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The well preserved coffin of an unidentified Middle Kingdom provincial governor was found in the Deir Al-Barsha necropolis near the upper Egyptian city of Minya In the course of routine excavation work at the tomb of the first Middle Kingdom governor of the Hare Nome or province, the nomarch Ahanakht I at the Deir Al-Barsha site in Minya, Belgian archaeologists from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven stumbled on what is believed to be an important burial going back to the beginning of the Middle Kingdom... Harco Willems, field director of the Belgian mission, told Ahram Online that the coffin remains discovered...

For nearly 30 years he was the pharaoh-like ruler whose word was law; the plunderer of billions of pounds of government money and controller of Egypt’s brutal police state. On Saturday night Hosni Mubarak began a new life as a convicted murderer. A broken and humiliated man of 84, he was flown by helicopter to Torah prison—where many of his enemies had once been jailed—just two hours after hearing a Cairo judge pronounce a life sentence on him for complicity in the murder of 850 protesters. He appeared to be in tears and at first refused to leave the plane...

The head of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has called on Arab forces to confront Israel and for the international community to pressure the “Zionist government to withdraw from the land of Palestine.” The statement – the existence of which was revealed Wednesday by the Investigative Project on Terrorism blog – reminds Brotherhood followers of the movement’s decades-long “sacrifices” in efforts to destroy the Jewish state. “On this day, like every year, the Arab and Islamic nations remember the worst catastrophe ever to befall the peoples of the world,” Badie wrote in the text, translated by The Jerusalem Post. “We demand the

#3448 - Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Sallah: Implementing Religious Law Will Make Egypt the Mightiest Country in World, Richer Than Sweeden Al-Hekma TV (Egypt) - May 4, 2012 - 00:05:20 http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3448.htm

Christians Should "Convert, Pay Tribute, or Leave," Says Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Candidate by Raymond Ibrahim May 30, 2012 at 4:00 am "They need to know that conquest is coming, that Egypt will be Islamic, and that they must pay jizya or emigrate," Morsi reportedly said.

"They need to know that conquest is coming, that Egypt will be Islamic, and that they must pay jizya or emigrate," Morsi reportedly said. According to the popular Egyptian website, El Bashayer, Muhammad Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood presidential candidate, just declared that he will "achieve the Islamic conquest (fath) of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam, or else pay the jizya," the additional Islamic tax, or financial tribute, required of non-Muslims, or financial tribute. In a brief report written by Samuel al-Ashay and published by El Bashayer on May 27, Morsi allegedly made these...

Egypt Islamist Candidate Reassures Women, Copts CAIRO May 29, 2012 (AP) ...Islamist group's Mohammed Morsi.

Egypt's Next Leader Won't Be A Creature of Tahrir Square It is not a coincidence that one candidate is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the other Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister. By FOUAD AJAMI The prevalent view that this week's presidential election is Egypt's first experiment with the ballot box is only partly true. Egyptians of a certain age knew parliamentary life and the competition of political parties. This was during the liberal interlude between 1923, when the country became independent from British rule, and 1952. In that year a cabal of young military officers led by Muhammad Naguib...

Scenes of last year’s anti-Mubarak uprising returned to Cairo’s Tahrir Square Monday as thousands rioted, some of them torching the headquarters of presidential candidate and former prime minister Ahmed Shafik. No deaths were reported and there were few injuries, in sharp contrast to last year’s demonstrations in which Mubarak’s security forces shot protesters on the spot. Shafik and Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi emerged as the winners in the first round of voting, the first time Egyptians have been able to vote in a presidential election that was not rigged. However, the presence of Shafik as one of the two...

After a controversial six-year-long translation project, a Jordanian think tank based in Amman published an Arabic translation of the Babylonian Talmud. After gaining enthusiastic responses to the project from the Arab League, 96 scholars began work on the translation. The editors are happy with the project, stating that the lack of an Arabic Talmud "has always been an obstacle to understanding Judaism." Despite some polarized and politicized responses, most have adopted a positive impression of the massive scholarly work. Dr. Raquel Ukeles of the Israeli National Library states that the project stemmed from scientific curiosity, and the introduction discusses the...

