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Egypt (AINA) -- On October 24, 2009 Egyptian State Security arrested a Christian Copt in the village of Deir Samalout, Samalout, Minia province, for praying "without a license." He was held in prison for two days before being released on "compassionate grounds." Maurice Salama Sharkawy, 37 years old, had invited Pastor Elia Shafik, to conduct the sacrament of the 'Anointing of the Sick' for his sick father, who had suffered a stroke. State Security broke into his house while the prayers were ongoing, handcuffed Maurice, put him into a police car and took him to a police station for interrogation....

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, is welcomed by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, right, during a press conference following her meeting with President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. Clinton is holding hastily arranged meetings with Egyptian leaders to discuss the stalemate over restarting peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. An veiled Egyptian journalist looks at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during a news conference following her meeting with President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, at the Presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009....

Christian critical of Islamization of society, Orthodox church jailed without charges. A Coptic Christian blogger in Egypt entering his second year of prison without charge is being pressured to convert to Islam in exchange for his freedom... On Oct. 3, 2008, Hani Nazeer, a 28-year-old high school social worker from Qena, Egypt and author of the blog “Karz El Hob” (“Love Cherries”), was arrested by Egypt’s State Security Investigations (SSI) and sent to Burj Al-Arab prison. Although police never charged him with any crime, Nazeer has been detained for more than a year under Egypt’s administrative imprisonment law. Gamel Eid,...

Egypt (AINA) -- Egyptian security forces have intensified their presence in the Upper Egyptian town of Dairout, in anticipation of a recurrence of Muslim violence against Christians. Copts expressed their fear over leaflets entitled "These have to Die!" which are being distributed to all Muslims in Dairout and neighborhoods, enticing them to "burn, vandalize and clean the country of these evil immoral infidels." Reports from Dairout, 313 km south of Cairo, confirm that Christian Copts are afraid to leave their homes and have stayed indoors since violence against them erupted on October 24, 2009. This collective punishment of Copts was...

Ex-Egyptian Chief of Staff: Arabs will definitely defeat the Jews .

(See all these news nuggets and more by clicking the excerpt link below): 1. BBC News: “Darwin Teaching ‘Divides Opinion’” Darwinism is a controversial topic, and many believe creation should be taught in the classroom. But why is that news? 2. ScienceDaily: “Junk DNA Mechanism that Prevents Two Species from Reproducing Discovered” Has the U.S. government finally supported creationist research? Alas, no, but the results of a National Institutes of Health study fit squarely within the young-earth creation framework. 3. PhysOrg: “Charles Darwin Really Did Have Advanced Ideas about the Origin of Life” Charles Darwin was convinced that life’s origin...

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, Oct 26 (Reuters) - SNIPPET: "Yuri Lutsenko said the men, Ukrainian citizens from the southern Crimean peninsula, were suspected of belonging to al-Takfir wal-Hijra, which originated in Egypt and is linked with activities in North Africa. Lutsenko said explosive materials, detonators, a Kalashnikov rifle and cartridges, firearms instruction manuals, and propaganda material propagating extreme Islam were found in seven places. Pamphlets also linked the men to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a group that has said it wants to establish a global Islamic caliphate by peaceful means and is well known in Central Asia. "A network of the extreme Islamic movement al-Takfir...

Egypt's chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, announced that his country wanted its queen handed back forthwith, unless Germany could prove that the 3,500-year-old bust of Akhenaten's wife wasn't spirited illegally out of Egypt nearly a century ago... Then he said he was sure the work had been stolen... Mr. Hawass also recently fired a shot at France, demanding the Louvre return five fresco fragments it purchased in 2000 and 2003 from a gallery and at auction. They belonged to a 3,200-year-old tomb near Luxor and had been in storage at the museum. Egypt had made the demand before, but this time...

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 23, 2009 (Zenit.org).- When priests are given the choice between marriage and celibacy, the tendency is to choose celibacy, at least according to the experience of the bishop of Cairo of the Chaldeans.Bishop Youssef Ibrahim Sarraf said this today in response to a question concerning married priests at a press conference to present the final message of the synod on Africa. The question was asked in light of the announcement this week that Benedict XVI will publish an apostolic constitution that will allow groups of Anglicans seeking communion with the Church to do so through personal ordinariates....

The glamorous young wife of Gamal Mubarak, son of the Egyptian president, is set to become the first lady of the Middle East if, as expected, her husband becomes Egypt’s next leader. ***Gamal’s 27-year-old wife Khadija, a wealthy society beauty with a business degree from the American University in Cairo, has kept a low profile and refused all interviews since their wedding two years ago. She rarely appears in the glossy magazines that chronicle Cairo’s elite and is seldom photographed at social events. That may be about to change if her husband stands for president. In a rare public appearance...

Note: The following text is a quote: THE BRIEFING ROOM THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ___________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 23, 2009 White House Announces Global Technology and Innovation Fund During his speech in Cairo on June 4, the President announced that the United States would "launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries." As the latest step in delivering on this commitment, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation announced this week a call for proposals for a Global Technology and Innovation Fund. This fund will help catalyze and facilitate private sector investments that promote...

Daniel Joseph Maldonado, a former Houston resident who convereted to Islam and admitted training with terrorists, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison and given a $1,000 fine. Maldonado, 28, pleaded guilty in April to training with al-Qaida in East Africa. He is the first American charged with joining the terrorist organization in Somalia. The charge carried a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a fine up to $250,000. He admitted his association with terrorists in exchange for no further prosecution by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston. Maldonado came to the attention of federal investigators in late...

BOSTON - A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday. But their plans — in which the men used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the...

An attempted hijacking by a man wielding a knife from an in-flight meal has been thwarted by guards, EgyptAir officials said. The incident happened shortly after the plane, carrying almost 90 people, took off from Istanbul, Turkey, heading to Cairo. The Sudanese man threatened crew members and demanded that the flight be diverted to Jerusalem, officials said. He was detained by air marshals, and the flight landed in Cairo.

CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt is opposed to hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman attending a meeting of the Mediterranean Union which it co-chairs with France, diplomats said on Wednesday. Foreign ministers of the 43-strong grouping, which brings European Union members together with states from north Africa, the Balkans, Arab countries, Israel and Turkey, are due to gather in November in Istanbul. An Egyptian diplomat told AFP that Cairo "did not want to send an invitation to the Israeli (foreign) minister," but could accept that Lieberman be represented by someone else. Egyptian officials refused anything to do with Lieberman after he...

The crowded, bustling streets of Cairo can be an intimidating environment for women who venture out alone or even in groups. It is well known that sexual harassment is a pervasive problem in Egypt, from touching to lewd and abusive cat calls. But it seems there is another phenomenon that goes largely unreported, phone stalking. With the advance of modern technology a large number of women complain they receive the unwelcome and relentless attention of men they have never met. One of our colleagues in the BBC office has had a number of phone stalkers, who call repeatedly through the...

On October 1, 2009, the Obama administration in conjunction with the Egyptian government, introduced an anti-free speech measure to the United Nation’s Human Rights Council (HRC). It was adopted the next day without a vote. Earlier this year, when the United States sought a seat on the HRC, it was a controversial decision. Many who found the HRC neither credible nor useful, opposed the move. Yet, others were more optimistic that America could change the HRC from within. Perhaps the U.S. could spur debate stemming from its opposition to China, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia on critical human rights...

IDF units responsible for guarding Israel's expansive western border with Egypt said Thursday that there are one million would-be infiltrators from Africa waiting to cross the mostly barrier-less border and enter Israel illegally...

As I read online, I notice that there are plenty of people who believe that Egypt is some kind of "moderate" Islamic country where non-Muslims are treated fairly. The reality is that Muslims of Egypt, preach hatred towards Jews, and have been persecuting the Coptic Christians there for centuries. Yet the US government has poured billions of dollars into Egypt. Unfortunately we ask for little in return.

Christian Arrested for Distributing Tracts in Egypt Protestant Copt, 61, illegally detained then released without charges after four days. ISTANBUL, October 6 (CDN) — An Egyptian Christian arrested in Cairo for handing out gospel leaflets and held in prison illegally for four days has been released, the freed Protestant Copt told Compass. Abdel Kamel, 61, was arrested on Sept. 23 in downtown Cairo for handing out copies of a Christian leaflet. As they arrested him, police told Kamel it was “unlawful” to hand out religious information on public roads. When Kamel countered that Muslims commonly hand out Islamic literature, police...

News to Note, October 10, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint...

Egypt wants to borrow the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum after winning a battle with France over ownership of painted rock fragments “stolen” from the Valley of the Kings. The French culture ministry has decided to return the 3,200-year-old frescoes, which disappeared in the 1980s, Egypt said, and were acquired by the Louvre in Paris in 2000 and 2003. Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt’s supreme council of antiquities, had threatened to sever relations with the Louvre unless it handed back the relics. That would have forced the French museum to suspend excavation work in the Pharaonic necropolis of...

