News stories by Cam McGrath, page 6

Mohamed El-Abyad's employer has agreed to increase his salary by 20 percent, but the factory worker still cannot afford to send his children to school. After paying his apartment rent and utilities, El-Abyad will have the equivalent of 20 dollars left over each month to put food on his family's table. And while education is mandatory, he pulled both his sons out of school to help cover the shortfall.

Members of the regime of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak have demanded to be allowed to run in upcoming elections and warned of violence if legislation to prohibit their political ambitions is passed.

The upheaval of the Arab Spring has provided fertile ground to plant the seed of a new framework for human rights that moves beyond monitoring violations. Rights advocates want to integrate human rights into the fabric of daily life and are working at the community level to establish the first Human Rights City in the Middle East.

Violent clashes in Cairo that left at least 25 Egyptians dead and over 300 injured on Sunday have deepened suspicions that unseen forces are manipulating the country's sectarian divisions for political gain.

With the trial of Hosni Mubarak set to resume Monday, attorneys representing the families of protesters killed during Egypt’s uprising are trying to cut out the deadwood in their midst.

Amr El-Beheiry’s trial in a military court lasted just five minutes. The 33-year- old Egyptian was arrested on Feb. 26 and sentenced to five years in prison for breaking curfew and assaulting a public official during a demonstration in Cairo.

In a shuttered Cairo café, Egyptians crane their necks to watch the courtroom drama unfolding on a small television screen mounted high on the wall. The camera pans across the crowded courtroom and zooms in on a frail old man lying on a stretcher inside the caged defendants' box. Part Godfather, part Hannibal Lecter, he is the feared head of a powerful family at the centre of a web of violence and corruption. Beside him are his two sons, one known for shady business deals, the other groomed to head the cartel.

The trade union federation that ex-dictator Hosni Mubarak used to repress labour movements and mobilise regime support for sham elections during his 30-year rule has been disbanded, striking a powerful blow to the old order.

Six months since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the state media organs that once glorified the dictator's policies and glossed over his failures have new leaders. Yet the mindset of decades of authoritarian rule remains intact, say media experts.

Having weathered the maelstrom that engulfed the Middle East earlier this year, Jordan's government has faced simmering unrest as protesters continue to press for political and economic reforms.