al-Qaeda spokesman lashed out at moderate Muslims in a video sermon posted online Thursday, accusing them of promoting Western ideas that lure other Muslims away from holy war. In a 45-minute video posted on a militant website, Abu Yahya Al-Libi said clerics who support unity among followers of different religions aim only to …

CAIRO: MP and Editor In Chief of Al-Osboa newspaper Mustapha Bakry has submitted a complaint to the police against steel magnate Ahmed Ezz for monopolizing the steel industry in Egypt. The District Attorney Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud referred the complaint to the Office of Investigation and sent a copy to Minister of Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed …