After decades of neglect and with the collapse of government authority in the past 18 months, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula has become fertile ground for Islamic extremists.

Muslim and Coptic Christian leaders in the U.S. are calling on the Egyptian government to exclude any mentions of Islamic law or language that discriminates against minorities in its draft constitution.

"Down with the rule of the Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood" and "The Brotherhood are agents and betrayers"

Against the backdrop of general political turmoil, what started out as a mundane customer service blunder has escalated into a full-blown conflict between Egypt’s Muslims and its Christian minority.

Security forces, together with the family elders of the village of Dahshur, helped the 16 Coptic families who were forced to leave the village return to their homes.

Political activists and Muslim Brotherhood youth called for protesters to protect the presidential palace

After five days of sectarian violence, 12 armored vehicles besiege a street no wider than 300 meters and no longer than 600 meters. Mar Girgis Church — the only church in the village of Dahshur, Giza — stands on that street.

Security has been tightened around the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo after a shooting that took place there on Sunday evening, said Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin.

Egypt has a chronic sectarian problem, and the main obstacle to addressing it is official and popular denial that it has one.

Dahshour, a once quiet village in Giza, is now a busy, tense and angry place bustling with police and security personnel. Central Security and National Security forces are deployed at the entrances to the village and in front of the church there, while also guarding the already trashed and looted houses of Copts who fled their homes Wednesday when a fight that erupted between a Christian and a Muslim led to wider clashes and the death of one Muslim and the injury of a dozen people.

On Sunday evening, dozens of Copts protested in front of the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis, Cairo, against the forced migration of Christians in Dahshur, Giza.

Security services in Giza arrested nine persons accused of burning and stealing from Coptic residents’ homes in Dahshur, in the aftermath of a fight between a Muslim man and Coptic man which led to killing of one person, the burning of houses and the displacement of some Coptic families.

Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt said that recognizing the Libyan Brotherhood has been an occasion long awaited by the group, especially since they were separated by former Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.

The World Bank has agreed to give Egypt a loan of US$200 million to fund the upgrade of sanitation and sewage infrastructure in four governorates in the Nile Delta and Upper Egypt, an official said on Wednesday.

The Nour Party is forming a political alliance to monitor the performance of Prime Minister Hesham Qandil’s new Cabinet, according to party members.

A spokesperson for the disqualified presidential hopeful Hazem Salah Abu Ismail said Saturday that the conservative preacher plans to launch a political party in the coming weeks.

A delegation of a number of activists and Coptic Christian representatives are set to visit the town of Dahshur, Egypt on Sunday following sectarian clashes that took place last week.

The interim head of Egypt's Coptic church has expressed unhappiness over the composition of the country's new Cabinet, with only one Copt given a minor portfolio, reports said on Saturday.

The National Council for Human Rights said Saturday that it has sent a fact-finding mission to Dahshur to investigate the recent sectarian strife that took place.

Hundreds of demonstrators on Wednesday evening converged on Egypt's PresidentialPalacein Cairo's Heliopolis district to protest sectarian clashes that took placein the town of Dahshur, Giza, south of the capital, earlier the same day.

Dozens of Coptic activists and Coptic residents of Dahshur village demonstrated in front of the presidential palace in Cairo Wednesday, calling on the government to halt sectarian strife.