Egypt transition in turmoil on eve of vote - Reuters UK
CAIRO |
CAIRO (Reuters) - Activists called for a protest on Friday and Islamists warned that the gains of the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak could be wiped out after Egypt's supreme court dissolved parliament and ruled to keep his last premier in this weekend's presidential race.
Egypt's already troubled transition was plunged into turmoil by Thursday's court rulings. Islamists, who dominate parliament and have gained most since the uprising that ousted Mubarak last year, called the court ruling a "coup".
The run-off election on Saturday and Sunday was billed as the culmination of a transition before the military generals who have ruled Egypt for 16 months since Mubarak's overthrow formally hand power to a new president.
The new leader will now be elected without a parliament, whose election has been one of the few substantive gains, and without a new constitution to outline the extent of his permanent powers, a process delayed by political bickering.
Officials campaigning in the race ends a midday on Friday.
The April 6 movement, which helped galvanised Egyptians against Mubarak, called for a protest march on Friday that would head to Cairo's Tahrir Square "against the soft military coup." It called for the protest to start at 5 p.m. (1500 GMT).
"We will save our revolution. We will save Egypt from military rule," the group said in a statement sent out early in the morning on Friday.
The main target of the group's opposition is presidential contender Ahmed Shafik, a former air force commander who was appointed prime minister in Mubarak's last days in office.
They fear he will seek to rebuild Mubarak's repressive state and reverse the gains of the revolt, although he denies this.
He is pitted in the race against Mohamed Morsy of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose group secured the biggest bloc in parliament and with other Islamists forms a majority in the assembly.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States, long wary of Islamists and which provides $1.3 billion a year in military aid to Egypt, expected the military to fully transfer power to a democratically elected civilian government.
The Brotherhood said on Thursday that the court rulings indicated Egypt was heading into "very difficult days that might be more dangerous than the last days of Mubarak's rule".
"All the democratic gains of the revolution could be wiped out and overturned with the handing of power to one of the symbols of the previous era," it said.
WARNING AGAINST FORGERY
Morsy pledged to press ahead with his presidential bid regardless and warned against foul play of the type that was typical of elections in Mubarak's days.
"If there is any forgery, there will be a huge revolution against the criminals ... a huge revolution until we realise the complete goals of the January 25 revolution," he said, referring to start of the uprising against Mubarak on February 11, 2011.
Shafik told his jubilant supporters at a rally at a hotel on the outskirts of Cairo that the court rulings were "historic" and said the "era of political score settling has ended."
"The army and the people are on one hand," his backers chanted.
Outside the court, protesters chanted "Down, down with military rule" and threw stones at troops lined up around on the building on the banks of the Nile. A few hundred demonstrators also gathered in Tahrir, though nothing like the hundreds of thousands that packed the square during and after Mubarak fell.
"Shafik is from the old regime. We can't have him back. We need to give Morsy a chance. The court rulings were wrong," Salah Sayed Mahmoud, a 43-year-old carpenter who had joined those in the square on Thursday evening.
Shafik's backers include Egyptians who may have been happy to see the back of Mubarak but are tired of turmoil and see Shafik having the military experience to restore order. Morsy has the broad grass-roots network of his 84-year-old group.
Yet for many Egyptians, who voted for centrist candidates in the first round, the choice could not be worse. They worry about handing power back to a military man like Mubarak as much as about giving it to a conservative Islamist.
For them, the vote has reproduced the same battle lines that dominated Egypt's stale politics for years, pitting a man who like every president for six decades came from military ranks against their perennial antagonist, the Brotherhood.
"We are back to the political dynamic of secular versus Islamist, of a civil state versus an Islamist state," said Mona Makram Ebeid, a political scientist and member of a body that advises the military council, speaking before the rulings.
"That is what we as political forces are confronted with today, causing almost a gridlock," she said, referring to the months of wrangling between the army, Islamists, liberals and other parties seeking to carve a new course for the nation.
(Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Jon Boyle)
3 killed in University of Alberta shooting - CBC
Three people are dead and a fourth is in critical condition following what appears to be an attempted armed robbery early this morning at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, police say.
Tactical officers and canine units were at the scene of the shooting at HUB Mall, which houses retails shops and student residences.
Student Ravedh Seeberath told CBC News that he heard the shots while studying in the HUB Mall area around 12:30 a.m. MT.
"As I was walking down, that's when about 30 tactical officers were rushing toward me, passing me with complete firearms … the whole works, and police dogs," he said.
"That's when I went back to my books, grabbed what I could, and told the other ladies in that little study area that we should get out of there."
A tweet sent from the University of Alberta account said the mall has been locked down.
