"Black cloud", a mass of polluted air that darkens the skies of the Egyptian capital in October and November, is less severe this year.
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/ 19 September 2008
The death toll from a rockslide in Cairo earlier this month has risen to 101 after rescuers pulled five more bodies from the rubble.
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/ 16 September 2008
Alaa Al Aswany, author of <i>The Yacoubian Building</i>, has a new novel,<i> Chicago</i>. He speaks to Maya Jaggi.
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/ 15 September 2008
Twelve tourists, including seven foreigners, were killed when their coach hit a truck along the west coast of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Monday.
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/ 11 September 2008
An Egyptian security official says the death toll from a weekend rockslide that buried a shantytown on Cairo’s outskirts has reached 75.
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/ 8 September 2008
The death toll from a rockfall that sent boulders crashing down on dozens of houses in a crowded Cairo shantytown rose to 51 on Monday.
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/ 6 September 2008
At least 20 people were killed and 23 injured on Saturday when dozens of homes in a northern Cairo township were crushed by a massive rockslide.
Egyptian police detained 21 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most powerful opposition group, in the Nile Delta province of Sharkia.
The Egyptian government is ruling out arson or terrorism in the fire that gutted the building which housed the upper chamber of Parliament.
The monuments may be glorious, but visiting Egypt’s famed Giza Pyramids has long been a nightmare, with hawkers peddling camel rides and trinkets.
The video shows a poorly lit hospital nursery filled with premature babies. Doctors are trying to resuscitate some babies after a power failure.
Banners along streets this month were Egypt’s latest effort to curb a pressing problem: a population growing faster than the economy can support.
Egyptian authorities have arrested 13 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood around the country, a security official said on Sunday. Nine members of the banned group were arrested on Sunday in the Nile Delta town of Abu Hammad in Sharqiya province ”for trying to organise a speech at a mosque after prayers”, the official said.
Social tensions in Egypt over the past year have eroded overwhelming expectations that Gamal Mubarak will succeed his father President Hosni Mubarak at the helm of the most populous Arab country. An unprecedented wave of labour strikes and public anger over high prices and poor wages, may eventually drive the main pillars of the ruling elite to look into other scenarios.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, now in his 27th year as leader of the Arab world’s most populous nation, turns 80 on Sunday with no clear successor in sight. One of the oldest executive heads of state in the world, Mubarak leads a country where more than 60% of the population have never known any other president.
Former United States president Jimmy Carter met Gaza-based leaders of Islamist Hamas in Cairo on Thursday, defying US and Israeli criticism that saw him barred from visiting the Palestinian territory. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Carter is considered to be the architect of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.
An Egyptian military court notorious for its harsh verdicts convicted on Tuesday 25 key members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and sentenced them to up to 10 years in jail, a security official said. The charges against members of Egypt’s largest opposition group included money laundering and terrorism.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition force, called on Egyptians on Monday to boycott local council elections due on Tuesday in protest at the disqualification of most of its candidates. The group said its members had received more than 3 000 court rulings recognising their right to stand in the elections.
Outspoken Egyptian editor Ibrahim Eissa was sentenced to six months in jail on Wednesday for writing rumours about President Hosni Mubarak’s health, a justice official said. Eissa, editor-in-chief of al-Dustur daily, was charged with spreading ”false information … damaging the public interest and national stability”.
Sky-rocketing food prices in Egypt since the start of the year are being matched by a rumbling wave of popular discontent and unprecedented strikes and demonstrations. Textile workers, teachers, doctors and accountants have all threatened strikes under the united banner of ”Stop the expensive life” while doctors went ahead last week with a one-hour work stoppage.
Egypt’s High Court on Monday rejected the latest bid by jailed opposition leader Ayman Nur to be released on medical grounds, his lawyer said, adding that he would now seek a presidential pardon. The court was due to release details of its verdict against the one-time pro-democracy darling of the West later.
Egyptian police detained three leading members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday as part of a crackdown that the Islamists say is meant to disrupt their plans for local elections in April. Mahmoud Ghuzlan, a member of the Brotherhood’s guidance office, was taken from his Cairo home at 2am local time.
Egypt arrested scores of members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday, stepping up sweeps targeting likely Brotherhood candidates in local council elections due in April, the Brotherhood said. The Islamist group, Egypt’s strongest opposition force, said 87 Brotherhood men were picked up in raids.
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/ 26 February 2008
An Egyptian military court has delayed by a month a verdict on 40 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood who face charges of belonging to a banned group, Brotherhood officials said on Tuesday. Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moniem Abdel Maqsoud said the court set March 25 as the new date for a verdict for the men.
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/ 20 February 2008
Egyptian police detained dozens of members of the Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday, expanding a crackdown on the country’s strongest opposition group ahead of local elections in April. The Islamist group poses the most serious challenge to the ruling National Democratic Party in the April 8 elections for local councils.
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/ 19 February 2008
The Egyptian government has summoned the ambassador of Denmark in Cairo to protest the reprinting of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. The Information Ministry also said it has banned issues of four Western newspapers.
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/ 11 February 2008
Girls wearing the Egyptian flag instead of the veil danced among tens of thousands in the streets of Cairo on Sunday night after their national team won a record-breaking sixth Africa Cup of Nations. Crowds of people wearing the national flag colours of red, black and white erupted with screams of joy as the final whistle blew, some lighting handheld fireworks.
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/ 7 February 2008
Egypt’s Foreign Minister said that no further violations of its borders would be tolerated in the wake of a 12-day breach on its frontier with Gaza and said anyone daring to cross would have their legs broken. The assertive remarks by Ahmed Aboul Gheit came during a late night interview on state television.
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/ 7 February 2008
At least 29 people were killed and 16 others injured in a multi-vehicle road crash on a highway outside the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Thursday, with fog the probable cause, security sources said. Reckless driving, lax traffic rules and poor road conditions contribute to many road crashes in Egypt.
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/ 31 January 2008
Damage to undersea internet cables hit businesses across the Middle East and South Asia on Thursday, including the vital call-centre industry, prompting calls for people to limit their surfing. About 70% of internet users in Egypt have been affected since two submarine cables in the Mediterranean Sea were damaged on Wednesday.
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/ 23 January 2008
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Wednesday he had given his security forces orders to let Palestinians in from Gaza to buy food and then return home. ”I told them: ‘Let them come in to eat and buy food’, then they go back, as long as they are not carrying weapons,” Mubarak told reporters at a Cairo book fair.
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/ 17 December 2007
Neither censors nor ”Orientalist” stereotypes have dampened demand for the cartoon adventures of Belgian boy reporter Tintin, who has stoked the imagination of generations of Arabs from the Atlantic to the Gulf.