Historical fiction differs from ordinary fiction in that it is presenting the past, history, in a novelistic format, with characters who ellicit sympathy or antipathy, in the context of a story that ought to be plausible against the known historical record. Monsieur Jacq is an Egyptologist. I can't begin to hold a candle to his knowledge of the reign of Ramses II. But one thing I do know is that the Egyptian evidence is mostly elicited from archaeological evidence, hieroglyphics on walls, papyrus, and from whatever contacts they had with other civilizations. That being the case, I could understand M....

Egypt's antiquities chief says Egypt is suspending ties with the Louvre, saying the French museum has not returned what he says are stolen artifacts. Zahi Hawass on Wednesday said the Louvre has repeatedly ignored requests to return steles, or large reliefs, that date back to the time of the Pharaohs. Hawass said the Louvre purchased the four archeological reliefs that were stolen from a tomb in Luxor in the 1980s. French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said Wednesday that France is willing to return the relics if they were indeed stolen from the tomb site. He says he has asked a...

The FBI on Wednesday announced that it had charged 53 defendants, the largest number ever charged in a cybercrime case, following a multinational investigation into a phishing scheme that operated in the United States and Egypt. Thirty-three of the 53 defendants named in the indictment have been arrested, the FBI said, and several others are being sought. The investigation, dubbed "Operation Phish Phry," began in 2007. Authorities in Egypt have charged 47 defendants linked to the phishing operation. Phishing is a form of social engineering that attempts to convince Internet users, via e-mail or other means, to provide online credentials...

Alexandria, Egypt (AINA) -- At dawn on Saturday, October 3, 2009, Egyptian State Security forces arrested a group of Christian Copts in different parts of the city in Alexandria, after severely assaulting them in front of their neighbors. Their wives were also arrested, but because of intense objection protests by neighbors at the way they were handled and of the screams of their terrified children, they were released. The men who were arrested are relatives of Rafaat Girges Habib, a man who helped a Coptic father free his kidnapped daughter from her Muslim husband's home. The arrests continued until Habib...

SNIPPET: "Arabic language schools in Nasr City are doing well and many Salafists come to Egypt in to learn the language of the Koran. Many deeply religious students from Europe come to Egypt to learn Arabic. The question is: are these European Salafists coming to study the language of the Koran or to prepare terrorist attacks?" SNIPPET: "In addition to language lessons, they usually follow courses in Islamic law offered by teachers ranging from the renowned Al-Azhar University to clandestine imams without permits. "Religious fanatics want to be taken seriously," says Walid al-Gohari, founder and director of the Al-Fajr institute,...

Namouh was arrested in September 2007 for engaging in more than 1,000 online conversations and producing videos praising violent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as helping distribute ransom demands for kidnappers of a British journalist in Gaza. In online postings, he also touted his explosives expertise and threatened future attacks in Germany and Austria because of their military roles in Afghanistan. According to prosecutors, Namouh was a member of the Global Islamic Media Front, which is said to be involved in propaganda and jihad recruitment for Al-Qaeda. He faces possible life in prison.

According to all recent reports, the ancient city of Cairo now presents to the world the image of a growing pile of festering trash. Nothing new, you say. The streets have never been exactly uncluttered, and the levels of noise and traffic and pollution are an object of wonderment. When I first visited the place, I was amazed to find people living with great dignity and aplomb in what were called "the cities of the dead"—among the graves and stones of Cairo's massive cemeteries. I was also struck by the number and variety of animals living cheek by jowl, as...

Egypt (AINA) -- Nayer Mansour Sahrab, a Muslim minibus driver, stabbed four Christian Copts on Sunday, September 27, in the village of Delga, Deir Mawas, Al Minya Governorate, killing one and seriously injuring the other three. The incident led thousands of angry Copts to rally and demand an end to the government's policy of indifference in dealing with Coptic issues. State Security forces have cordoned the village and are still heavily present near the church. When a Coptic family desired to board a minibus other than the one owned by Mr. Sahrab (28) an argument ensued. Mr. Sahrab was apparently...

A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty. Abdul Mouti Bayoumi said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law. The device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to feign virginity on her wedding night.

Mourners Protest Islamic Attacks on Copts in Egypt Muslim assailant gruesomely slays Christian, attacks two others with knife. ISTANBUL, September 23 (CDN) — A funeral for a Coptic Christian gruesomely killed on a village street north of Cairo by a Muslim assailant last week turned into a protest by hundreds of demonstrators in Egypt. Galal Nasr el-Dardiri, 35, attacked 63-year-old Abdu Georgy in front of the victim’s shop in Behnay village the afternoon of Sept. 16, according to research by a local journalist. Other Copts watched in horror as El-Dardiri stabbed Georgy five times in the back, according to interviews...

IN AUGUST, I returned to Egypt, the country of my birth, for the first time since President Obama spoke in June at the University of Cairo. I discussed the president’s address with a veteran Egyptian diplomat, who described its impact as “historic.’’ Obama’s words were regarded as a momentous break from the past, spoken by an American president who respects Muslim faith and culture, and is optimistic about future relations with Muslim nations. During that visit, I also got - literally - a taste of how the speech had gone down in the proverbial Arab Street, or at least in...

"In an unprecedented find, a group of Egyptian researchers and archeologists has discovered a cache of coins from the time of the Pharaohs. Its importance lies in the fact that it provides decisive scientific evidence disproving the claim by some historians that the ancient Egyptians were unfamiliar with coins and conducted their trade through barter. "The researchers discovered the coins when they sifted through thousands of small archeological artifacts stored in [the vaults of] the Museum of Egypt. [Initially] they took them for charms, but a thorough examination revealed that the coins bore the year in which they were minted...

Top Egyptian Daily: Joseph’s Era Coins Found in Egypt (IsraelNN.com) "...discovered many charms from various eras before and after the period of Joseph, including one that bore his effigy as the minister of the treasury in the Egyptian pharaoh's court…" An Egyptian paper claims that archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

Egypt's culture minister blamed a Jewish "conspiracy" for his election loss to head a U.N. agency. Bulgarian diplomat Irina Gueorguieva Bokova, 57, edged Farouk Hosny, 31-27, in a fifth and final vote for general director by UNESCO executive board members at the Paris-based organization on Tuesday night. The previous evening, the candidates were tied with 29 votes each, forcing a new election. "It was clear by the end of the competition that there was a conspiracy against me," Hosny said Wednesday after landing in Egypt, The Associated Press reported. "There are a group of the world's Jews who had a...

Whether you believe that the biblical account of Joseph did happen (or something close to the biblical account), or if you didn't, this account of an Egyptian archeological find in a leading Egyptian Newspaper translated by MEMRI is very cool According to a report in the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, by Wajih Al-Saqqar, archeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

The Egyptians started building the Great Pyramid of Giza on August 23, 2470 B.C., according to controversial new research that attempts to place an exact date on the start of the ancient construction project. A team of Egyptian researchers arrived at the date based on calculations of historical appearances of the star Sothis—today called Sirius. Every year around the time of the Nile River floods, Sothis would rise in the early morning sky after a long absence. "The appearance of this star indicates the beginning of an inundation period" for the Nile, said team leader Abdel-Halim Nur El-Din, former head...

CAIRO — It is unlikely anyone has ever come to this city and commented on how clean the streets are. But this litter-strewn metropolis is now wrestling with a garbage problem so severe it has managed to incite its weary residents and command the attention of the president. “The problem is clear in the streets,” said Haitham Kamal, a spokesman for the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs. “There is a strict and intensive effort now from the state to address this issue.” But the crisis should not have come as a surprise. When the government killed all the...

Cairo - SNIPPET: "He said that a man repeatedly stabbed local shopkeeper George Abdu, 63, in the abdomen and the neck, killing him, then fled on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The archbishop said that the killer drove 4 kilometres to the village of Bamahai and repeatedly stabbed a cobbler, who suffered wounds to the head and lung. The suspect then drove to another nearby village, Mit Afifi, and stabbed a third Christian man, Hani Barsum, in the neck. Barsum and the cobbler were hospitalized, Stefanos said.... Wednesday's attacks resembled a string of attacks in April 2006 in Alexandria that led to...

ANCIENT Egyptian temples were aligned so precisely with astronomical events that people could set their political, economic and religious calendars by them. So finds a study of 650 temples, some dating back to 3000 BC. For example, New Year coincided with the moment that the winter-solstice sun hit the central sanctuary of the Karnak temple (pictured) in present-day Luxor, says archaeological astronomer Juan Belmonte of the Canaries Astrophysical Institute in Tenerife, Spain. Hieroglyphs on temple walls have hinted at the use of astronomy in temple architecture, including depictions of the "stretching of the cord" ceremony in which the pharaoh marked...

