Pope Benedict XVI spoke out Saturday against a recent wave of religious attacks against Christians and rallied worshippers not to "cave into depression and resignation," hours after a bomb explosion outside a church in Egypt killed 21 people.

But think of modern Egypt, and images of poverty, corruption and an often-repressive military regime are more likely to come up. Last June, the country’s Ministry of Information hired one of the largest public relations agencies in the world in a bid to change that.

In the Tanoura dance, a broad-shouldered man, Tarek, comes onto the stage wearing a long multicoloured skirt. He starts whirling around at high speed like a top, and soon the skirt is swirling.

Israel has dismissed Egyptian claims that a series of shark attacks in the Red Sea could have been the result of a plot carried out by its foreign intelligence agency, Mossad.

Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli upset Egyptians when she called the country "primitive" in an interview after her most recent visit to the country a month ago, according to report in the Egyptian press.

The latest round of WikiLeaks carried some bad news for Qatari public diplomacy, in the form of US embassy cables stating that the Qatari government is using Al Jazeera as a political bargaining tool. The leaked cables, from 2009, claim that Qatar has offered to stop Al Jazeera broadcasts in Egypt in return for Egypt’s cooperation in reaching a “settlement for the Palestinians”.

The latest round of WikiLeaks carried some bad news for Qatari public diplomacy, in the form of US embassy cables stating that the Qatari government is using Al Jazeera as a political bargaining tool.

Women walking the streets of Cairo have long endured pervasive sexual harassment, with little support. But now a group of independent volunteers is introducing a web-based project to help women fight back against the abuse that often leaves them feeling powerless.