Renewed strikes and protests have swept Egypt since January 25, the second anniversary of the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution that toppled long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak.

More... (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/19/egyp-f19.html)

"The increasingly dominant role played by the working class indicates the beginning of a new stage of the Egyptian revolution, now entering its third year. The latest strikes and protests have erupted outside the control of and in direct conflict with all factions of the bourgeois elite, which are closing ranks in the face of a developing social revolution from below."

Now we're talkin'.

"The increasingly dominant role played by the working class indicates the beginning of a new stage of the Egyptian revolution, now entering its third year. The latest strikes and protests have erupted outside the control of and in direct conflict with all factions of the bourgeois elite, which are closing ranks in the face of a developing social revolution from below."

Now we're talkin'.

50% truth and 50% wishful thinking on the part of WSWS ("Never met a spontaneity we didn't like...").

50% truth and 50% wishful thinking on the part of WSWS ("Never met a spontaneity we didn't like...").

Yeah, I know. It seems the actions in the industrial cities and towns have a very different flavor than that in Cairo which were dominated(influence not numbers) by indignados. Particularly noteworthy is the Canal and coastal area which I think can be partially attributed to Brotherhood weakness in those areas and the inevitable cosmopolitan nature of international ports(come to think of it those two aspects are joined) and industrialization.

Yeah, I know. It seems the actions in the industrial cities and towns have a very different flavor than that in Cairo which were dominated(influence not numbers) by indignados. Particularly noteworthy is the Canal and coastal area which I think can be partially attributed to Brotherhood weakness in those areas and the inevitable cosmopolitan nature of international ports(come to think of it those two aspects are joined) and industrialization.

This is also where the nationalized industries (from the time of Nasser) were concentrated. In Egypt, there is a deep sense of what privatization would do, both personally and nationally.

And now for something completely different....


Port Said unites key Egyptian government critics: workers and soccer fans

Military troops are protecting factories and government offices on the fifth day of a general strike in the Suez Canal city of Port Said that has brought together two groups with working class roots that played key roles in the toppling of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak: militant, highly politicized, street-battled hardened soccer fans and the labor movement.

Operating independently both groups constituted key centers of resistance to the repression of Mr. Mubarak’s regime during the years that preceded his downfall. The fans fought police and security forces in the stadiums in a battle for control of one of the country’s most crucial public spaces while workers in industrial towns like Mahalla organized strikes against Mr. Mubarak’s economic liberalization policy and corrupt and nepotistic privatization of state-owned assets.

Yet, it took perceptions of a majority of the population of Port Said, a city of 600,000 historically on the frontline of Egypt’s many past confrontations with Israel but nevertheless economically neglected, that even under the country’s first democratically elected president they continued to be a convenient scapegoat, to bring fans and workers together. In doing so, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has failed where Mr. Mubarak succeeded: keeping powerful critics divided. Some 20,000 workers have joined the protests and a five-day old general strike in Port Said, according to Egypt’s state-owned Middle East News Agency.

As a result, Mr. Morsi faces a serious challenge to his authority with protesters and strikers ignoring his declaration of emergency rule in the city and two other towns along the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, Suez and Ismailia that were focal points of anti-government demonstration. That defiance is likely to be fuelled in coming in weeks as Egypt anticipates a second round of verdicts on March 9 in the trial against 52 defendants who include officials of Port Said’s Al Masri soccer club as well nine mid-level police and security officials accused of responsibility for the death a year ago of 74 supporters of crowned Cairo club Al Ahly SC in a politically loaded brawl.

Mr. Morsi’s predicament is his own making even if he inherited the explosive political baggage embedded in the Port Said trial from the military that led Egypt’s from Mr. Mubarak fall to the Muslim Brother’s electoral victory. His failure to initiate crucial albeit difficult reform of the overriding symbol of the Mubarak regime’s repression, the police and security forces, is compounded by the fact that they remain a power onto themselves able to continue their Mubarak era practices of hard-handed management of public protests, arbitrary arrests and torture.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that police and security officials have yet to be held accountable for the deaths of more than 800 protesters since demonstrations against Mr. Mubarak first erupted in January 2011.

Public anger has been further fuelled by the fact that none of the security and police officials in the Port Said trial were among the first batch of those convicted despite a prosecutor’s report that put equal blame on law enforcement and Al Masri fans as well as the fact that 32 protesters were killed in Port Said during protests on the day that the court announced the death sentences against the Al Masri supporters.

Mr. Morsi’s attempt this week to counter Port Said’s sense of being ignored with proposed legislation to reopen a lucrative free trade zone in the city and allocate some $60 million to economic development in Port Said, Suez and Ismailia was rejected by protesters as too little too late. The protesters say they are steadfast in their demand for justice for the protesters who were killed.

The deep-seated animosity towards the police and security forces is rooted in years of confrontation with fans in the stadiums in what amounted to a battle of control for public space and in factories where workers asserted their rights as well as in the fact that police and security officials were the ones that made life difficult in popular neighborhoods of Egyptian cities. The resulting popular anger may well have boiled over in Port Said on the day of the sentencing of the Al Masri fans with witnesses reporting that two policemen were the first to die on the city’s streets.

That notwithstanding, calm badly needed to halt Egypt’s economic slide and return it to economic growth, is unlikely to be restored as long as Mr. Morsi fails to initiate reform of the police and security forces, a major bastion of the former regime. The president’s failure to do so is compounded by his haughty style of government and his failure to consult opposition forces on controversial moves such as the rushing through of a constitution perceived by many as strengthening the hand of Islamists and potentially curbing fundamental freedoms.

The bringing together of workers and fans in a consorted protest against the Morsi government that has all but paralyzed Port Said heightens the risk that traffic through the Suez Canal, a major source of badly needed revenue for the government, could ultimately be affected. The protests have already prompted the evacuation of the Suez Canal authority’s headquarters as well as the closure of more than 20 factories that are now guarded by the military as fans, workers and government employees demand Mr. Morsi’s resignation. Protesters this week temporarily blocked the road leading to the entrance of the Canal. They were joined by workers of the Canal’s container terminal.

Militant soccer fans first reached out to the workers’ movement during protests a year ago in the wake of the Port Said brawl by acknowledging in a song that workers were among those who lost their lives in Egypt’s popular revolt. It never went however beyond the symbolic stretching out of a hand.

Port Said may well constitute the basis for real cooperation rather than symbolism. If so, Mr. Morsi will have not only paved the way for the emergence of an activist coalition that has got its feet wet not in using a computer to employ social media but in hard fought battles in which they have proven themselves as formidable, fearless opponents, but will have also further complicated his efforts to restore calm and open the door to economic development without embarking on real political, social and economic reform.

Said a leader of Ultras Ahlawy, the militant Al Ahli support group, in an interview with Egypt’s Al Ahram newspaper: "Our fight for justice is ongoing and will escalate until all members of the police or military who abused the Ultras are put on trial. We will not give up our rights that easily. We will escalate if needed, as was seen in our 26 January protests commemorating the second anniversary of the 25 January Revolution."