Italy's oil and gas major Eni has made a big oil discovery in the Western Desert of Egypt, part of the group's strategy of refocusing exploration activities in the country by targeting deeper plays in the Western Desert region. The discovery, at the Emry Deep exploration prospect, located in the Meleiha Concession 290 kilometers south west of Alexandria, is estimated at 150-250 million barrels of oil in place and will require further appraisal drilling, Eni said in a statement on Thursday. The full field development foresees an early production phase from the current well to be followed by the drilling...

The candidate of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood won a spot in a run-off election, according to partial results Friday from Egypt's first genuinely competitive presidential election. A former prime minister an a leftist were in a tight race for second place and a chance to run against him to become the country's next leader. The run-off will be held on June 16-17, pitting the two top contenders from the first round of voting held Wednesday and Thursday. The victor is to be announced June 21. The landmark vote—the fruit of last year's uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak—turned into a...

9/11 ‘truther’ leading Egyptian presidential race Washington Times, by Ben Birnbaum Posted By:Photoonist, 5/21/2012 6:26:06 PM An Islamist who believes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States were an American conspiracy is the front-runner in Egypt’s presidential race, a new poll shows. Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, formerly a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, led the field of 13 candidates with 32 percent of the vote in a survey released Monday by the Washington-based Brookings Institution. (Snip) Mr. Trager, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, quoted Mr. Abolfotoh as saying: “It was too big an operation …. They...

Oussama Abdullah Kassir, 43, who was extradited from the Czech Republic on terrorism charges in 2007, faces multiple charges including supporting al-Qaeda by attempting to set up the camp in rural Oregon from 1999 to early 2000 and later setting up websites on explosives and poisons.

Friday on AC360: Arab Spring: Revolution Interrupted ... All of these revolutions also come with concerns over the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. We wanted an in-depth look at what is happening in these countries, post-revolution, with insight... program at 8 and 10 p.m. ET Friday.

The Muslim Brotherhood quickly staked a claim Thursday for its candidate to advance to a runoff vote, saying its exit polls showed him leading in Egypt's landmark presidential election to succeed ousted leader Hosni Mubarak. As vote-counting began, exit polls by several Arab television stations also suggested the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi was ahead of the pack of 13 candidates. The reliability of the various exit surveys was not known, and a few hours after the end of two days of voting, only a tiny percentage of the ballots had been counted. But the swiftness of the Brotherhood's claim showed its...

First results after polls closed at 9pm last night showed Mohammed Morsi, the leader of the Brotherhood's political front, the Freedom and Justice Party, taking an early lead, seemingly confirming the group's own earlier exit polls. Analysts stressed that the count would be long and difficult, with a formal result only due on Tuesday. But other campaigns, including that of Amr Moussa, the former Arab League secretary-general long considered the front-runner, also said Mr Morsi was ahead and at least likely to gain one of the two spots in next month's run-off. Whether he will go on to win that...

The Muslim Brotherhood is claiming a lead in Egypt's historic presidential elections after polls closed on Thursday and vote counting began. A Brotherhood spokesperson said exit polls conducted by the party's campaign workers all over Egypt suggested Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi is out front of the rest of the pack. (Snip) CBC's Derek Stoffel visited four polling stations in the capital Cairo, but said most appeared deserted. The Associated Press said there were lineups in a few areas during the morning and the government had given people the day off work to encourage a good turnout.

A large number of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority are backing presidential front-runner Ahmed Shafiq. The 70-year-old former prime minister represents their best hope for a secular presidency, something Copts worry will not happen if an Islamist candidate wins. “People see what happened with the Islamists in the parliament and Shura Council. People won’t make the same mistake twice,” said one man in Cairo waiting to vote. Another woman said she felt it was time for someone other than an Islamist: “Frankly from what I see, the Copts fear the current Islamists. I think because they won control of the parliament...

Who could not despise the tottering Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria? The Syrian strongman has killed some 10,000 protestors over the last year; thousands of Syrians are now refugees. The autocracy arms and aids the terrorist organization Hezbollah. It targets democratic Israel with thousands of missiles, and still does its best to ruin neighboring Lebanon. Theocratic and terrorist-sponsoring Iran has few allies -- but Syria remains its staunchest. Almost no country over the last half-century has proved more hostile to the United States than has Syria. With sanctions not working, and with the Chinese, Iranians and Russians not eager to...

