The Shura Council –the upper house of Egypt's parliament, currently endowed with legislative powers – held a closed session on Tuesday to discuss the latest developments regarding Ethiopia's controversial Renaissance Dam project.

Hundreds of Egypt’s ministry of antiquities employees closed the doors of the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square, barring tourists from entering as they voice demands for better benefits.

Opposition figures from across Egypt's political spectrum on Monday asserted that Ethiopia's controversial Renaissance Dam project constituted a potential "crisis" for Egypt.

A Cairo criminal court has ordered the release pending investigation of Mubarak-era housing minister Ahmed El-Maghrabi on Monday, overruling an appeal filed by prosecutors requesting his continued detention.

Egypt’s prosecutor-general on Monday ordered the suspension of a five-year prison sentence handed down to prominent Emirati businessman Hussein Sejwani, owner of Dubai-based developer DAMAC, Al-Ahram's Arabic-language news website reported on Sunday.

The Egyptian presidency on Monday published a summary of a final report issued over the weekend by a tripartite commission – including Egyptian, Sudanese and Ethiopian representatives – tasked with studying the potential impact on downstream states of Ethiopia's controversial Renaissance Dam project.

Hundreds rallied outside the High Court building Monday evening condemning the amendments to the Judiciary Law currently under review by the Shura Council.

Egypt's High Constitutional Court has ruled unconstitutional a law governing elections for the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament. The ruling on Sunday made it clear that the Council would not be dissolved until a new House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, convenes. According to Article 230 of the constitution the council is immune from dissolution until a lower house is elected. The constitution also gives the upper house temporary authority to pass legislation after a similar court order caused the dissolution of Egypt's People's Assembly in June 2012.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) issued a joint statement with El-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence on Sunday demanding the release of a 19 year-old protestor from a psychiatric hospital.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has stated that the court ruling on the Shura Council has 'no practical effect,' following Sunday's verdict by Egypt's High Constitutional Court (HCC) that declared the laws which governed the elections to the Council – parliament's upper house – unconstitutional.

Customs workers are planning to hold simultaneous protests in their various places of work on Tuesday to push for change in the Customs Authority management.

The government’s proposed NGO law is “potentially constraining”, said High Representative of the EU’s Union for Foreign Affairs Security Policy and Vice President of the Commission Catherine Ashton, according to a statement issued by her office on Sunday.

Egyptian authorities closed all roads leading to the Ministry of Interior on Saturday, following protests near the ministry's headquarters that demand the release of all political prisoners.

Egypt could close the Suez Canal to ships from countries that help Ethiopia build a controversial dam on the Blue Nile in the event that the dam threatens Egypt's supply of Nile water, Egyptian Popular Current leader Hamdeen Sabbahi said Wednesday.

Egypt's foreign policy advisor to the presidency, Essam Haddad, stated late Wednesday that "If Egypt's strategic foreign policy puts Africa as a priority, then bilateral Egypt-Ethiopia relations come at the core of this issue."

Ahram Online spoke to Nayer Nagui, the principle conductor and artistic director of the Cairo Opera Orchestra, who lead a protest by opera house artists and staff on Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch – New York – The draft Associations Law that Egypt’s president put before the country’s legislature on May 29, 2013, would allow the government and its security agencies to arbitrarily restrict the funding and operation of independent groups if it is adopted in its present form, Human Rights Watch said today.

Nile University students and supporters protested at the site of three buildings contested by the Zewail Science City on Thursday. The protest was organised after the latter announced it would be holding a lecture in one of the buildings.

Egypt's foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Ethiopian Ambassador Mahmoud Dardir to express its displeasure with Ethiopia's construction of a major dam on the Blue Nile.

The recent sale of the painting “Icons of the Nile” by Egyptian-Armenian artist Chant Avedissian at a Qatar-hosted auction by Sotheby’s offered reminder of a growing interest by Qatar in Egyptian cultural heritage. At over $1.5 million, the sale comes alongside the Qatari purchase of Seragueddine Palace, ostensibly at over $100 million.

Professor Said Tawfik, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council for Culture (SCC), resigned on Wednesday to protest the recent dismissal of three senior culture ministry officials by newly-appointed culture minister Alaa Abdel-Aziz.