More to come
Safety fears restrict relief work after Myanmar riots - Reuters
SITTWE, Myanmar |
SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - Armed troops patrolled the northwest Myanmar city of Sittwe on Friday after days of sectarian violence that has stoked nationalist fervor and displaced 30,000 people, with many feared dead.
Heavy rain kept many residents indoors in the Rakhine state capital and police and aid groups struggled to get food to thousands of ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas displaced by communal rioting and arson that have presented a big test to Myanmar's 15-month-old quasi-civilian government.
United Nations officials told Reuters three of its staff, two from its UNHCR refugee agency and one from the World Food Programme (WFP), all Myanmar nationals, had been detained by police in the Rohingya-dominated town of Buthidaung for unknown reasons.
The WFP had provided hundreds of sacks of rice to some areas, said Aye Win, spokesman for its operations in Myanmar.
"We will try to get to other camps as soon as we can, when it is safe and secure. We are doing as much as we can. We will go in but security is paramount," he added.
More than 20 houses were burned down late on Thursday in a village near Sittwe, residents said, adding to the 2,500 torched in the past week. But there were no reports of further deaths.
The violence, which the government said had killed 29 people and displaced 30,000 as of Thursday, is a major setback for a rapidly reforming Myanmar that has seen a year of dramatic political change after 49 years of oppressive military rule.
The new government has made peace and unity among Myanmar's many ethnic groups its mantra and has struck ceasefire deals with minority Karen, Shan, Mon and Chin rebels, among others, after decades of hostilities.
FERVENT ANGER
The Muslim community's Friday prayers were cancelled in Sittwe and surrounding villages to avoid a repeat of riots that erupted in the town of Maungdaw a week ago and spread to other parts of Rakhine state.
"Officials do not want large gatherings and want to avoid more violence. They (Muslims) will be able to pray at home," Shwe Maung, a Muslim member of parliament for the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, told Reuters.
What triggered the rampage of rock-hurling, arson and machete attacks is unclear and the subject of heated debate, with protests taking place in other regions and Facebook pages and Internet web boards inundated with inflammatory comments.
There is entrenched, long-standing animosity in the state bordering Bangladesh between Rakhine Buddhists and stateless Muslim Rohingyas, of whom there are an estimated 800,000, most living in abject conditions.
Bangladesh, like Myanmar, does not recognize Rohingyas as citizens and the Bangladeshi authorities have turned away more than a dozen boats with Rohingyas fleeing the violence this week.
The crisis has put President Thein Sein in a tight spot. His government is under pressure from rights groups and Western countries to show compassion towards the Rohingyas but if there is any change in policy towards them, it could face the wrath of the public, many of whom regard them as illegal immigrants.
A dawn-to-dusk curfew remained in place in Sittwe and many Rohingyas had been moved out by security forces, said Hla Maung, who is in charge of a camp looking after Rakhine Buddhists, close to a near-empty Rohingya neighborhood.
On a visit to the Philippines, Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Wunna Maung Lwin told Reuters everything was being done to ensure the situation remained stable.
"We have taken care of everything, we give priority to the stability of the state. Sittwe is back to normal," Wunna Maung Lwin said.
Nobel laureate and opposition parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi expressed concern over the violence on Thursday.
Speaking in Switzerland on the first leg of a five-country European tour, she sidestepped a question about whether she supported granting citizenship to Rohingyas and said resolving the Rakhine conflict required "delicacy and sensitivity".
Relations between the two communities have always been uneasy and tension flared last month after the gang rape and murder of a Buddhist Rakhine woman that was blamed on Muslims.
That led to the killing of 10 Muslims in reprisal on June 3, when a Buddhist mob stopped a bus they were travelling on. The passengers had no connection to the murdered woman. State media said three Muslims are on trial for the woman's death.
(Reporting by Reuters staff reporters; Additional reporting by Manny Mogato in Manila; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould and Jonathan Thatcher)
Aides stop former RSS chief from speaking to media - Times of India
PUNE: Former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief K S Sudarshan was stopped from interacting with the media by his own men at a function held at Balgandharv Rangmandir on Thursday.
Sudarshan, who was in the city to attend a felicitation programme, was seated in the audience and not among dignitaries on the stage. When some media persons requested him to speak, Sudarshan readily agreed. However, his aides sitting nearby immediately surrounded him. They said that Sudarshan does not speak to the media without prior permission. Sudarshan looked puzzled by the reaction of his own men. "Why will I not speak? I am going to speak to them," he said. However, his aides did not relent and told the media persons to go away. "You need to understand the RSS system. Don't insist and go away. I know you are going to ask him about RSS," one of his associates said. Sudarshan remained a mute spectator as the journalists left the scene.
