Egypt's first presidential elections since a popular uprising ousted veteran leader Hosni Mubarak a year ago will be held in the first week of June, officials were quoted as saying on Sunday. 'The election will start in the first days of June and will end in the last week of June if there is a run-off,' Ahmed Shams El-Din, a member of the presidential election committee told the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. The head of the electoral committee Faruq Sultan told a press conference on Sunday that hopefuls can register for the election starting from March 10 to April 8.

Planners in the Egyptian military want to boost the old defense-industrial complex by cultivating new smaller scale projects that partner the Egyptian armed forces with a diverse portfolio of second- and third-tier foreign defense manufacturers.

Egypt must prevent torture and ensure fair trials, says decision endorsed by African Union

Marking a year since ousted President Hosni Mubarak handed over power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) on 11 February 2011, university students have called for a general strike to end military rule, but their calls have yet to mobilize the masses. Osama Ahmed, spokesman of the students of the Revolutionary Socialists movement, said that the strike has not started yet, but that the group has been promoting it and establishing coordination committees to rally the people.

Members of parliament Monday 13 February slammed the preliminary report issued by the fact-finding committee probing the 1 February Port Said football massacre that left 71 dead, describing it as 'vague' and 'insufficient'. Hussein Ibrahim, head of the Freedom and Justice Party's (FJP) parliamentary bloc, demanded that the Homeland Security chief in Port Said and General Intelligence officials be summoned to the People's Assembly (PA) to present their official reports on the clashes.

Egyptian women are angry, again, at presidential hopeful Hazem Saleh Abu Ismail’s comments that as president he would require the veil, or higab, on all women in the country. Abu Ismail said that women in the country must 'change creed' and that Islam gives no special personal freedom.A group of young Cairo University students, who are forming a women’s alliance organization on campus, told Bikyamasr.com that 'this forcing of women to do this or that is not Egyptian'.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of Mubarak’s resignation on 11 February 2011, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has released a position paper which shows that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), the de-facto ruler of Egypt has not upheld the basic human rights of Egyptians during the transitional period over the last year. 'Since the fall of Former President Mubarak and after the army took over power, we have been documenting and reporting dangerous developments that question the Supreme Council of Armed Forces’ ability to conduct a peaceful transition. At a time where the protection of basic fundamental rights, such as freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of association should not be compromised, we are worried that red lines have regularly been crossed which constitutes a major step-back for the demands of the Egyptian revolution,' says Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President.

Recurrent street battles between police and protesters have led the interior ministry to literally wall itself in; website Ahram Online maps the growth of these concrete curtains and the transformation of Cairo into a city of walls.

Egyptian judges probing alleged illegal foreign funding of non-governmental organisations accused domestic and foreign groups on Wednesday of illegally meddling in politics, further straining ties with key ally Washington. The judge said December raids on 17 NGO offices as part of a probe into illegal funding had been conducted 'according to the law'.

The Committee to Protect Journalists on 6 February condemned official attacks on journalists covering political unrest in Egypt. 'At least two journalists were shot by security forces in the past three days, and a third journalist was assaulted in police custody, according to news reports,' said the organisation.

The rapid pace and intensity of emotion during last years’ revolutionary 18 days in Egypt is reflected in this collection of tweets from key activists of the time, who became known internationally as a result. 'Tweets from Tahrir' is the story of Egypt’s revolution told through the twitter feeds of a handful of activists, now international names as the intense interest that surrounded the uprising propelled them onto the world stage.

When the Muslim Brotherhood’s Twitter account asked the seemingly innocent question, 'why do you hate us?' the Islamic group likely did not anticipate the reaction it stirred. The question was directed at Egyptian activists who do not shy away from criticizing the group, especially now that their political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), are in power. The level of intensity soars high. Hundreds of activists took turns in answering the question, as candidly as possible. Feelings of frustration at the groups’s actions thus far and a lack of support for the revolution and its unmet demands were clear in all the responses.

In protest of the ongoing clashes between security forces and protesters, which have intensified demands for an immediate end to military rule, Egyptian activists have called for a national boycott of army-produced goods and services. The online movement called Kate3ohom (Boycott Them), which is urging a national boycott of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), gained the attention of social media users. The idea also signaled bloggers to help by compiling lists of the military institution’s products and services, which range from producing pasta and fruit jam to the construction of roads and bridges.

Some 11 universities and other political groups are promoting calls for civil disobedience starting 11 February until the military rulers step down and hand power over to an elected civilian authority. 'We called for a gradual strike and if the demands aren’t met we will escalate to civil disobedience as we had depleted all other peaceful means of protesting,' Mahmoud Afify, spokesman of the April 6 Youth Movement, said. A variety of sectors, mainly students and labor unions, welcomed the idea.

A number of truce initiatives succeeded to temporarily stop the violence near the Ministry of Interior (MOI) as sporadic clashes continued on Sunday. A tense calm earlier in the day followed fierce clashes on Saturday night despite other calls for calm. Hundreds of women organized a march in downtown Cairo, taking off from Qasr El-Aini Street in the vicinity of the Cabinet and the People's Assembly condemning the violence. (http://bit.ly/zM7Vde)

Egypt has declared three days of mourning for at least 74 people who died at a football stadium amid violent clashes between rival supporters in the northern city of Port Said. Earlier, Essam el-Erian, a politician from the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party, said the military and police were complicit in the violence, accusing them of trying to show that emergency regulations giving security forces wide-ranging powers must be maintained.

Egyptians have continued a sit-in outside the country's state TV building to protest the media's pro-junta programs, calling for the purging of the state media from anti-revolutionary officials, Press TV reports. The protesters believe that even after the popular revolution which led to the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak back in February last year, the state media outlet is still the voice of the country's ruling junta and part and parcel of its propaganda machine.

Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls a near majority of seats in the Egyptian Parliament, won more than half of the committees of the Lower House on 31 January. The Speaker of the Parliament Mohammed Saad el–Katatni, also a member of the FJP, announced the results of the internal elections of the parliament’s sub-committees, where 9 out of 19 committees are to be headed by senior members of the FJP bloc.

Reporters Without Borders says it welcomes blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad's release late on 25 January under an amnesty announced on 21 January for around 2,000 civilians who had been convicted by military courts during the past year. Sanad, who had been detained for 10 months on a charge of insulting the armed forces, was freed from Cairo's Tora prison late in the afternoon.

To thousands of Egyptian revolutionaries, Khadiga Hennawi is mother, says this article on Hennawi, who started out bringing food to protestors camped in the historic square, earned the moniker 'the Mother of Tahrir' by taking care of younger activists, often offering refuge at her home from attacks by security forces. The fifty-nine-year-old divorcee has become a figurehead of the struggle for freedom and democracy.