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.com/2013/02/port-said-unites-key-egyptian.html

Do soccer fans constitute a 'popular strata' or are they lumpen or something else? Interesting perspective...

Published February 24, 2013
Associated Press
ASSIUT, Egypt – Thousands of brick workers blocked railroad tracks from a southern city to Cairo for a second day Sunday to protest rising industrial oil prices, causing the cancellation of some services, security officials said.

The government lifted industrial fuel oil subsidies last week as part of a reform program, prompting labor protests by quarry and brick factory workers.

Egypt has been gripped by unrest in recent days, partially because of public discontent with new government measures designed to deal with a crippling budget deficit. But the unrest has also been political, as criticism of President Mohammed Morsi's government is on the rise.

Opponents accuse Morsi and his government of failing to tackle Egypt's myriad problems, and of monopolizing power. The government says political bickering has hindered its ability to manage a serious economic crunch.

Khaled el-Hawari, a marketing executive in one of the brick factories, said industrial fuel oil prices increased by 50 percent, threatening the business and the lives of hundreds of workers who could be laid off.

"No one is listening to us or responding," he said. "We plan to protest outside the Cabinet next."

A security official said negotiations with the brick workers have continued, allowing some trains coming from the capital to get through to the south, but causing a large backlog of trains in Cairo. Nearly 20 train trips to Cairo were cancelled.

The official said that the workers removed tracks for trains heading one direction near Beni Suef, 70 miles south from Cairo, and put wood planks on the other.

A worker at the Beni Suef station said thousands of disgruntled passengers had to rely on road transportation, as vehicles and minivans crowded outside the train station to pick up the backlog. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The security official said some trains traveling from Cairo were passing through. He also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Hundreds of Workers in a quarry in the province of Kafr el-Sheikh, some 50 miles north of Cairo, stormed the local government building forcing its staff to evacuate. The workers are demanding permanent employment in the factory. They chanted against the recently appointed local governor, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi's political group.

Security only arrived later to the building, and evacuated the protesting workers, a security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Residents of the coastal city of Port Said, at the northern tip of the Suez Canal, pressed their general strike which entered its second week on Sunday. The city has practically come to a halt as thousands of workers from the main industrial area joined the strike.

Port Said residents are angered by the killing of more than 40 residents in clashes with security forces in the city following a court order they deemed unjust. The protesters are demanding a thorough investigation into what they say was the security agencies responsibility, and Morsi's political responsibility, in the killing of civilians. The government so far has promised a new investigation, but it has yet to begin.

Shipping in the Suez Canal has not been affected. But protesters have blocked the road leading to the East Port in Port Said, a major container terminal, preventing workers from getting to the quay and obstructing loading and offloading of ships.

Calls for a civil strike in line with Port Said have spread around Egypt. A group of protesters have blocked the entrance to a major administrative building in Cairo's Tahrir Square, stopping citizens from entering and prompting small scuffles.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/24/workers-protesting-fuel-price-hike-block-railroad-tracks-to-cairo/#ixzz2LvBoDFgY

Police strikes in Egypt accelerate, adding turmoil

http://binaryapi.ap.org/2a51fc920dd5406e9912ef3ba749815c/460x.jpg
Egyptian army soldiers stand guard as they take control of the state security building after several days of clashes between protesters and riot police in Port Said, Egypt, Friday, March 8, 2013. With the country in chaos from weeks of protests against the Islamist president, the police have now joined the fray, launching their own protests. Some security forces in Port Said have refused to leave their barracks to move against protesters in the street amid clashes raging for days. Others have refused orders to deploy to Port Said from elsewhere to help in the fight. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

CAIRO (AP) — Strikes by Egyptian security forces spread swiftly around the country Friday, as police walked off the job or took to the streets, angry at being blamed for crackdowns on protests against the Islamist president and accusing his Muslim Brotherhood of trying to control them.

The wave of police discontent adds a new layer to Egypt's turmoil and political breakdown. In a sign of the disarray, a powerful hard-line Islamist group said its members would now take over policing a southern province because most security forces in the province were on strike.

The top security official in Assiut province, Gen. Aboul-Kassem Deif, said the announcement by Gamaa Islamiya — a group that in the 1990s waged an armed Islamic militant uprising but in the past two years entered politics — was illegal. But he seemed to acknowledge he could not stop it.

"I don't know what to do," he told The Associated Press.

Strikes by policemen and riot police were reported in at least 10 of Egypt's 29 provinces, including at several stations in the capital, Cairo.

In Cairo, police demonstrated in front of the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the security forces, and demanded the resignation of the minister, their boss.

In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city, police closed their stations and plastered posters on the door reading, "We don't want politics" and — in an attempt to show unity with the public — "Police and the people are one hand."

The police discontent comes after relentless protests and unrest around the country since late January — which in turn followed an earlier wave of protests in November and December. In past weeks, protesters have taken to the streets largely in anger against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, which the opposition accuses of trying to dominate power in the country. But other factors have fueled unrest, including a declining economy and fuel shortages.

Near daily, the demonstrations have turned into clashes with police in multiple cities, resulting in the killing of around 70 protesters. Each death has increased public anger against the security forces, fueled further by reports of torture of some activists by security agents. The force is already widely hated because of its legacy of abuses and brutality under ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Now that has sparked a backlash by many of the lower-ranking members of the security forces. Protesting police accuse Morsi of using them to crack down on his opponents and demand the resignation of the current, Morsi-appointed interior minister, who they accuse of engineering efforts to bring Islamist sympathizers into the ministry.

Police officers in the southern city of Sohag marched in front of one station, holding signs reading, "No to the Brotherhoodization of the ministry."

Police in charge of protecting the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which makes up the backbone of Morsi's rule, have gone on strike, as have others tasked with escorting Morsi's motorcades.

Some members of the Central Security forces — the riot police force that is at the forefront of cracking down on protesters — have come to near munity.

On Thursday, protesting riot police trapped the Central Security's top commander for several hours inside their camp at the city of Port Said, refusing to deploy in the city against protesters.

On Friday, the Interior Ministry announced that the commander, Gen. Maged Nouh, had been removed from his post and replaced by his deputy, Ashraf Abdullah.

Port Said, located at the Mediterranean end of the Suez Canal, has been the center of the heaviest violence during the unrest. A police crackdown on protests there in late January left 40 dead. Protesters have been clashing with police there the past week in fighting that has killed at least eight people, including three policemen.

On Friday, the military took over security in the city as police withdrew from the street and riot police stayed in their barracks. The handover was an attempt to bring calm since protesters largely trust the army more than police.

But many fear a new wave of violence on Saturday when a court issues new verdicts and sentences in a contentious trial over a deadly soccer riot in Port Said in February 2012. A first set of verdicts on Jan. 28 — in which 21 Port Said residents were sentenced to death over the riot — sparked the city's initial uprising because its population sees the trial as unjust and politicized.