Abol Fotoh: Egypt's next president? By Paul Cruickshank, CNN The religious pragmatist who might be Egypt's next president By Paul Cruickshank, CNN May 23, 2012 -- Updated 1814 GMT (0214 HKT) (CNN) -- Abdelmonen Abol Fotoh, an independent moderate Islamist candidate for the Egyptian presidency, and one many tip to become the country's first freely elected leader, if he gets through this week's first round of voting, has been a busy man these last weeks. The Egyptian Erdogan? ... No friend of Israel One of the most striking features of Abol Fotoh's campaign has been his strongly worded depiction of...

Gamal Abd Al-Nasser... Ahmadinejad..., and the Hamas Charter says that they want to annihilate Israel... Israel... left Gaza- and then what happened? They began launching missiles at them from Gaza. I have lived in America for 28 years. I love America and I love freedom. This country has given us a lot of freedom. I get really angry when I hear that some Muslims here curse America.... Do you know what they used to say in the mosques in Egypt? " We want to go to the White House, and turn it into the Islamic House. We want to cancel...

Harvard professor doesn't want 'fuel' against Islam revealed MSNBC’s new golden girl was in a pickle: If someone sees a black person committing rape or domestic violence, should he report it if it makes black people look bad? Or if Muslims see wife-beating, genital mutilation and childhood sexual abuse, should they just keep it to themselves, because saying something gives ammunition to the “Islamophobes”? The questions appear to be simple. But they posed a challenge for the host of the new “Melissa Harris-Perry” show when guest Mona Eltahawy talked about her Foreign Policy magazine cover story about abuse of women...

Sharia justice in Arab Spring Egypt. Islamo-Christian violence in Minya: life imprisonment for 12 Copts, eight Muslims acquitted," from Asia News, May 22 (thanks to C. Cantoni): Cairo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - An Egyptian court has sentenced 12 Coptic Christians to life imprisonment and acquitted eight Muslims, in a trial heavily criticized by human rights activists and legal experts. The ruling came yesterday, at the end of a trial called to shed light on the sectarian violence last year in the province of Minya, in the southern part of the country, about 220 km from Cairo. Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher and expert...

Since the toppling of the Hosni Mubarak regime last year, matters in Egypt – and thus in the Egyptian/Israeli relationship and in the surrounding Middle East – have steadily gone from bad to worse. Strangely, few are taking notice. The Obama Administration actively encouraged the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in the eventual successor regime and has legitimized this avowed anti-American, Islamist organization. Editorials around the country show little indication of being aware of how bad the situation is becoming. Yet the evidence is plentiful. The MB has never made a secret of seeking to abrogate the 1979 Egyptian/Israeli...

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have recently discovered a collection of gold and silver jewelry, dated from around 1100 B.C., hidden in a vessel at the archaeological site of Tel Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. One piece -- a gold earring decorated with molded ibexes, or wild goats -- is "without parallel," they believe. According to Prof. Israel Finkelstein of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures, the vessel was found in 2010, but remained uncleaned while awaiting a molecular analysis of its content. When they were finally able to wash out the dirt, pieces of...

An Islamist who believes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States were an American conspiracy is the front-runner in Egypt’s presidential race, a new poll shows. Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, formerly a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, led the field of 13 candidates with 32 percent of the vote in a survey released Monday by the Washington-based Brookings Institution. Mr. Abolfotoh expressed his views on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an interview last year with Egypt scholar Eric Trager. Mr. Trager, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,...

- NewsReal Blog - http://www.newsrealblog.com - No Appeasement: 11 Reasons Why Israeli Concessions Will Not Bring PeacePosted By Eldad Tzioni On March 6, 2011 @ 9:00 am In Email,Feature,Main,Right to Exist | No Comments The peace process.For years, weÂ’ve been hearing how important the peace process is. We are constantly being told that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is the root of all the problems in the Middle East (and, sometimes, the world). Even if a solution were to be found, we are constantly led to believe, the entire Arab world will become friendly and cooperative with the West.The Europeans are frustrated,...

In the Cairo shantytown of Dweika, raw sewage forms puddles in dirt roads and families of seven or more live crammed into two-room shacks that appear in imminent danger of collapse—as does the ground beneath their feet. … For the residents of Dweika, this week's election is historic in more ways than one, marking a rare occasion when they are on an equal footing with better-off Egyptians. They say they will hold to account any president who fails to live up to promises to improve their lot. In Mubarak's Egypt, police extortion often amounted to their only interaction with an...

