Cairo: The Egyptian presidency said on Sunday it was committed to engaging "all political forces" to reach common ground on the constitution and stressed the "temporary nature" of a decree expanding President Mohamed Morsi's powers. "This declaration is deemed necessary in order to hold accountable those responsible for the corruption as well as other crimes during the previous regime and the transitional period," the presidency said in a statement. Facing...
02:41 AM, Nov 26, 2012
Cairo: Prominent Egyptian democracy advocate Mohammed ElBaradei warned Saturday of increasing turmoil that could potentially lead to the military stepping in unless the Islamist president rescinds his new, near absolute powers, as the country's long fragmented opposition sought to unite and rally new protests. Egypt's liberal and secular forces - long divided, weakened and uncertain amid the rise of Islamist parties to power - are seeking to rally themselves in...
02:59 AM, Nov 25, 2012
Protestors stormed the headquarters of President Mohamed Morsi's party - the Muslim Brotherhood - in Alexandria, after he assumed new powers that go beyond even those of toppled president Hosni Mubarak. ...
02:37 PM, Nov 24, 2012
Cairo: Supporters and opponents of President Mohammed Morsi clashed Friday in the worst violence since he took office, while he defended a decision to give himself near-absolute power to root out what he called "weevils eating away at the nation of Egypt." The edicts by Morsi, which were issued on Thursday, have turned months of growing polarization into an open battle between his Muslim Brotherhood and liberals who fear a...
06:38 AM, Nov 24, 2012
Israel: Israel began withdrawing the army on Thursday that had been poised to invade the Gaza Strip to go after Hamas, with both sides declaring they had won their eight-day battle. Dust-covered tanks and armoured bulldozers were winched onto transporters and driven out of the same groves of straggly eucalyptus where they camped in January 2009 before going in. Hamas nevertheless declared it had come out on top. "From the...
05:04 AM, Nov 23, 2012
Jerusalem: Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched 12 rockets into Israel during the hour after a ceasefire was announced between Israel and Islamist militants on Wednesday, an Israeli police spokesman said. Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement agreed to an Egyptian-sponsored ceasefire that came into effect at 9 pm (1500 EDT) to halt an eight-day conflict around the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 140 Palestinians and five...
05:28 AM, Nov 22, 2012
Gaza City: Israeli airstrikes killed three Palestinian journalists in their cars, a Gaza health official and the head of the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV said. Israel acknowledged targeting the men, claiming they had ties to militants. The strikes came on Tuesday on the seventh day of Israel's offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers. A number of journalists have been killed over the years while covering fighting between the Jewish state and...
04:29 AM, Nov 21, 2012
Jerusalem: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Jerusalem for talks on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as expectations rose of a ceasefire soon to end a week of fighting around the Gaza Strip. However, Gaza's rulers, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, revised a statement that a truce would start overnight, saying it was still waiting for an Israeli response to proposals and did not now expect...
03:49 AM, Nov 21, 2012
Jerusalem: A Hamas official said on Tuesday Egypt had brokered a Gaza ceasefire deal that would go into effect within hours, but a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "we're not there yet". "An agreement for calm has been reached. It will be declared at 9 o'clock (1900 GMT) and go into effect at midnight (2200 GMT)," Hamas official Ayman Taha told Reuters from Cairo, where intensive efforts...
12:51 AM, Nov 21, 2012
Jerusalem: A senior Hamas official says his group is close to a cease-fire with Israel, but a deal has not yet been reached. Moussa Abu Marzouk said on Tuesday from Cairo that "we haven't struck the deal yet, but we are progressing and it will most likely be tonight." Cease-fire talks have been taking place in the Egyptian capital. The deal would end nearly a week of fighting between Israel...
10:23 PM, Nov 20, 2012
At least 111 people have already died in the week-long offensive. Israel is waiting on Egypt's truce efforts before making a move towards a ground invasion on Gaza. ...
02:33 PM, Nov 20, 2012
The death toll in Gaza has reached 100 as fighting between Israel and Gaza-based militants from Hamas continues. ...
09:06 AM, Nov 20, 2012
Cairo: Fifty people, mostly children, were killed when a train slammed into a school bus as it crossed the tracks at a rail crossing south of Cairo on Saturday, further inflaming public anger at Egypt's shoddy transport network. Witnesses said barriers at the crossing were open when the train hit the bus. Transport Minister Mohamed Rashad and the head of the railways authority resigned, and President Mohamed Mursi said those...
02:37 AM, Nov 18, 2012
Gaza City, Gaza Strip: Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes on early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels. The new attacks followed an unprecedented rocket strike aimed at the contested holy city of Jerusalem that raised the stakes in Israel's violent confrontation with Palestinian...
04:29 PM, Nov 17, 2012
Jerusalem: Israel offered to suspend its offensive in the Gaza Strip on Friday during a brief visit by Egypt's premier there if militants refrain from firing rockets at Israel, an official said, but the Palestinians unleashed a fresh salvo. An official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the Israeli leader was responding to an Egyptian request. Gaza militants stepped up their barrages of rocket fire into Israel as Hesham...
02:11 PM, Nov 16, 2012
Gaza: Egypt's prime minister prepared to visit the Gaza Strip on Friday in an unprecedented display of solidarity with Hamas militants embroiled in a new escalation of conflict with Israel that risks spiralling into all-out war. Two rockets from Gaza crashed near Tel Aviv in the first such attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years. One fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other in an uninhabited part of...
10:33 AM, Nov 16, 2012
Cairo: Clashes between supporters of Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood and Opposition parties on Friday erupted in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square for the first time since Islamist President Mohammed Morsi took office, leaving hundreds injured. The clashes erupted after supporters of Morsi tore down a stage belonging to leftist politician and ex-presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi's Popular Current. The supporters of Sabbahi were chanting anti-Morsi slogans. Tensions are also high after the...
08:35 AM, Oct 13, 2012
Vatican City: An ancient papyrus fragment which a Harvard scholar says contains the first recorded mention that Jesus may have had a wife is a fake, the Vatican said on Friday. "Substantial reasons would lead one to conclude that the papyrus is indeed a clumsy forgery," the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said in an editorial by its editor, Gian Maria Vian. "In any case, it's a fake." Joining a highly...
03:17 PM, Sep 29, 2012
New Delhi: A nine-year-old girl died of dengue on Saturday in the Sangam Vihar area of Delhi. This is the first case of death caused by dengue in the national capital this year. The girl was admitted in a government hospital last week, but after her condition worsened, she was shifted to AIIMS. The figures by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi say that there have been approximately 60-70 cases of...
09:02 AM, Sep 29, 2012
Cairo: An Egyptian court has sentenced a Coptic Christian school teacher to six years in jail for posting cartoons on Facebook deemed offensive to Islam and for insulting President Mohamed Morsi and his family. The Sohag Misdemeanour Court imposed three years jail on Bishoy Kamel for defaming Islam and Prophet Mohamed, two years for insulting President Morsi and one year for insulting Mohamed Safwat who made the allegations against him....
01:58 AM, Sep 19, 2012