On Saturday, the court is scheduled to issue verdicts on around 50 more defendants, mostly Port Said residents but also including nine police officers. If the police personnel are convicted or handed heavy sentences, it will likely further fuel resentment among the security forces.

Hundreds marched through Port Said on Friday in a funeral procession for one of two protesters shot to death in fighting with police the night before, one of whom had been shot in the head. In Cairo on Friday, protesters and police fought on a main thoroughfare along the Nile River for the fifth straight day.

The mainly liberal and secular opposition says the turmoil shows that Morsi and his Islamist allies are not qualified to rule. They have accused Morsi and his Brotherhood of imposing their control and failing to seek consensus with other groups.

Morsi's supporters, in turn, say the opposition is trying to use street violence to overturn their election victories. In June, Morsi became the country's first freely elected president, and Islamists dominate parliament after elections last year.

The announcement by the Gamaa Islamiya in the southern province of Assiut raised the possibility of Islamist groups moving in to fill the void left by striking police.

The group declared its offices the "security headquarters" for the province and said it was organizing volunteer members to carry out police duties like patrols. Islamists in nearby provinces have spoken of doing the same.

The Gamaa was one of two main militant groups that waged a bloody campaign of violence in southern Egypt aiming to overthrow the state in the 1990s. It since forswore violence and entered politics after Mubarak's fall in 2011, but it maintains a hard-line Islamist ideology.

The Assiut security chief, Deif, accused the Gamaa of exploiting the situation to expand its influence before parliamentary elections expected in coming months.

"It could enflame the situation," Deif said, "and people will not accept it."


http://bigstory.ap.org/article/military-takes-over-police-egyptian-city

The Egyptian Police were thought to be much closer to Morsi and the Bro-hood than the Army. With the Army taking over security, it could go in any direction. But the Army is very close to the US, so it is hard to figure...

The Egyptian Police were thought to be much closer to Morsi and the Bro-hood than the Army. With the Army taking over security, it could go in any direction. But the Army is very close to the US, so it is hard to figure...

But who is 'the army'? The generals, the conscripts? I think it a matter of scale, as long as the demands for army deployment are not too pressing they can depend upon 'elite' formations and move conscripts into areas where they might not sympathize, if it gets too frantic it can all fall apart.

But who is 'the army'? The generals, the conscripts? I think it a matter of scale, as long as the demands for army deployment are not too pressing they can depend upon 'elite' formations and move conscripts into areas where they might not sympathize, if it gets too frantic it can all fall apart.

They may have already past "frantic", things appear to moving pretty fast.

Fans rampage in Cairo after soccer riot verdict

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court on Saturday confirmed the death sentences against 21 people for taking part in a deadly soccer riot but acquitted seven police officials for their alleged role in the violence. Suspected fans enraged by the verdict torched the soccer federation headquarters and a police club in Cairo in protest.

The trial over the melee that killed 74 people after a soccer game in the city of Port Said in early 2012 has been the source of some of the worst unrest to hit Egypt in recent weeks. After the court sentenced the 21 people — most of them Port Said fans — to death in late January, violent riots erupted in the city that left some 40 people dead, most of them shot by police.

On Saturday, the court announced its verdict for the other 52 defendants in the case, sentencing 45 of them to prison, including two senior police officers who got 15 years terms each. Twenty-eight people were acquitted, including seven police officials.

As expected, the court's decision failed to defuse tensions over the case, which has taken on political undercurrents at a time when the entire nation is mired in political turmoil, a worsening economy and growing opposition to the rule of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Shortly after the verdict was announced Saturday, suspected fans of Cairo's Al-Ahly club who had gathered in the thousands outside the team's headquarters in central Cairo went on a rampage, torching a police club nearby and storming Egypt's soccer federation headquarters before setting it ablaze. The twin fires sent plumes of thick black smoke billowing out over the Cairo skyline. Two army helicopters were being used to put out the fires.

At least five people were injured in the protests, a Health Ministry official told the MENA state news agency.

In anticipation of more violence, authorities beefed up security near the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police force, with riot police deploying in the streets around the complex in central Cairo.

Earlier at the courthouse across town, Judge Sobhi Abdel-Maguid read out the verdict live on TV, sentencing five defendants to life in prison and nine others to 15 years in jail. Six defendants received 10-year jail terms, two more got five years and a single defendant received a 12-month sentence.

The court's decision on the nine Port Said security officers on trial was among the most highly anticipated — and potentially explosive — verdicts. In the end, the judges sentenced the city's former security chief, Maj. Gen. Essam Samak, and a colonel both to 15 years in prison, while the others were acquitted.

Al-Ahly's fans accuse the police of collusion in the killing of their fellow supporters, arguing that they had advance knowledge of plans by supporters of Port Said's Al-Masry to attack them. They also accuse them of standing by as the Al-Masry fans set upon the visiting Al-Ahly supporters.

The court rulings can be appealed.

Many residents of Port Said, which is located on the Mediterranean at the northern tip of the vital Suez Canal, say the trial is unjust and politicized, and soccer fans in the city have felt that authorities have been biased in favor of Al-Ahly, Egypt's most powerful club.

The Feb. 2012 riot followed a league match between Al-Masry and Cairo's Al-Ahly club, with Port Said supporters setting upon the visiting fans after the final whistle. The deadly melee is Egypt's worst soccer disaster.

Before the fires broke out, thousands of Al-Ahly fans had gathered outside the club's headquarters in Cairo. They appeared divided on whether to welcome the verdicts or consider them flawed.

"We came for the rulings on the defendants from the police," said one fan who refused to give his name. "Why should I be happy when most of them were acquitted?"

In Port Said, a city that for weeks has been in open rebellion against the Islamist president, several hundred people, many of them relatives of the defendants, gathered outside the local government offices to vent their anger. They chanted slogans against Morsi's government and the verdicts.

Some people in a cafe watching the verdict live on TV hit their heads in frustration, while others broke down and wept. Some said they can live with the verdict because an appeal leaves room for hope.

"There's still an appeal process. God willing, our rights will be restored," said Islam Ezzeddin, a local soccer fan. "We are not thugs. I hope to God when there's an appeal, that we feel we live in a country of law and justice."

Several protesters in Port Said, a strategic city at the Mediterranean end of the Suez Canal, sought to disrupt shipping in the vital waterway by releasing small speedboats into the traffic lanes, although the effort failed to disrupt shipping. Others set fire to tires on the city's dock to prevent ships from coming in, but that again was quickly abandoned.

A spokesman for the Suez Canal Authority, Tareq Hasanein, told Egypt's official MENA news agency that shipping in the international waterway was proceeding normally, with 41 vessels transiting the canal on Saturday.

However, the national railways chief, Hussein Zakaria, ordered trains headed to Port Said to terminate their services at Ismailiya, another Suez Canal city south of Port Said. He said the measure was taken out of fear for the safety of passengers.

Port Said has been the center of the heaviest violence in Egypt's latest wave of unrest. The ongoing turmoil began on Jan. 25, when hundreds of thousands across the country marked the second anniversary of the start of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak's regime.

