President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visits France and Italy next week in his first European trip since ousting his Islamist predecessor and overseeing a crackdown that damaged Egypt's international standing.

Sisi, who was then army chief, overthrew president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, prompting a wave of violence between Morsi supporters and security forces that drew rebukes from the U.S. and Europe. 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will meet Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday, religious news agency I.Media said, citing diplomatic sources.

The meeting will be the first visit to the Vatican by an Egyptian leader in eight years and comes six months after Sisi's rise to power.

A new feminist comic book, the Jewelry Box, has emerged in Egypt, the latest addition in a blossoming scene of alternative comics, as artists seek freer outlets of expression in a country where independent voices are finding it harder to speak.

Cartoons and political satire go back over a hundred years in Egypt, and are a staple in newspapers that have often lampooned social mores and officials in public office. But a new generation of young comic artists is finding space to express what is often a hard sell in mainstream media. Building on the region's spirit of rebellion over the past four years, they are experimenting with new and more subversive style to look at Egypt's realities.

An Egyptian court acquitted a male doctor Thursday of carrying out a female circumcision that killed a teenager, in the first case brought since the procedure was banned in 2008.

The court also acquitted the 14-year-old's father who took her to the doctor for the operation.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Thursday that the possibility of granting presidential pardons to three jailed Al-Jazeera journalists was being considered.

"This issue is under study," Sisi said in an interview with France 24.

A bomb wounded five policemen near a Cairo university Thursday, and four people were hurt in a panicked crush after an explosion at a train station in the Egyptian capital, security officials said.

Egypt has been hit by a wave of bombings and shootings since the military ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Egyptian authorities on Wednesday announced the arrest of a jihadist who returned home from the Syrian conflict to train Islamist militants in the use of explosives.

Hani Shahine had fought in the ranks of the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaida's franchise in Syria, the interior ministry said.

Egypt on Wednesday hailed a "new era" in Arab solidarity after Gulf states agreed to welcome Qatar back to the fold following a row over its support for Islamists.

Cairo said it offered its full support to the reconciliation move, which it described as a "huge step towards Arab solidarity."

Saudi King Abdullah urged Egypt on Wednesday to support Qatar's return to the Arab fold, days after Gulf states resolved a diplomatic spat over Doha's alleged support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

"I urge Egypt, the people and leadership, to seek with us the success of this (reconciliation) move as part of Arab solidarity," the king said, quoted by the official SPA news agency.

A woman has died of bird flu in southern Egypt, a health official said on Wednesday, the country's second death from the H5N1 strain of the virus in a week.

H5NI is one of several deadly or potentially deadly strains of bird flu that are closely monitored by the World Health Organization.