(AINA) -- On August 30, 2009 Egyptian police forces in the Upper Egyptian town of Aswan, launched an unprecedented and unconstitutional campaign to enforce the Ramadan fast, the Muslim month of fasting, arresting 150 for publicly eating, drinking or smoking. These arrests were seen by many as a step closer towards adopting an Egyptian model of the Saudi Arabian "Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" Police Squads. "There is no such offence in the Egyptian law," said lawyer Khaled Ali, executive director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center. "The Interior Ministry, to justify the arrests, has twisted "violating public...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "That's the way Nick George, a senior at Pomona College, in California, sees what happened to him at the Philadelphia airport two Saturdays ago. George, of Wyncote, Montgomery County, was about to catch a Southwest flight back to school when stereo speakers in his backpack caught the eye of screeners at the metal detector. When they looked though his bag, George said, they found his Arabic/English flash cards, and escorted him to a side screening area. He figures it didn't help that his passport had stamps from Jordan, where he'd studied a semester, and Egypt and...

SNIPPET: "The new head of the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), an agency that gets 22 percent of its regular $600 million-plus annual budget from U.S. taxpayers, will be selected in a process that involves behind-closed-doors interviewing and a secret ballot vote." SNIPPET: "Farouk Hosni, who has been Egypt’s culture minister for more than two decades, leads a nine-strong field of hopefuls. He leads largely because he has the backing of the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the African Union, and because Arab governments say it is the Arab world’s turn." SNIPPET:...

According to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the most effective way to stop the Iranian Islamist regime from acquiring nukes, is to threaten them with a military build-up of other Islamist regimes: "US allies in the Middle East should strengthen their respective militaries to deter Iran from continuing its suspected nuclear weapons program..." If by that, Gates meant supplying Israel with all the bunker busters, refueling aircraft, and F22's it has sought to purchase, that might cause the mullahs knees to knock. But since the U.S. Administration has denied Israel purchase of bunker busters and refueling aircraft, certainly needed for...

police have targeted those who “break their fast publicly” and if caught eating or drinking anything in daylight, police have arrested them immediately, including one man who was purchasing juice for his family. That man, Ahmed Mustafa, was quoted by al-Youm al-Saba’a as saying “I was standing at the store buying juice for my children for Iftar [meal that breaks the fast],” adding that he was indeed fasting. He is just one of many citizens who have felt the heavy hand of Egyptian police during the holy month. It is part of an odd campaign launched by the interior ministry...

Both Islamic Hamas movement and Israel said on Sunday that an Egyptian and German-mediated prisoners swap deal aimed to free a captive Israeli soldier for the release of some 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli jails is not about to happen soon. Various media reports said over the weekend that there was a breakthrough in the indirect talks to finalize the deal. The German weekly of Der Spiegel said on Saturday a German mediator in the talks over the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit presented Hamas leaders "a new proposal." Hamas would respond to the new proposal on early September, according...

CAIRO (AFP) – Ramadan tradition dictates that Egypt's fruit-sellers nickname their dates to reflect unofficial popularity ratings, but this year the global recession has forced down the price of the 'Obama'. Named after US President Barack Obama who chose Cairo to deliver a landmark speech to the world's Muslims in June, the popular date was expected to sell for 25 Egyptian pounds (around 4.5 dollars) a kilogram (2.2 pounds). "People can't afford dates this year, we had to bring the price down to 15 pounds (2.7 dollars)," said Mohammed, a fruit vendor in the bustling Sayyeda Zeinab neighbourhood. Emulating the...

Suspects accused of planning Hezbollah attacks on Suez Canal go on trial Twenty-six men charged with plotting attacks on tourist sites and ships in the Suez Canal for Lebanon's Hezbollah will go on trial in an Egyptian court on Sunday. Two Lebanese, five Palestinians and 19 Egyptians are among the accused. AFP - Twenty-six men accused of plotting attacks on behalf of Lebanon's Hezbollah group on tourist resorts and on ships in the Suez Canal will go on trial in an Egyptian security court on Sunday. The suspects -- two Lebanese, five Palestinians and 19 Egyptians -- face charges of...

Two Coptic Christians in Egypt have been arrested and are being held without charge after reporting to police they had been beaten by a mob... On the evening of July 31, Reda Hnein, 35, his brother Nagi Hnein Fawzi, 27, and their uncle Youssef Fawzi Iskandar, 58, all Coptic farmers, were leading a cow down a road in the village of Al-Fashn when two Muslim men riding a motorbike crashed into the cow. An argument ensued, and a mob of about 10 other Muslim men joined into the disagreement and began beating the Copts with sticks... On the day of...