Cairo, the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, and several cities in the Nile Delta north of the capital have all been swept up in the unrest as well.

During clashes between police and protesters the past week that killed eight people, Port Said also saw dangerous frictions between police and the military. Army troops trying to break up the clashes at one point fired over the heads of police forces, which had been shooting tear gas in their direction.

At least some of the anger city residents feel for the police was defused on Friday, when police handed over security control in the city to the military.

No police could be seen anywhere in Port Said on Saturday. A military helicopter hovered overhead and army checkpoints were set up on main streets.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/egyptian-court-confirms-death-sentences-21-people-role-deadly-2012-soccer-riot

So, it's all about soccer fans gone wild if ya just read the top of the story. Well, mebbe so, I know nothing of the politics of Egyptian soccer, but I do know that those wild and crazy Greens and Blues of the Hippodrome were divided on more than their favorite charioteers, they were divided by class.

Meanwhile, Port Said is looking something like insurrection. I'm waiting for twits and 'activists' and barbarian soccer fans at the gates, but I'm thinkin' that ain't gonna work this time.

Egypt's railways see biggest strike in almost 30 years ..

A nationwide train drivers strike continued into its second day on Monday, in protest against the “government neglect of their demands for higher salaries.”

An official source at the National Railway Authority estimated its losses at about LE4 million due to the cancellation of nearly 1,100 train trips, and giving ticket refunds to passengers.

Since the start of the strike, passengers have been lining up at ticket booths to get their money back, while transportation police forces have spread around stations to secure the facilities and calm angry crowds.

The strike was initially scheduled for 1 April but was put on hold for negotiations between a delegation of train drivers with the Transport Ministry, Labor Ministry, the National Railway Authority and the Shura Council’s Transportation Committee. The meetings broke down on Saturday evening, leading to widespread dissatisfaction among thousands of railway workers, and on Sunday morning, thousands of train drivers launched the largest such work stoppage since the historic railway strike of 1986.

The train drivers declared that they would not call off their strike until their demands are met.

The strike has paralyzed the country’s transportation lifeline, and resulted in work stoppages for all sectors of railway employees — whether they had intended to participate in the strike or not. The NRA is said to employ around 73,000 workers nationwide.

Hussein Zakariya, director of National Railway Authority, announced “an immediate bonus to committed train drivers who are doing their job and care for the interests of the Railway Authority and ordinary citizens.”

Legal action will be taken against striking drivers, Zakariya added. The Railway Authority has made several attempts to overcome the crisis, including refunding tickets and guiding passengers to alternative means of transportation.

“Although we’ve had some limited strikes in 2008 and 2009, this is clearly the largest and longest-lasting strike of railway workers since 1986,” says a control tower worker, who wished to remain anonymous.

On Saturday, NRA officials had offered protesting train drivers a 10 percent bonus that would come into effect in May. However, this did not appease the disgruntled drivers, who had put forth a list of clear demands and grievances.

Workers are demanding bonuses according to hours of actual work per month, a realistic payscale according to kilometres driven, food compensation payments and eight paid days of rest per month.

“This so-called bonus would have increased our monthly wages by a meagre LE 20 to LE70. This is not what we are demanding,” says train driver Ashraf Momtaz.

“We are demanding our basic rights. We demand bonuses according to the number of hours of work and overtime work which we contribute,” he adds. “The NRA insists on paying us only 10 piasters [about 1 US cent] for each kilometer we drive. This is beyond exploitation, as the only sub-unit of the Egyptian pound in circulation at the moment is the 25 piaster coin.”

Momtaz adds that train drivers are demanding eight paid days of rest per month, “just like the metro conductors receive.”

While he does agree that the NRA is cash-strapped and low on resources, he attributes this financial crisis to the "corruption and mismanagement of the NRA by its authorities.”

“We could have enough money for our demands, if there a maximum wage cap was imposed on the NRA’s leaders,” he argues.

Dissatisfied drivers claimed that the top 18 railway officials are paid an aggregate of LE1.4 million pounds per month.

NRA officials could not be reached for comment to validate this figure.

Sitting next to Momtaz in the train drivers’ lockerroom at the Ramses railway station, conductor Tareq Mahmoud comments, “Beyond our payments and holidays, we are demanding that the NRA properly maintain its tractors, carriages, machinery, train tracks, stations and railway crossings.”

“Drivers, employees and commuters alike have their lives threatened on a daily basis by the operation of these outdated and disintegrating railway networks,” Mahmoud adds. “There’s not a single train tractor which is fit for service."

Fellow train driver Ibrahim Abdallah believes their demands can be realised by going on strike. “We’ve tried protesting and we’ve entered into repeated negotiations, to no avail.”

Abdallah adds that metro workers embarked on a strike on 14 November 2012 and within three hours were granted increased wages, and also won the dismissal of their “corrupt chief” from the metro authority.

Some conductors also demand profit-sharing, as is the case with metro workers. However, it’s unclear how this would work, as the NRA has been reporting annual losses of millions of pounds.

However, “nobody except the top administrators of the NRA are aware of how much the railways are making or losing. There is a total lack of transparency,” claims the anonymous tower control operator.

“We control workers didn’t announce our participation in today’s strike; it is only the train drivers who launched this strike action,” he adds.

As trains piled up in Cairo’s central Ramses station, the worker explains that he, along with all other sectors of railway employees were caught up in this strike whether they agreed with it or not.

“Not all train drivers were involved in this strike. We had drivers operating trains from Upper Egypt this morning, but when they arrived in Ramses they were paralyzed by other drivers’ strikes in Cairo and the Nile Delta. As a result, everything came to a standstill, including the control towers,” he points out.

“Although we did not directly involve ourselves in this strike, I still support the right to strike … If the demands of the train drivers are met, then we also want our demands to be realized. We all want improved wages and working conditions, together with safer and more secure railway networks. We will demand equity in rights, like those of the drivers,” he continues.

Authorities and the state-owned media had claimed that the Armed Forces would take over operations in case of a train drivers’ strike, but “neither the army nor the police are capable of driving or operating these trains” claims Momtaz. “We even operate the army trains for the Armed Forces.”

In March 2012, the military had operated alternate bus services during the Delta Bus workers’ strike, but they appear unable to fill the same function of strikebreaker during this railway strike.

The Railway Authority sought to find replacements for the strikers among metro conductors, but they reportedly refused out of solidarity.

Meanwhile, chaos prevailed in numerous railway stations across the country on Sunday, as virtually all railway operations came to a complete standstill. Bus and microbus stations became overburdened as throngs of stranded commuters sought other means of transport. Crowds of commuters had to struggle amongst themselves to find spaces on these buses. In Assiut, university students blocked the streets around the main train station in protest against the strike, with some demonstrators entering the station to hurl stones at the striking conductors and demanding that they get back to work.

Railway Authority officials and security authorities have threatened to fire the conductors and press criminal charges against them if they do not end the strike.

“We are aware that the country’s railways have been negatively affected by these protests. We ourselves have been affected it, and we also know that the NRA is losing millions as a result,” Momtaz states.

