Cairo- Egyptian security forces closed three fuel smuggling tunnels near its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a security source said.

Food was also found inside the tunnels, the source said. The tunnels were empty at the time of their closure, he added.

Police barricaded the area to prevent smugglers from escaping.

Tunnels on the Egyptian border have become common ways to get food and fuel to the Gaza Strip, which Israel blockaded after the militant group Hamas took over Gaza last year.

Cairo  - The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Tuesday called for an increase in development assistance to poor countries of at least 50 billion US dollars annually.

In a briefing in Cairo ahead of UNCTAD's 2008 trade and development report, officials said an increase in assistance is important for raising production capacities and achieving the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which are focused on halving poverty worldwide by 2015.

Cairo - Egyptian business tycoon Hisham Talaat Mustafa was arrested Tuesday, accused of involvement in the murder of Lebanese singer Suzane Tamim, a statement by the public prosecutor's office said.

A security official working for the businessman, retired police officer Mohsen al-Sukkary, has confessed to the killing, but denied Mustafa was involved.

The 33-year-old Tamim was found stabbed to death in her Dubai apartment on July 28.

The Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) is one of Egypt's biggest, combining a total of 23 companies with a workforce of more than 10,000.

Cairo, September 1 : Egyptian archaeologists have uncovered the burial chamber and coffin of King Senusret II, who was believed to have ruled Egypt from 1897 BC to 1878 BC.

The burial chamber was found in Al Lahun, the town built by Senusret, which became Egypt’s political capital during the 12th and 13th dynasties, and where the king built his pyramid.

“The coffin is made of pink granite and the burial chamber is lined with red granite,” said Ahmed Abdel Aal, head of antiquities in Fayum, south of Cairo.

Cairo - When Salma Selim went through the foods she bought a few days before Ramadan, she found she had paid more for fewer products than a year earlier.

"The half-kilo pack of dates which had cost nine Egyptian pounds (1.6 US dollars) last year is now 11.5 pounds. Nuts are also more expensive," the Egyptian mother-of-two told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Although it is a month of fasting, family gatherings in Ramadan tend to lead to a higher consumption of food and desserts.

Cairo - One person was confirmed killed after a six-storey building collapsed in the Egyptian capital on Friday.