An eleven-storey building collapsed in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria on Saturday, destroying three neighboring homes and injuring at least 16 people, police said.

Witnesses said the building housed four families and a bakery, but could not give an overall number of tenants.

Egyptian lawyers protested on Saturday outside a police station in northern Cairo a day after clashes there left a dozen people injured, a security official said.

The clashes were sparked by a confrontation between a lawyer and a policeman inside the Nasr City police station, a row that quickly escalated as more policemen and lawyers arrived at the scene.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) has pulled out of an opposition conference in Cairo, citing political "disputes," a statement said on Tuesday.

The two-day conference opened on Monday in the Egyptian capital, under the auspices of the Arab League, to forge a common vision for a transition in the country after a blueprint was adopted by world powers on the weekend.

Syria's main exiled opposition groups met in Cairo Monday to try to forge a common vision for a political transition in Syria after criticizing a blueprint agreed by the major powers last week in a compromise with China and Russia.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi, who chaired the meeting attended by around 250 opposition figures, urged opposition groups "not to waste this opportunity" and to "unite."

Syria-based rebel fighters and activists said they would boycott an opposition meeting in Cairo on Monday, denouncing it as a "conspiracy" that served the policy goals of Damascus allies Moscow and Tehran.

The two-day meeting, to be attended by the main exiled opposition bloc, the Syrian National Council, and other smaller groups, is intended to forge a common vision for a political transition in Syria after 16 months of bloodshed.

Islamist Mohammed Morsi paid tribute on Friday to Egypt's Muslims and Christians alike and symbolically swore himself in as the country's first elected civilian president before a huge crowd at Tahrir Square.

Crowds had thronged the square from early in the day ahead of the president-elect's appearance on the eve of his official swearing-in.

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who is serving a life sentence in jail, remains in a "stable" condition, the Egyptian interior minister said on Saturday.

The former leader's health is "stable" and he "is getting progressively better," Mohammed Ibrahim told reporters, adding that a decision to transfer Mubarak's sons Alaa and Gamal to the same prison had "borne fruit."

Dozens of protesters remained in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Wednesday after camping out following a mass demonstration against verdicts handed down in ex-president Hosni Mubarak's murder trial.

Fresh protests were expected in both Cairo and the port city of Alexandria later in the day, to mark the second anniversary of the killing of Khaled Said, a young Egyptian beaten to death in police custody in 2010.

Taking advantage of Egypt's political upheaval, thieves have gone on a treasure hunt with a spree of illegal digging, preying on the country's ancient pharaonic heritage.

Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs. The pillaging comes on top of a wave of break-ins last year at archaeological storehouses — and even at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, the country's biggest repository of pharaonic artifacts.

Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has signed agreements with Bahrain to move his Rotana news and entertainment company from Cairo to the protest-hit Gulf state, the official BNA agency said on Wednesday.

The move comes as Prince Alwaleed plans to launch 24-hour news channel, Alarab in the first half of 2013 to compete with Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and the newly-launched Sky News Arabia satellite news channels.