- CAIRO: Egypt's state-owned news agency says President Hosni Mubarak is going to have a gall bladder operation in Germany and has temporarily handed over power to the prime minister.
MENA says the 81-year-old leader will have the operation Saturday after being diagnosed as having “severe inflammation of his gall bladder” after tests at a hospital in Heidelberg.
It says Mubarak has decreed that Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif will exercise all presidential powers while he is out of the country.