CAIRO (Updated) -A lawyer for an Egyptian man, accused of spying for Israel, on Saturday quit defending him, saying he is a traitor. Lawyer Esmat Talaat surprised everyone inside the building of the Emergency Higher State Security Court on the outskirts of Cairo when she said she would stop defending Tareq Abdel Razeq, a businessman facing charges of espionage.

CAIRO: For political forecasters, the Egyptian political scene in 2011 is not expected to change, with the new parliament set to tighten the government’s grip. Many predict that the rule of only one party will unlikely lead to peaceful change but will rather prompt violence and sectarian strife.

CAIRO - On the west bank of the Damietta branch of the River Nile about 60 kilometres north of Cairo, lies a village that carries the name of Saqiet Abu Sha'ra. The homes of this village are typical, at least outwardly, of rural residences across the country. But an inside view into these homes shows how the dwellers are leading a different life.

CAIRO - Egypt has recalled its ambassador from the Vatican for “consultations” over remarks made by the Holy See over Coptic Christians, an Egyptian official said on Tuseday. “This recall is made against the background of new statements made in the Vatican, which Egypt considers an unacceptable intervention in its internal affairs,” said the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry Hossam Zaki.

BEIRUT: After 30 years of President Hosni Mubarak's ultra-cautious rule, some of Egypt's 79 million people feel change is overdue – even his claim to be the guarantor of stability has looked shaky since a Jan. 1 attack on Christians.

CAIRO: Hundreds of Egyptian public figures signed a petition calling for the impeachment of Minister of Interior Habib El-Adly for abusing his powers in light of the New Year’s bombing in front of Al-Qeddesine (The Church of the Two Saints) in Alexandria.

CAIRO: The Administrative Prosecution decided to refer 21 museum officials and employees to a disciplinary court on Sunday for charges of negligence that led to the theft of a Van Gogh painting from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum last August.

CAIRO: Increasingly over the past few months, talk of a currency war breaking out between major economic powers has been common in policy circles, said Magda Kandil — the executive director and the director of research at the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES) — on Monday.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday voiced solidarity with Egypt's Coptic Christians two days after they marked a somber Christmas following a deadly New Year's Day church bombing. "I salute the Coptic faithful present here to whom I renew my expression of closeness," he told thousands of people gathered on Saint Peter's Square during Sunday Mass.

CAIRO - Egypt aims to generate 12 percent of its electricity needs by wind power and will initiate wind-farm projects with a capacity of 2,690 megawatts over the next five years, Electricity Minister Hassan Yunes said on Monday.

CAIRO - health authorities plan to build a hospital for the nation's 325,000 Alzheimer’s patients modelled after the world's most advanced and specialised health facilities in treating this disease, Governor Abdul Azeem Wazir has said.

BAGHDAD: Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa rejects the potential "exploitation" of attacks on Christians in the Arab world as a pretext for intervention by outside powers, he said in Iraq on Saturday. "Exploiting these events for intervention is something we cannot accept," Moussa said at a news conference in response to a question about attacks on Christians potentially being used as a pretext for outside intervention.

CAIRO: Egypt's official news agency says five senior members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood have been convicted of money laundering and raising funds abroad. MENA says the Supreme State Criminal Security Court on Saturday sentenced the sole defendant in custody, Osama Suleiman, to three years in jail. The four other defendants — one of them a Saudi national — were tried in absentia. They received jail terms of five-to-eight years.

CAIRO - President Honsi Mubarak said on Sunday that judges were and would stay the fortress through which Egyptian people could confront terrorism and extremism as they play a positive role in establishing the principle of citizenship.

CAIRO: Tens of protestors gathering in front of the Saad Zaghloul Mausoleum Friday night criticized the government's response to the attack on an Alexandria church and demanded a secular state.

QENA - Thousands of Egyptians gathered outside a church in Qena in Upper Egypt on Saturday night to observe the first death anniversary of their loved ones, who were killed by a gunman on Coptic Christmas Eve last year.

QENA - Thousands of Egyptians gathered outside a church in Qena in Upper Egypt on Saturday night to observe the first death anniversary of their loved ones, who were killed by a gunman on Coptic Christmas Eve last year.

CAIRO: Muslims joined Christians in celebrating Coptic Christmas in churches throughout Cairo on Thursday night and, under tight security measures, prayed side-by-side for the safety of Egypt. At Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Abbasiya, Pope Shenouda III — the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church — gave his sermon in the presence of a large quantity of ministers, government officials, Islamic scholars, celebrities, and foreign diplomats.

CAIRO - The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) is looking into an idea to issue a unified law on places of worship for Muslims and Christians. However, the final draft of the bill has yet to take shape, a senior party official said.

ASSIUT - About 500 young Egyptian Christians have defied a call by their leaders to avoid demonstrations and descended into the main streets of the southern city of Cairo protesting the New Year's Day church bombing that killed 21.

CAIRO: A suspected suicide bomber who killed 23 people outside a church probably intended to set off the explosives inside so as to kill as many people as possible, Egyptian investigators said on Monday. The main lead in the investigation into the New Year's Day attack in Alexandria, which no one has claimed, was a severed head found at the scene they said probably belonged to the bomber.