When a group of Coptic Christian families set out to visit the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor in Minya they could have no idea they would not all be returning home. But on their return journey the buses carrying the pilgrims were attacked, leaving seven dead and 18 injured. The injured were transferred to Minya local hospitals and then to Cairo s 6 October district hospital in Sheikh Zayed.

An Egyptian military court in Ismailia has sentenced to death in absentia eight members of the terrorist group Daesh for involvement in 2016 attacks on military personnel and checkpoints, personnel and equipment, which killed 14 military personnel. The court also sentenced 32 defendants to life, two others to 15 years in prison and acquitted two in the same case.

The Taliban will send representatives to multilateral talks in Russia on war-torn Afghanistan this month, the militant group said Tuesday, as the international community ratchets up efforts to end the 17-year conflict. Moscow announced Saturday it would host the meeting on November 9 to discuss ways to kickstart peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban.

An Egyptian parliamentarian proposed a bill to the House of Representatives banning the wearing of Niqab (full-face veils) in public places and imposing a fine of LE 1,000 for those who disobey. Al-Masry Al-Youm on Saturday obtained a copy of the proposed bill. MP Ghada Agamy expressed views in October that Egypt’s government should ban the Niqab at government workplaces and follow the steps of the Algerian authorities, which made the same decision a month ago. Agamy didn’t disclose that she was preparing a bill on this.

Roman Catholic Pope Francis prayed for the victims killed in a Friday terrorist attack in Upper Egypt s Minya, Vatican News reported on Sunday. The pope decried the attack, which killed seven Copts and injured at least 12 others, saying that they were killed "for the mere fact of being Christians."

The Egyptian Army issued on Thursday the 29th communiqué on the anti-terrorism Operation Sinai 2018, saying 18 takfiris have been killed and 129 suspects have been arrested in the recent period as part of the country s war on terrorism. Eight takfiris were killed by military forces in different raids in central and northern Sinai, and 10 high-risk others were killed in special operations by national security forces in the North Sinai capital of El-Arish, the army said.

Distrust and suspicion are the predominant sentiments in investigations into the killing of former Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. The current stand-off between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, where investigations inch forwards, has turned into a game in which everyone holds his cards close to his chest waiting for others to show their hand.

The American Coptic Association organized a rally in front of the Israeli consulate in New York on Monday to protest the actions of Israeli police against the Coptic monks of Deir al-Sultan, in Jerusalem. The Association used a bus to hang posters decrying the incident. The rally is the least Copts in the US can do to support Antonius, Metropolitan of Jerusalem and the Near East, who was assaulted by Israeli forces as he defended the Coptic Orthodox Church’s rights in Deir al-Sultan, Association Chairman Adel Ageeb told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

A 30-year old woman blew herself up in the centre of the Tunisian capital on Monday, wounding 15 people including 10 police officers in what the Interior Ministry called a "terrorist explosion". Witnesses described Monday s blast on Tunis s central Habib Bourguiba avenue where hundreds of police later cordoned off an area near the landmark Municipal Theatre and the French embassy.

Pope Francis on Sunday strongly condemned the attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, calling for the stamping out of "hotbeds of hate" and for stronger moral and civil values. Speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter s Square after a Mass, Francis said that Saturday s attack, in which 11 worshippers were killed and six others injured, was "terrible."

Member of the Melli Council of the Saint Mark Coptic Orthodox Cathedral Mohsen George called on the Egyptian authorities to file a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice against Israel to restore Deir al-Sulatan Monastery in Jerusalem, especially since the Egyptian Coptic Church possesses documents proving its ownership of the monastery, besides court verdicts by the Supreme Court of Israel in favor of the church. “This monastery belongs to Egypt and we have documents and evidence proving our ownership of the monastery, as well as Israeli judicial rulings, which are not respected by the Israeli government itself,” George told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Wednesday.

Israeli forces Wednesday assaulted Egyptian Coptic monks and arrested at least one, according to the Palestinian Maan news agency, during a demonstration against the restoration of a monastery believed to belong to the Egyptian Coptic Church. The Coptic Christian clerics were demonstrating against restoration work set to be carried out by the Israeli government at the Sultan Monastery in Jerusalem s Old City without the Coptic Church s consent.

Egyptian security forces have killed 11 fugitive militants in a shootout in the country s Western Desert, the interior ministry said in a statement Wednesday. The shootout occurred during a dawn raid on a hideout in a mountainous area in the Farafra Oasis region, southwest of Cairo, the ministry said in a statement published on its official Facebook page.

The Cairo Appeal Court, headed by Counselor headed by Counselor Mohammad Reda Shawkat, decided to start the first proceedings of the retrial of Youssef Boutros Ghali, the former Minister of Finance on 6 November. The former Minister of Finance will be re-trialled for squandering public money by using cars held in customs and 15 years for abusing his

MP Ghada Agamy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee of the House of Representatives, proposed on Saturday that the Egyptian government should prevent women from wearing full-face veils in government workplaces. Algerian authorities on Thursday banned full-face veils for women workers in government departments for the first time. The Directorate of the Public Service, which is subordinate to the Prime Minister, called on officials of government departments to “prevent any dress that impairs the exercise of public administration functions, particularly full-face veil which is completely banned in workplaces.”

In an interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Shahed on 13 October, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi rejected the possibility of the Muslim Brotherhood staging a return in Egypt, reports Gamal Essam El-Din. Asked about the future of the group in Egypt, Al-Sisi said “the Ikhwan [the Brotherhood] will never have a role to play as long as I am in power.”

Monk Faltaous al-Makary cried when he heard of the death of monk Zenon al-Makary, Faltaous’s lawyer Michelle Halim said. He added that Feltaous told him that Zenon knew the real murderer of Bishop Epiphanius, head of the Saint Macarius Monastery in Wadi al-Natroun who was murdered on July 29.

Egypt s Interior Ministry on Monday said that nine terrorists were killed in clashes with security forces in a rugged mountainous area near the Assiut-Sohag Western Desert Road near al-Ghanayem city in Upper Egypt s Assiut Governorate. The ministry said in a statement that the National Security Agency received information of a group of terrorists in the mountain area, possessing various firearms, preparing explosive devices, and planning to move during the coming period to carry out a series of attacks targeting vital institutions.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group would have no power in Egypt during his presidency. In an interview with Kuwait s al-Shahed newspaper, Sisi said that the Egyptian people would not accept the MB s return, as their way of thought is not viable and clashes with the lives of ordinary people.

An Egyptian military court sentenced on Thursday 17 people to death and handed dozens of others hefty jail terms over their involvement in three deadly church bombings and joining the terrorist group Daesh. The defendants were convicted for involvement in the bombing of Cairo s Coptic Cathedral in December 2016, which killed at least 25 people, as well as the simultaneous bombings of churches in Alexandria and Tanta, which killed more than 45 people in April 2017.