CAIRO, Sept 19 (Reuters) – Muslim and Arab leaders on
Wednesday denounced cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a French
magazine as another insult to their faith but urged people to
shun a violent reaction and to protest peacefully.

The cartoons, featured in the French satirical weekly
Charlie Hebdo, showed an Orthodox Jew pushing a turbaned figure
in a wheelchair on its cover. Several caricatures of the Prophet
were included on its inside pages, including some of him naked.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia stayed away from a meeting on the Syria crisis convened by regional powers on Monday, setting back a forum grouping Iran – President Bashar al-Assad’s main Middle East ally – and his leading opponents in the region.

The “contact group” of Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia arose from an initiative by Cairo, whose new president is looking to make his mark with what he has described as a balanced Egyptian foreign policy.

CAIRO, Aug 14 (Reuters) – A blunder by the Egyptian army
that left 16 border guards dead at the hands of Islamist
militants gave President Mohamed Mursi an unexpectedly early
chance to claw back powers from a military whose political
influence he had always wanted to restrict.

A week after the raid on Egypt’s Sinai border that outraged
ordinary Egyptians and some soldiers, angry at what they saw as
a failure in military leadership, Mursi on Sunday dismissed the
country’s two top generals and tore up an army decree that had
curbed his powers.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian appeals court judge Ahmed Mekky said he has accepted the post of justice minister in Egypt’s first cabinet in the government of newly elected President Mohamed Mursi, and is to be sworn in with other cabinet officers on Thursday.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, who had himself been a little known technocrat in the irrigation ministry until tapped by Mursi, formed the cabinet with career bureaucrats and at least three Islamist politicians, including the education minister.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Exiled Syrian politicians unveiled a new opposition alliance on Tuesday and asked one of its members to form a transitional government in a challenge to the Syrian National Council, another group that has said it will do the same.

The launch of the “Council for the Syrian Revolution” marks the latest effort by an opposition plagued by divisions to forge a political alternative to President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are trying to put down a 16-month armed uprising.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s Islamist-led parliament reconvened on Tuesday in an open challenge to the generals who dissolved it last month.

The supreme court swiftly ruled the newly elected, Islamist president had acted illegally in summoning the assembly, heightening a confrontation between the newly elected head of state and an establishment that once served Hosni Mubarak.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s Islamist-led parliament reconvened on Tuesday after being summoned by new President Mohamed Mursi in an open challenge to the generals who dissolved it last month.

The assembly, dominated by Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood and allies, was dismissed by the army in line with a court ruling issued days before Mursi’s election. Mursi took office on June 30 ago, the first civilian leader after six decades of military men in power, and recalled the parliament in a decree on Sunday.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s parliamentary speaker said the chamber would reconvene on Tuesday after the new, Islamist president risked a showdown with the generals by quashing their decision to dissolve the assembly last month.

Quoted by the state news agency on Monday, Saad al-Katatni, who like President Mohamed Mursi hails from the long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood, said the lower house would sit from noon (0600 EDT) on Tuesday, defying the army’s order to dismiss parliament a month ago, based on a court ruling.

CAIRO, July 9 (Reuters) – A judge in Egypt threw out pleas
for the release of former president Hosni Mubarak’s two sons
from detention on Monday, saying they must remain in prison
until their corruption trial resumes in September.

Gamal and Alaa Mubarak, with seven other men, are accused of
violating stock market and central bank rules to make unlawful
profits through dealing in shares of Al Watany Bank of Egypt
.

CAIRO (Reuters) – A brawl at a meeting of the Syrian opposition this week in Cairo put on display the divisions among those struggling to oust President Bashar al-Assad and provides an excuse for world powers who have been wary of intervention to sit on their hands.

The row that spilled into the marble-lined corridors of a five-star Cairo hotel on Tuesday came at the end of a two-day meeting sponsored by the Arab League that had begun with appeals from Arab and Turkish ministers for a show of unity.