“But we are doing this for the sake of our rights, and for the sake of improved trains and services for all commuters. This is our last resort, as we have exhausted all other means of negotiations with the NRA.”

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/egypt-s-railways-see-biggest-strike-almost-30-years

State backs down on forcing striking train drivers into army ..

State authorities halted attempts at conscripting striking train drivers into the service of the Armed Forces on Wednesday, a campaign they had begun the day before. The state’s “public mobilization” order was rescinded following solidarity protests and a host of legal complaints filed by labor lawyers.

The attempt to enlist 97 striking train drivers into military service came after previous efforts at strikebreaking had failed.

At a Thursday news conference at the Egyptian Center for Social and Economic Rights, labor lawyers pointed out that according to the law, acts of public mobilization can only be issued by the president’s office in times of war or natural disaster.

“There was no announcement of a disaster or state of war,” argued labor lawyer Mohamed Adel. “Furthermore, it was not the president who issued this order for public mobilization. Therefore, this order is null and void."

The public mobilization order was issued on Tuesday by Transportation Minister Hatem Abdel Latif via the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), and was enforced by the Ministry of Defense.

By forcefully enlisting the strikers into the service of the Defense Ministry, under this decree their continued work stoppage would have been considered an act of sedition — punishable by military trial.

Train drivers had launched the largest nationwide railway strike since 1986 on Sunday in demand for increased salaries, more time off and other benefits. By Monday night the strike had largely fizzled out, and the few protesters who remained were summoned to an army barracks in the Cairo neighborhood of Sharabiya on Tuesday.

“The Morsy administration’s targeting of strikers has proven to be much worse and more oppressive than the actions of the Mubarak regime” said train driver Ashraf Momtaz.

Momtaz explained that he and 96 of his coworkers were detained at the military barracks in Sharabiya for nearly 24 hours. “We were not allowed to go home, and we were denied visitations.”

“We were singled out as being the chief strike leaders. The army held us as if we were war criminals; we were not given any food or drink. We would give money to the soldiers so they could buy us food and beverages,” recounted Mohamed Khalil, another train driver who was held for public mobilization in Sharabiya.

The Egyptian National Railways Authority (ENRA) and Ministry of Transport resorted to this tactic after they had threatened to replace train drivers with members of the Armed Forces, but had to back down when the Ministry of Defense conceded that it did not have the personnel qualified to operate trains.

The ENRA and the Transport Ministry then sought to recruit retired train drivers to break the strike, but to no avail. Metro drivers were offered bonuses to take over operating the trains, but they refused out of solidarity with the train drivers, said Khaled Ali, a labor lawyer and former presidential candidate.

Refaat Arafat, a member of the Independent Union of Metro Workers, denounced the “punitive measures” taken against striking workers.

“The authorities are quick to issue laws against strikes and protests, while they continue to drag their feet when it comes to issuing laws that protect our labor rights,” he stated.

The ENRA had also asked the public prosecution to press criminal charges against the striking drivers, accusing them of obstructing transportation and harming the economy. The body claimed that the two-day strike resulted in a loss of several million pounds of revenues.

“Tens of our names were sent to the public prosecutor for criminal investigations, while the railway authority moved to suspend 17 of us drivers for three months,” claimed Khalil.

“Apparently these suspensions have been revoked, but we don’t know if we are still being investigated or not,” he added.

Another train driver, Karim Ibrahim, explained, “We were promised that conscription would not be imposed on us again. The national railway authority also promised us that our wage scales would be augmented by June.”

“We have heard a lot of promises from the authority in the past, but none of these promises have been fulfilled,” he added.

The recent attempt at conscription is just the latest in a series of labor violations perpetrated by Morsy’s government, according to labor lawyer Haitham Mohamadein.

“Tens of unionists and striking workers have been referred to prosecution and criminal investigations for exercising their right to strike,” he said.

“We’ve seen also that the regime is willing to crackdown against strikes by any means available,” he alleged, referring to the recent use of police dogs against striking cement workers in Alexandria.

The army has also actively involved itself in acts of strike-breaking. The Armed Forces operated alternate bus services during the Delta Bus workers’ strike in February and March 2012. Prior to this, in May 2011, military police in the industrial hub of Mahalla are reported to have threatened striking doctors with military trials if they did not resume their work.

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/state-backs-down-forcing-striking-train-drivers-army

“We’ve seen also that the regime is willing to crackdown against strikes by any means available,” he alleged, referring to the recent use of police dogs against striking cement workers in Alexandria.

They are trying to get on Obama's good side. He is going to like these actions, but they will need to be more severe, if the Brotherhood wants Barack's blessings.

No worries, it's bidness as usual:


US-Made Tear Gas Supports State Violence in Egypt

http://truth-out.org/images/040513-2.jpg

(Photo: Gigi Ibrahim / Flickr)Lazare bears witness to the use of "Made in the USA" (but no longer so-labeled) tear gas, its export approved by the US state department, in the violent state repression of dissent in Cairo.

On the final night of John Kerry's much vaunted early March visit to Egypt to meet with the Muslim Brotherhood and some opposition leaders, a familiar scene played out in the streets of Cairo. Around the corner from the iconic Tahrir Square, about 200 protesters clashed with police in response to a police incursion into the square the previous night. Shop owners slammed their doors shut, and shoppers quickly emptied out of the streets as the protesters, many appearing to be children no older than 12, approached police lines. Suddenly a series of bangs rang out, and choking tear gas filled the air. In the resulting confusion, protesters sprinted down the street in a swarm, with a police vehicle tearing after them.

When the gas and chaos settled, I learned that two people had been run over and possibly killed, and another two had suffered less serious wounds. A screeching ambulance carried the injured away and the crowd disbursed.

During John Kerry's visit, which centered on the offer of $250 million in aid to muscle Egypt into loan negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, this new secretary of state made a show of his supposed impartiality, meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood and some opposition politician, and chiding political leaders on the economic good sense of "vibrant democracy." This aid is in addition to the $1.3 billion the United States gives to Egypt's military, a continuation from the Mubarak years.

What was missing was any mention of US state department consent for mass exports of tear gas from US companies to the Egyptian government that regularly uses this weapon against continued uprisings throughout Egypt, in crackdowns like the one I witnessed.

Exports of tear gas from the United States to the Egyptian government are no secret. US shipments to the Mubarak regime were used against the protesters who overthrew his regime. Images of protesters holding tear gas canisters that read "made in the USA" stoked the ire of anti-Mubarak protesters and came to be one symbol of the US role propping up Mubarak's overgrown security state.

Yet, these shipments did not stop with the fall of Mubarak. Amnesty International documents repeated shipments of tear gas from US-based Combined Systems, Inc., dating back to November 2011, exports that were approved by the US state department on the grounds that the Egyptian government is not misusing this weapon. According to the Egypt Independent, Egypt's interior ministry ordered 140,000 tear gas canisters from the United States on February 22, this time without a visible Made-In-The-USA label. Leaked documents indicate that the removal of the country of origin label was a condition of US state department approval.