Sudarshan's early years as the sarsanghachalak were tumultuous with the BJP in power at the Centre. The Sangh Parivar came under attack for the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat and the Jinnah controversy triggered by Advani during a trip to Pakistan. Sudarshan, who retired in 2009 citing health reasons, made headlines for making controversial statements. In 2010, the Sangh had to express regret over one such statement he made against Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The Sangh had then clarified that Sudarshan's views on the Congress president do not represent the views of the organisation.
Sudarshan has kept a low profile since then and is guarded from making any statements, said an RSS worker present at the functioN.
Barclays Premier League PFA fans player of the year - Football
Published: 15 Jun 2012 - 10:56:11
Robin Van Persie – Arsenal
The voting for the 2011/12 PFA Fans’ Player of the Year Awards has finished and the names of the winning players, as compiled by the PFA’s digital media partner - Digital Sports Group (DSG), have been released;“Burnley born, he had some limited experience in their time in the Premier League but has really come good for the club.
Gordon Taylor OBE, Chief Executive of the Professional Footballers' Association of England and Wales and Honorary President of FIFPro said;
“Had an exceptional season, voted by both the players and Football Writers as their Player of the Year which no-one could really argue with.
Bought from Feyenoord for £2.75million, he has established himself in the mould of previous top quality Dutch strikers such as Dennis Bergkamp, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Marco Van Basten and is a credit to Holland for such a small country that they continue to produce such marvellous strikers.
He is very much in demand and Arsenal fans will be worrying whether Arsenal can get him to stay or whether he will move on to the likes of Manchester City. Many of his goals were the best of not just this season but any season, when you think of the quality of some of his volleys.
He really has been a talisman for Arsenal and as Captain has lifted them into qualifying for the Champions League again when all looked lost. It was great to meet him at our Awards Dinner and he presented himself really well. He clearly has a good relationship with Arsene Wenger and it will be crucial to Arsenal’s future as to whether he stays or goes.”
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Spain V Republic of Ireland : UEFA Euro 2012 Match Report - Football
Published: 15 Jun 2012 - 10:11:25
Champions Spain thrash Ireland to top group
Defending champions Spain are on course for the Euro 2012 quarter-finals after their 4-0 thrashing of Ireland on Thursday put them top of Group C with the Irish bowing out.
For all their endeavour in defence, Ireland struggled constantly to cope with the torrent of Spanish attacks as Chelsea's Fernando Torres proved he is back to his best with two clinically-taken goals.
Having decided the Euro 2008 final with the winning goal against Germany, Torres netted either side of Manchester City's David Silva second-half strike before his replacement Cesc Fabregas added the fourth seven minutes from time.
With 66 percent ball possession, 26 shots on goal, 20 of which were on target, Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given had a busy night as Spain dominated while Ireland managed just six shots on goal in total.
The win puts Spain top of the group on goal difference and level on four points with second-placed Croatia, who Vicente del Bosque's world champions face here at Arena Gdansk again on Monday.
Having suffered their second defeat after losing 3-1 to Croatia on Sunday, Giovanni Trapattoni's Ireland will exit after the group stages.
Italy, who drew 1-1 with Croatia earlier, have two points in third and can still progress if they beat Ireland in Poznan, Poland, the same day, but the Azzurri are reliant on either Spain or Croatia winning in Gdansk.
Spain had complained to UEFA about the dry condition of the Gdansk pitch during Sunday's 1-1 draw with Italy as Fabregas labeled it "a disaster", but heavy rain during Thursday's match made the issue null and void.
Having used a 4-3-3 formation against Italy without a recognised striker, Spain coach Vicente del Bosque elected to start Torres at the expense of Barcelona's Fabregas.
Silva with style
The Chelsea star rewarded the faith with the opening goal after just four minutes.
With Spain on the attack, Ireland defender Richard Dunne tackled Silva on the edge of the area, but Torres pounced on the loose ball and drilled his shot past Given from a tight angle.
Trapatonni brought on Stoke City's Jon Walters for Simon Cox up front at half-time, but there was no stemming the tide of Spanish attacks.
A long-range shot from Iniesta was parried by Given, but fell into Silva's path, who jinked his way around defenders to roll his shot calmly past Given four minutes after the break.
After Given pulled off more heroics to deny Xavi Hernandez's corner shot, Ireland lifted their tempo with a series of attacks as Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas was pressed into service.
The threatened third goal came when Silva released Torres, who raced away from Dunne and slotted home his shot on 70 minutes to give Given no chance before the Spaniard made way for Fabregas four minutes later.
The Barcelona star, who scored the equaliser against Italy, again showed his class as he drilled home his shot from a tight angle for Spain's fourth.
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