Egyptian complicity in Israel’s Gaza bloodbath is giving fresh impetus to struggles against the Mubarak regime, writes the Guardian’s Jack Shenker…

The racist French Consulate in Cairo denied Khaled Hamza an entry visa to attend a human rights meeting in Paris…

From the World Tribune…
Congress has approved $1.5 billion in U.S. military and civilian aid to Egypt for fiscal 2009, which begins in October. The figure marked a 12 percent reduction from U.S. aid to Egypt in 2008, when Cairo received $1.71 billion.
Congressional sources said the U.S. military aid would be dependent on improvements in Egyptian [...]

From AFP…
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit made a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday, the first such trip since 1990, saying it was the right time to expand relations between the two nations. “We feel it is the proper time to come to Iraq and launch deeper Iraq-Egypt relations,” Abu al-Gheit told reporters after [...]

It’s now Israel’s turn to praise “Mubarak’s wisdom“…
Yasser Reda A. Aly Said, Egypt’s new ambassador to Israel, was the last of four heads of foreign missions to present his credentials to President Shimon Peres on Wednesday….
He also paid credit to President Hosni Mubarak for “the important role he played in Oslo.”
Israel had taken his advice [...]

Via Mark Curtis…
Percy Cradock, Foreign and Commonwealth Office planning staff, to Sir Denis Greenhill, Permanent Under-Secretary, FCO, 24 July 1970
‘We start from the fact that our economic interests in the Arab world greatly outweigh those in Israel. It would be reasonable to expect that our policy should reflect this fact. It does not do so [...]

From AFP…
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak during talks with President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday voiced rare praise for Egypt’s efforts to stem weapons smuggling into the Islamist-run Gaza Strip.
Barak hailed Egyptian efforts along the porous border which “have visibly been effective,” said a statement from the Israeli defense ministry after the talks at one of [...]

From the Daily News Egypt…
Egypt sent a delegation to Iraq this week to check the diplomatic compounds and examine the technical, managerial and security aspects of reopening an embassy in Baghdad.
Cairo closed down its embassy in 2005 after its ambassador to Baghdad Ihab A-Sharif was kidnapped and killed in 2005.
Egypt is one of several Arab [...]

From the Daily News Egypt…
Israel has offered to assist Egypt in building a technologically advanced wall along its border with the Gaza strip, the Israeli press reported Monday.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited an Israeli defense source as saying that fears of another breach like the one in January, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured [...]

From the Sunday Times…
Millions of pounds of British government money is going to Palestinian security forces which use methods of torture including hanging prisoners by their feet and putting them in “stress” positions for hours at a time.
Evidence to be published next month in a report by Human Rights Watch was corroborated last week in [...]

From Ynet…
Prime Minister Olmert meets with Egyptian President Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh, receives guarantee Cairo won’t open Rafah border crossing until kidnapped Israeli soldier released.
Click on the poster below to continue reading the report…

From AFP…
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will travel to Egypt next week for talks with President Hosni Mubarak, the premier’s office said on Thursday as an Egyptian-mediated Gaza truce went into effect.
“Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will leave next Tuesday for Egypt where he will meet Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak,” the statement said.
“The two agreed to [...]

General Ahmed Zaki Abdeen, the governor of Kafr el-Sheikh who ordered the violent suppression of the Bread Intifada in Borolss, has an impressive CV, including serving as the Egyptian Military Attache in the US from 1993 to 1995… This is exactly the caliber of people the criminals at the White House love to deal with…

From the Daily News Egypt…
Bowing to pressure from the opposition, Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmy announced Sunday that the government will revise its natural gas export prices and will not sign new exportation contracts until the end of 2010.
Since the latest energy price hikes kicked-in this year, experts and opposition members have been calling on [...]

Via Jack…