Egypt

JERUSALEM -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak condemned yesterday the recent Hamas takeover of Gaza as a coup that threatens the future of a single Palestinian state. Speaking before lawmakers in Cairo, Egypt, Mubarak said Egypt supports Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Fatah party, whose Gaza security forces were routed by Hamas nearly two weeks ago. The split has left a battered political landscape in which the Islamist-backed Hamas controls Gaza and the moderate Fatah reigns over the West Bank.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Iran's supreme leader gave a ringing endorsement yesterday to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's foreign policy, suggesting that Iran's top authority favors an ultra-conservative hard-line bloc over those seeking rapprochement with the West. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the final arbiter of political, military and religious decisions in Iran's government. Khamenei, with Ahmadinejad at his side, backed the government's hard-line course. Khamenei said Iran would continue to develop advanced nuclear technology and rejected the Bush administration's accusations that Iran was meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Venue Where -- 1027 Light St. Call -- 410-244-8445 Notable -- A huge flat-screen TV plays Middle Eastern pop music videos, dozens of board games sit on a shelf near the back. The place is BYOB (for a fee), and stays open until 4 a.m. some Friday and Saturday nights, depending on the crowd. Vibe -- Probably what hookah bars look like in Egypt: metal chairs, simple tables, some hieroglyphics. Crowd -- Everyone from late teenagers to 50-somethings smoke and sip tea late night. What to wear -- Something comfortable.

Parents and teachers know that consistent enforcement is critical. A child or student does not thrive with mixed messages; the policies of the home or classroom must be reliable to ensure effective management. Yet in adult relationships - and in relations between nations - the importance of consistency is often forgotten. This is certainly true of American policy toward Egypt, its closest Arab ally. While U.S. policies in the Middle East have never been dependable, let alone consistent, a recent blot on U.S. attempts to bring democracy and freedom has emerged in Egypt.

THE RECENT crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 has become a national obsession in Egypt. To wary Egyptians, the investigation into the disaster's cause is not a search for truth but the latest flash point in the cultural confrontation between the Muslim world and the West.Perhaps no event since Egypt's defeat in the Six-Day War in 1967 has touched the nation's psyche more than U.S. news media reports suggesting that EgyptAir co-pilot Gameel el-Batouty committed suicide by deliberately crashing the plane.

CAIRO, Egypt -- The names suggest kiddie parks or country clubs -- Dreamland, Royal Hills, Gardenia Park. Out in the desert wastelands surrounding Cairo, a new world is springing up -- one that, for better or worse, could determine the future of Egypt's teeming, overpopulated capital.Long fed up with the pollution, noise, traffic and general hassle of Cairo life, upper-class Egyptians have started looking outward -- to the dozens of elite, gated communities being built outside the city.Construction is nonstop -- and so is the debate about whether these new communities will save Cairo or finish it off.Egypt has always been a place of rigid class divisions, but until now rich and poor had lived side by side in relative harmony.

A bit of graffiti carved on a rock in a remote desert area of Egypt nearly 4,000 years ago has forced historians and archaeologists to change their theories on when and where the alphabet originated."

Joseph Dabbah has not labeled all of the tiny drawers in his cabinets. No cash register sits at the front counter, and the storage room consists of a few boxes atop a dusty chest.The downtown Baltimore shop is more like a home than an impersonal place of business -- Dabbah knows the location of everything. Over 40 years, he has arranged the little watch shop to his liking.So much so that he wouldn't let just any clock-and-watchmaker take his place.Dabbah, 77, is trying to find someone as devoted to watchmaking and repair as he to take over the business at Calvert and Lombard streets.

U.N. tribunal moves to speed up trials in '94 Rwanda genocideARUSHA, Tanzania -- Hoping to speed up its work, the U.N. tribunal trying suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide opened a third courtroom yesterday and swore in three new judges.The addition brings to nine the number serving the tribunal, established in November 1994 to bring to justice those responsible for the slaughter in which at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.Rwandan authorities and human rights groups have accused the court -- which has completed work on four cases -- of incompetence.

CAIRO, Egypt -- Traveling high above the Earth, the first men to circle the globe nonstop in a balloon say they reached a higher achievement, an appreciation for the planet and for peace."

