Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has announced the first round of elections for the country’s upper house of parliament will be held on June 11.

WASHINGTON, May — U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday toward the end of a regional tour, focusing on ways to stem chaos in Iraq and on Iran’s impact on security in the Gulf.

Egyptian magistrates have opened an inquiry and interviewed 20 witnesses following religious clashes in recent days in Al Ayat, south of the capital Cairo, independent daily al-Masri al-Yom reported Monday.

The wife of jailed Egyptian opposition politician Ayman Nour, the main challenger to Hosni Mubarak in a 2005 presidential election, said he was assaulted by security men on Saturday in a courthouse stairwell.

Egyptian and Gulf real estate firms bought three large tracts of land near Cairo on Saturday earmarked for housing development, netting LE 13.3 billion ($2.3 billion) for the government, officials said.    

Israel insisted on Tuesday that any information he had divulged was already in the public domain and had been handed over with the blessing of the authorities. insisted on Tuesday that any information he had divulged was already in the public domain and had been handed over with the blessing …

EGYPT needs huge investment in the tourism sector to meet anticipated demand for facilities, a top official has said. “The country is experiencing continued investment in hotel development and on-site innovation, with properties across the destination working to increase their hosting capacities,” said Amr el-Ezabi, chairman of Egyptian Tourism Authority. …

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that the country is ready to re-establish full diplomatic ties with Egypt. He told reporters at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport that Tehran’s “preparedness to reopen its Embassy in Egypt signals Iran’s good will.”

UNITED NATIONS (AP)–Egypt, Angola and Qatar easily won seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council Thursday despite opposition from human rights groups, but Belarus trailed and was forced into a second round of voting.

Rasha Mohammed is always looking for new hijab styles. When she’s not watching Egyptian fashion TV, Ms. Mohammed is checking out what other young Muslim women are wearing on the street or on the subway. “If I like any of their ways of putting [on the] hijab, I can ask …