Cairo

Saleh Mohammed, 31, is a wizard at threading his way through the tangled mass of cars, buses, bicycles, beggars, hand trucks and donkey carts that choke the streets of Cairo each day. With a running back's eye for daylight, he instantly spots any break in the traffic and nudges his sputtering South Korean-made taxicab through the opening, leaving a cloud of acrid exhaust in his wake. These skills are all the more impressive when you consider that Mohammed's full-time job, his "real" job - the job he would list on a resume if he ever had time to prepare one - is that of a middle-level bureaucrat with the regional Governorate of Cairo.

A government official said yesterday that 107 people were killed during last week's rioting by thousands of Egyptian security police, a drastic increase from earlier accounts that had put the death toll at 36. Deputy Interior Minister Farouk Heini also told the newspaper Al Ahram that more than 715 people were wounded during the rebellion. Last week, the government said more than 300 were wounded. Heini said that among the dead were two police officials, one army officer and 89 policemen.

An aged Nubian in robe and turban circled the room, trying to interest someone, anyone, in a shoeshine. Nearby, a boy in tattered trousers moved from table to table, peddling cut flowers, while a waiter barked out orders for qahwa (coffee), shai (tea) or "Bebsi. " Farouk Daoud Ahmed, 51, a retired civil servant, has spent countless hours in dingy places like the Roxy on Aimad ed-Din Street, poring over the newspaper, chatting with friends or killing time between appointments. "I must be in a coffeehouse for at least an hour a day," he said, nursing a soft drink.

When Marriage Egyptian Style had its Egyptian premiere last spring, the audience was not amused. "They hated it in a big way," recalled Reem Saad, the film's Egyptian anthropologist/narrator, in a recent phone interview from Oxford, England. "It was a very violent reaction. " People rose to their feet and shouted "exclamations of horror" in Arabic, said Joanna Head, the film's producer/director. She did not understand the words, but, she said, "I knew it was not going down well.

The U.S. consul general in Cairo met Wednesday with the three American students accused of throwing firebombs from a rooftop during pro-democracy protests in Tahrir Square. The three, including Drexel University student Gregory Porter, 19, of Glenside, were arrested Monday by Egypt's military. "They are safe and being treated well," Drexel president John A. Fry said in a statement after being briefed about the Cairo meeting. The students were questioned by Egyptian authorities, said Fry, "but no charges have been filed.

What started as a winter getaway to visit family in Cairo ended up as a brush with history for Shereen Abou-Gharbia and her mother - eyewitnesses to events that could help reshape the Middle East. Abou-Gharbia and her mother, Lamaat Shalaby, both of Chester County, arrived in Cairo on Jan. 26, the day after the first demonstrations in the city's Tahrir Square. They were intending to meet Shereen's father, Magid Abou-Gharbia, a professor at the Temple University School of Pharmacy, who had been scheduled to arrive later and speak in Luxor, about 450 miles south of Cairo, but wound up canceling.

AN EGYPTIAN court yesterday ordered the release of a Drexel University student and two other Americans who had been arrested and interrogated by a prosecutor in Cairo for allegedly throwing firebombs at police during a pro-democracy protest. But the Drexel student, Gregory Porter, 19, of Glenside, Montgomery County, was still in police custody last night, according to Theodore Simon, a Philadelphia-based criminal-defense attorney representing Porter's family. Despite the court order, it was not yet clear when Porter would be freed, Simon told the Daily News last night.

Greg Porter, the Drexel University sophomore who was arrested by police in Cairo during a pro-democracy riot, returned to the United States on Saturday evening, saying he was "so thankful to be back in Philadelphia. " Porter arrived from Frankfurt, Germany, at Philadelphia International Airport's international terminal shortly after 5 p.m. and was greeted by family and a phalanx of media cameras. Smiling and appearing healthy, Porter spoke briefly, thanking his parents, attorneys, and university and embassy officials, but he did not discuss the actions that led to his arrest.

Visitors stepping off the elevator at the 26th floor of the Intercontinental Hotel get their first hint that this is not a normal floor when three men packing pistols beneath their jackets jump up from chairs strategically positioned in the hall. There, camped out in a room with a view of gritty downtown Cairo and attended full-time by his own private hotel waiter, young Sheik Ahmed Fahd al- Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah, nephew of the Kuwaiti emir-in-exile, is doing his part for his people.