The mother of a prominent Egyptian rights activist has said that she has started a hunger strike to pressure authorities to release her son Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who rose to prominence with the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East and in Egypt toppled long-time President Hosni Mubarak.

The Biden administration is sending Egypt its full $1.3 billion allocation of military aid.

The presidents of Turkey and Egypt are finding common ground on the war in Gaza as they continue to mend long-strained relations.

President Joe Biden has spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the United States presses Israel and Hamas to agree to a “bridging proposal” that could lead to a cease-fire in the war in Gaza.

Leaders of the United States, Egypt and Qatar are jointly demanding that Israel and Hamas return to stalled talks on the war in Gaza.

Several U.S. officials say the pier built by the American military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled on the beach to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently.

Egypt’s new Cabinet has been sworn in and features major changes in the defense, foreign ministry and economy portfolios as the country faces mounting public discontent and conflicts in neighboring nations.

The U.N. Security Council has overwhelmingly approved a U.S. resolution welcoming a cease-fire proposal.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged top Israeli officials to accept a plan for postwar Gaza as he pushed for more international pressure on Hamas to agree to a cease-fire proposal newly endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is returning to the Middle East on his eighth diplomatic mission to the region since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is calling for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and promising more humanitarian aid for people in Gaza.

Palestinian health workers say Israeli attacks have killed at least 35 people and hit tents for displaced people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that a major Israeli ground assault on the southern Gaza town of Rafah would be “a mistake” and unnecessary to defeating Hamas.

The European Union has announced a 7.4 billion-euro or $8 billion aid package for cash-strapped Egypt as concerns mount that economic pressure and conflicts in neighboring countries could drive more migrants to European shores.

Key mediator Qatar says Hamas’ response to the latest plan for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages was “generally positive.”.

President Joe Biden has spoken with his Egyptian and Qatari counterparts ahead of a trip by his CIA director meant to press toward a deal to secure the release of more hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a pause to fighting in Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up his latest urgent Mideast tour in talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

Egyptians are voting in a presidential election in which President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi faces no serious challenger and is certain to win another term.

Economic crises are rippling through the countries bordering Israel.

French President Emmanuel Macron is promoting — with little success so far — the creation of an international coalition to fight the armed Palestinian group Hamas.

Egypt and Jordan have harshly criticized Israel over its actions in Gaza at a summit in Cairo.

Within hours of a blast said to have killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital, protesters hurled stones at Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank and at riot police in neighboring Jordan.

Israel says will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the first crack in a 10-day seal on the territory.

The explosion of Israeli-Palestinian violence has Arab leaders faulting a Biden administration policy that moved away from big U.S. pushes for a broad Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

President Joe Biden will travel to Israel and Jordan Wednesday to meet with both Israeli and Arab leadership, as concerns increase that the raging Israel-Hamas war could expand into a larger regional conflict.

President Joe Biden is considering a trip to Israel in the coming days, but nothing has been finalized.

Israel’s call for half of the Gaza Strip’s population to evacuate south is hiking Egypt’s fears of a massive influx of refugees across the border into its territory.

A rights group says Egyptian authorities have detained at least 73 people campaigning for a challenger to incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in the December election.

Egypt says it will hold a presidential election over three days in December with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi highly likely to prolong his stay in power until 2030.

The Biden administration will withhold less military aid from Egypt over its human rights abuses this year.

Sudan’s top military officer has made a one-day visit to Egypt on his first trip abroad since his country plunged into large-scale conflict this year.

One of the Egyptian activists behind the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak has walked free from prison under a presidential pardon after spending nearly 10 years behind bars.

The pan-Arab news network Al Jazeera has condemned a recent decision by Egyptian authorities to brand some of its journalists as terrorists.

Relatives and a rights defender say two prominent figures from Egypt’s human rights community have been released from prison.

Leaders from Sudan’s seven neighboring countries agreed to a new Egyptian-led international initiative to resolve the deepening conflict in the Northeast African country.

The leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have met in the Gulf kingdom in the first face-to-face discussions between the two men in months as the North African country battles a domestic economic crisis.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has offered a monologue of praise for the United Arab Emirates, seeking to repair a rift between Cairo and the Gulf Arab states that have supplied billions of dollars in aid to his nation.

Dozens of leaders and senior officials from Arab and Islamic countries have condemned recent Israeli measures in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged between Israel and the Palestinians.

India and Egypt have agreed to increase trade during a visit by the Egyptian president that underscores Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to build ties with other emerging economies.

