KIDNAPPED in Iraq, six Egyptians and four Iraqis employed by Irqana, Orascom Telecom’s Iraqi subsidiary.

ISSUED by Minister of Information Mamdouh El-Beltagui, a formal apology for an op-ed piece by Dr. Rifaat Sayed Ahmed that appeared in the newspaper Al-Liwa Al-Islami denying the Holocaust. The Press Syndicate’s Freedoms Committee promptly issued a statement condemning El-Beltagui for giving in to pressure from “extremist American Zionist organizations.”

ENDORSED, by new Egyptian Federation of Industries chief Galal El-Zorba, a qualified industrial zone (QIZ) with the United States. The QIZ would give select Egyptian exports preferential access to the US market provided most products include Israeli components.

APPROVED, by Supreme Council for Antiquities head Zahi Hawass, a joint US-Egyptian expedition to map the bed of the Nile in a first step toward recovering monuments submerged beneath the river’s depths.

ENDORSED, killing American civilians working in Iraq, by Muslim Scholars’ Union head Dr. Youssef Qaradawi, the Qatar-based Egyptian sheikh. Qaradawi’s statement, which fell short of a formal fatwa, drew immediate fire from liberal religious leaders for his declaration that “killing American civilians in Iraq is an individual duty all Americans in Iraq are fighters or occupiers ” Qaradawi, who made the statement in an address to the Egyptian Press Syndicate, later issued a statement claiming to have been misquoted, saying he used the word “resist,” not “kill.”

UP FOR GRABS, the chairmanship of the Federation of Arab Journalists, as current head and Al-Ahram editor-in-chief Ibrahim Nafei’s term winds down. The Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate, a member of which traditionally holds the chairmanship, is split between those who want to nominate Nafei for a third four-year term and others backing current syndicate chief Galal Aref.

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CLOSED, after eight years as a bastion of the nation’s independent foreign-language press, The Cairo Times, under the weight of debts topping LE 1.24 million. Publisher Hisham Kassem, now publishing director of the upstart daily Al-Masri Al-Youm, said the closure owed to three years of recession and a 45 percent fall in ad revenue. The Times had earlier announced plans to cease publishing for a brief spell to restructure and seek new financing. The controversial newsweekly was a darling of the human rights movement and popular with Egyptians and expats alike.

LODGED in the Administrative Judicial Court, lawsuits against the editors-in-chief of the leading dailies Al-Akhbar and Al-Ahram as well as the editors-in-chief of Dar El-Hilal publishing house and the state-run Middle East News Agency, demanding that they be ordered into retirement. Under existing law, senior editors at state-funded outlets must retire by age 65.

HANGED, six members of the Abdel Halim family convicted for their roles in the massacre of 22 members of a rival Upper Egyptian clan in August 2002. The six were convicted in May 2003. The three peppered two minibuses carrying members of Al-Hanashat family near Sohag with machinegun fire in retaliation for the killing of one of their own five months earlier. It was the deadliest clash in Upper Egypt since 24 people were killed in a knife-and-gun fight outside a mosque in Minya.

KILLED, in a helicopter crash off the coast of Greece, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Petros VII, 55, the 115th man to hold the post. Petros, elected in 1997, died when his helicopter crashed near the Mount Athos community of Orthodox monasteries.

The Alexandria patriarchate was established in 42 AD by Mark the Evangelist; Petros was credited with having breathed new life into the Orthodox Church in Africa. Six other clerics, six laymen and five crew also died in the crash.

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died, Mahmoud Abd El-Moneim Morad, renowned Al-Akhbar daily columnist respected for his popular regional commentary “Kalimat” (Words).

DIED, Prominent psychiatrist Dr. Adel Sadek. Sadek founded the upscale Psychological Medicine Hospital in Heliopolis. Sadek was also chairman of Ain Sham University’s psychiatry department and a prominent member of both the Egyptian and World Psychiatry Associations.  et