Cairo

Jay VanRensselaer had photographed archaeological digs in Egypt since 1996 without ever feeling uncomfortable or unwelcome. But the Johns Hopkins University staff member sensed a seething anger in the populace last week as he finished another excavation with Hopkins graduates and undergraduates. When one of the students read Facebook posts about overthrowing the government on Friday — well, it seemed like a good time to go. "At no point did I feel threatened, but there was a certain level of anxiety," VanRensselaer said.

Egyptian Pizza owner Mohamed Mahmoud is reconsidering his trip to Egypt next month. Mahmoud, 55, who has owned the Belvedere Square restaurant since 1990, was planning to fly to Cairo in February to visit family but might be forced to cancel his trip as the country continues to erupt in violent unrest. More than a hundred people have died since the anti-government protests began five days ago. Mahmoud, who came to the United States in the mid-1980s and settled in Baltimore, said he frequently returns to Egypt to visit family.

Joseph A. Dabbah, a well-known former Baltimore watchmaker who kept his customers' wristwatches, pocket watches and decorative clocks on time and ticking for nearly half a century, died July 18 in his sleep at his home in Delray Beach, Fla. He was 88. Mr. Dabbah, who had lived for more than 30 years in the Milbrook neighborhood near Pikesville, was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. "He was 15 when his father died, and suddenly he was the man of the house. He was the oldest and had to help his mother with the other children," said his daughter, Claudette Jacobs, a registered nurse-educator at Howard County General Hospital who lives in Dayton.

CAIRO -A bomb exploded yesterday in a bazaar near the historic Hussein mosque in Cairo, killing a French woman, wounding 18 others and raising fears that Islamic militants might be targeting Egypt's tourism industry after several years of relative quiet. The blast was small, but it reverberated through the tight alleys of the centuries-old Khan El-Khalili bazaar and sent shopkeepers, coffee shop waiters, worshipers and tourists scrambling for cover. Egyptian state-owned TV reported that a French tourist was killed and the other victims, mostly foreigners, were injured when two masked women tossed a bomb from the roof of a motel just after dusk.

CAIRO -- As I sat in a dingy Internet cafe in downtown Cairo, waiting for a free computer terminal, I saw an Egyptian youth no older than 18 updating a blog. The title of his post was Al-Intikhabaat - Arabic for "The Elections" - and while a small font size kept me from reading the body of his entry, he was probably commenting on Egypt's legislative elections that took place here this month. His missive complete within five or 10 minutes, he logged off of the computer, freeing up the terminal for me to take his place.

Naguib Mahfouz, the cafe denizen who became the first Arab author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature - for novels that evoked the scent, color and texture of life in the streets of his native Cairo - died yesterday. He was 94. Mr. Mahfouz had been hospitalized in Cairo since taking a fall last month. He died after suffering a bleeding ulcer, his doctors told news services. Mr. Mahfouz's life traced an outline of the daily pleasures and political struggles of his beloved homeland, and the broader Arab world beyond.

PHILADELPHIA -- The disconnect between President Bush's public push for Mideast democracy and developments in the region was in full view last week in Washington and Cairo. Last Friday, Gamal Mubarak, the son of Egypt's president and thus his presumed heir, was welcomed by Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at the White House. The younger Mr. Mubarak is supposedly spearheading democratic reforms within his father's political party. But the day before Mr. Mubarak's White House confab, police in Cairo beat demonstrators protesting the punishment of two reform-minded Egyptian judges.

CAIRO, EGYPT -- A high-profile political challenger to President Hosni Mubarak remained in jail yesterday after losing a bid for a judicial review of a forgery conviction stemming from last year's presidential campaign. The appeals court's rebuff to Ayman Nour came as riot police arrested hundreds of demonstrators who turned out to support two prominent judges facing reprimands for speaking openly about election irregularities. Nour and Judges Mahmoud Mekki and Hisham Bastawissi are widely seen as paying the price for demanding reforms and challenging the 25-year rule of Mubarak and his National Democratic Party.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Thousands of cane-wielding riot police clubbed and arrested protesters and journalists yesterday as the Egyptian government clamped down bloodily on a demonstration to support two pro-reform judges. Toting shields and sticks, police and plain-clothes security men flooded the streets of the capital in the morning, sealing off roads, closing subway stations and waiting for protesters. As chanting bands of demonstrators attempted to coalesce into a street protest, the riot police swarmed.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Thousands of riot police officers sealed off access to the High Court yesterday, beating and arresting protesters who had turned out to support two judges facing a disciplinary panel because they had accused the government of election fraud. The huge show of force, appearing larger even than what was deployed in the Sinai after four bombings there this week, seemed to signal that President Hosni Mubarak's government had reached a breaking point over dissent. The focus was a relatively small demonstration over the treatment of the two judges and in support of more than 80 judges who had been staging a sit-in for more than a week at the stately old Judge's Club to demand an independent judiciary.