Culture Minister Farouk Hosni on Sunday issued a list of new regulations to be adopted by his ministry in line with guidelines laid out in the recently approved Egyptian Antiquity Protection Law. The new directives include guidelines for defining what constitutes an "antiquity" per se; determining ownership of antiquities; regulating archeological excavations; and specifying how antiquities should be inventoried, preserved and restored. Other regulations touch on tourism management at sites featuring antiquities and at Egyptian museums.

Interview with Zahi Hawass who talks about his plans after his retirement next year.

An archaeological delegation headed by Youssef Khalifa, director of the department of stolen and recovered antiquities at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), returned from London this week with three artefacts that had been stolen and illegally smuggled out of Egypt.

The Ministry of Culture and the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) have been at the forefront of a campaign since 2002 to stamp out the trade in artefacts illegally smuggled from Egypt and bring them back home. To put the campaign into effect, the SCA has created a new department in its administrative body, the National Committee to Return Smuggled Antiquities (NCRSA), to list all the objects that have been illegally smuggled out of the country together with those missing from archaeological storehouses and museums.