CAIRO, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s
decision to assume sweeping powers caused fury amongst his
opponents and prompted violent clashes in central Cairo and
other cities on Friday.

Police fired tear gas near Cairo’s Tahrir Square, heart of
the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, where thousands
demanded Mursi quit and accused him of launching a “coup”.
Angry youth hurled rocks at security forces and burned a police
truck.

CAIRO, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s
decree exempting all his decisions from legal challenge until a
new parliament was elected caused fury amongst his opponents on
Friday who accused him of being the new Hosni Mubarak and
hijacking the revolution.

Thousands of chanting protesters packed Tahrir Square, the
heart of the 2011 anti-Mubarak uprising, demanding Mursi quit
and accusing him of launching a “coup”. There were violent
protests in Alexandria, Port Said and Suez.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s decree exempting all his decisions from legal challenge until a new parliament was elected caused fury amongst his opponents on Friday who accused him of being the new Hosni Mubarak and hijacking the revolution.

Mursi’s aides said the decree was to speed up a protracted transition that has been hindered by legal obstacles but Mursi’s rivals were quick to condemn him as a new autocratic pharaoh who wanted to impose his Islamist vision on Egypt.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Mediating the Gaza truce was a bravura diplomatic performance by Egypt’s new President Mohamed Mursi, jacking up his personal stature and reassuring an anxious Washington that the architecture of Middle East peace can survive the Arab Spring.

For nearly two years, Washington has fretted over what would happen in a major showdown between Israel and the Palestinians without the Arab autocrats that kept stability for decades, above all Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak who presented himself as the personal guarantor of its 1979 peace with Israel.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Mediating the Gaza truce was a bravura diplomatic performance by Egypt’s new President Mohamed Mursi, jacking up his personal stature and reassuring an anxious Washington that the architecture of Middle East peace can survive the Arab Spring.

For nearly two years, Washington has fretted over what would happen in a major showdown between Israel and the Palestinians without the Arab autocrats that kept stability for decades, above all Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak who presented himself as the personal guarantor of its 1979 peace with Israel.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt reached a preliminary agreement on Tuesday with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan, a step seen as vital to shoring up the nation’s finances.

Investors who abandoned Egypt during the political turmoil that followed the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year have been looking to the IMF to give its seal of approval to the government’s economic program.

CAIRO, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Egypt reached a preliminary
agreement on Tuesday with the International Monetary Fund for a
$4.8 billion loan, a step seen as vital to shoring up the
nation’s finances.

Investors who abandoned Egypt during the political turmoil
that followed the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year have been
looking to the IMF to give its seal of approval to the
government’s economic programme.

CAIRO, Nov 19 (Reuters) – Egypt aims to secure agreement on
a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund in a
few days to help shore up its battered finances, the prime
minister said on Monday.

The IMF team in Cairo said earlier on Monday it was
extending its stay for a few days and that it was having
“constructive consultations” with the government on a deal seen
as vital to restoring investor confidence in the economy.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s prime minister said on Monday that an agreement brokered by Cairo to stop the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza could be close.

“Negotiations are going on as we speak and I hope we will reach something soon that will stop this violence and counter violence,” Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said in an interview in Cairo for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Fifty people, mostly children, were killed when a train slammed into a school bus as it crossed tracks in a city south of Cairo on Saturday, state media and officials said.

All but two of the dead were children, aged around four to eight, said a senior security official in Assiut, near the site. One woman and the bus driver also died, he added.