Egypt Live Blog

Egypt has brokered a deal aimed at ending a hunger strike by 1,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a Palestinian source close to the negotiations said on Monday. 

One in three of the 4,800 Palestinians serving time in Israeli jails began refusing food on April 17 in protest against detention without trial and to demand better conditions like an increase in family visits and ending solitary confinement. 

The scope of the hunger strike has posed a new challenge to Israel, which has come under international criticism over detention without trial and could face a violent Palestinian backlash if any of the protesters die. 

"Egypt has concluded a deal to resolve the prisoner crisis that included Israel's acceptance of prisoners' demands in exchange for ending the hunger strike," said the Palestinian source who is close to the talks in Cairo.

[Source: AP] 

Egyptian expatriates in 166 countries are heading to the polls for elections to replace ousted leader Hosni Mubarak that are hoped to be the first genuinely contested presidential vote in the country's history.

Elections authorities say less than a million Egyptians out of nearly 10 million living abroad registered to vote.

Saudi Arabia has the largest number of Egyptian voters.

Expatriate voting starts Friday and ends May 17. Voters inside Egypt will cast their ballots on May 23-24. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the votes, a runoff is scheduled for June.

Egyptian presidential candidate and Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi stirred controversy on Wednesday night during an appearance on a satellite television talk show during which he failed to make a total condemnation of the practice known as female circumcision or genital mutilation.

According to blogger Bassem Sabry, Morsi "embarked on a long and vague answer which left a few ... uncertain to a considerable extent as to his concise statement of position".

Most who watched Morsi came away believing he said the decision about whether to circumcise a young girl, condemned throughout the world but still done in some places in Egypt, should be left to families to decide.

The Brotherhood's official Twitter account quickly responded, reasserting the group's long-publicised line that it firmly opposes female genital mutilation and said that Morsi's answer may not have been clear due to the "sensitivity" of the issue.