Hundreds of Egyptian protesters demanding the end of military rule were prevented on Tuesday from reaching parliament by backers of the Muslim Brotherhood, which holds the majority in the assembly.

"We are standing here as a human shield, because if the protesters go any further, they will clash with the police. They want to enter parliament, what do you expect me to do?" Muslim Brotherhood member Hamdy Abdul Samad told Agence France Presse.

Egyptian Bedouins on Tuesday captured 25 Chinese workers in Sinai to demand the release of relatives detained over bombings in the peninsula between 2004 and 2006, a security official said.

The Chinese nationals, technicians and engineers who work for a military-owned cement factory in the Lehfen area of central Sinai, were abducted on their way to work, the official said.

Egypt's ruling military on Monday laid out the rules governing the country's first presidential elections since a popular uprising ousted veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Only Egyptian nationals born to Egyptian parents and who do not hold dual citizenship can qualify for candidacy, according to the new election law issued by military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

Egyptians headed to the polls on Sunday for the election of the upper house of parliament, with Islamists looking to build on their triumph in the People's Assembly.

Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0600 GMT) with only a handful of voters in several stations, an Agence France Presse reporter said, in sharp contrast to the long lines and enthusiasm around the elections for the lower house of parliament.

Traffic flowed through Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday after the end of a three-day sit-in to mark one year since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, even as more protests were planned.

Tents were still pitched in the center of the square, where dozens of protesters gathered ahead of demonstrations to demand the ouster of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) now ruling the country.

Scores of opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime stormed the Syrian embassy in Cairo on Friday before being dragged away by security forces, an Agence France Presse reporter said.

At least 200 protesters forced their way into the building in the Garden City neighborhood in Cairo, breaking doors and windows, before Egyptian security officials arrived and took them out. No arrests were made.

Unknown assailants shot dead two Coptic Christians in a village of southern Egypt on Thursday, prompting an angry protest by more than 1,500 of their co-religionists, police said.

A police official said Muwad Hassaad and his son Hassaad Muwad Hassaad were gunned down as they were seated in front of their shop in the village of Bahgura, 600 kilometers (360 miles) from Cairo. The assailants fled the scene.

Israel's former army chief Gabi Ashkenazi said Thursday that no Sunni-led government will ever go as far with Iran and Hizbullah as Syrian President Bashar Assad did.

During the conference, which was organized by the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv University, the former army chief said that “there were vast and untrue estimates stating that the primary country equipping Hizbullah with weapons is Iran, while the truth was that Syria is equipping Hizbullah.”

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani are to head to New York on Saturday to seek support for an Arab plan on Syria, Arabi said.

The two will "hold a meeting with the U.N. Security Council on Monday to seek ratification of the Arab League decision on Syria," for President Bashar Assad to hand power to his deputy, Arabi said.

Egyptian authorities grounded a Libyan Airlines flight on Wednesday after an attendant found a suspected bomb in a toilet on the aircraft, airport officials told Agence France Presse.

Tripoli-bound flight 203 was due to leave Cairo International Airport when a member of the cabin crew found "a metal object" in one of the plane's toilets shortly before take-off.