Islamic World News

Israel’s prime minister on Monday announced plans to release 250 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and promised to improve life in the West Bank in an attempt to boost Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after the militant group Hamas’ takeover in Gaza.

DUBAI: A man described as a leader of al-Qaeda’s wing in Egypt called for attacks on Israeli and Western targets in the Arab world’s most populous country in support of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

A nuclear engineer at Egypt’s state-run Atomic Energy Agency was convicted by an Egyptian court of spying for Israel on Monday and sentenced to life in prison.

Iranian authorities have launched a ferocious crackdown on dissent, targeting labor leaders, universities, the press, women’s rights advocates and Iranian-Americans, The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday.

Sudan must stop trying to “scale back” a hybrid international force for Darfur, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she flew to Paris for talks on the humanitarian crisis in the western Sudanese region.

The bloody takeover of Gaza by Hamas was a “coup against legitimacy”, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Saturday, two days before he hosts a regional summit seen as an attempt to isolate the Islamist group.

Egypt moved forcefully Thursday to isolate Hamas, calling a regional summit next week including the Israelis and Palestinians — and shunning contacts with the militant group after its takeover of Gaza.

CAIRO (Reuters) – The bloody takeover of Gaza by Hamas was a “coup against legitimacy,” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Saturday, two days before he hosts a regional summit seen as an attempt to isolate the Islamist group.

The emergence of “Hamastan” in Gaza sent leaders in the Middle East and elsewhere scrambling for an answer: Whose fault is it? Is it reversible? Will the same thing happen in the West Bank? What should and could be done now? In this soul-searching process there is plenty of blame …

President Hosni Mubarak yesterday signed a long-awaited law on teachers’ pay, which was passed by the People’s Assembly (the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament) on Wednesday. As of July 1, teachers and all other personnel involved in education will be entitled to pay rises.