Islamic-World

Egyptian border guards shot a Sudanese refugee and arrested two others early Wednesday as they tried to cross from Egypt into Israel, a police official said.

Egypt’s state-appointed Grand Mufti, who last week declared female genital cutting as banned in Islam, defended his decision by likening the practice to an ancient custom once wrongly seen as necessary for good health.

An Egyptian court accepted an appeal Monday from 45 Copts who were denied the right to reclaim their religious identities after they decided to convert back to Christianity from Islam, a lawyer and court officials said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged on Monday he had spoken out of turn in a report that leaned towards the Moroccan side in protracted negotiations with the Polisario movement over western Sahara.

The death toll for private contractors in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has topped 1,000, a stark reminder of the risks run by civilians working with the military in roles previously held by soldiers.

At least 12 people were killed and 58 injured when two buses crashed head-on in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula on Tuesday, a security source said.

Egypt’s president has denied that the son-in-law of the country’s late leader Gamal Abdel Nasser was a spy, the state-run news agency reported Monday, breaking the state’s silence soon after the man’s death.

The government of moderate Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad promised Monday to pay full salaries to tens of thousands of civil servants for at least six months, but also warned that employees cooperating with the Islamist Hamas will be cut from the payroll.

Thousands of Palestinians left stranded on the Egyptian side of the border since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip will be allowed to cross through the Kerem Shalom crossing Tuesday and return to Gaza following an agreement between Israel and Egypt.

A new United Nations resolution is needed to ensure that Sudan accepts the deployment of a long-awaited hybrid force to Darfur, the head of the African Union commission said Sunday.