CAIRO

Egypt agreed on Wednesday to delay the deportations of more than 600 Sudanese detained after police forcibly broke up a protest outside the United Nations refugee agency’s offices in Cairo, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said. ”They will postpone the deportations that were planned for tomorrow,” said Astrid van Genderen Stort, a UNHCR spokesperson.

Few changes are expected in Egypt’s new government, newspapers reported on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif continued consultations to finalise his new Cabinet line-up. According to the Egyptian press, the new Cabinet will be downsized from 34 to 30 portfolios, 23 of which will remain unchanged.

A spokesperson of Egypt’s Islamist opposition Muslim Brotherhood retracted on Friday a remark made earlier by the group’s top leader that the Holocaust was a ”myth”. In his weekly article posted on Thursday on the group’s website, the group’s leader, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, had described the Holocaust as a ”myth”.

Last week saw the end of the third and final round of Egypt’s tense parliamentary elections, during which 12 people were killed amid attempts by state security to prevent voters from casting ballots. Despite widespread reports of vote-rigging, the banned, but tolerated, Muslim Brotherhood Islamic organisation won 88 out of the 444 elected seats.

Egypt’s month-long parliamentary elections resumed on Saturday amid fears of more violent clashes and allegations of state interference in the polling process against the opposition Muslim Brotherhood. Large security contingents were deployed across the nine governorates where voting was taking place.

Egyptian forces shot dead on Monday a Bedouin leader in the Sinai peninsula who was wanted over his suspected involvement in a string of deadly bombings in the area, the interior ministry said. Egyptian forces had been hunting Salem Khadr al-Shnub for months over his alleged role in several deadly bombings.

Close to 200 supporters of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood were arrested before the start of the second phase of polling in Egypt’s parliamentary elections opened on Sunday, security sources said. Observers and the Muslim Brothers have warned of a government crackdown following their major gains in the first round, during which they mustered 34 seats, double the tally in the 2000 polls.

To the untrained eye, Egypt’s Parliament list could easily be mistaken for a who’s who of big business. To stay in one of the two clubs, you need to be a member of the other, say observers and opposition members of the incestuous relationship between politics and money in Egypt.

Makarem al-Deiri is standing for election to the Egyptian Parliament next month after a long academic career, but she makes no bones about her view that a woman’s place is in the home. The 55-year-old mother of seven insists there is no point arguing for sexual equality, as such a demand ”goes against nature”.

The strongest collection of qualifiers for an African Nations Cup will be split into four groups at the draw for the 2006 tournament in Cairo on Thursday. Hosts Egypt and holders Tunisia are automatic first seeds with Cameroon and Nigeria completing the top tier ahead of the evening event at the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital.

A project to help improve the income of women slum dwellers in Cairo has achieved excellent results and is set to be replicated elsewhere in this sprawling city of 12 to 15-million people. When the Arab Alliance for Women moved into the small Houtaya slum in Giza, Cairo’s twin city on the west bank of the river Nile, in October 2004, it targeted 150 families living in four crowded streets.

Egyptian authorities ordered the release on Saturday of leading Muslim Brotherhood figure Essam el-Erian, who had spent more than five months in custody without charge, and three other members of the banned Islamic group on bail. El-Erian and fellow Brotherhood leader Helmi el-Gazar were detained on May 6.

Egypt has banned all live poultry imports and called off this year’s wild bird hunting season, in an effort to keep out potentially deadly bird flu. The Cabinet stressed late on Tuesday that Egypt would stop ”all live birds imports whether from countries with which we have import agreements or not”.

President Hosni Mubarak vowed to deliver on pledges for reform when he was sworn in Tuesday for a fifth term in office after sweeping to victory in Egypt’s first contested presidential poll. ”I will work with the utmost determination towards the implementation of the programme I proposed during the electoral campaign,” Mubarak said after taking the oath of office in a ceremony in Parliament.

Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri said his terror network carried out the July 7 London bombings in a statement broadcast on an Arab satellite television station, marking the group’s first direct claim of responsibility for the attacks that killed 52 people. He also criticised the legitimacy of Sunday’s Afghanistan parliamentary elections.

Egyptian Culture Minister, Farouq Hosny, has presented his resignation in an indication of accepting responsibility over a fire in a local earlier this month, state-run newspapers said on Thursday. The front-page items said Hosny put his resignation at the disposal of President Hosni Mubarak.

Hosni Mubarak’s party machine put on an overwhelming display of organisational strength recently as Egyptians voted in the country’s first contested presidential election. The 77-year-old president, who is seeking another six-year term, went into battle against nine opponents, whose party organisations were mainly invisible as voting took place.

Incumbent Hosni Mubarak has swept to victory in Egypt’s first contested presidential poll, with almost 90% of the vote, but with less than one-quarter of voters turning out and opponents charging the results were rigged. Official results gave the 77-year-old leader a whopping 88,5% of the vote in Wednesday’s election.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was expected on Thursday to win a fifth term in power after an election tipped as a major democratic step but marred by reports of widespread fraud. As vote counting began, Wednesday’s historic election drew a barrage of fraud allegations from Mubarak’s rivals and independent monitors.