Twice a year at the temple in Abu Simbel, just after sunrise, the rays of the sun illuminate the statues of Ramses, Ra and Amun in the central chamber just after sunrise. The likeness of Ptah, the god of darkness, remains in the shade. The occurrences take place on22 October, the birthday of Ramses, and 22 February, when he ascended to the throne. After the temple was moved to higher ground due to the expected flooding caused by the construction of the Aswan Dam, the positioning was calculated precisely to ensure the Sun Festival could still take place.

The Egyptian General Consul to Jeddah Adel al-Alfy said on Saturday that all possible efforts are being made through diplomatic channels to obtain the release of Egyptian sailors held in Saudi Arabia.

Sixty-three people have died from the H1N1 virus in Egypt since December, the health ministry said on Sunday.

International tourism companies have urged holiday-makers in Egypt to remain in their hotels if they are already in the northern Sinai region of the country.

The British Foreign Ministry issued a statement Wednesday advising its nationals not to travel to South Sinai except for urgent matters and except for the areas of Sharm el Maya, Hadaba, Naama Bay, Sharks Bay and Nabq, affiliated with Sharm al-Sheikh.

A five-member US congressional delegation arrived in Egypt on Wednesday to hold talks with top Egyptian government officials, days after discussions by another congressional team concluded in Cairo.

National Salvation Front spokesperson Waheed Abdel Megeed told Youm7 Wednesday that the front’s support to presidential candidates depends on their commitment to the goals of the January 25 Revolution.

Tensions are rising between the medical syndicates and the Ministry of Health as the Doctors and Pharmacists Syndicates have entered their third week of partial strike across the country, as per the Syndicates’ General Assembly agreement to organize partial strikes every Monday and Wednesday during February, with a list of demands they claim the ministry refuses to respond to.

Armed Forces spokesperson Ahmed Ali wrote on his Facebook account that the Second Field Army forces raided on Wednesday 19 February a number of terrorist hotbeds in the cities of Be'r al-Abd, Aris and Rafah.

The 'presidential palaces' trial of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is set to resume Wednesday after the criminal court added four new defendants to the case, Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported.

Margret Awad, owner of Craft tourist agency and the Taba tourist bus that was bombed, said that tourist buses are not secured enough by tourism police.

The Council of Water Science at the Academy of Scientific Research is scheduled to hold a seminar Wednesday to discuss and address water issues in Egypt, including the Renaissance Dam crisis, at the National Center for Research.

Egypt's top prosecutor on Tuesday referred to trial two Egyptians, including a woman, on charges of "spying for Israel," judicial sources said.

The National Wages Council will hold a meeting Wednesday to discuss the minimum wage for private sector employees, an official at the council told Youm7 Wednesday.

Islamist militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has said it carried out a deadly bomb attack on a tourist bus in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Sunday.

Spanish archaeologists have unearthed a 3,600-year-old mummy in the ancient city of Luxor, Egypt's Antiquities Minister said Thursday. Prosecutors accused nine people including three Germans of smuggling stone samples from pyramids.

Minister of Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Motteleb told Al-Ahram daily newspaper that Egypt may in a few days send an official statement demanding that construction of the Ethiopian dam be halted until a mutually agreeable solution is found.

Egypt's army chief, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, won vast popularity by crushing the Muslim Brotherhood, but even a man seen by his followers as invincible may be unable to fix the mess in the politically sensitive energy sector.

Popular Current founder Hamdeen Sabbahi will hold his first meeting Wednesday with various political forces, including the Socialist Popular Alliance Party’s political bureau, to present his platform and his plans for the presidential elections.

Two Egyptian teenagers have been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Cairo court after being convicted of raping and killing a child, officials said.

The regimes in Egypt have change but the state remains stagnant with corruption and a lack of transparency, which are inherent characteristics of an ancient bureaucracy that the revolution failed to overcome because the infrastructure of the regime prior to the revolution is still there, according to Transparency International.