Egyptian police angered by the kidnapping of seven colleagues by Islamist gunmen kept a crossing into the Gaza Strip closed again on Saturday, stranding hundreds of Palestinian travellers, witnesses said. The protest began on Friday when police strung barbed wire across the Rafah border post and chained up the gates, local residents said, a day after the abductions. Gunmen demanding the release of jailed Islamist militants had seized seven policemen and soldiers on a road between the Sinai towns of el-Arish and Rafah. Three of those abducted had worked at the Rafah border crossing, locals said. "We will not open the crossing until the kidnapped soldiers are freed and the interior minister arrives to listen to our demands so that these attacks on us are not repeated," one of the protesting policemen said on Saturday. Hardline Islamist groups in North Sinai have exploited the collapse of state authority after the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 to launch attacks across the border into Israel and on Egyptian targets. The protesting policemen called on Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, to help free their colleagues. More»

A five-year-old British girl has died after drowning in the pool of a holiday resort in Egypt, the Foreign Office has said. Chloe Johnson, from Forest Hill in south east London, was on holiday with her parents in the city Sharm el-Sheikh, a popular tourist destination overlooking the Red Sea. The incident happened at the Coral Sea Waterworld hotel on Friday, described as a ‘perfect setting for complete relaxation’ on its official website. Her grandmother told Sky News that the family was ‘devastated’ by her death. ‘We are aware of the death of a British national in Sharm el-Sheikh on 17 May. We are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time,’ said a Foreign Office spokesman. Travel company First Choice arranged the trip and has issued a statement promising ‘a full and thorough investigation’. ‘First Choice can sadly confirm that a child has died while staying at the Coral Sea Waterworld hotel in Egypt,’ it said. ‘The incident occurred in a pool in the hotel’s waterpark. More»

Egyptians are getting gloomier about their country's future more than two years after an uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak, but most retain a favorable view of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, according to a poll released on Thursday. Egypt's economy has been hammered by political turmoil and spasms of violence since the long-ruling autocrat's downfall, and has continued to deteriorate since President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was elected last June. Facing currency and budget crises, the government has been struggling to secure a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan. The poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center shed light on a fast-evolving political landscape before a parliamentary election due later in 2013. It was based on 1,000 face-to-face interviews conducted from March 3 to March 23. The poll showed 30 percent of Egyptians think their country is headed in the right direction, down from 53 percent last year and 65 percent in 2011. Just 39 percent believe things are better off now than they were under Mubarak. More»

Police forces used teargas Friday while confronting dozens of civilians in front of the Semiramis InterContinental hotel just off Tahrir Square, which has witnessed frequent clashes over the past few months. Crowds mainly consist of young teenagers threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at security forces as two police vehicles pursued them. Rioters also set tyres on fire and burned wood in the middle of the road to block it. They also blocked the nearby Kasr El-Nile bridge for a while. There have been intermittent scuffles between unknown civilians and security forces outside the Semiramis hotel, which is located in a street adjacent to the famous square, for the past few months. Thousands of protesters converged on Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to join a rally in solidarity with the recently-launched "Rebel" campaign, which aims at "withdrawing confidence" from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and bringing about early presidential elections. Some minor scuffles took place in Tahrir but did not involve security forces. Traffic returned to normal in Tahrir Square by late evening. More»

One person died and dozens were wounded during clashes between Muslims and Christians late Friday night outside a Coptic church in Egypt's second city, state newspaper al-Ahram reported, in the latest violent sectarian row in the Muslim-majority country. A quarrel between two young men, one Christian and one Muslim, morphed into a family feud that sparked clashes in a western district of Alexandria. The two sides threw firebombs at each other before security forces intervened and cordoned off the area around the church. Police arrested eight people after about two hours of fighting, a security source told Reuters. In addition to the political and economic turmoil Egypt has endured since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011, tensions have risen between Muslims and Christians, especially since the election of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in June. More»

Operations at Egypt’s North Cairo Electricity Distribution Company (NCEDC) have been on hold for the fifth day in row due to a sit-in by workers demanding the release of 17 of their colleagues who are currently under arrest. The workers are threatening to escalate their protest by cutting off electricity to districts of Cairo supplied by the state-run company, protesting worker Ahmed Adel told Ahram Online on Friday. The company serves more than 3.8 million Egyptians. Last week, around a thousand workers gathered at the main headquarters of the company in Cairo to protest the management’s decision to remove a 50 percent bonus from their monthly pay cheques. Security forces attempted to stop the protests, arresting 15 of the workers on charges of blocking the street and damaging public property. “It was a peaceful protest, and there wasn’t any need for the security forces' violence against us,” Adel said. More»

