So .... what's happening on the Egyptian front?

From IndependentCatholic:
masked gunmen opened fire on a wedding in Giza on Sunday evening, 20 October.  
As wedding guests were leaving the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Warraq al-Hadar, Giza, a car and a motorcycle pulled up, and a masked gunman on the motorcycle opened fire with an automatic weapon. At least 15 bullets were fired indiscriminately before the attackers drove away.
Two guests were killed during the attack, with two more dying later from gunshot wounds. The deceased are eight year-old Mariam Ashraf, twelve year-old Miriam Nabil, 45 year-old Samir Fahmy and 56 year-old Camilia Attiya, the mother of the groom. CSW’s sources confirm that 18 others were injured and that all of the deceased were Christians. According to Father Thomas Daoud Ibrahim, priest of the Warraq church, three wedding services had been taking place at the time of the attack.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack; however, it comes after a wave of violence by Muslim Brotherhood supporters targeting the Coptic community, which they claim played a primary role in the removal of former President Morsi. .........



From Reuters:
....Egypt's prosecutor general on Tuesday ordered the trial of four police officers charged with killing 39 Muslim Brotherhood members in August after they were picked up in the crackdown that followed the military overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi.
The Islamists died after teargas was fired into the back of the police van in which they were being held. The four policemen have been arrested and charged with murder and unintended injury, a security source said.
Also on Tuesday, hundreds of students demanding Mursi's reinstatement protested for a fourth consecutive day at universities in several provinces.
Security forces fired teargas at supporters and opponents of Mursi in front of Mansoura University, north of Cairo, a witness said.....

From AllAfrica:
The Financial Times newspaper rejected offers by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) to allocate a page to condemn a visit by an Egyptian popular diplomacy delegation to London.
The MB also offered the British newspaper money to condemn Egypt's June 30 Revolution in its publication.
Meanwhile, the website of the International Anti-Coup Pro-Democracy Alliance condemned the stance of the FT's editor Lionel Barber, who rejected offers by the international organization of the MB to publish articles criticizing the June 30 Revolution and the visit paid by the Egyptian popular diplomacy delegation to London.

From AlMonitor:
....Cairo and Addis Ababa may soon reach a truce  to calm their dispute over the construction of the Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. Both countries have recently shown good faith and agreed to negotiate about the project. Egypt has even agreed to take part in building the dam, though without declaring its conditions for doing so.
At a news conference Oct. 7, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced that his country welcomes the participation of Egypt and Sudan in the construction of the dam and stressed that his government considers the dam to be jointly owned by Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt. Cairo viewed his statement as a positive step toward reaching a consensus on the project, despite its earlier sharp criticism of it.
In a telephone conversation Oct. 17, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdul Muttalib told Al-Monitor: “Egypt doesn’t mind joining the Ethiopian government in building the dam for the service and development of the Ethiopian people. But we must agree on a number of items in a clear way to prevent any damage to Egypt as a result of the dam construction. The Egyptian government always opts for cooperation and participation. … During the coming negotiations with Ethiopia over the dam, we will clarify our position regarding the policy and method of operating the dam, the size of the storage lake attached to it, and how to fill it with water in times of flood and drought.” He stressed, “Egypt will definitely not participate in the construction unless these policies are agreed upon and agreements regarding them are signed.”........

From AhramEnglish:
Egypt's presidency denied on Tuesday media reports suggesting that the government has made contact with opposing "factions" in order to pull Egypt out of its current political stalemate. 
According to a Tuesday statement, the presidency has not appealed to "factions that use violence to impose their will, which is in opposition of the will of the Egyptian people," state news agency MENA reported.
The statement appears to refer to several recent media reports alleging negotiations between Egypt's interim authorities and the Muslim Brotherhood, which refuses to acknowledge former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's popularly-backed military ouster in July........

From HuffingtonPost:
Lindsey Graham Holds Up Millions In Egypt Aid. President Barack Obama's first package of post-coup economic aid to Egypt is hitting a roadblock in Congress, where a key Republican senator is holding up the transfer of $60 million to a program to spur private investment in Egypt's flailing economy, according to U.S. officials and congressional aides.
The Obama administration decided earlier this month to suspend much of America's annual $1.6 billion in mostly military support to its once ironclad Middle East ally, citing the ruling army's continued crackdown on political opponents since ousting Mohammed Morsi, the popularly elected, Muslim Brotherhood-backed president, in July. But the administration pledged at the same time to maintain the strategic relationship, and recently sought congressional approval for a chunk of assistance.

From WashingtonInstitute:
Although the new constitution    is unlikely to catalyze upheaval in the short term, the changes being contemplated could have major implications for the role of religion and the military in Egypt's political life.

Egypt's fifty-member constitutional committee will soon release a final draft of the new charter, providing important indicators about the country's domestic political trajectory. Reports from the committee's deliberations highlight two issues that will be particularly crucial in defining the character of the newly emerging order: how the constitution frames the relationship between religion and politics, and how it envisions the role of the military....