Egypt's "Facebook Revolution" that toppled Hosni Mubarak last February may have been boosted by Internet social networking, but his downfall was inevitable anyway, a communications expert said on Sunday.

"It was a people's revolution, accelerated, facilitated by the Internet," said Rasha Abdulla, associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the American University in Cairo(AUC).

Egypt's first presidential elections since a popular uprising ousted veteran leader Hosni Mubarak a year ago will be held in the first week of June, officials were quoted as saying on Sunday.

"The election will start in the first days of June and will end in the last week of June if there is a run-off," Ahmed Shams El-Din, a member of the presidential election committee told the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Egypt decided on Sunday to recall its ambassador to Syria, the Foreign Ministry announced, as Arab states pile pressure on Damascus over its crackdown on dissent that has left thousands dead.

Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr recalled the Egyptian ambassador to Damascus "and it was decided that the ambassador will remain in Cairo until further notice," ministry spokesman Amr Rushdi said in a statement.

Egypt was set to further widen a row with the United States by announcing on Saturday that it would go ahead with a trial of foreign democracy activists, including 19 Americans, on February 26.

A court set the date for the start of the trial of 43 suspects -- who also include Serbs, Norwegians, Germans, Egyptians, Palestinians and Jordanians -- in a crackdown on NGOs accused of receiving illegal foreign aid, state media announced.

Egypt's first presidential elections since a popular uprising ousted veteran leader Hosni Mubarak a year ago will be held at the end of May, the state-owned al-Ahram daily reported on Wednesday.

The report comes amid mounting pressure against the military rulers who took power after Mubarak's overthrow to cede power to civilian rule.

Egypt has quashed death sentences against three men convicted of involvement in attacks in the Sinai Peninsula after their trials were deemed unfair, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said on Tuesday.

The three men -- Mohammed Gayez Sabbah, Usama al-Nakhlawi and Younis Abu-Gareer -- had been sentenced to death in connection with 2004 bombings in the Red Sea resorts of Taba and Nuweiba and 2005 bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Bedouin in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Saturday released three South Korean tourists and their Egyptian tour guide a day after abducting them, South Sinai's governor told Agence France Presse.

Khaled Fouda said the tourists, all women, "were unharmed" and he was waiting for them to arrive at a hotel near St Catherine's monastery, from where the tourists were returning on Friday when they were snatched by armed Bedouin.

The U.S. military's top general met Egypt's ruling field marshal on Saturday amid a row between the allies over impending trials of American pro-democracy activists.

The meeting in Cairo had been "long planned," according to General Martin Dempsey's spokesman, but officials were hoping Dempsey would persuade Cairo to back off the planned trials.

Activists plan a day of civil disobedience in Egypt on Saturday to mark the first anniversary since they toppled Hosni Mubarak but left an increasingly unpopular but defiant military in charge.

The call for strikes in universities and workplaces comes after a series of protests pressuring the military to transfer power immediately to civilians, rather than wait for planned presidential elections later this year.

Egypt's ruling military said on the eve of the first anniversary of the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak that it will not bow to threats or plots against the state, official television reported.

"We will never yield to threats, and we will never give in to pressure," the much-criticized Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) said in a statement broadcast by the channel.