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.
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”.
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.
Lebanon’s presidential election was postponed to March 25 from Tuesday, the Parliament speaker said on Monday, the 16th delay of a vote derailed by the worst political crisis since the 1975 to 1990 civil war. The new election date set by speaker Nabih Berri is just four days before an Arab summit in Damascus.
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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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/ 29 January 2008
Egypt boosted security around the border town of Rafah on Tuesday and resealed parts of the barrier blasted open a week ago as it tried to control the flow of people in and out of the Gaza Strip. Egyptian forces strung barbed wire along some of the gaps between two gates leading into the Palestinian territory, while riot police were deployed.
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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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/ 21 January 2008
Gaza endured a fourth day of hardship on Monday as Israel vowed to maintain a punishing blockade in response to rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory, despite increasing international concern over a developing humanitarian crisis. The European Union slammed what it termed the ”collective punishment” of impoverished Gaza’s 1,5-million residents.
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/ 14 January 2008
United States President George Bush on Sunday ratcheted up rhetoric over Iran, lambasting it as ”the world’s leading sponsor of state terror”, and urging America’s closest Arab allies to confront it ”before it is too late”. ”Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere,” he declared in Abu Dhabi.
It may be a far cry from the millions of blogs active in the West, but Morocco’s blogosphere has taken off as the liveliest free-speech zone in largely conservative Muslim North Africa. The Moroccan "Blogoma", as it is called, is home to at least 30 000 sites.
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/ 22 November 2007
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was hosting a summit with the Palestinian and Jordanian leaders on Thursday as Arab foreign ministers mull whether to join a United States-sponsored peace conference next week. Mubarak met Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss preparations for the conference.
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/ 5 November 2007
Egypt’s ruling party gave ageing politician Safwat el-Sherif another term as party secretary general on Monday, ending speculation that President Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal might take that position. Sherif (73) has been near the top of the National Democratic Party (NDP) since its foundation in 1977 and has been secretary general since 2002.
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/ 29 October 2007
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Monday his country will launch a programme to build several civilian nuclear power stations. He did not say when the government would start building the stations but added Egypt would cooperate with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.
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/ 16 October 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Egypt on Tuesday to brief sceptical Egyptian leaders on US plans for a Middle East peace conference in November. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said the conference must have an outcome assured in adavance.
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/ 17 September 2007
The Egyptian government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood’s largest annual social gathering for the first time in 20 years, part of a concerted crackdown against the country’s opposition. Every year, the Brotherhood invites a group of about 1 500 people to one of Cairo’s five-star hotels for a gala dinner.
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/ 15 September 2007
Rights groups on Saturday accused Egypt of curbing press freedom after a Cairo court this week sentenced four editors each to one year in prison for criticising the president. ”Egypt continues to imprison journalists and editors who publish stories critical of President Hosni Mubarak and other high officials,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
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/ 13 September 2007
An Egyptian court sentenced four newspaper editors to one year in prison with labour on Thursday for defaming President Hosni Mubarak and his politician son Gamal. The court also ordered Ibrahim Issa, Adel Hammouda, Wael el-Ebrashi and Abdel-Halim Qandil to pay fines of 20 000 Egyptian pounds each.
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/ 11 September 2007
The editor of an Egyptian daily is to face trial accused of damaging the ”public interest” by publishing rumours on President Hosni Mubarak’s health, the public prosecutor said on Tuesday. Ibrahim Eissa, the outspoken editor of al-Destur, is to appear in court on October 1.
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/ 3 September 2007
The editor of an independent Egyptian daily is to face prosecution over his paper’s coverage of the state of President Hosni Mubarak’s health, the head of the journalists’ union said on Monday. Recent speculation about Mubarak has included his hospitalisation, travel abroad for medical treatment and even death.