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.

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.