Egypt's authorities have used an attack on the Egyptian military in Sinai last August as a pretext to start a campaign to destroy tunnels into Gaza. So far over 120 tunnels have been blown up or filled in. This photo essay shows how the tunnels are used to get essential supplies into Gaza.

The Egyptian doctors' strike is entering its 'decisive week', the strike's general committee said. The doctors began an open-ended strike on 1 October to demand better working conditions and an increase in the healthcare budget. The committee confirmed its commitment to abide by decisions of the Doctors' Syndicate's general assembly and to ignore decisions by the syndicate's leadership which is 'simply against the strike'.

The one-year anniversary of 'Bloody Sunday' - when 25 died during clashes with the Egyptian army at a peaceful protest for Christian rights outside Cairo's state media headquarters - is a stark reminder that no one has been held responsible for the deaths of those killed, reports www. english.ahram.org.eg.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said on Tuesday that Egypt would invite the International Monetary Fund to visit for talks about a loan facility at the end of October and said he hoped to reach an agreement 'by that time'. Egypt, which has launched negotiations for a $4.8 billion IMF loan but has also indicated it may want more, urgently needs support to prop up state coffers weakened by turmoil since the popular uprising last year that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

It has already been labelled as an "epidemic" by rights groups, but it seems in post-revolution Egypt sexual harassment has become worse rather than better. The harassment of women continues on the streets, at times escalating to mob levels, and it has now reached the point where taking steps to eradicate this social malaise has become an absolute necessity. A 2008 study by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR) revealed shocking figures that 83 per cent of Egyptian and 98 per cent of foreign women in the country have been subjected to some form of sexual harassment.

An Egyptian newspaper has launched a campaign against the obscene cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Al-Watan, a secular daily, published 13 cartoons on Monday under the slogan 'Fight cartoons with cartoons'. One shows a pair of glasses through which the burning World Trade Center is seen, with the caption: 'Western glasses for the Islamic world'. Charlie Hebdo's cartoons played on the uproar over a video which mocks Islam.

Egyptian youth expressed their discontent with the government removing a large graffiti mural on the wall of the American University in Cairo (AUC) building on Mohamed Mahmoud street in downtown Cairo late on Tuesday, which had been painted to honor those who died in the January 2011 revolution and the November clashes that occurred on the street. Activists shared a photo on social networking sites showing a man painting over the art and called on street artists to go back and redo the art scene, defying the government’s decision to 'beautify' Tahrir Square its own way.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians protested during the revolution that led to the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak. Some of the men and women that took to the streets to reclaim their rights never came back home. The disappeared are neither dead nor alive. There are no government records about their cases, reports

Egypt saw a fresh wave of strikes on Sunday as transport and education sector employees downed tools to push for financial and administrative reform. In separate bouts of industrial action, workers at the Cairo Transportation Authority (CTA) and non-academic staff at universities across Egypt walked off the job.

Egyptian campaigners launched a fresh salvo against government plans to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Saturday, claiming further foreign loans would mean repeating the 'economic disasters' of the Mubarak era. Calling for a full audit of Egypt's debt bill, campaigners took aim at the ousted president's economic legacy - privatisations, soaring public debt, delapidated services and corruption - for which they hold the previous policies of the IMF and several major development banks jointly responsible.

Egypt’s vibrant blogging scene may be at risk. Most online activists need funding to be able to carry out their activities professionally. Without conscious efforts to find viable funding models, this public sphere might disappear after the novelty of the 25 January 2011 movement wears down.

This case study from Oxfam on the uprising in Egypt says that the revolution gave women a sense of freedom and empowerment, and seemed like the perfect opportunity to claim their rights. However, while many groups, including women, overcame their fear to speak out against violations of their basic rights, the change in power relations threatened to ignore women’s rights or even reverse gains that were won in the past.

The Arabic Network on Human Rights Information has denounced the continued presence of former members of Mubarak's regime in positions of power, such as universities. Ahmed Zaki Badr, former minister of education and now the president of Akhbar El-Youm Academy, arbitrarily fired six employees due to their participation in a demonstration calling for his dismissal. Mohamed Atwa, Nagla Ismail, Hossam Hosni, Yahia Zakaria and Mohamed Abdulaziz, were among those dismissed.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) has expressed great concern over an attack on workers of the Samoli Spinning and Weaving Company during protests held on 21 July 2012. Following the protest the workers went to the mosque when suddenly unknown individuals started to shoot randomly. Ahmed Hosni, one of the workers, was killed while three others were injured while protesting in front of the company headquarters.

In 2008, Egypt reached an agreement with the US-based Monsanto Corporation to import, grow and sell the company's genetically-modified maize. The first shipment of 70 tons arrived in Egypt in December 2010 and was planted in ten governorates without restriction on planting. The second and most recent shipment of 40 tons arrived in January 2012, but was seized by the Ministry of Agriculture because it was not properly approved. 'The January shipment has been imported without the formal approval from the Ministry of Environment, the agency that should approve imported genetically-modified organisms (GMOs),' said Osama El Tayeb, a microbiology and immunology professor.

Whereas the new regime of President Morsy says it is inclusive, it is troubling that the draft Egyptian constitution says in its first article that Egypt is ‘Islamic’ and ‘Arab’ and is ‘related’ to Africa.

The independent trade unions that have sprung up across Egypt over the last 17 months face an uncertain future, caught between Islamists and the military and operating under labour laws that have not changed since Hosni Mubarak was in power. 'The government and business owners don’t want to respond to workers’ demands or give them rights, so they are opposed to seeing workers establish independent syndicates,' says Kamal Abu Eita, a leader of the independent union movement.

Seventeen human rights non governmental organizations officially launched their 'Human Rights in 100 Days' campaign to pressure new Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to follow through on rights of Egyptian citizens. The newly created Forum of Independent Egyptian Human Rights Organizations, which includes the Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement (national focal point of Social Watch), had sent a letter to President Morsi 'delineating the most important steps which must be taken to improve Egypt’s human rights condition and which they believed were missing from the President’s strategies and statements,' reported Bikya Masr news portal.

For Egypt, the potentially catastrophic implications of a eurozone collapse points to the urgency of breaking with the Mubarak-era economic policies in a substantive and genuine manner.

The highest court in Egypt has overturned a decree by President Mohammed Mursi to recall parliament. Mr Mursi had issued the decree in defiance of a military council ruling that dissolved parliament. Members of parliament gathered for a brief session earlier in the day before the ruling of the Supreme Constitutional Court was announced. Thousands have gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to protest against the court's latest decision.