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.

WASHINGTON - We are certainly aware of a recent string of attacks against Christians from Iraq to Egypt to Nigeria," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. "We are deeply concerned about what seems to be an increasing trend. Crowley, speaking to reporters, said the US State Department condemns all violence based on religion or ethnicity and includes such attacks in its annual human rights report.

CAIRO - A suspected suicide bomber who killed 21 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.

CAIRO - Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud ordered the release of the last 23 Coptic defendants who were arrested after clashes with police during a protest in late November in Omraniya, Giza, south of Cairo. "The Chief Prosecutor ordered the release of the final group of Copts detained over the Omraniya rioting," a judicial source said.

CAIRO: Four policemen and 38 security force officers were injured on Sunday amid clashes with Coptic protesters during a demonstration inside the Coptic Orthodox St. Mark Cathedral in Abbasiya. Thousands of disgruntled Copts threw stones and water bottles at security forces when the police tried to forcibly disperse the crowds, yet police managed to end the protest on Monday at dawn.

Egyptian Coptic Christians angered by a deadly bombing at a church in Alexandria have clashed with police for a second day. Hundreds demonstrated in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, and Cairo, the capital, calling for better protection for Christians.

CAIRO - Top Government and religious officials have expressed their full outrage over Saturday's attack on el-Kiddesseen Church in Alexandria, demanding that all the Egyptians should be united against terrorism. Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said he was "shocked" by the assault on the church, adding that the attack targeted all the Egyptians, Cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi announced.

CAIRO - Egyptian authorities Sunday tightened security around churches across the nation in the wake of a suicide bombing outside a church in Alexandria that killed 21 people and injured nearly 100. The measure came as dozens of grieving worshippers returned to pray in the blood-spattered Al-Qiddissein (The Two Saints) Church, while hundreds of other Christians protested in several parts of the nation against the blast.

CAIRO - Authorities in Egypt imposed tight security around churches across the country Sunday, in the wake of a suicide bombing outside a church in Alexandria that 21 people and injured nearly 100.