Cairo  - Egypt's central bank on Friday announced it would cut interest rates for the first time since 2006, in response to slowed economic growth and inflation.

The Central Bank of Egypt lowered the overnight deposit and lending rates by 100 basis points to 10.5 and 12.5 per cent, respectively, its first cut since April 2006.

Cairo - Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa on Wednesday urged the new Israeli government to take steps towards peace.

Mussa, however, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, he held little hope that either Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu would change Israel's policy toward the rest of the region.

"Regarding Kadima's victory, if Israel's new government proceeds in its current ways, we won't find any progress in Israel's policies," Mussa said.

Cairo - Egyptian security forces have detained 30 Egyptian truck drivers delivering supplies to the Gaza Strip, a source in the interior ministry told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Wednesday.

The drivers were held, pending investigation, in Northern Sinai, the source said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He added that if security forces found nothing after a thorough investigation and search of the trucks, the drivers would be released and allowed to continue their journey.

Cairo - Archaeologists in Egypt discovered a "perfectly preserved" mummy inside a 2,600-year-old lime sarcophagus north of Cairo on Wednesday, Egypt's antiquities authority said.

Scientists said they believed the mummy, one of 30 discovered in a previously forgotten tomb near the step pyramid of Saqqara, could have been a nobleman from the time of the 26th Dynasty.

The 26th Dynasty ruled ancient Egypt from approximately 685 BC until Cambyses II of Persia sacked Memphis in 525 BC.

Cairo - An Egyptian opposition member of parliament has been suspended for threatening to throw his shoe at a ruling-party lawmaker last month, local media reported today.

Parliament voted to suspend Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated MP Ashraf Badr until the next session of parliament begins in November 2009 by a vote of 279 to 2, with one abstention, the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm reported Wednesday.

But parliament also defeated a motion by ruling-party deputies that Badr be stripped entirely of his seat.

Cairo - An Egyptian military court has sentenced an opposition politician and former newspaper editor to two years in prison for illegally crossing into the Gaza Strip, a source close to Egyptian security said on Wednesday.

The source, who spoke to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said that the military tribunal in the Suez Canal town of Ismailiya on Wednesday found Magdi Hussein, a fiery orator with Egypt's suspended Labour Party, guilty of traveling to Gaza illegally through a smuggling tunnel in January.

Hussein may appeal the sentence, following changes to Egypt's law on military justice, passed in April 2007.