Egypt

By Alastair Macdonald and Marwa Awad | Reuters | Cairo | 23 Jun 2012

Cairo's Tahrir Square relived its glory days of the revolution on Friday as tens of thousands of flag-waving protesters called on the Egyptian army to relinquish power, in defiance of a stern communiqué from the generals criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood.

Source : Agencies | Cairo | 21 Jun 2012

A member of the Egyptian Presidential Election Committee, Hatem Bicato, on Wednesday said that the announcement of the result of Egypt's presidential runoff has been postponed.

The Committee had earlier stated that it would announce the results of Egyptian presidential runoff on Thursday, June 21.

Speaking at a press conference, Bicato said that they decided to postpone the announcement of the result of the presidential runoff after certain objections were filed against the runoff.

Source : Reuters | Cairo | 20 Jun 2012

Hosni Mubarak was on life support in hospital on Wednesday, Egyptian military officials said, denying a report that the ousted president was clinically dead.

Earlier the state news agency, amid high tension over the election of a new president, quoted medical sources as saying the former head of state was "clinically dead". That description was also used to Reuters by a hospital source.

Source : Reuters | Cairo | 19 Jun 2012

The Egyptian chapter of the "Arab Spring" ended not as it was scripted by the revolutionaries of Tahrir Square.

They deposed a military dictator, secured the first free presidential race in their history, and then may have lost it to a die-hard Islamist president. Not only this. The generals who had stood behind Hosni Mubarak remain firmly entrenched.

Source : Agencies | 18 Jun 2012

Egypt's ruling military council said on Monday that the army will hold a ceremony to hand over power to the country's newly elected president at the end of June, the state news agency MENA said.

The Muslim Brotherhood said its candidate Mohamed Morsy, 60, had won the election against miitary rival Ahmed Shafik, 70, whose campaign refused to concede defeat and accused Morsy of "hijacking the election."

Source : Reuters | Cairo | 18 Jun 2012

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said on Monday its candidate won the country's first free presidential election, but a sweeping legal manoeuvre overnight by Cairo's military rulers made clear the generals planned to keep control for now.

An election committee source told Reuters that Islamist Mohamed Morsy, a U.S.-educated engineer, was comfortably ahead of former air force general Ahmed Shafik with most of the votes tallied. But the count, which would make him the first civilian leader in 60 years, had yet to be officially finalised.

Source : Arab News | Cairo | 15 Jun 2012

Egypt's supreme court ruled yesterday to dissolve the conservative-led Parliament, plunging a troubled transition to democracy into turmoil just two days before an election to replace ousted leader Hosni Mubarak.

The country’s highest court overruled a law passed by Parliament that would have barred top Hosni Mubarak-era figures from politics. It also said some rules for an earlier parliamentary election violated the constitution.

Source : Agencies | Cairo | 14 Jun 2012

Egypt's military police and intelligence will be able to detain civilians and refer them to military tribunals under a government decree issued on Wednesday that was criticised as a dangerous move by human rights groups.

One MP described the step as an attempt to reproduce the state of emergency that was a permanent fixture of Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule and expired on May 31. The law which gave security forces sweeping powers of search and arrest was seen as one of his administration's main tools for crushing dissent.

Source : Al Arabiya | Cairo | 09 Jun 2012

If Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi became president, Egypt’s new capital will no more be Cairo, but the new capital will be Jerusalem, a prominent Egyptian cleric said at a presidential campaign rally, which was aired by an Egyptian private TV channel.

“Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem’,” prominent cleric Safwat Hagazy said, according to the video aired by Egypt’s religious Annas TV on Tuesday.

Source : AFP | Cairo | 03 Jun 2012

Hundreds of Egyptians occupied Cairo’s Tahrir Square yesterday after a night of rage against what they feel were lenient sentences handed down to ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his security chiefs.

A judge sentenced Mubarak, 84, and his Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly to life in prison on Saturday for complicity in the killing of hundreds of protesters during the uprising that ousted them from power last year.