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.

CAIRO: Prosecutor General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud referred 100 police officers to a criminal court on charges of killing and injuring protesters in the early days of the uprising that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak, press reports said Tuesday.

CAIRO: The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces decided in its 30th communique issued on Tuesday to reinvestigate the detention of Amr Eissa, an artist and student who was detained on March 9 during a Tahrir Square sit-in that was violently dispersed by military police.

CAIRO: The Giza Archbishopric halted the activities of an unlicensed services center in the Bashtil district of Imbaba until it is licensed after a group of Salafis and other Muslim inhabitants protested in front of it, holding a number of Copts and children inside.

CAIRO - Egypt will hold a parliamentary election in September, its military rulers said on Monday, setting a date that analysts said would suit well-organised Islamists and remnants of former leader Hosni Mubarak's party. The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said emergency laws that have helped crush political life for decades would be lifted before elections, but did not say when, and approved a law easing restrictions on political party formation.

CAIRO: The Al-Wafd, Al-Tagammu and Nasserist parties said Sunday that they didn't receive invitations to participate in an anticipated national dialogue called upon by the government. In a joint statement, the parties said that they did not receive any agenda that will be included in this dialogue and that no one from the government contacted them in this regard.

CAIRO: Egypt is due to amend the controversial real estate tax law and delay its enactment, the finance minister told a state-run daily.

KHARTOUM: Egypt will make the completion of a partially-built canal spanning an un-navigable section of the river Nile in south Sudan a top priority, a cabinet spokesman said on Sunday. As Prime Minister Essam Sharaf visited Egypt's soon-to-be partitioned southern neighbor, cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi told a news conference in Khartoum: "We want to start the building of the Jonglei Canal, because it is a top priority. It offers to provide four billion cubic meters of Nile water (annually)."

CAIRO: The emergency law will be lifted before the parliamentary elections which are scheduled for September, the Supreme Military Council of the Armed Forces said on Monday. General Mamdouh Shahin, member of the council and assistant to minister of defense for legal affairs, said in a press conference that elections won’t be held under emergency laws.

CAIRO - Egypt's military on Monday denied using violence on demonstrators and said it was taking steps to address accusations of torture and that women protesters were forced to undergo virginity tests. "We do not use violence and thuggery," General Mamduh Shahin, of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, told a press conference.