Mohamed El-Beltagy, an influential Muslim Brotherhood leader, dismissed the proclaimed target of the newly-launched ‘Rebel’ campaign, which seeks to secure signatures in favour of ousting President Mohamed Morsi. "I welcome any peaceful means by which the people express their views, including the ‘Rebel’ campaign. However, calls for the withdrawal of confidence from an elected president are totally illogical," El-Beltagy was quoted as saying by state-run news agency MENA. The 'Rebel' campaign is a grassroots movement aimed at registering opposition to Morsi, who hails from the Brotherhood, and forcing him to call early presidential elections by collecting as many as 15 million signatures by 30 June, the end of Morsi’s first year in office. The group says it has already collected two million names. "It remains illogical even if the news that the campaign had collected two million signatures is true. Morsi was elected as president with 12 million votes," El-Beltagy added. More»

Several Egyptian political forces have called for a series of protests in support of an anti-Morsi petition drive — Tamarod, or 'Rebel' campaign — to kick off Friday.A million-man rally is scheduled for Friday with the aim of decrying the imprisonment of political activists and pressing for early presidential polls. The signature-collecting movement, which aims to gather 15 million signatures in support of a vote of no-confidence in President Mohamed Morsi, is planned to conclude with a million-strong rally outside the Presidential Place in Cairo's Heliopolis district on 30 June to demand snap presidential elections. A number of marches will set out for Tahrir Square in the day. Meeting points include the Journalists' Syndicate in downtown Cairo, Mohandeseen district's Mostafa Mahmoud Square, Dawaran Shubra Square in Cairo's Shubra district as well as central Cairo's Sayeda Zeinab Mosque, Al-Ahram daily newspaper reported Thursday. A handful of political parties and movements announced plans to partake in the planned rallies. These include the Constitution Party, the Free Front for Peaceful Change and the Free Egyptians Party. Ahmed Harawy, member of the April 6 Youth Movement that recently voiced support with the initiative, told Ahram Online the group would actively provide volunteers for the signature-collecting process over the coming two weeks, but would not officially take part in the protests. The signature drive, which officially started 1 May, has so far collected over two million signatures. More»

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Thursday summoned his defence and interior ministers over the kidnapping hours earlier of policemen and soldiers in the Sinai peninsula, the official MENA agency reported. The crisis talks at the presidential palace come after unidentified gunmen kidnapped three Egyptian policemen and four soldiers in the lawless Sinai peninsula, security officials said. The servicemen were returning from Cairo when their minibus was stopped at gunpoint in Al-Wadi al-Akhdar region which lies east of El-Areesh in north Sinai, they said. The three captured policemen are from the Central Security Forces while the four other men belong to the armed forces. "The kidnappers have not issued any demands yet," a security official said. Local Bedouin leaders have been called in to mediate between authorities and the kidnappers. According to Bedouin sources, it is believed the kidnappers want the release of certain prisoners. A spate of hostage takings, which usually last for no longer than 48 hours, broke out in Sinai after an uprising forced out president Hosni Mubarak in early 2011 and battered his security services. Islamist militants have exploited the lawlessness and upheaval in the Sinai peninsula to establish a launchpad for increasingly brazen attacks on security forces, a key gas export pipeline and on neighbouring Israel. The Sinai kidnappers are usually Bedouin who want to trade the hostages for jailed fellow tribesmen. Bedouin have recently kidnapped tourists from Hungary, Israeli and Norway in the south of the peninsula, which is dotted with beach resorts, to press for the release of jailed relatives. More»

Wasfi Amin Wassef used to buy and sell jewelry from his shop in Cairo’s vast Khan al-Khalili bazaar. Now he mostly buys it. Well into a third year of economic malaise following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, many ordinary Egyptians are selling their most cherished possessions, including heirloom jewelry, to raise cash for a ticket that will let them start a new life abroad. Official figures or estimates are not publicly available, but anecdotal evidence suggests emigration is rising. “The number of people who sell us their gold since the revolution has increased three times,” Mr. Wassef said during an interview this month. Some are Muslims but most are Christians, said Mr. Wassef, a member of Egypt’s ancient Coptic Orthodox Christian minority.Since the ouster of Mr. Mubarak in February 2011, a growing number of Copts, including some of the most successful businessmen, have left Egypt or are preparing to do so, fearing persecution by an Islamist-controlled government as much as the stagnant economy that is smothering their industries. More»