Egypt, North Africa | featured news

An Egyptian judge has fined Hosni Mubarak and two other former officials $90 million for government-imposed telecommunication disruptions during the popular uprising earlier this year.

Hundreds of Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip arrived here by the busload on Saturday to pass through the reopened border into Egypt, taking a tangible step out of a four-year Israeli blockade.

A new satellite survey of Egypt reportedly found 17 lost pyramids along with more than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements. The survey used infra-red images to detect underground buildings, the BBC reports.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Tuesday unveiled $6 billion in funding to help Tunisia and Egypt address budget and reserve shortfalls this year and next, following popular uprisings that ended years of dictatorships but which have caused economic stress.

Egyptian state television announced Tuesday that former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak had been officially released after turning over $4 million in assets to the finance ministry, according to Assem Gohari, the head of the country's illicit-gains authority.

Hosni Mubarak will remain in detention for at least another 15 days, as prosecutors further investigate the former Egyptian president and other high-ranking members of his deposed government, state media reported.

The United States is studying ways to support Egypt's economy following Hosni Mubarak's overthrow, the U.S. embassy said on Monday after a U.S. newspaper said Washington had decided to provide $1 billion in debt relief.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could be executed if he is convicted of ordering the killing of protesters, Egypt's justice minister said Wednesday.

A court ordered the dissolving of Egypt's former ruling party on Saturday, meeting a major demand of the protesters who wanted to ensure that the party that monopolized the country's politics and government for decades is definitively broken after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

Even if the former president and his sons are eventually cleared, the fact that they are being brought before the law means the world to many Egyptians.For almost three decades he wielded unquestioned power, a seemingly invincible figure ruling with a sense of privilege and ruthlessness that epitomized autocrats across the Middle East.