US-based companies Nonlethal Technologies and Defense Technology ship tear gas around the world, as well as domestically. Wyoming-based Defense Technology is responsible for the tear gas canister that may have severely injured and almost killed Scott Olsen, Occupy Oakland protester and Iraq Veterans Against the War Member, in November 2011.

Whether this tear gas is sold or given from the US government to another or sold from commercial companies to governments, at the very least, it is subject to weapons export rules, meaning shipments require US government approval. Therefore tear gas shipments from the United States to anywhere in the world carry US government consent.

I went to Cairo fully aware of massive corporate sales of tear gas, approved by the state department, to the Muslim Brotherhood. What I was not prepared for was the way in which this supposedly nonlethal weapon is incorporated into broad tactics of violence against protesters that often have lethal results, in chaotic scenes like the one I witnessed, where speeding police cars, tear gas, and sometimes live fire create deadly combinations.

And then there is the ability of tear gas itself to kill, by direct impact of a tear gas canister or through the effects of gas inhalation. Physicians for Human Rights documents 34 cases of death by tear gas in the first year of Bahrain's uprising, tear gas that likely came from Combined Systems, Inc., the same producer that mass ships to Egypt. As recently as March 9, Egyptian security officials said a protester died of tear gas inhalation.

Every protester I talked to - anarchists, feminist organizers, independents and activists with No More Military Trials for Civilians - made a clear call for an immediate end of US shipments of tear gas. Each person had a story to tell of getting gassed and experiences of sustaining and witnessing other forms of violence, including police torture and shootings.

In an outdoor seaside café as the sun set behind the Alexandria coast, independent activist and writer Aly El Raggal, who was injured in the early days of the revolution, said, "Please do something about the tear gas. It is a big problem. This is an example of US support of Muslim Brotherhood, SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces) and Mubarak repression of protests."

In a downtown Cairo outdoor café, in the midst of bustling shops, independent activist Shimaa Helmy explained that everyone knows tear gas comes from the United States. "Why would the US continue to allow this while talking about supporting the Egyptian people?"

I had assumed that activists would have bigger things to worry about, like police live fire on street mobilizations. But each person I talked to insisted that the tear gas is part of a strategy of state violence against protesters, backed by the United States.

Groups and coalitions around the world are taking direct action against US tear gas shipments. Al Ahram reports that in early December 2011, a group of workers in Egypt's Suez seaport refused to receive a shipment of 21 tons of tear gas from the United States. That was one month after an Occupy Wall Street protest outside of the New York City headquarters of Combined Systems Inc. In early February 2012, Anonymous hackers marked the one-year anniversary of civil uprisings in Bahrain by hacking the web site of tear gas producer Combined Systems, Inc.

The War Resisters League has launched a petition against the most recent shipment of 140,000 canisters of US-made tear gas, as well as a campaign Facing Tear Gas that collects stories of people around the world whose lives have been affected by US shipments of teargas to their governments. One chilling testimony reads:

"Tahrir square, Jan 25th, 2013. Me and my parents were protesting against the new 'religious' regime ruled by Morsi. All of a sudden, we heard screams from several areas around us and people running away from an unknown attack. We couldn't tell what it was till we felt sharp burns through our respiratory system, we coughed so hard, and we didn't know that we had to run so fast. It was strange, the gas was colorless, and no warning sound was heard before the bomb was released. Young men and women found it easier to run to fresh air and catch breath. But me while tied to 2 old parents, we were unable to run fast; in a few seconds we almost lost our sight and consciousnesses, burning in our eyes, faces and throat. I fell on the ground spitting liquids and trying stick to my parents. But looking behind me, I couldn't find them anymore. A lifesaver made me breath some vinegar vapor, somehow it worked and came back to life after i almost thought it's my end. And thankfully later, I discovered my parents were saved in the same manner. This gas has a killing effect for us. Please help us STOP getting gas into our cities. – Mohammed"

US political discourse may ignore this issue, but people in cities around the world who face death and fear protesting in their own cities and towns do not have that option. John Kerry would be advised, next time he is in Egypt, to step outside into Egypt's streets and see, firsthand, the United State's real contribution to Egypt's "vibrant democracy."

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15550-us-made-tear-gas-and-state-violence-in-egypt

Nice touch, taking USA off the label, they'll never know!

Nice touch, taking USA off the label, they'll never know!

America is always willing to not take credit for the good it does in the world. That is just the way they roll...

Cement factory workers under fire from factory owner

Factory workers attacked by factory security, Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services fear reprisal attacks

Workers from a cement factory in Aswan, Upper Egypt, were attacked on Sunday by security personnel from the factory, a statement released by the Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS) said. More than 350 workers announced a strike last Friday after factory management refused to negotiate the demands put forth by workers.

The workers went on strike to demand amendments to holiday entitlements, adjustments to staff salaries, and the appointment of short-term contract workers.

CTUWS said the factory’s management and director of security decided to end the strike by force, using live ammunition to intimidate the striking workers.

CTUWS said the factory owner had promised on more than one occasion since 2003 to amend staff salaries and hire 250 short-term employees. The Centre said there are no laws which regulate the time off staff can take, adding the employees are often subjected to 26 consecutive days of work, 12 hours a day, without any additional compensation.

CTUWS added that the workers receive eight days of unpaid leave and earn roughly EGP 35 a day. Workers are also said to lack clean drinking water at work, forcing employees to drink water from a nearby well.

CTUWS “declares solidarity with the legitimate demands of the workers from the Aswan Cement Factory”. The Centre called the attempt to intimidate the strikers an “attempt at terrorism” by the factory owner. They added that the owner’s actions had created the possibility of “bloody battles between the families of the workers and the factory owner’s family”.

CTUWS said that it feared that the attack on the strikers could prompt retaliation from tribes associated with the workers.

http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/05/06/cement-factory-workers-under-fire-from-factory-owner/

Trade Unions call for 30 June revolution

Drawing parallels with the months leading up to the ouster of the former President, trade unions call for another revolution

The Revolutionary Socialists and the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, announced their participation in the upcoming 30 June protest against President Mohamed Morsi, in a joint statement released on Tuesday.

According to the statement, the situation for labour workers in Egypt had worsened after they played an integral role in removing ousted President Hosni Mubarak from power in 2011.

“Today, we live in the third year since the revolution and the thorns of the old system still affect us within the current one,” the statement read. They also criticised the current government for being put on a short-term blacklist by the International Labour Organisation.

“We are now on the eve of a new popular revolution and remind the world of the workers’ grievances,” the statement said, highlighting several questions that they felt had not been properly addressed by the state.

The statement asked why, after two years of discussions, the government had yet to pass a new trade law concerning union freedoms, and why government forces had escalated the crackdown on the sit-in at the Alexandria Portland Cement Company.

They groups also demanded to know why workers are given prison sentences for striking, accusing the government of staying silent while 4,000 factories had shut down causing thousands of job losses.

The signatories stated that the previous regime and the current one work against the interests of workers, and in favour of a small group of investors and wealthy businessmen.

