Toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that his decision to step down was his own, adding that he could have remained in power if he had wanted to, in an interview with Egyptian daily Al-Watan published on Wednesday.

Mubarak reportedly made the statements in an interview conducted at the Tora Prison Hospital in Cairo.

 “I made the decision to step down myself. No one pressured me. It was possible for me to stay in power but I decided to step down to protect people’s lives and not shed blood,” Mubarak said, according to the paper.

Egyptians have voiced anger after Mohammed Morsi appointed an Islamist as provincial governor, who is linked to a deadly terrorist attack. Adel el-Khayat said he would not allow politics to influence his decisions.

Politicians, residents and activists in the Luxor province said they plan to seal off the office of the governor to prevent Adel el-Khayat from entering. Members of the tourism industry worry about the new governor's potential impact on tourism: The Islamist hard-liner comes from Gamaa Islamiya, a group that claimed responsibility for one of Egypt's bloodiest massacres.

A report published by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) is highly critical of EU aid spending to promote key areas of governance in Egypt in the periods before and after the Uprising of January 2011. “The ‘softly softly’ approach has not worked, and the time has come for a more focused approach which will produce meaningful results and guarantee better value for the European taxpayers’ money” stated Mr Karel Pinxten, the ECA member responsible for the report.

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Here is what I wrote in October 2010. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad al-Badi, had just given a sermon calling for the overthrow of Egypt’s government, which happened four months later, and a jihad against the United States, a country he considered weak, foolish, and retreating from the Middle East. I declared that this was:

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Coptic Solidarity is taking up a critical issue this week through hosting their fourth annual conference titled To What Extent Will the U.S. and the International Community Support an Islamist Government in Egypt? This timely topic follows on the heels of the unprecedented attack on the Coptic Papal seat at St. Mark's earlier this year as well as continued systematic discrimination and persecution of Egypt's Coptic minority.