Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi said Tuesday his government will no longer privatise state firms, in a break with a policy launched in the 1990s by his ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak's regime. There will be "no more sale of the public sector, that is finished... and we will no longer do away with workers," he said in a televised May Day speech before workers in Helwan, south of Cairo. "Encouraging the private sector and private investments does not mean an alternative to the public sector, which must be developed," said the Islamist president who was elected last June.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Russia will help Egypt develop its nuclear power programme, Trade and Industry Minister Hatem Saleh said on Monday, signalling that the Islamist-led state will press ahead with its quest for atomic energy. Egypt froze its nuclear programme after the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, but in 2006, the government of deposed President Hosni Mubarak announced it would revive the programme.

(Reuters) - Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak was transferred back to prison from an army hospital on Thursday after he appeared fitter at his aborted retrial on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ousted him. Mubarak's transfer from the hospital was delayed because hundreds of supporters had blocked the road in front of the hospital late on Wednesday in protest against Mubarak's return to jail, the MENA state news agency said.

Egypt's public prosecutor on Wednesday ordered the transfer of ousted president Hosni Mubarak to prison from hospital due to the "stability of his health," judicial sources said. The 84-year-old Mubarak will be moved back to Tora prison. He was being held at a military hospital in Cairo where he was being treated for a heart condition, fractured ribs, fluid in the lungs, depression and high blood pressure. strs-iba/jaz/hc