Needless to say, as Brookings notes, this is emphatically an anti-Obama vote rather than a pro-Romney one. If even one percent of Egyptian voters are capable of picking Romney out of a line-up, I’d be surprised. Still, an amusing result. Because I’ll bet you that a huge chunk of those who “prefer” Mitt here do so on the assumption that he’ll be more hostile to Israel than Obama is. Lots of rude awakenings in Cairo happening these days.

An international rights group on Saturday accused the Egyptian armed forces of beating and torturing protesters arrested during anti-military demonstrations early this month, and said that by permitting such actions the military "enables further abuse." The three days of street clashes in Cairo that began May 2 and left nine civilians dead were the latest in a string of deadly confrontations between the military and protesters in Egypt since a council of ruling generals took power 15 months ago. In its violent crackdown on the May demonstrations outside the Defense Ministry, the military arrested more than 300 people and referred...

An Islamist who believes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States were an American conspiracy is the front-runner in Egypt’s presidential race, a new poll shows. Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, formerly a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, led the field of 13 candidates with 32 percent of the vote in a survey released Monday by the Washington-based Brookings Institution. Mr. Abolfotoh expressed his views on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an interview last year with Egypt scholar Eric Trager. Mr. Trager, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,...

Egyptian youth are expected to turn out in high numbers for their country's first presidential election since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. Many of the young activists who took part in last year's uprising say they feel they are not fully represented in the vote. Egypt's revolution primarily was an uprising of the young -- a rejection of the old, stifling, decades-long government. So it is particularly galling to many activists that two of the front-runners in this week's presidential election -- Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafik -- made their names as members of the old guard... Mostafa Abdel Ragman...

A preliminary count of votes for Egyptians living abroad has put Islamist candidate Abdul-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh in the lead, followed by left-leaning Hamdeen Sabahi . The online statement by the State Information Service (SIS) on Saturday added that the figures "confirmed a sharp competition" for third between Amr Moussa and Mohamed Mursi.

When Jordan's Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city-- the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible. Since then the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international...

Egyptians vote this week in their first free presidential election in six decades. Thirteen candidates, from all over the political spectrum, are running. CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports Egypt's largest minority fears their situation may go from bad to worse. Mass at St. Mary's in Cairo starts early, at 7:30 a.m. Even so, the church is nearly full. The Coptic Christian ritual is ancient and familiar, but outside the door Egypt now feels unwelcoming and unsafe. Last May, a Coptic church was set on fire. Locals blamed Muslims in the neighborhood. Then in October, Christians protesting the destruction of...

Min, the ancient Egyptian god of phallus and fertility, might have brought some worldy advantages to his male worshippers, but offered little protection when it came to spiritual life. Researchers at the Mummy Project-Fatebenefratelli hospital in Milan, Italy, established that one of Min's priests at Akhmim, Ankhpakhered, was not resting peacefully in his finely painted sarcophagus. "We discovered that the sarcophagus does not contain the mummy of the priest, but the remains of another man dating between 400 and 100 BC," Egyptologist Sabina Malgora said. According to the researchers, the finding could point to a theft more than 2000 years...

The study of the "Demon star", Algol, made by a research group of the University of Helsinki, Finland, has received both scientific and public attention. The period of the brightness variation of this eclipsing binary star has been connected to good prognoses three millennia ago. This result has raised a lot of discussion and the news has spread widely in the Internet. The Egyptian papyrus Cairo 86637 calendar is probably the oldest preserved historical document of bare eye observations of a variable star. Each day of one Egyptian year was divided into three parts in this calendar. A good or...

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood planned a mass climax to its presidential campaign on Sunday, hoping to sway undecided voters and clinch victory in this week's election when Egyptians will choose their leader freely for the first time. On the last day of official campaigning, the Brotherhood told Egyptians to "book your place anywhere in Egypt" for evening rallies in support of its candidate Mohamed Mursi. Brotherhood supporters seem unfazed by surveys that show their unfancied contender trailing rivals who entered the race earlier and are spending heavily in the dash for votes. In one poll published last week in al-Masry al-Youm...

The United States is leading what it described as the "largest military exercises in the Middle East in 10 years" in Jordan on Tuesday. Eager Lion 2012 “is the largest exercise held in the region in the past ten years,” Major General Ken Tovo, head of the US Special Operations Forces, told reporters in Amman. “Yesterday we began to apply the skills that we have developed over the last weeks in an irregular warfare scenario … They will last for approximately the coming two weeks,” he added. “The message that I want to send through this exercise is that we...

