Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria announced on Wednesday that the Coptic church would stop holding its weekly meeting at Cairo's Abbasiya Cathedral, in view of renovations to the building towards its golden jubilee in 2018.

A police detective in Beni Suef died early Thursday morning when unknown attackers shot him in the neck and chest, according to the Health Ministry in the province.

An explosive device went off in North Sinai's al-Arish town on Thursday, targeting a security patrol and injuring 18 policemen, reported the state news agency MENA.

Former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh has urged young members of his party to stay in Egypt, despite the increased number of arrests of anti-government activists.

Pope Francis on Wednesday praised Bolivia's social reforms to spread wealth under leftist President Evo Morales and urged the world not to view prosperity as material wealth, which he warned only breeds corruption and conflict.

An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced in absentia TV presenter Moataz Matar to ten years in jail and a fine of LE 700 on charges of inciting to overthrow the regime and spreading false news, a judicial source told Aswat Masriya.

Same-sex marriage is a “deviation from normality”, the head of the Egyptian Church said on Monday as defenders of the practice push for its legalization across the globe.

Security forces imposed a total closure on three cities, Arish, Sheikh Zuwayed and Rafah, and their affiliated towns in North Sinai; a security source told Youm7 Wednesday.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack Tuesday on a Shia mosque in the Yemen capital that according to doctors killed one person and left five others wounded.

Pope Francis on Tuesday said protecting the planet was no longer a choice but a duty and called for a new "social justice" where access to the earth's resources would be based on equality instead of economic interests.

Five people were injured on Tuesday morning when a bomb exploded near a court in Egypt's Nile Delta governorate of Beheira, state news agency MENA reported.

A total of 38 NGOs, allegedly affiliated with the Muslim brotherhood, have been dissolved in Menoufia, Farag Suleiman, undersecretary of Ministry of Social Solidarity deputy in the governorate, said Tuesday.

US President Barack Obama said on Monday recent territory losses by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria show the extremist group will be defeated and pledged to increase US support for the moderate opposition in Syria's civil war.

The Salafi-led Nour Party has demanded the controversial anti-terrorism bill approved by the government to be suspended until it has been subjected to social debate.

A suicide bomber from Syria's al Qaeda offshoot the Nusra Front blew himself up in a Syrian army outpost in a contested neighbourhood in the divided northern city of Aleppo and killed at least 25 soldiers and allied militia and injured scores, a monitor said.

The Egyptian army has killed 241 terrorists in North Sinai over the past five days, the army's spokesman said in a statement on Monday.

An official source said that Egypt is among the least countries in the world that implement the death penalty, as onlyseven executions were implemented in the past two years. The sources predicted that the implementation of death sentences would increase in the coming period in light of the ongoing war on terrorism.

The Malian Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine claimed it carried out a series of attacks against U.N. peacekeepers and Malian army targets in the country’s capital, Bamako, and border areas near Ivory Coast and Mauritania.

The Cairo Criminal Court submitted the grounds on which former president Mohamed Morsi and five others were handed death sentences. They were given the sentences on charges of participating in storming Egyptian prisons, attacking police facilities, and killing security personnel.

The Egyptian army has killed 241 militants over the past five days, military spokesman Mohamed Samir announced on Monday.

Cairo Criminal Court sentenced on Sunday 23 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to ten years in prison over violence at the Media Production City (MPC) in August 2013.