Thousands of Egyptians are demanding that the British Museum return the Rosetta Stone.

The World Cup began in Qatar 12 years after the tiny gulf nation secured the rights.

The family of imprisoned Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah says that they have seen him and that his condition has “deteriorated severely.”.

The family of Egypt’s imprisoned hunger-striking activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah says he has started drinking water again.

Egypt, the host of this year’s U.N. climate talks, is racking up a number of deals to green its energy and transport systems still heavily reliant on heavily polluting fossil fuels.

The family of one of Egypt’s top jailed pro-democracy activists warn that the clock is ticking on his life as they plead with world leaders at the U.N. climate conference to press Egypt for his release.

Reparations to poor countries suffering the impacts of climate change and calls to drastically slash greenhouse emissions are two of the biggest storylines the first day of the U.N. climate summit, known as COP27.

The head of Amnesty International says that the proceedings of COP27 will be stained by the death of one of Egypt's leading rights activists on a hunger and water strike in prison if Egyptian authorities do not release him within days.

The International Monetary Fund has reached a deal with the Egyptian government that paves the way for the country to access a $3 billion loan.

A veteran senator's objections over Egypt's human rights record have trimmed a symbolically significant $75 million off annual U.S. military aid to that country.

Amnesty International has accused Egypt of attempting to cover up “unrelenting violations of human rights" ahead of the Arab country's hosting of the world climate summit.

After two years of virtual and hybrid summits, the world will once again convene in New York this week for the U.N. General Assembly.

For Mariam Habeib, the grief is never ending: She lost her older sister, two nieces and a niece’s three young children in an intense fire that engulfed a church in Egypt’s capital during a recent service, killing 41 people.

Egypt’s central bank governor has resigned as the country has struggled to address its economic woes.

Residents of a Cairo neighborhood say they are in shock a day after a devastating fire ripped through a Coptic Orthodox church, killing 41 worshippers, including at least 15 children.

A fire ripped through a packed Coptic Orthodox church during morning services in Egypt’s capital, killing 41 worshippers, including at least 15 children, and injuring 16 others.

The Biden administration likes to say Russia is isolated internationally because of its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials as his country seeks to break diplomatic isolation and sanctions by the West over its invasion of Ukraine.

The family of a French backpacker who went missing in Egypt have used a Paris visit by the Egyptian president to press for an investigation into the 27-year-old traveler's disappearance.

Egypt and Serbia have agreed to boost political, economic and other cooperation as the two countries look for ways to deal with the global impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Officials from 40 countries are meeting in Berlin to discuss how to stay focused on fighting climate change while the world reels from the economic fallout of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

An array of presidents and prime ministers were descending on the United Arab Emirates from around the world to pay their respects to the federation’s late ruler and greet his successor, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The head of a journalists’ union says Egyptian authorities have freed three journalists — the latest in a string of releases as President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi appears to be reaching out to critics of his administration.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will try to use his three-nation tour of the Middle East and North Africa to reassure wary Israelis and Arabs that the Biden administration is committed to the region’s security at a time when Washington is confronting multiple foreign policy challenges.

A government spokesman says Jordan’s Prime Minister Bishr al-Khasawneh has tested positive for the coronavirus with no visible symptoms.

The United States and Egypt have launched a joint working group to prepare for the next United Nations climate change summit in Egypt in November.

World leaders are trying to save the planet’s oceans in talks on France’s Atlantic coast aimed at fighting overfishing and plastic pollution, and finding fairer ways to manage the seas.

The U.S., Britain and a handful of others aren’t sending dignitaries to the Beijing Winter Games as part of a diplomatic boycott, but the Chinese capital is still attracting an array of world leaders for Friday’s opening ceremony.

The Biden administration says it has cancelled $130 million in military aid to Egypt over human rights concerns just three days after greenlighting a massive $2.5 billion arms sale to the country.

The Biden administration has approved a massive $2.5 billion arms sale to Egypt despite ongoing concerns over human rights.

A New York man has been arrested on charges that he worked as a secret agent of the Egyptian government, including by gathering information about the political opponents of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

An Egyptian court has sentenced a prominent human rights lawyer to five years in prison for his conviction on charges that rights advocates have decried as baseless and politically motivated.

The United States and Egypt are putting a brave face on strains in their relationship as domestic Egyptian developments and regional crises test long-standing ties between the countries.

Troops and patrols have deployed around Baghdad following the failed assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted Iraq’s prime minister in his residence.

