Talks with Russia: President Hosni Mubarak (R) during his meeting with the Chief of the Russian Intelligence Service (C) in Cairo yesterday.

CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- There's more to wearing the "niqab" -- the austere, all-covering veil favored by ultra-religious Muslim women --than meets the eye.

Controversial regulations:Cairo University students wearing the niqab ,which covers the face except for the eyes, standing outside the university dormitory last week,unable to enter due to new rules

The term "black cloud" has become widely used by Egyptians to describe the tiny particles of pollution in the air over the capital. For ten years now, from October to December, the cloud has

HUNDREDS of female students gath-ered yesterday in front of the student hostels of Cairo University, Egypt's biggest public university, to protest a decision by the institution's administra-

Only five days into the academic year, the Ministry of Health announced that two cases of H1N1, or swine flu, had been detected among high school students. The first was a 15-year-old student at

AUTHORITIES have quarantined 57,750 tonnes of US wheat at the Red Sea port of Safaga for quality control reasons, but is not holding any other wheat, Government officials

Costa Rica's Diego Estrada, left, battles with Hosam Hassan of Egypt in Cairo. CAIRO - Costa Rica beat Egypt 2-0 yesterday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Under-20 World Cup, dumping the hosts out of the tournament.

EGYPT 'S Chief Prosecutor Abdel- Maguid Mahmoud yesterday referred the editor-in-chief and a journalist of the independent weekly Al-Balagh Al- Gadeed to the Urgent Criminal Court for publishing a

According to a report issued by the Association for Prisoner Support and Human Rights and recently submitted to the state-run National Human Rights Council, prisoners in Egyptian jails often suffer

An administrative court in Cairo yesterday postponed until April 18 a lawsuit to strip an Egyptian-US dissident of his nationality for 'tarnishing Egypt's reputation', a legal source said

Egypt's highest Muslim authority has said he will issue a religious edict against the growing trend for full women's veils, known as the niqab. Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.

For months, rumors of major real-estate acquisitions in Cairo's downtown district have been rife, raising fears that the city center -- long renowned for its hustle, bustle and local color --

AFTER winning their fight for recognising their religion in official documents and on identification cards (IDs), Baha'is, a minority in Egypt, are now seeking the recognition of theirmarriagecontracts,

President Mubarak called on Israel to reconsider its policies and the way it treats Palestinians and Arabs in general and cited the Egyptian-Israel peace treaty as an inspiration for such

"Look, that's where the swine flu is going to come from," said a weary Marzouka Beshir, pointing to a pile of rubbish rotting under the blazing sun in Imbaba, a working class neighbourhood in Cairo.

LONDON - Egypt yesterday signed an anti-piracy memorandum in London, insisting defence of the crucial Red Sea waterway was the "primary responsi- bility" of littoral states, the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.

Ahmed Marwan, grandson of late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, said he is "certain" that his father, famous political personality Ashraf Marwan, was killed two years ago in his London

KAMPALA (AFP) - Egypt's Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation Nasr Eddin Allam denied claims that the Egyptian Government was a roadblock to talks aimed at renegotiating colonial agreements over

AN Egyptian private equity firm is invest-ing in 500,000 feddans (210,000 hectares) of farmland in Sudan, an executive of the company said yesterday.

Drivers for the Public Transport Authority are threatening to strike on 3 October. They say the government has failed to follow through on promises made during the negotiations that ended a two-day strike