Ex-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's murder trial will most likely be held in the Red Sea resort where he is hospitalized, which is bound to anger activists demanding his transfer to Cairo, officials said on Saturday.

The 83-year-old former strongman has been detained in a Sharm el-Sheikh hospital since April, and he is due to go on trial on August 3 on charges of murdering anti-regime protesters and of corruption.

Thousands of protesters rallied across Egypt on Friday, capping a week of nationwide sit-ins to demand political change as anger grows with the military rulers over the slow pace of reform.

More than 28 movements had called for the rallies to pressure the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) -- which took power when president Hosni Mubarak was toppled -- to respond to their demands.

Egypt's military rulers have decided to delay the parliamentary elections scheduled for September by up to two months, a military official told state media on Wednesday.

"It has been decided to hold elections for the People's Assembly and the Shoura Council next October or November," MENA state news agency quoted the official as saying, in reference to the lower and upper houses of parliament.

Protesters camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square vowed Wednesday to pursue their sit-in despite warnings from the ruling military council.

Hundreds spent another night in Tahrir -- the epicenter of protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak -- where they have been camping out since nationwide rallies on Friday to demand political change.

Three Egyptian ex-ministers were sentenced on Tuesday to up to 10 years in jail for profiteering in a case involving a purchase of car number plates, a judicial official told Agence France Presse.

Former interior minister Habib al-Adly was sentenced to five years, while former finance minister Youssef Boutros Ghali got 10 years in absentia and ex-prime minister Ahmed Nazif was given a one-year suspended sentence.

Egyptian protesters who carried Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on their shoulders to celebrate his appointment in March have now unleashed their full wrath on him for failing to deliver on promised change.

Five months after president Hosni Mubarak was ousted by a popular revolt, pro-democracy activists fear their revolution is in jeopardy, and accuse the ruling military council of maintaining an absolute grip on power that blocks the democratic path.

Saboteurs bombed an Egyptian gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula for the fourth time since February, cutting supplies to Israel and Jordan, the official MENA news agency reported Tuesday.

The blast occurred near the town of al-Arish in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, it said, adding that the ensuing "flames were up to 10 meters high.

The army has stopped a pickup truck loaded with contraband arms near Egypt's border with Libya, the scene of an armed revolt since February, the state news agency MENA reported on Sunday.

It said the vehicle was intercepted around 90 kilometers south of the Salloum border post but the driver managed to flee.

Protesters who spent their second night in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday vowed to keep up their sit-in despite a series of concessions by the Egyptian prime minister.

Pro-democracy activists had camped out on the square -- the focus of protests that ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February -- after mass nationwide rallies on Friday to demand political change.

Egypt on Saturday appointed a new information minister, a controversial post that had been abolished after the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak.

Osama Heikal, former editor-in-chief of the liberal Wafd party's newspaper, was sworn in on Saturday in front of Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, the head of the military council that took power when Mubarak was ousted.