Egypt’s president has ordered his administration to start moving its offices next month to a sprawling new administrative capital in the desert outside Cairo.

Greece has promised to link Egypt to the European Union’s energy market with an undersea cable that would carry electricity across the Mediterranean.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser has held talks with Egypt’s president that focused on regional tensions and the ties between Washington and its Mideast ally.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan is heading to Cairo for talks with Egyptian government officials about rising tensions between Israel and Hamas.

The U.N. General Assembly is unfolding this week under a thundercloud of deep pessimism.

The Biden administration is releasing nearly $200 million in military aid to Egypt but will hold back millions more over human rights concerns.

Arab heads of state and senior officials from the region including archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia are meeting at a conference hosted by Iraq.

The State Department says it's looking into the apparent disappearance of a nearly $6,000 bottle of whisky given more than two years ago to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by the government of Japan.

President Joe Biden says the U.S. military’s combat mission in Iraq will conclude by the end of the year.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up a two-day Mideast mission, winning valuable diplomatic support and hundreds of millions of dollars of pledges from Arab allies as he moved to shore up the cease-fire that ended an 11-day war between Israel and the Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers.

Egypt has proved itself to the world again as an indispensable mediator after it brokered a cease-fire in the short but costly Israel-Hamas war.

Egypt is buying another 30 Rafale fighter jets from France.

Egypt has sacked the country’s top railway official, following three deadly train accidents in less than a month.

Egyptian authorities say a passenger train accident north of Cairo has killed at least 11 people.

Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, is seen in Egypt's Great Bitter Lake Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Experts have boarded Ever Given container ship that had blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week before it was dislodged. A canal pilot says engineers are inspecting the Ever Given for damage and trying to determine why it ran aground. Global legal firm Clyde and Co. said the Ever Given's owner likely would pay Egypt's canal authority for the assistance already rendered to the vessel. He stood before a sign that said: "Welcome to the Suez Canal: Egypt's lifeline of peace, prosperity and development."

(AP Photo)CAIRO – Two trains crashed Friday in southern Egypt, killing at least 32 people and injuring 165, authorities said in the latest of a series of deadly accidents on the country’s troubled railways. Those remarks came a day after a passenger train collided with a cargo train, killing at least 12 people. AdA year earlier, two passenger trains collided just outside Alexandria, killing 43. In 2016, at least 51 people were killed when two commuter trains collided near Cairo. Egypt’s deadliest train crash was in 2002, when over 300 people were killed after fire broke out in a train traveling from Cairo to southern Egypt.

This photo released by the Suez Canal Authority on Thursday, March 25, 2021, shows Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority, investigating the situation with the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship, after it become wedged across the Suez Canal and blocking traffic in the vital waterway. Over its 150-year history, Egypt's Suez Canal has seen wars and crises — but nothing quite like the stranding of the Ever Given. The vessel entered the canal from the Red Sea on Tuesday morning and ran aground 45 minutes later. While the supersize of ships can increase their risk of running aground in the Suez Canal, boats just as big buffeted by winds just as strong have passed through the waterway without incident before. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi poured $8.2 billion into a lavish expansion of the canal that was unveiled in 2015.

This satellite image from Cnes2021, Distribution Airbus DS, shows the cargo ship MV Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal near Suez, Egypt, Thursday, March 25, 2021. (Cnes2021, Distribution Airbus DS via AP)ISMAILIA – Dredgers, tugboats and even a backhoe failed to free a giant cargo ship wedged in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Thursday. The Suez Canal Authority said one idea the team discussed was scraping the bottom of the canal around the ship. “BSM’s continuing priorities are to safely re-float the vessel and for marine traffic in the Suez Canal to resume,” it said without providing timeframe. Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal is a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo.

In this photo released by the Suez Canal Authority, a boat navigates in front of a massive cargo ship, named the Ever Green, rear, sits grounded Wednesday, March 24, 2021, after it turned sideways in Egypts Suez Canal, blocking traffic in a crucial East-West waterway for global shipping. (Suez Canal Authority via AP)DUBAI – A skyscraper-sized container ship has become wedged across Egypt's Suez Canal and blocked all traffic in the vital waterway, officials said Wednesday, threatening to disrupt a global shipping system already strained by the coronavirus pandemic. Ad“The Suez Canal will not spare any efforts to ensure the restoration of navigation and to serve the movement of global trade,” vowed Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the Suez Canal Authority. Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo. Ad“It’s because of the breakneck pace of global shipping right now and shipping is on a very tight schedule,” he said.