Drawing parallels between the current situation in Egypt and the period immediately preceding the revolution, the statement declared that now is the time to take to the streets. “What is happening now brings to mind the days before the fall of Mubarak: striking unions everywhere, protests against the decisions made by the government, and our situation is going from bad to worse with the ongoing fuel and electricity crisis. What are we waiting for?”

“Egyptian labour workers are an organised productive force, and alone are capable of moderating the balance of power on 30 June and onwards,” the statement said, calling labour workers the engine that drives the revolution.

http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/06/25/trade-unions-call-for-30-june-revolution/

The class nature of the struggle comes to the fore. If the government comes down hard as expected the class lines will solidify with some of the indignados peeling off while the working class becomes the vanguard.

Egyptian troops move to bases near cities ahead of protests

Troop reinforcements and armour have been brought to army bases near cities ahead of protests this weekend aimed at forcing the Islamist president out, security officials have said.

Clashes between supporters and opponents of President Mohammed Morsi erupted, killing at least one person in the coastal city of Mansoura.

The troop movements accompanied speculation over the army's role in the crisis leading up to Sunday's protests. Islamists accuse activists of paving the way for a coup, a charge that the opposition vehemently denies.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/egyptian-troops-move-to-bases-near-cities-ahead-of-protests-8675805.html

But what will the army do?

In the industrial city of Mahalla, one of the centers of the Egyptian revolution, tens of thousands gathered in Al-Shoun Square, chanting revolutionary slogans against Mursi. Reportedly 90 percent of workers at the state-owned Mahalla Misr Spinning and Weaving company—Egypt’s largest factory, employing over 25,000 workers—went on strike to join the protests.

The working class did not initially show it's hand in the run up to Mubarak's ouster, this is progress.


Other mass protests took place in Mansoura, Damanhour, Minya, Tanta, Sharqia and the Suez Canal cities of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia. A military source quoted by the Egyptian daily Al-Shorouk said that 17 million people took to the streets in one of the largest protests since the beginning of the revolution.

What will the Army do? I suspect that the faith in the army is to be sorely tested.

According to a report in the Guardian a couple months ago, the Egyptian Army tortured and murdered protesters in the early stages of the 2011 uprising against Mubarak. I know there can be many different elements within so large an organization as the Army, and that now the trends are much different than they were in 2011. With, conservatively, 17 million people in the streets risking their lives fighting against Mursi, the Army could be split, itself. The generals may not have as tight a control as they once had and may have to "go with the flow" if their rank and file come out behind the revolution. This will not only be interesting, it may prove pivotal.

CAIRO | Mon Jul 1, 2013 11:07am EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's powerful armed forces issued a virtual ultimatum to Islamist President Mohamed Mursi on Monday, calling on the nation's feuding politicians to agree on an inclusive roadmap for the country's future within 48 hours.

A dramatic military statement broadcast on state television declared the nation was in danger after millions of Egyptians took to the streets on Sunday to demand that Mursi quit and the headquarters of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood were ransacked.

"If the demands of the people are not realized within the defined period, it will be incumbent upon (the armed forces)... to announce a road map for the future," said the statement by chief-of-staff General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. It was followed by patriotic music.

The people had expressed their will with unprecedented clarity in the mass demonstrations and wasting more time would only increase the danger of division and violence, he said.

The army said it would oversee the implementation of the roadmap it sought "with the participation of all factions and national parties, including young people", but it would not get directly involved in politics or government.

Anti-Mursi demonstrators outside the presidential palace cheered the army statement, and the main opposition National Salvation Front, which has demanded a national unity government for months, applauded the military's move.

It was the second time in just over a week that the armed forces had issued a formal warning to the politicians, and it appeared to pile pressure on Mursi to concede power-sharing with the liberal, secular and left-wing opposition.

SELF-DEFENCE?

After the destruction of its offices, the Brotherhood which operated underground until the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, said it was considering how best to defend itself.

Cities were quiet after Sunday's mass rallies that were bigger than anything seen since the Arab Spring uprising. But the ransacking of the Brotherhood's office highlighted deepening political polarization, prompting the movement to talk of acting in self-defense.

Five non-Brotherhood government ministers tendered their resignations from the cabinet, apparently in sympathy with the protesters, underlining a sense of isolation for the party that won a series of elections last year.

"Both sides are still in their trenches," a senior European diplomat said just before the military statement.

Cairo's Tahrir Square was filling again in late afternoon, with thousands of people gathering for a second day.

For those who declared the protests a continuation of the revolution that toppled Mubarak, images of young men waving national flags at the scorched and shattered windows of the Brotherhood compound recalled the fall of Mubarak's ruling party offices, whose charred hulk still looks out over the Nile.

Eight people died in a night of fighting around the Brotherhood building, where guards fired on youths hurling rocks and fire bombs. A Brotherhood official said two of its members were hurt. Another eight people were killed in clashes around the country on Sunday.

The Brotherhood's official spokesman told Reuters that the attack had crossed a red line of violence and among possible responses might be to revive "self-defense committees" former during the 2011 uprising.

"The people will not sit silent," Gehad El-Haddad said.

Mursi's movement complained at the lack of police protection, which can only heighten its sense of being under siege from both the liberal opposition and state officialdom inherited from the old regime.

NOT TALKING

Liberal protest organizers, who declared Mursi ousted by people power on Sunday, gave him a new deadline of 5 p.m. on Tuesday to quit and call elections or face a new mass rally.

Mursi, who has not appeared in person, renewed offers of dialogue via allies and pledged to work with a new parliament that could be elected if disputes over election rules can be ironed out. But he has so far made no substantial concessions.

The opposition does not trust the Islamist movement, which critics accuse of using a series of electoral victories to monopolize power. They want a total reset of the rules of a democracy imperfectly worked out over the past two years.

Mursi again acknowledged through a spokesman that he had made mistakes, adding that he was working to fix them and was open to dialogue. He made similar offers last week, which were dismissed by the opposition. But he showed no sign of quitting.

An aide to Mursi outlined three ways forward: parliamentary elections, which he called "the most obvious"; national dialogue, which he said opponents had repeatedly rejected; and third, early presidential elections, as demanded by protesters.

But that, he said, "simply destroys our democracy".

The massive protests showed that the Brotherhood has not only alienated liberals and secularists by seeking to entrench Islamic rule, notably in a new constitution, but has also angered millions of Egyptians with economic mismanagement.

Tourism and investment have dried up, inflation is rampant and fuel supplies are running short, with power cuts lengthening in the summer heat and motorists spending hours fuelling cars.

The cost of insuring government debt against default surged to record highs. Forward contracts indicated a significant fall for the pound against the dollar.

Protest organizers called on Egyptians to keep occupying central squares across the country in a campaign of peaceful civil disobedience until Mursi goes.

Up to now, the Brotherhood has interpreted the army's stance as an endorsement of Mursi's electoral legitimacy. However, his opponents believe the generals are now clearly pressing Mursi to relent. Army helicopters were counting protesters on Sunday.

