An appeals court referred on Thursday four defendants accused of rape to Egypt's Grand Mufti to consider their death sentences.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been chosen as Africa’s most influential leaders by Forbes Middle East, which ranked the Egyptian president 51th in its annual list of the world’s most outstanding figures.

A request to release detained hunger-striking Egyptian-American Mohamed Soltan due to his deteriorating health condition was rejected for the fourth time on Wednesday.

A human rights group has halted its activities starting Tuesday due to what it described as persecution and media attacks practiced against organizations working in the field.

The Egyptian Tax Authority’s (ETA) Independent Appeals Committee has ruled in favour of OCI NV’s subsidiary in Egypt Orascom Construction Industries (OCI). Commenting on the ruling, Nassef Sawiris issued an exclusive statement to Daily News Egypt saying that he is “grateful that ultimately justice has prevailed”.

Egypt's Deputy Foreign Minister for Human Rights Hisham Badr assured that there is no final draft for a new NGOs law and that it will be postponed until a new parliament is elected.

Egypt will host the sixth round of the Joint Egyptian-Ethiopian Ministerial Committee in 2016, stated Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Badr Abdel Atty said Monday.

An unsubstantiated statement was released Monday affirming that Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis (ABM) was pledging loyalty to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham (ISIS), stating that the group chose Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, known as the leader of ISIS, as its leader.

President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said on Monday that more security and logistical measures are to be taken to evacuate the area around the Egypt-Gaza border, promising the displaced North Sinai families heavy value compensations, according to state television.

The official spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned reports of the Israeli government’s intention to build 500 housing units in East Jerusalem, describing it as a “severe defiance of International Law and the Geneva Conventions”, according to a foreign ministry statement on Monday.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussing the creation of a military pact to take on Islamic militants, with the possibility of a joint force to intervene around the Middle East, The Associated Press has learned.

Kuwait Petroleum Corporation has agreed to increase its monthly exports of crude oil to Egypt from 1.5 million to 2 million barrels, Tarek al-Molla, chairman of the state-run Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, said Monday.

Long-awaited parliament elections are not to be held before May 2015, according to sources at the High Elections Commission, who said the panel was going to convene Monday to discuss its latest preparations for the polls.

The Sinai Development Council (SDC) is set to meet with elders and leaders from the border town of Rafah on Monday at the order of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

A number of Egyptian journalists have launched a petition to safeguard a "free press that opposes terrorism as well as despotism".

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi will head to Addis Ababa for an official visit soon, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Badr Abdel Atty told The Cairo Post Monday.

Egypt's army has sent special forces by air to the Sinai Peninsula to help existing troops and police forces destroy all terrorist cells in the peninsula, says an army spokesman.

A number of Egyptian journalists have launched a petition to safeguard a "free press that opposes terrorism as well as despotism". The move comes in refusal to a statement signed last week by the chief editors of most of Egypt's newspapers, in which they said they won't publish material that "shows support to terrorism, directly or indirectly", while also confirming their "refusal to doubts in state institutions and insults to the army, police and judiciary".

A dozen local rights groups released a joint statement on Sunday with proposed recommendations for an upcoming review of Egypt's human rights by the UN Human Rights Council in Switzerland.

Journalists Against the Protest Law (JAPL) refused the meeting held last week by editors-in-chief of major publications in a Sunday statement.

Former vice president Mohamed ElBaradei has said that Egypt needs an inclusive constitution that reflects all social stripes, adding that Arab Spring revolutions are not moving forward due to the absence of civil society and political parties.