The Islamic State group on Wednesday insisted it brought down a Russian plane that crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, providing no new details but challenging sceptics to prove otherwise.

Egypt's Cassation Court has cancelled a March decision by late prosecutor-general Hisham Barakat to put Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie and 17 others on a "terrorism list."

Egypt’s High Administrative Court rejected Tuesday a total of 20 appeals against a decision banning academic students wearing niqab (a veil that covers Muslim women’ face but not usually the eyes) to conduct their final exams, Youm7 reported.

Egypt’s Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) will publish Friday sermons in English, Youm7 reported the Ministry’s statement Tuesday.

The United States and its allies conducted 15 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and seven in Syria on Monday, the coalition leading the operations said in a statement.

The Al-Nour Party candidates for the second round of elections have started their campaigns in the streets throughout the governorates.

The first phase of the 2015 parliamentary elections has seen a significant improvement for women and Coptic candidates for the first time since 1952, according to the Maat Foundation for Peace, Development, and Human Rights.

The Sinai Peninsula, where a Russian passenger jet crashed Saturday killing all 224 people on board, is home to jihadists and local tribes hostile to the central government.

A lower court in Kuwait on Monday sentenced five men to 10 years in jail each for raising funds for the Islamic State jihadist group.

Muslim Brotherhood, 6th of April, and Revolutionary Socialists banned from student union elections The Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education will start accepting candidacy applications on Monday for student union elections after announcing the exclusion of students belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, the 6th of April Youth Movement, and the Revolutionary Socialists.

A court in Egypt today ordered a retrial for 77 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, who were earlier sentenced between five to ten years in prison for taking part in violent acts in the coastal city of Alexandrian in 2013.

The Vatican's own police force has arrested a monsignor and a laywoman in its latest probe into the leak of confidential documents. The Vatican said both people were members of the commission established on Pope Francis' order to investigate the Church's finances. They were being held on suspicion of leaking confidential documents to the media.

Eleven civilians were killed in a Boko Haram suicide bomb attack Sunday on a Chadian army post at Bougouma in the Lake Chad region, the government said.

On top of the biggest winners of the first stage of Egypt's parliamentary elections, held between 17 and 28 October in 14 governorates, are Copts and women.

Egypt has increasingly used unlawful means to prevent citizens from traveling outside the country over the past year, a report from Human Rights Watch said on Sunday, another sign of the government's tightening grip on political opposition.

The administration of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has announced a three-month extension to a state of emergency it imposed on parts of the northern Sinai Peninsula as the country’s military launches counterterrorism operations against jihadists in the region.

The Isis-linked group that claimed to have downed a Russian plane over the Sinai peninsula has surface-to-air missiles smuggled from Libya, but nothing powerful enough to hit a plane at cruising altitude, experts say. The jihadi group, which calls itself Sinai Province, proved it posed a serious threat to low-flying aircraft when it brought down a military helicopter flying low over the area last year, and they could pose a serious threat to civilian airliners taking off and landing at the region’s airports.

The Salafi-led Nour Party claimed success in taking over ten seats out of the 23 it was competing for in runoffs for the first round of parliamentary elections that ended Wednesday.

Syria’s main political opposition body and representatives of the armed opposition have not been invited to international talks on the country’s war, an opposition politician and a rebel leader said.

An Al-Azhar University professor was suspended for inviting Iranians to a conference he was planning to organize at his department, Youm7 reported Thursday.

Suppression of the Gezi Park protests, press censorship, erosion of the constitution. But Erdogan and ‘his’ AKP party are still popular in Turkey ahead of Sunday’s elections. Daniel Heinrich reports from Kayseri.