CAIRO, Egypt -- He came with good will and pretty sentences, but the question kept echoing: Were they enough? President Barack Obama's long-anticipated speech to the Muslim world Thursday sought to dissolve the mistrust between Islam and the West by highlighting his personal appeal as he called for an end to intolerance and violence and a move toward a shared future. It was a carefully textured blend of history, the president's experience with Islam and the need to quell religious extremism.

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.

Pakistan acknowledges Mumbai gunman ISLAMABAD, Pakistan : Pakistan's information minister says an investigation has revealed that the lone surviving Mumbai gunman is a Pakistani citizen, as India has alleged. Up until now, Pakistan had refused to confirm Ajmal Kasab's nationality, saying he was not registered in the country's databases. Information Minister Sherry Rehman confirmed that Kasab was a Pakistani in a text message but gave no other details. The confirmation yesterday came a day after New Delhi handed over a dossier of what it said was evidence linking the Mumbai attackers to Pakistan.

ABDEL-HALIM ABU GHAZALA, 78 Egyptian defense minister Abdel-Halim Abu Ghazala, Egypt's former defense minister and a veteran of Arab-Israeli wars who was once considered a possible successor to President Hosni Mubarak, died Saturday at a Cairo military hospital of complications related to throat cancer, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported. Mr. Abu Ghazala served as Egypt's military attache in Washington in the late 1970s, where he developed close ties with the U.S. military after Cairo signed a peace treaty with Israel.

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt -- Wrapping up a five-day tour of the Middle East, President Bush told his Arab allies yesterday that expanding democratic reforms and isolating the "spoilers" - Iran and Syria - were crucial steps to a secure and prosperous future for the region. Bush spoke at the opening of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East in this Red Sea resort town, where 1,500 policymakers have gathered. More lecture than rallying cry, Bush's speech stuck to familiar themes: Iran's nuclear program, more civil liberties, a bigger role for Arab women, free trade and progress on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of the year.

We're considering the idea of swapping houses while in London. How can we find a suitable family? There are many home-exchange sites on the Internet offering domestic and international house swaps ranging from a few days to a month or more. Britain is a popular destination. Among the better-known sites are Homeexchange.com and Homelink. org. Homeexchange charges $99.95 for a one-year membership; at Homelink, you'll pay $110. The site Digsville.com charges $44.95 but has fewer listings.

JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian blew himself up yesterday in a desert town near Israel's nuclear reactor, killing a woman and wounding 11 other people in the first suicide attack in Israel in just over a year. Police prevented a second blast at the same shopping center in Dimona by fatally shooting another attacker as he reached for his explosives-laden belt. The violence was the latest to sour the climate for U.S.-backed peace talks since they were revived in December after a seven-year hiatus.

JERUSALEM -- Hamas said yesterday that it would cooperate with Egypt to close the breached border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip today. Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official, said that his group's gunmen would be removed from the Gaza side of the border and that efforts would be made to avoid any violence or confrontation with Egyptian border guards. Zahar spoke on his return to Gaza after meeting with Egyptian officials in Cairo. Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza, blew up sections of a wall along the border with Egypt on Jan. 23, days after Israel sealed its border crossings with Gaza in response to intensified rocket fire against Israel.

Bomb making has never been a problem for Hamas engineers. An explosion at the Gaza Strip's southern border last week crumpled sections of the barrier wall, sending thousands of Palestinians streaming into Egypt. The handiwork also should have shattered anyone's notion that the Islamic militant group could be confined to its Gaza prison and isolated there. The U.S. and Israeli policy of containment looks increasingly irrelevant as the Jewish state endures countless rocket attacks in its southern region and Egypt succumbs to the manipulative tactics of Hamas leaders.

RAFAH, Egypt -- Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Egypt yesterday after Hamas militants blew up parts of the fence dividing Egypt from the Gaza Strip, forcing an end to the closing of Gaza that had followed Hamas' takeover of the territory last summer. On foot, bicycle, donkey cart and pickup truck, Gazans crossed the border for a buying spree of medicine, cement, sheep, Coca-Cola, gasoline, soap, cigarettes, satellite dishes and countless other supplies that have been cut off, especially in recent days during a blockade by Israel after rocket attacks from Gaza.