CAIRO: Tahrir has recently been the epicenter of intense emotions, and news from

CAIRO - The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has decided to impound the sites of the formery ruling National Democratic Party and freeze its assets nationwide, official TV reported Saturday.

CAIRO - Thieves stole around 1,000 relics from museums and archeological sites across Egypt since protests against the government broke out in January, Egypt's minister for antiquities Zahi Hawass said Sunday in a newspaper interview.

CAIRO - Should the nation be allowed to sit in the public gallery during the trial of the toppled President, Hosni Mubarak, and his family, for large-size scams and making ill-gotten gains? Millions of Egyptian people, victims of Mubarak's 30 years of tyrannical rule, are now asking this question. Legal sources have suggested that Mubarak should be tried behind closed doors for his own safety.

CAIRO - The South Cairo Criminal Court Saturday adjourned the trials of former Trade and Industry Minister Rasheed Mohamed Rasheed and of Amr Assal, business tycoon, former head of organisational affairs of the National Democratic Party (NDP) and head of the Industrial Development Authority, to April 12.

CAIRO - Egypt has lifted a ban on the export of gold due to economic and political stability, the government said in a statement on Saturday.

CAIRO: The freedoms and human rights committees at the Lawyers’ Syndicate initiated a campaign Tuesday against assigning cases of ousted regime figures to certain judicial constituencies "notorious for their pro-regime rulings."

CAIRO - Low-income brackets have said they will set up a political party after Government's restrictions that prevented them and other groups from doing so under President Hosni Mubarak have been lifted. The spokesman for the group, which combines menial job workers, peasants, and marginalised people, said in a statement that low-income bracket people had declared their desire to set up a party to defend their rights and previlges.

CAIRO: An Egyptian panel formed to uncover illicit gains acquired during the rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, will next week question his younger son about corruption, the state news agency said on Tuesday.

CAIRO: Egypt's army rulers froze assets belonging to three former aides of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, meeting a demand of reformers seeking tough action against figures of the past administration. The decision on Monday applies to Fathi Sorour, the former speaker of the lower house of parliament, Safwat El-Sherif, a senior member of the one-time ruling party and head of the upper house of parliament, and Zakaria Azmy, one of Mubarak's senior aides, Egypt's official news agency MENA reported on Monday.

CAIRO: Minister of Finance Samir Radwan said that there is no “fiscal space” to increase the expenditure on the education and health sectors, during a press conference on Monday. Titled “The Egyptian Economy: Short and medium term prospects”, the conference was organized by the Egyptian Center of For Economic Studies (ECES) and brought together academia, businessmen, journalists and analysts to discuss the prospects of the Egyptian economy after the revolution.

CAIRO: North Cairo Attorney General Amr Qandil referred a low ranking policeman to a criminal court on charges of the premeditated murder of 30 protesters and the injury of 51 others, state-run media reported on Monday.

CAIRO - Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil el-Arabi has denied he called for scrapping a peace treaty with Israel and reiterated Cairo is committed to the 1979 pact. “There are matters that need to be reviewed. For example, it was agreed in the (1978) Camp David accords and in the peace treaty, that Israel would have peace with all the countries that accept to have peace with it. But this did not happen,” el-Arabi said in an interview on the privately owned Dream TV late on Saturday.

CAIRO - Traffic through Egypt's Suez Canal resumed after a 42,000-tonne container ship that ran aground earlier on Sunday was moved, an official at the Suez Canal Authority said.

CAIRO: The Tenth of Ramadan Military Court adjourned the trial of blogger Maikel Nabil to Monday in order to review his blog. “We expect Nabil to be sentenced to a period of one to three years,” John Milad, movie director and human rights activist, who is also Nabil’s friend, told Daily News Egypt.

CAIRO - Former head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei Saturday slammed the ‘deceleration’ in meeting the demands of the January 25 Revolution that toppled the Mubarak regime. In remarks on the return of people to Al Tahrir Square on Friday, ElBaradei tweeted, “There are several clear steps that have not been taken. Deceleration and compromises. Why?”

CAIRO - Egypt's army-led interim government sacked three top officials from state-run television and radio on Saturday, meeting some of the demands of protesters who mobilised to oust President Hosni Mubarak. A cabinet decree appointed three prominent news anchors to head state television and radio and the news department that serves them.

CAIRO - Police say an unknown number of fans have been wounded while rushing a field in Cairo to attack a referee during an African Champions League match on Saturday.

CAIRO - There are growing fears that the workers' strikes, launched in the wake of the recent revolution, have badly affected the national economy. Despite appeals from the caretaker Government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the striking workers are stubbornly refusing to disperse and go back to work.

CAIRO - Egypt's Ministry of Telecommunications is ready to provide electronic balloting in the forthcoming parliamentary, presidential and municipal polls to help ease the process of democratic change in the country and reduce the chances of rigging.

CAIRO - First groups of Russian tourists will go to Egypt’s resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh Saturday after a break caused by the situation in that country, sources from the Association of Russian Tour Operators reported.