Pope Francis called Wednesday for the release of two Syrian bishops kidnapped by gunmen near Aleppo, after a Christian group appeared to retract its claim that the clerics had been freed.

Egypt's biggest hardline Islamist Salafi party will not take up posts in a cabinet reshuffle expected next week, saying on Thursday that the proposed changes did not go far enough to fix the country's political crisis.

An Israeli citizen imprisoned for 12 years in Egypt on charges of spying, announced that he has begun a hunger strike in protestof the lack of measures taken to ensure his release, Israel Radio reported Wednesday.

Representatives of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church met with a top interior ministry official and representatives of a number of political groups in an effort to contain possible unrest caused by the disappearance of a Muslim woman from Upper Egypt, who allegedly converted to Christianity and fled to Turkey with an Egyptian Christian.

Suhaib Abdel-Maksoud, spokesman for Muslim Brotherhood students, paid tribute to all Egypt’s students, who participated positively in union elections.

The Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria Tawadros II will meet Pope Francis next month in the Vatican -- the first visit by a Coptic Orthodox leader in 40 years and the latest signs of growing ties between the new pope and the Orthodox world.

Calls from Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir for Muslims to boycott Anzac Day as British colonialist aggression against the Ottoman empire drew howls of outrage yesterday from political leaders, and were rejected by moderate Muslim groups.

The World Council of Churches general secretary, Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, has met with senior Egyptin Islamic cleric Grand Mufti Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim in Cairo to discuss relations between different faiths in the North African country that experienced a revolution in February 2011.

Cairo’s streets have been swept by a campaign showing disapproval of the Muslim Brotherhood through honking automobile horns.

Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi boycotted the 8th Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue conference in Doha on Tuesday, rejecting to sit in the meeting also attended by Jewish representatives, a local daily reported.

The fact-finding committee of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) issued a report on the recent clashes at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Abbaseya.

An Egyptian appeal judge has ordered the release of 30 individuals, including one US and one Syrian national, detained in Friday's protest in Cairo against Egypt's judiciary.

The British government and leaders within the Coptic Orthodox community in London met to discuss the recent sectarian violence in Egypt, Ahram Online has learned. According to a Coptic activist who attended the meeting, the discussion focused on “the escalation of attacks on Copts in Egypt.”

A number of Egyptian students, reportedly members of the Muslim Brotherhood, shouted chants against Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabbahi on Monday during a panel discussion at Shubra Engineering Faculty, accusing the former presidential candidate of betraying Egypt's 25 January Revolution.

Egyptian Judges Club head Ahmed El-Zend voiced his rejection of a recently proposed Judicial Authority Law, asserting that the draft legislation targeted judges and Egypt's judiciary.

Egypt's top prosecutor suspended a provincial prosecutor for ordering a man to be lashed 80 times for being drunk and possessing drugs, and ordered a probe into the ruling.

Said Abdel Hafez, head of the Dialogue Forum for Development and Human Rights, recently stated that comments made by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi indicating there are no sectarian incidents in Egypt is a "lie" because he knows the essence of civil and political rights is the right to freedom of belief and worship.

Mohamed El-Zawahiri, the brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman El-Zawahiri, has warned that the current instability in Egypt is "fertile ground for minorities [Coptic Christians] to 'triumph'.”

Members of the Ahrar movement, followers of popular Salafist preacher Hazem Salah Abu-Ismail, have been released on bail.

Demonstrating before the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the UK parliament, Christian protesters called on the UK and other world powers to put pressure on the Egyptian government to stop “the persecution of liberal and religious minorities” in Egypt.

A complaint accusing Salafist activist Abdel-Rahman Ezz of allegedly attempting to torch the headquarters of the liberal Al-Wafd Party was withdrawn Saturday.