Two a penny

Get other P. C. Doherty here Doherty spins a rich complex tale of murder in this gripping ancient Egyptian mystery.–”Publishers Weekly.” Comments (0)

.Three European tourists have been detained in Sudan for acquiring the remnants of a rare meteorite that hit a remote region in 2008, their lawyer said. .
Mr Ahmed says the trio were “just tourists, who had no intention of committing a crime”.
“They were arrested two weeks ago in Abu Hamad and were transferred on Sunday to the Bahri prison,” he said.
Sudan’s interior ministry previously released a statement confirming French and Belgian tourists had been arrested “for acquiring .
A Western diplomat confirmed the arrest of the three, without giving further details…
The meteorite, named 2008 TC3, struck north Sudan in October 2008, close to the Egyptian border. the remains of meteorites, which constitutes an offence” under Sudan’s laws governing archaeological activity.
The arrests come in the context of tense relations between Sudan and France, which is harbouring Abdel Wahid Nur, the exiled leader of a key Darfuri rebel group.
Space rocks that make it through the Earth’s atmosphere can be extremely valuable and this rare example has been the object of research by Sudanese and United States scientists.
But Mr Ahmed says the case is criminal, not political.
Paris is also a fervent supporter of the decision in March by the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudan’s President Omar al-Beshir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
He added the Sudanese authorities still had to determine the nature of the rocks in their possession.
“They are doing well, they are being well treated, they have been able to speak to their families, and I hope to be able to secure their release tomorrow,” he said.
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.Egyptian police have detained 11 people for questioning about the bomb which killed a French teenager and wounded at least 21 people close to a popular tourist bazaar in Cairo on Sunday, police sources said.
The detainees, all Egyptians, were in the area on Sunday evening around the time of the explosion and were taken into custody overnight and on Monday morning, they added. After security incidents, Egyptian police usually cast their net very wide and then release most of the people they question.
The sources did not say if the police had any hard evidence against the detainees.
The wounded included 13 French tourists, three Saudis, one German and four Egyptians.
The bomb, planted under a bench close to the Khan el-Khalili market in mediaeval Cairo, was the first such attack on tourists in the city since April 2005 and the first in Egypt since an April 2006 bombing in the Sinai resort of Dahab. .
No one has claimed responsibility and analysts said the bomb was probably the work of a small group of disgruntled Egyptians, similar to the one that carried out two operations in 2005.
An Australian tourist who gave her name as Rowena said the incident did not bother her.
At the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo, on the banks of the Nile about three kilometres from Khan el-Khalili, the usual crowds poured in to see antiquities including the treasures found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen.
Vassili Tawadros, who runs the Ding Dong bazaar close to the museum, said: “We work our whole business with tourists. “There’s 20 million in Cairo, so it’s a long way from us,” she said.”
But CI Capital Research said in a report: “As the tourism industry becomes more resilient and the notion of terrorism more widely accepted as a global phenomenon . These things happen and it’s very bad for our business and for Egypt…”
Police stepped up security at tourist locations and around embassies. the impact of political instabilities has started to lessen and to have a shorter time-span.
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. At the checkpoints leading towards the US embassy they stopped pedestrians and asked what they were doing