Egypt, Africa | featured news

An Egyptian couple has been charged with putting their child at risk and attempted smuggling after security officers at an airport in the United Arab Emirates found their 5-month-old boy hidden in a small handbag.

Egypt’s dissolved parliament defied a court order and reconvened Tuesday, escalating the power struggle between the newly elected Islamist president and the military over the political future of a nation still tangled in the legacy of toppled leader Hosni Mubarak.

Mohamed Morsi was formally sworn in on Saturday as Egypt’s first democratically elected president, marking a new stage in an ever murkier struggle to define the future of the nation.

The chairman of the election commission announced that Mohamed Morsi had won 51 percent of the runoff vote completed last weekend, an ambiguous marker in Egypt’s promised transition to democracy.

The attorney for ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called recent reports of Mubarak's death an "outrageous rumor," saying the former leader was regaining his health.

Egypt's state news agency said Tuesday that Hosni Mubarak has suffered a stroke, and prison officials said he is likely to be moved out of his prison hospital to a military facility nearby....

Egypt entered its final day of voting on Sunday with very few people going to the polls to choose Hosni Mubarak’s successor under a cloud of apprehension and anticipation. Turnout appeared dismal in a sign of just how polarizing and demoralizing the choice between a military strongman and conservative Islamist is for the Arab World’s most populous nation.

The developments, reported on the Web site of the official newspaper Al Ahram, further escalated tensions over court rulings on Thursday that invalidated modern Egypt’s first democratically elected legislature. Coming on the eve of a presidential runoff, they thrust the nation’s troubled transition to democracy since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak last year into grave doubt.

Doctors used a defibrillator twice on Hosni Mubarak Monday when they could not find a pulse, the latest health crisis for the ousted Egyptian president since he was sentenced to life and moved to a prison hospital nine days ago, security officials said.

Interior Ministry officials said on Wednesday that prison authorities are close to a decision to return Hosni Mubarak, the former president, to a hospital outside the penal system.