Egypt News By Asfory
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Iran’s police chief says more than 500 opposition protesters have been arrested since clashes on Sunday that left at least eight dead.

Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said Wednesday the number of arrests may be higher because hardline Basij militiamen and intelligence agents may have apprehended more people on their own.

The clashes Sunday were the most violent since the aftermath of June’s disputed presidential election.

The semiofficial Fars news agency says the nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, one of those killed on Sunday, was buried Wednesday. Authorities had taken the body from the hospital earlier in the week, in what was seen as an attempt to prevent the funeral from turning into a protest.

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One hundred international activists left Cairo on Wednesday for the Gaza Strip, after Egypt denied passage to another 1,200 who planned to march in solidarity with the besieged enclave’s Palestinians.

“Two buses with 100 delegates on board left this morning for Gaza,” Ann Wright, one of the organisers of the Gaza Freedom March, told AFP.

Egyptian authorities had banned the activists who have come to Cairo from 42 countries to take part in the march from entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, the only entry that bypasses Israel.

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The United States and its allies are weighing focused sanctions against Iran’s leadership rather than broad-based penalties that they fear could harm the protest movement, officials and diplomats said.

Increasingly frustrated by Iranian defiance over its nuclear program, the Obama administration has been crafting a “menu” of sanctions that could be imposed by the United Nations or in concert by the United States and its European allies.

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The Dutch government is releasing results of its investigation into the failed Christmas Day terror attack on a U.S.-bound airliner that took off from Amsterdam.

Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst is holding a press conference Wednesday to outline a probe into how 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab managed to board the Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit from Nigeria by way of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
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The US was aware that “a Nigerian” in Yemen was being prepared for a terrorist attack – weeks before an attempted bombing on a US plane.

ABC News and the New York Times have reported the story, but the source of the intelligence is unclear.
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Staggered explosions killed 23 people — 13 of them policemen — and injured the governor of Anbar on Wednesday, Iraqi officials said, the worst violence in months to hit the western province as it struggles to stamp out the remnants of the al-Qaida insurgency.

Anbar is strategically important because it was once the heartland of support for al-Qaida linked militants before American officials paid Iraqi fighters to join a pro-government force. The governor is the most senior Sunni leader to be attacked since then.

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The head of a presidential delegation investigating the deaths of 10 people in eastern Afghanistan concluded Wednesday that civilians — including schoolchildren — were killed in an attack involving foreign troops, disputing NATO reports that the dead were insurgents.

Asadullah Wafa, a senior adviser to President Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press by telephone that eight schoolchildren between the ages of 12 and 14 were among the dead discovered in a village house in the Narang district of Kunar province.

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حذر تقرير صادر عن مركز أبحاث تابع للكونجرس الأمريكي من أن التحرك في الكونجرس نحو تصنيف قمري نايل سات وعرب سات كمؤسسات راعية للإرهاب لبثهما قناة المنار التابعة لحزب اللبناني، يمكن أن يتسبب في تدهور علاقات الولايات المتحدة مع كل من مصر والسعودية المساهمتين الكبيرتين في القمرين.

وقال التقرير الصادر عن خدمة الأبحاث بالكونجرس ؛ الذراع البحثية للكونجرس الأمريكي ، قال إن تصنيف نايل سات وعرب سات كمؤسسات راعية للإرهاب العالمي وفقا لمشروع القانون رقم 2278 بمجلس النواب الأمريكي “يمكن أن يؤدي إلى تدهور في علاقات الولايات مع مصر والسعودية”.

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استكمل الرئيس حسني مبارك مباحثاته مع بنيامين نيتانياهو رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بمقر رئاسة الجمهورية بعد ظهر أمس في جلسة مباحثات موسعة حضرها السيد أحمد أبوالغيط وزير الخارجية‏,‏ والوزير عمر سليمان والوفد الإسرائيلي المرافق لنيتانياهو‏.‏

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استقبل الدكتور عبد المنعم سعيد رئيس مجلس إدارة مؤسسة الأهرام الشيخ عكرمة صبري إمام وخطيب المسجد الأقصي ومفتي القدس سابقا .‏

وقد أعرب الشيخ عكرمة ـ خلال اللقاء ـ عن تقديره لدور مصر حكومة وشعبا في دعم قضايا الشعب الفلسطيني‏,‏ كما هنأ الأهرام بمناسبة مرور‏135‏ عاما علي تأسيسها‏,‏ مشيدا بدورها الريادي في المنطقة ودعمها للقضية الفلسطينية‏.‏ ومن جانبه أعرب الدكتور عبد المنعم سعيد عن تقديره للدور الذي يقوم به الشيخ عكرمة صبري وسعادته بزيارته للأهرام‏,‏ مستفسرا من الشيخ عكرمة صبري عن طبيعة التطورات علي الأرض في مدينة القدس والمسجد الأقصي‏,‏ وتأثير السياسات الإسرائيلية تجاه سكان القدس‏,‏ وما إذا كانت المقاطعة العربية للأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة تسهم في وضع السكان الفلسطينيين في تشديد الحصار علي القدس والتهديد للأماكن المقدسة وإحكام القبضة الإسرائيلية علي سكانها‏
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