Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb is meeting on Wednesday with acting Coptic Pope Pachomius to discuss developments in the constituent assembly crisis, state-run news service MENA reported on Tuesday. Both religious institutions had agreed to withdraw from the assembly on the grounds that they are not properly represented in it, and that it is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Following news that the Muslim Brotherhood will be putting their member Khairat El-Shater forward for president, Mohamed Selim El-Awa’s campaign coordinator Mohamed Moemen told Ahram Online that he was concerned about the chances for an Islamist success.

Nader Bakar, spokesperson for the Salafi Nour Party, has denied reports that his party has decided to back Khairat al-Shater, the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate. Earlier, media reports quoted the Ahmad Khalil, a leading figure in the Nour Party, as saying that the party would support Shater.

An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohamed, actions that sparked sectarian violence.

Divisions may erupt among the Islamist factions in Egypt, and a split vote among supporters of Islamist presidential hopefuls running in the upcoming presidential elections is expected, said Nageh Ibrahim, a member of Jama'a al-Islamiya’s Shura Council. In a statement to Al-Masry Al-Youm on Monday Ibrahim said, "There will be a split of votes and a mild division within all Islamist movements."

Is he only worth the LE80 million that was confiscated from his family back in 2007? No one can tell. Very little is known about the economic ventures of the multi-millionaire businessman Khairat El-Shater who at the weekend became Egypt's latest presidential hopeful. He is the second-in-command in Egypt's largest and best-organised political group, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, according to some reports, their top financier.

The recently-announced presidential candidacy of leading Muslim Brotherhood figure, Khairat El-Shater, and the suspected illegibility of Salafist poster-child, Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail, to run for president, has fuelled speculation over May's eagerly-anticipated elections.

In a press conference on Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice Party defended their decision to go back on an earlier resolution not to field a candidate in the upcoming presidential election. Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie said that when the group made the decision not to run it was "being sincere, and when it decided to nominate Khairat al-Shater, it was also was honest with the people."

The Salafi Scholars Shura Council, which includes prominent preachers like Mohamed Hassan and Mohamed Yacoub, criticized the Muslim Brotherhood for fielding Khairat al- Shater in the presidential elections.

The Coptic Orthodox Church decided to boycott the Islamist-dominated panel charged with drafting Egypt’s future constitution, state-run news agency MENA reported Monday. The 20-member Holy Synod made a unanimous decision to withdraw the two church officials elected to the committee.

A deft businessman and politician tempered by years in Hosni Mubarak's prisons, Khairat al-Shater is aiming to bring Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to the pinnacle of power for the first time in its 84-year history. But his candidacy for the presidency has exposed rifts within the Islamist group's ranks, worried liberals and could turn up the heat in a row with Egypt's ruling army.

Saad El-Husseini, a Muslim Brotherhood MP, says the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Brotherhood's political wing, has drawn up the basic features of the constitution to be drafted by the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly.

The Social Popular Alliance Party condemned the imprisoning of eight activists who were protesting in solidarity with Copts following the bombing of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve in 2010. The party said in a statement Sunday that imprisoning activists is a “crime against the revolution.”

Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church has announced it is withdrawing from talks on a new constitution, saying Islamist domination of the drafting body made its participation "pointless," Egypt's state news agency said.

In a major policy turaround, the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful political force, has asked its second in command, Khairat El-Shater, to resign from the organisation inorder to run for president in the elections set for May.

Hundreds of Christian pilgrims marked Palm Sunday in the Holy Land on Sunday, holding masses and processions retracing Jesus' triumphant return to Jerusalem. Palm Sunday marks the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem, where he was greeted by cheering crowds bearing palm fronds, according to the Bible.

Nour Party president, Emad Abdel-Ghafour, said on Sunday that the largest Salafist party has yet to officially endorse a presidential contender, refuting reports that it would back up businessman Khairat El-Shater, who has just parted ways with the Muslim Brotherhood – by mutual consent – in order to run for president.

The Holy Virgin and Anba Bola church in the village of Kidwan, Minya, was attacked this morning, and its contents completely destroyed. Fr Angelius Naim, the church’s priest told Watani that he left the church this morning after he had performed the funeral service for a 23-year old Coptic woman. A few hours later

Fury engulfed Egypt once the names of the 100-member constituent assembly tasked with drafting the constitution were announced last weekend. The list of names included some 60 Islamists, among them 37 MPs, all of whom were selected the previous day by Parliament during a joint session of both its houses. The other members included public figures, also selected by Parliament. Only six Copts were chosen; among them Rafiq Samuel Habib who is the second man in the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party

Prominent Egyptian Coptic-Christian thinker Michael Fahmy is calling for the establishment of a "Christian Brotherhood" along the same lines as Egypt's well-known Muslim Brotherhood movement. The idea is not a new one. In late 2007, Coptic journalist Joseph Nagy made asimilar proposal. The idea, however, was quickly shot down by both the Mubarak regime and Egypt's official Coptic Church under recently-deceased Pope Shenouda III.

The name and face of the Muslim Brotherhood leader, businessman Khairat El-Shater, has dominated the political sphere for weeks now, and for good reason. The multimillionaire has unrivaled leverage within the organisation and its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, and enjoys enormous influence over the Brotherhood’s Guidance Bureau and Shura Council, the two highest bodies within the group. But what has really gripped the attention of pundits and the media have been the slew of leaks from the Brotherhood that El-Shater may be the organisations' candidate for president, despite earlier promises that it would not be fielding a nominee.