Egypt's interior ministry said Wednesday that a sonic boom from an overflying aircraft was the cause of a loud "explosion" that sent Cairo's residents in a panic.

"The sound of the explosion in the (southern neighborhood) of Maadi and in central Cairo was the sound of a plane that broke the sound barrier," deputy interior minister Murad Mohsen said in a statement.

An Egyptian court on Thursday postponed issuing a verdict in a high profile police brutality case until September, amid mounting frustration over the slow pace of reform since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

A large security presence had been deployed outside the courthouse in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria where dozens of activists had gathered to hear the ruling in the trial of two police officers accused of beating to death 28-year-old Khaled Said last year.

Former Egyptian trade and industry minister Rashid Mohammed Rashid was sentenced in absentia on Saturday to five years in prison for embezzlement of public funds, state news agency Mena reported.

Rashid, who is the subject of an international search warrant, was also ordered to pay a fine of more than nine million Egyptian pounds (over a million euros).

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Cairo next week to finalize a new government put together by the two factions, a top official of his Fatah movement said Tuesday.

The meeting was announced as Palestinian factions were in Cairo for reconciliation talks aimed at choosing a prime minister to head the unity government.

Palestinian factions were in Cairo on Tuesday for reconciliation talks aimed at choosing a prime minister to head a unity government.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's Fatah has said it wants to retain Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to head the government, but the nomination was immediately rejected by Islamist Hamas movement.

The authorities in Azerbaijan have removed a monument to deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak which had angered government critics, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported Wednesday.

The statue of the former Egyptian leader sitting in an armchair in front of three pyramids was taken away from a park in the town of Khirdalan near the capital of the ex-Soviet republic on Tuesday.

Egypt on Saturday reopened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, allowing people to cross freely for the first time in four years, in a move hailed by Hamas but criticized by Israel.

Among the first to cross the reopened border post were two ambulances ferrying patients from the hitherto-blockaded Gaza Strip for treatment in Egypt as well as a minibus carrying a dozen visitors, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

The African Champions League play-off between Wydad Casablanca of Morocco and Simba of Tanzania will be staged in Cairo on May 28, the organisers said Friday.

Wydad and Simba lost in the qualifying competition to defending champions TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who were disqualified last weekend for fielding an ineligible player.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is to apologize to the nation and plead for amnesty, three months after he was overthrown by a popular uprising, according to a report in the independent daily al-Shorouk.

The report to appear in Tuesday's edition quoted Egyptian and Arab official sources as saying that Mubarak was "drafting a letter which will be broadcast on Egyptian and Arabic channels, apologizing on behalf of himself and his family for any offence caused to the people."

Egyptian protesters demanding the expulsion of Israel's ambassador clashed with riot police outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Sunday, leaving at least 24 people wounded.

The police, who were backed by the army, fired dozens of tear gas canisters at the protesters, who ripped out paving stones to throw and burned tires.