U.S. Copts Association

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Stranded Palestinian haj pilgrims protesting at Egypt’s refusal to allow them to return to Gaza through a Hamas-controlled crossing, smashed furniture and windows at a shelter on Monday, a security source said.

“There were massive protests today by hundreds of angry Palestinian pilgrims inside the shelter set up by Egyptian authorities,” the source said.

The pilgrims are trying to return to Gaza after completing the annual haj pilgrimage in the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

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Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning says abortion will help maintain social stability.
CAIRO - Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, Sunday declared that any woman pregnant by rape must abort the baby immediately in order to maintain “social stability”.

“A raped woman must terminate the pregnancy immediately upon learning of the pregnancy if a trusted doctor gives her clearance for the abortion,” the Islamic Research Council of the Cairo-based institution said in a statement.

This would ensure “social stability,” it said.
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CAIRO (Reuters) - At least 19 people were killed and 40 injured when a public inter-city bus collided with a truck and flipped into an irrigation canal in southern Egypt, security sources said on Monday.

The bus was traveling on a highway between the cities of Minya and Assiut in the Nile Valley, the sources said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - At least 19 people were killed and 40 injured when a public inter-city bus collided with a truck and flipped into an irrigation canal in southern Egypt, security sources said on Monday.

The bus was traveling on a highway between the cities of Minya and Assiut in the Nile Valley, the sources said.

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 woman has died of bird flu in Menoufiya province in the Nile Delta - the third person in Egypt to have died of the virus in the past week.The official Egyptian news agency said the woman contracted the virus after coming into contact with poultry infected with the H5N1 strain.

Eighteen people have now died of bird flu in Egypt in the past two years.
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By Youssef Sidhom

Tomorrow we leave behind 2007 and move forward, amid greetings and good wishes, to 2008. We turn over a new leaf and open a blank page, believing the new year is a new beginning while in reality it is nothing but a mere continuation of the previous year. We begin 2008 overburdened with a heavy load of pain, yet full of hope since, despite last year’s failures and achievements, and despite our community problems, change looms on the horizon lighting up the end of the tunnel.
We have before us a lot of work if we are to achieve the desired change. The year 2008 is the year of citizenship rights-a domain which includes countless flaws and shortcomings in the implementation of rights equally between the children of the motherland. Many forms of discrimination exist between Egyptians -between the rich and poor, men and women, Muslims and Christians, original believers and converts, the powerful elite and the powerless commons, the enlightened and the revisionists, those who call for a civic State and those who call for a religious State-causing agony and holding back progress. Contradictions and discrimination have been on the rise, and are now time bombs that may explode any minute and blow us all up. Yet we possess this amazing ability of turning a blind eye to our problems, and brightly smiling to ring in the New Year.
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An unprecedented move

By Nader Shukry - Watani Newspaper

In a step that is unprecedented in the aftermath of sectarian violence, the victims of the most recent sectarian attack against Coptic property, which occurred in the Upper Egyptian town of Esna three weeks ago, were indemnified for the damages they incurred. They were handed cheques which amounted to a total value of LE1,295,000 by order of Qena governor Magdy Ayoub. The local Church of the Holy Virgin, the shrine of the three peasants-a 4th-century shrine built to commemorate three Coptic Esna peasants who had been martyred during the Christian persecution in the third century-and 26 shops had been subjected to various degrees of damage and plunder during the riots.

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By Robeir al-Faris - Watani Newspaper

Suddenly,
His looks were transformed.
Even his clothes changed.
His hand held a spear.
His thoughts wandered,
Bordering on delirium.

Stupefied, he broke into the officer’s office,
Has time gone backwards?
Was he now a Roman soldier?
He had been guarding the prisoner Shadya
Whose crime was
A quarter of a century ago,
Her father messed with religions.
Shuttling between Christianity and Islam.
Shadya was but a child then.
Now she is a woman, he told the officer.
No longer Shadya,
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Sufficiently disheartening
By Robeir al-Faris - Watani Newspaper

We might as well begin our reading of the Cairo press this month-which practically sums up Egyptian attitude this past year regarding religions and Copts-with a warning to readers. It is obvious the fanatic Islamic tide is spreading to cover extensively larger ground on the Egyptian scene, invading the body, thought and soul of more and more Egyptians. In this particular regard matters appear to go from worse to worst. To anyone who has no qualms about ending up sorely disheartened, we offer this reading.

Jihad rethought?
The Cairo independent daily al-Masri al-Youm earlier this month printed the text of the Jihadists ‘intellectual revisions’ summed up in Sayed Imam’s “The document on rationalising jihad”. Dr Imam is one of the pillars of the jihadi movement, and is notorious for his fatwas condoning terrorist operations. The document, which was printed in full in 15 episodes, claimed to renounce violence. Its 10th chapter tackled the “Treatment of the people of the Book [Christians and Jews] who reside in Muslim countries”. A book may be easily judged by its cover-in this case its title; so the countries belong to the Muslims?! Dr Imam explicitly upholds the principle of ahl al-dimma, whereby non-Muslims who live in ‘Muslim’ countries are dimmis, that is subjects of the Islamic establishment, not citizens of the motherland. He describes the dimma concept as unchanging, irrevocable, and obliging to all Muslims whenever possible, since it was established by the Caliph Omar Ibn al-Khattab who was the second to rule the Muslim people after the Prophet Mohamed died. As to citizenship concepts and the rights and duties they entitle, Dr Imam declares, they were only introduced through modern Constitutions which can in no way compete with Islamic principles. “Islam rises and nothing else rises above it”, the prophet of Islam once said.

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Hamas Islamists called on Egypt on Saturday to open its border crossing with the Gaza Strip to let more than 2,000 Palestinians return to their homes from the annual haj pilgrimage in Mecca.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, wants Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing to allow the Palestinians to pass directly into the coastal territory rather than going through Israeli border posts first.

A Hamas official said Egypt informed the groups that it will allow all the stranded Palestinians to disembark from ships to enter Egypt, but it remained unclear when and how they would enter Gaza.
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Qaeda official blames Pakistani government for killing Bhutto, expresses ‘shock over her death’.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - An Al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud, blamed by the Pakistan government for killing Benazir Bhutto, denied any involvement in her death, his spokesman said on Saturday.

“He had no involvement in this attack,” spokesman Maulana Omar said in a telephone call. “This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies.”
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