Cairo  - A Lebanese antiquities dealer was arrested in Bulgaria after being charged with smuggling stolen ancient Egyptian artifacts, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) said on Thursday.

"Ali Abu Taam was accused of smuggling more than 1,000 antiquities and helping Egyptian dealer Tareq al-Sweissi smuggle Egyptian pieces that belonged to different dynasties," said SCA chief Zahi Hawas.

Cairo  - The Palestinian group Hamas on Wednesday refused to go into details of the group's reply to the Egyptian proposal until Cairo discusses them with Israel.

Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil told a press conference in Cairo that the group only gave Egyptian officials their "interpretations and vision for the main points of the Egyptian proposal".

"We are not in a position to amend the Egyptian proposal. The proposal consists of main headlines and each side presents his own vision under them," al- Bardawil said.

Cairo - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday renewed his calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and stressed that all UN member states are obliged to abide by UN Security Council resolutions.

He made his appeal after his meeting with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in Cairo where he arrived as fighting in Gaza entered its 19th day and the Palestinian death toll neared 1,000. In the second such strike this week, militants in Lebanon fired three Katyusha rockets into northern Israel Wednesday morning.

Cairo - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon arrived in Cairo Wednesday at the start of a Middle East tour to seek an end to Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Ban was expected to meet Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak Wednesday to discuss Cairo's initiative for a ceasefire in the current conflict.

Ban was also due to meet with Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa, sources familiar with his trip said.

Ban was then scheduled to travel to Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and Kuwait.

Cairo - A group of Arab and international journalists left Cairo for the Egyptian-Gazan border Tuesday in an attempt to break the media blockade on the strip, one of the organizers told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The group includes 13 journalists from the US, Egypt, France, Morocco, Sudan, and Qatar, said Hagar Samouni, research coordinator in the Doha Centre for Media Freedom and one of the organizers of the trip.

"The trip is a show of solidarity with our Palestinian colleagues who are deprived of the basic tools they need to carry out their duties," French journalist Zeinab al-Ghazawy told dpa.

Cairo  - A Hamas delegation and a senior Turkish foreign policy advisor returned to Cairo from Damascus Monday, airport sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Ahmet Davotoglu, chief foreign policy advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was in Damascus for talks with Hamas in Damascus and with the Syrian authorities. He returned to Cairo Monday evening by private plane, airport sources said.