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration on Tuesday told Egypt that human rights will be “central” to its policy in dealing with the key Arab state and major American partner in the Middle East. It was not immediately clear how the new emphasis on human rights would manifest itself. The Trump administration had largely given Egypt's leadership a pass on human rights. Ad“The secretary raised concerns over human rights, which he emphasized would be central to the U.S.-Egypt bilateral relationship, and Egypt’s potential procurement of Su-35 fighter aircraft from Russia,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. However, rights groups accused authorities of targeting families of activists and rights defenders living abroad, in an apparent attempt to intimidate critics.

Cambodia on Sunday received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccine, a donation of 600,000 doses from China, the country's biggest ally. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)BEIJING — China appears to have stamped out its latest coronavirus outbreaks centered on the northeast, reporting no new cases of local infection in its latest daily report. ___TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has unveiled its second homemade coronavirus vaccine and says it has begun human trials, state TV reported Sunday. ___JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s Food and Drug Authority has announced an emergency use authorization to give the COVID-19 vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. to people over 60. ___KABUL, Afghanistan — Some 500,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine arrived Sunday in Afghanistan from the government in India.

Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari signed the deal with visiting U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to the prime minister's office. Abdulbari said Sudan welcomed “the rapprochement" with Israel and other countries as well as the beginning of diplomatic relations. Although Sudan is not a regional powerhouse, establishing ties with Israel is deeply symbolic. During his visit, Mnuchin met with Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the ruling sovereign council, and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in August became the first top U.S. diplomat to visit Sudan since 2005, when Condoleezza Rice visited.

ROME – Two prominent Italian intellectuals announced Monday they were returning their Legion of Honor awards to France to protest that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was given the prize despite his government's human rights abuses. Both cited Egypt’s role in the 2016 kidnapping, torture and killing of an Italian doctoral research student in Cairo, as well as the regime's other human rights violations. The French ambassador to Italy, Christian Masset, said he respected Augias and defended the government's human rights record. “France is on the front lines for human rights and makes no compromises,” he tweeted after Augias returned his prize. “It would be ineffective in terms of human rights and counterproductive in the fight against terrorism — that’s why I won’t do that,” he said.

A woman holds a placard as she stages a protest against the Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by the National Assembly in Paris, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)PARIS – French protesters and human rights activists demonstrated outside the National Assembly in Paris on Tuesday in opposition to the state visit of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi even though he wasn't inside. El-Sissi's visit is in its second and final day. The protesters, who carried placards reading “Egypt, Human Rights Emergency,” were also angry at French President Emmanuel Macron for rolling out the red carpet to the Egyptian leader, whom they view as a human rights abuser. Despite human rights groups’ criticism, el-Sissi signed contracts with French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Tuesday for French development aid and hospital and transport cooperation.

The world also said goodbye to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement who died in July. Other former political figures who died this year include Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, New York Mayor David Dinkins, Arizona Gov. Here is a roll call of some influential figures who died in 2020 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available):___JANUARY___David Stern, 77. The guitarist who supplied the scratching, seething sound that fueled the highly influential British punk band Gang of Four. He fused African rhythms with funk to become one of the most influential musicians in world dance music.

French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Siss gesture upon el-Sissi arrival at the Elysee palace, Monday, Dec. 7, 2020 in Paris. Macron welcomed el-Sissi at the Elysee Palace at the start of the Egyptian president's two-day state visit to France. Yet Macron ruled out making France's cooperation with Egypt on economy and defense conditional on human rights issues, because Egypt is France's key partner in the fight against extremism and for the stability of the region. "The rank of religious values is much higher than human values ... they are holy and above all other values," he added. That's what was brought by the philosophy of the Enlightment and the foundation of the universalism of human rights.”Under France's secularism, blasphemy is allowed in France, Macron stressed.

Greece and Egypt are at odds with Turkey in a volatile maritime boundary dispute in the eastern Mediterranean over rights to search for and exploit natural gas deposits. The dispute between Greece and Turkey triggered a major military buildup over the summer that raised concerns of military confrontation. In August, Greece and Egypt signed a maritime deal demarcating the two countries’ maritime boundaries and setting out respective exclusive economic zones for the exploitation of resources such as oil and gas drilling. The agreement, which remains partial, angered Turkey, which has accused Greece of trying to grab an unfair share of resources in the eastern Mediterranean. Greece, Cyprus and Egypt widely criticized the deal between Ankara and Tripoli, saying it infringed on their economic rights.