Hosni Mubarak

Conflicting reports surfaced Tuesday on the state of Hosni Mubarak after the former Egyptian president was said to have suffered a stroke in prison. The state-run news agency MENA said that the 84-year-old Mubarak had suffered clinical death, but other reports say Mubarak was still on a respirator and not clinically dead,  according to state and independent news media . To add to the confusion, clinical death doesn't necessarily mean total death. "Clinical death" is a medical term meaning that breathing has ceased and the heart has stopped pumping blood around the body, but, for at least a short while, the brain is still alive.

CAIRO - The revolutionaries chanted in frustrated knots beneath lifeless flags Friday in Tahrir Square, trying to revive the spirit of a movement that once brought down an autocrat but now has been cleverly outmaneuvered by a powerful military. The day after a constitutional court dissolved the nation's first freely elected parliament, Egyptians braced for a presidential election and the prospect that the rebellion that toppled Hosni Mubarak belonged more to history books than today's headlines.

CAIRO - He is the one they believe will protect them. From radical Islamists and surging crime. From those pesky revolutionaries with their endless chants and taste for turmoil. Nervousness lingers over the gardened villas of Heliopolis, the Cairo neighborhood where hope for a return to order rests with Ahmed Shafik, a former fighter pilot, the last prime minister of the Hosni Mubarak era, and now one of two remaining candidates for president in a race that has riveted an Arab world in upheaval.

CAIRO - The life sentence imposed on toppled President Hosni Mubarak for complicity in the deaths of hundreds of protesters marks an unprecedented milestone in Egypt's path toward democracy yet serves as a reminder of the political limitations challenging rebellions that have swept the Arab world. Mubarak epitomized the calculating autocrat, and Saturday's verdict reverberated across a region that has seldom seen the strong so precipitously tumble in popular revolt. But behind the image of the disgraced leader propped up on a stretcher in the defendants' cage remains a nation not fully free of his grasp.

CAIRO - Egypt's presidential candidates were busy Saturday polishing sound bites and stretching the facts a bit as they re-marketed themselves as guardians of the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak and led to the nation's first free election for a leader in history. The campaigns of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik sought to broaden their appeal before their runoff election next month. Neither man is regarded as epitomizing the spirit of the revolution - Shafik was prime minister during the deadly crackdowns on protesters days before Mubarak fell last year - but politics is often about image readjustment.

CAIRO - Egypt's two most polarizing presidential candidates appeared headed for a runoff election next month that will decide whether the nation will be ruled by an ascendant political Islam or return to the secularist spirit that defined Hosni Mubarak's toppled police state. Official results in Egypt's first free presidential election are expected to be released in coming days. But independent vote counts Friday indicated that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi would battle Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister to serve Mubarak, in a June contest certain to enthrall the entire Middle East.

CAIRO - The race for Egypt's president is tightening as a surge by a former prime minister has raised fresh conspiracy theories that remnants of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak's regime are angling for power. The first round of voting begins Wednesday, but many Egyptians are still undecided in what is largely a contest between Islamists and two men connected to the old regime. The drama has been intensified by a last-minute swell in popularity for Ahmed Shafik, a retired air force general appointed prime minister in the weeks before Mubarak's government fell last year.

CAIRO — Egyptians gathered in living rooms and cafes Thursday night to mark another first in their troubled political odyssey toward a new democracy: a televised presidential debate that was as captivating as it was surreal. The two leading candidates, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and Islamist favorite Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, clashed in an exchange that would have been fiction during the 30-year rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The spectacle was a rare moment in a region enthralled by Arab uprisings but largely dominated by autocrats and political uncertainty.

CAIRO - The decorum of diplomacy has devolved into embarrassing headlines and testy one-liners in the increasingly strained relations between Egypt and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Egypt's Sinai peninsula had become a "kind of Wild West" overrun by militants, terrorists and arms smugglers. Over the weekend, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had suggested massing more Israeli troops along the border with Egypt. That drew a bit of mafia parlance from Egypt's military ruler, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi: "Our borders, especially the northeast ones, are inflamed.