Egypt Population

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday unveiled a strategy to overcome the perils of a high birthrate threatening the world's most populous Arab state. He set out a five-point blueprint: protection of social stability, higher food production, desert reclamation, education reform and economic liberalization.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday unveiled a strategy to overcome the perils of a high birthrate threatening the world's most populous Arab state. He set out a five-point blueprint: protection of social stability, higher food production, desert reclamation, education reform and economic liberalization.

A preliminary census put Egypt's population at 51 million with a growth rate of 1 million every nine months, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported. The preliminary count was taken in January, 1985, and the Statistics Department said last week that it was planning to begin a final census in November to include 1986, the agency said. Independent economic experts consider Egypt's birth rate of more than 36 per 1,000 population among its most crucial problems. Egypt imports 60% of its

A preliminary census put Egypt's population at 51 million with a growth rate of 1 million every nine months, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported. The preliminary count was taken in January, 1985, and the Statistics Department said last week that it was planning to begin a final census in November to include 1986, the agency said. Independent economic experts consider Egypt's birth rate of more than 36 per 1,000 population among its most crucial problems. Egypt imports 60% of its

CAIRO - The Mass was celebrated as if from centuries past: A bearded priest veiled in incense chanted for grace in a church along the Nile, near the spot where Christians believe Jesus and his mother sought refuge in an earlier age of bloodshed and uncertainty. Marianne Samir knelt and prayed for the Coptic Christians killed in a spasm of sectarian violence that has further shaken a nation engulfed in economic and political anxieties. "I feel unsafe," said Samir, a high school philosophy teacher with a cross tattooed on her wrist.

Egypt's population topped the 52-million mark last week.

Mamdouh Mahran, 58, a jailed Egyptian newspaper editor who had run an article -- about a Coptic Orthodox monk -- that sparked riots, died of a heart attack Sunday in Cairo. In June 2001, Mahran, then editor of the weekly Al-Nabaa, published a story saying that the monk, in a southern Egyptian monastery, had been having sex with women and then blackmailing them. The church condemned the article and refused to accept Mahran's apology.

A funeral for an Egyptian Christian couple and their two daughters slain last week devolved into a melee after the services Monday, with mourners shoving and punching each other as many blamed Muslims for the killings. Investigators are looking into the possibility that Hossam Armanious, 47, his 37-year-old wife, Amal Garas, and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were slain by a Muslim angered over postings that the father wrote in an Internet chat room.

Police fired into the air with live ammunition and lobbed tear gas at crowds of rioting Christians and Muslims on Sunday, the third day of sectarian violence in Egypt's second-largest city. One man reportedly died Sunday of his injuries. Police said 40 people had been wounded in clashes and 80 had been arrested over the weekend. The riots were touched off Friday by knife attacks at three Coptic Christian churches that left one person dead and up to 16 injured.

Millions of Egyptians could be forced permanently from their homes, the country's ability to feed itself devastated. That's what probably awaits this already impoverished nation by the end of the century, if predictions about climate change hold true. The World Bank describes Egypt as particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming, saying the country faces potentially "catastrophic" consequences. "The situation is serious and requires immediate attention.

Millions of Coptic Christians turned out across Egypt on Sunday to mourn Pope Shenouda III and reflect on the sharpening tensions Christians here face as Islamists have risen in power since last year's overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. Shenouda, who died Saturday at age 88, led the Coptic Orthodox Church for more than 40 years. He was looked upon as a spiritual, social and sometimes political leader who guarded the rights of Egypt's minority Christian population in a region prone to religious animosities.

CAIRO - Amid months of sectarian unease, Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church enthroned its new pope Sunday in an ornate, three-hour ceremony attended by top officials from the nation's Islamist-led government. Tawadros II, 60, was chosen the church's 118th pope this month in long-awaited elections following the death in March of Pope Shenouda III, who was patriarch for four decades. The cathedral of St. Mark, the church's founding saint, erupted in applause when the papal crown was placed on Tawadros' head.