Many Egyptians will die, as will US interests. Will the Western apologists and enablers have a clear conscience? Yes, friends, it’s once again time for that exciting game of Spin the Polls by the Pew Foundation. Here are the rules: Rule 1: Pew does a good job on the poll. Rule 2: The Pew analysis ignores or misunderstands the implications of the poll. Rule 3: The Western media and government misread the poll, often misinterpreting the results into the exact opposite of what they actually mean. They then adopt the wrong policies. Rule 4: If correctly interpreted the polls are...

A combination of avian flu and foot and mouth disease risk destroying the protein supply, eroding public trust, and further destabilizing the Arab world's most populous country. Lost in the recent political jockeying and protest violence leading up to Egypt's May 23 presidential elections is the unfolding public health disaster there. Avian flu and foot and mouth disease are running rampant, killing people and livestock as well as inflating the price of food. It's a serious health and economic issue, but it has potentially much larger implications for Egypt, and this little-discussed crisis is beginning to resemble those that occur...

Six in ten Egyptians want to cancel the peace treaty with Israel, a new poll has found, up from just over half of respondents since last year’s survey. The poll, released last week by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, showed 61 percent of Egyptians want to cancel the 1979 agreement, while a third want to keep the treaty and the rest are undecided. Pollsters found little change in Egyptians’ overwhelmingly negative views of their country’s decades-long ally, the United States: 79% had unfavorable opinions of America – the same figure as last year – and only 19% were favorable. Six...

A year after an attack by ultraconservative Muslims raised the spectre of a wave of religious strife in Egypt, the Christian churches in Cairo’s Imbaba district have been repaired, with sturdy wooden rafters, fresh paint and portraits of the Virgin Mary and Jesus ready to be hung anew. But the deep wounds from those attacks and ensuing clashes, which left 12 dead, cannot be painted over. Coptic Christians, whose forefathers lived in Egypt before the arrival of Islam, had hoped that the 2011 uprising that ousted authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak would give them equal rights. Instead, things have worsened. Egypt’s...

The U.S. Army says a decision by Saudi Arabia to have Abrams tanks assembled at a Lima, Ohio plant run by General Dynamics Corp will help maintain a low level of production at the plant despite a planned three-year halt in U.S. orders. General Dynamics is expected to receive $755 million in orders this year to convert old M1A1 tanks owned by Saudi Arabia to a "like new" M1A2S configuration at the Lima plant, instead of shipping kits for assembly in Saudi Arabia, as originally planned, Army officials said. The company will also receive about $650 million for continued work...

Taking advantage of Egypt's political upheaval, thieves have gone on a treasure hunt with a spree of illegal digging, preying on the country's ancient pharaonic heritage. Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months

The funeral of a 28 year-old waiter in southern Egypt turned into a celebration when he woke up after being declared dead. Hospital officials had pronounced dead Hamdi Hafez al-Nubi, who came from the village of Naga al-Simman in the southern province of Luxor, after he suffered a heart attack while working. His family says grieving relatives took him home and, according to Islamic tradition, washed his body and prepared him for burial Friday evening. A doctor sent to sign the death certificate found it strange that his body was warm. At closer observation she discovered he was still alive.

WWII fighter plane hailed the 'aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb' found preserved in the Sahara A Second World War aeroplane that crash landed in the Sahara Desert before the British pilot walked to his death has been found almost perfectly preserved 70 years later. Most of its cockpit instruments are intact and it still had it guns and ammunition before they were seized by the Egyptian military. There are also signs of the makeshift camp the pilot made alongside the fuselage. No human remains have been found but it is thought the pilot may lie within a 20 mile radius...

Egypt’s Islamists aim to install a global Islamic caliphate with its capital in Jerusalem, a radical Muslim preacher told thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in a clip released Monday. “We can see how the dream of the Islamic caliphate is being realized, (Allah) willing, by Dr. Mohamed Mursi,” Safwat Higazi told thousands of Brotherhood supporters at a Cairo soccer stadium as Mursi—the movement’s presidential candidate—and other Brotherhood officials nodded in agreement. “The capital of the caliphate—the capital of the United States of the Arabs—will be Jerusalem, (Allah) willing,” Higazi said. “Our capital shall not be in Cairo, Mecca or Medina,”...

Egypt's Administrative Court on Wednesday evening issues ruling to suspend presidential elections set for 23/24 May.