Two Iranian naval ships are likely to pass the Suez Canal on Tuesday, a canal source said on Monday, en route to Syria on a purported training mission that Israel regards as a provocation. Read the full story

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman criticized Israel’s lack of support for the Egyptian people in an op-ed article Sunday, saying “the children of Egypt were having their liberation moment and the children of Israel decided to side with Pharaoh – right to the very end. Read the full story

In its latest effort to defuse public anger amid mass protests, embattled President Hosni Mubarak’s regime set up a committee Tuesday to recommend constitutional changes that would relax presidential eligibility rules and impose term limits. Read the full story

Egypt’s biggest opposition group has said it will back the former UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s political change campaign, reports say. Read the full story

Seven East African states are due to sign an agreement giving them more water from the River Nile – a move strongly opposed by Egypt and Sudan. Read the full story

The U.S. is negotiating with Egypt a proposal to make the Middle East a region free of nuclear weapons, as the U.S. seeks to prevent Iran from derailing a monthlong U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation that begins Monday. Read the full story

A senior Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has held Egypt responsible for the death of four Palestinians killed in a border tunnel and has demanded for an impartial investigation. Read the full story

The leader of the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah has strongly criticised the Egyptian courts for jailing men accused of working for the group. Read the full story

Israel may come under new pressure next month at a UN meeting on atomic weapons as the United States, Britain and France consider backing Egypt’s call for a zone in the Middle East free of nuclear arms, envoys said. Read the full story

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has canceled a planned trip to Washington next week for President Barack Obama’s 47-country nuclear security conference. Read the full story

States which say artefacts have been stolen and displayed overseas should unite to recover their stolen heritage, Egypt’s top archaeologist has said. Read the full story

A human rights organisation in Egypt has accused the interior ministry of manipulating the legal system to target a blogger who exposed police brutality.

Wael Abbas

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said Wael Abbas had been jailed for six months in a case that had already been closed.

A Cairo appeals court cleared him last month of damaging an internet cable.

But he was then convicted of “providing a telecommunications service to the public without permission”.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said it would take legal action against Mr Abbas’s neighbour, the brother of a police officer, whom it suspects of helping the authorities to persecute the blogger.

Mr Abbas’s new conviction and sentence were also condemned by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

‘Twisted legal path’

The blogger was sentenced in November to six months in prison and a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds ($90, £60) on the charge of damaging an internet cable.

This conviction was thrown out by the appeals court in February on the grounds that the charges were unfounded.

But Egypt’s Economic Court sentenced Mr Abbas on Wednesday to the same jail term and fine on the unauthorised telecommunications charge.

The CPJ quoted Mr Abbas’s lawyer, Rawda Ahmed, as saying that neither he nor his client had been informed of the new legal action, and his client remained a free man on Friday.

“This sentence was issued through a twisted legal path and reveals an invisible hand manipulating the case,” Mr Ahmed said.

“The case was closed and we already proved to the courts that the charges brought against my client were fabricated.”

Condemning the new conviction, the CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator, Mohamed Abdel Dayem, called on the Egyptian judiciary to overturn it.

“To manufacture one charge after another until one finally sticks makes a mockery of the law,” he said.

Mr Abbas is described by the CPJ as a leading voice in an anti-torture campaign in Egypt, posting a number of videos on his blog that revealed abuse of people in official custody.

The United Nations has slammed Egypt for killing 60 African migrants trying to reach Israel through the Sinai Desert since 2007.
U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay told Egypt to stop firing at Ethiopians, Eritreans and Sudanese near the Egypt-Israel border. Read the full story

For a country that prides itself on it’s democratic and freedom credentials Why is the USA lying in bed with these corrupt and shameless dictators. Read the full story

If the border with Egypt is not closed, then al-Qaida may use Sudanese refugees making their way into the country as cover to infiltrate and set up terrorist cells in Israel, senior IDF officials told Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during a tour on Thursday of two observation posts along the Sinai border. Read the full story