Some uniformed policemen marched among protesters in Cairo and Alexandria, chanting "the police and the people are one", and several senior officers addressed the Tahrir Square crowd.

Adding to the failure to protect the Brotherhood headquarters, that cast doubt on whether Mursi could rely on the security forces to clear the streets if he gave the order.

Opposition leaders, who have seen previous protest waves fizzle after a few days in December and January, were to meet on Monday afternoon to plot their next move.

Condemning the violence, their coalition leadership said: "We call upon the great Egyptian people who turned out in millions ... demanding democratic transition and early presidential elections, to maintain the peaceful nature of this great new revolutionary wave, and to remain steadfast in the streets and squares until their demands are met."

The United States and the European Union have urged Mursi to share power with the opposition, saying only a national consensus can help Egypt overcome a severe economic crisis and build democratic institutions.

(Reporting by Asma Alsharif, Alexander Dziadosz, Shaimaa Fayed, Maggie Fick, Alastair Macdonald, Shadia Nasralla, Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh, Paul Taylor and Patrick Werr in Cairo; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/01/us-egypt-protests-idUSBRE95Q0NO20130701

The Army plays a cagey game, the numbers must frighten them, gotta nip this in the bud, under the bus with Morsi. Looks like the capitalist class, which includes the brass, will be defended even at the risk of setting off the MB. Which, if it happened, would be a major distraction in itself.

This might chill the situation for a while, but if the material condition of the people does not change then nothing has really changed, except that the people again realize their strength, a cumulative education.

A clear revolutionary program can only be developed on a Marxist basis. Today this means the struggle for the theory of Permanent Revolution which, as Trotsky wrote, holds that “only the proletariat, allied with the poor peasants and urban poor, can solve the problems of society by taking power into its own hands, expropriating the imperialists and the bourgeoisie, and beginning the task of transforming society on socialist lines.”

In order to overthrow Egyptian capitalism and replace it with a workers’ government fighting for socialist policies, the working class must create its own genuine organs of working class struggle, modelled after the Soviets (workers councils) that laid the basis for the conquest for power by the working class in the October Revolution in 1917 in Russia.

The only political tendency defending and advancing such a perspective is the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Workers must take up the fight to build a section of the ICFI in Egypt, to link the Egyptian workers’ struggles with those of their class brothers and sisters in the Middle East and internationally, and to unite the working class in a common revolutionary struggle against dictatorship, capitalist exploitation and imperialist war.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/02/pers-j02.html

Well, of course, "a clear Marxist basis'. Equally 'of course', of their tendency, but leave that alone for now. They do not seem to grasp the stages of political evolution which invariably crop up, socialists are only called to the fore when every bourgeois scam is discredited. So, Mubarak was sacrificed by the army in a cosmetic concession. What happens next to the Muslim Brotherhood is hard to say, looks like the army will shoved them aside for getting too big in the britches, if they object too strenuously the army is well experienced in suppressing them. Next it will be the 'technocrats' turn, which is to say finance will rule. When, not if, this brings the people out they will be cashiered, in place the armed forces will rule directly.

'Anything but socialism' until all false alternatives are exhausted. One would think that supposed readers of Trotsky's 'Russian Revolution' would grasp this.

Seems that WSWS thinks that the army is itching to go medieval on the people but I do not think this to be the case. Their 'brand' is still very strong with the Egyptian people, an incalcuable advantage they are loath to throw away. More importantly, 17 million people are one big old bunch of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts.......of those soldiers. While the 'elite' troops, air force, special forces, paratroopers, military police, armor, are propably considered reliable and capable of massacre the majority of conscripts are likely not so reliable. The generals are probably scared to death of testing that proposition, their position at the top of Egyptian society would be toast.

In the meantime each travail, every demonstration, bring solidarity, discipline and confidence to the workers, the gravediggers of the old order.

Morsi role at Syria rally seen as tipping point for Egypt army

Army concern about the way President Mohamed Morsi was governing Egypt reached tipping point when the head of state attended a rally packed with hardline fellow Islamists calling for holy war in Syria, military sources have said.

At the June 15th rally, Sunni Muslim clerics used the word “infidels” to denounce both the Shias fighting to protect Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the non-Islamists that oppose Mr Morsi at home.

Mr Morsi himself called for foreign intervention in Syria against Mr Assad, leading to a veiled rebuke from the army, which issued an apparently bland but sharp-edged statement the next day stressing that its only role was guarding Egypt’s borders.

“The armed forces were very alarmed by the Syrian conference at a time the state was going through a major political crisis,” said one officer, whose comments reflected remarks made privately by other army staff. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk to the media.

Crippling flaw

The controversy surrounding the Syria conference pointed to a crippling flaw in the Morsi presidency: though the constitution names Mr Morsi as supreme commander of the armed forces, the military remains master of its own destiny and a rival source of authority to the country’s first freely elected head of state.

The army’s dramatic ultimatum demanding Mr Morsi and other politicians settle their differences by tomorrow afternoon caught the presidency completely off guard. Triggered by mass protests against Mr Morsi’s rule, it amounted to a soft coup by a military that has been a major recipient of US aid since the 1970s, when Egypt made peace with neighbouring Israel.

The army has cited the need to avoid bloodshed as its main motivation. It is also worried by other major problems facing Egypt, including an economic crisis that has wiped out more than a tenth of the value of the currency this year, making it harder for the state to import fuel and food.

Speaking on the eve of the protests, the president had dismissed the idea that the army would take control again.

If Mr Morsi was aware of irritation in the army, he chose to ignore it, believing his mandate as Egypt’s democratically elected leader gave him licence to make policy the way elected leaders do elsewhere in the world.

For the army, the Syria rally had crossed “a national security red line” by encouraging Egyptians to fight abroad, risking creating a new generation of jihadists, said Yasser El-Shimy, analyst with the International Crisis Group.

At the heart of the military’s concern is the history of militant Islam in Egypt, homeland of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. The military source condemned recent remarks made by “retired terrorists” allied to Mr Morsi, who has deepened his ties with the once-armed group al-Gamaa al-Islamiya.

Speaking privately, officers in the secular-leaning military have said Egyptians did not want a religious state. Though the Brotherhood never said it wanted to set up a theocracy, such concerns reflect the army’s long-standing suspicion towards a movement banned by army rulers in 1954.

In public, Mr Morsi and the army have kept up appearances. The presidency has moved repeatedly to quash rumours of tensions with the generals.

And the constitution signed into law by Mr Morsi late last year protects the interests of the military, which oversees a sprawling economic empire that produces everything from bottled water to tablet computers.

“The presidency didn’t perceive the military as a threat,” added Shimy of the International Crisis Group.

The current head of the armed forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was appointed by Mr Morsi in his second month in office after he sent into retirement Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Mr Mubarak’s defence minister for two decades.

Twenty years Tantawi’s junior, Gen al-Sisi was promoted from the position of military intelligence director. Analysts have described it as an arrangement that suited both Mr Morsi and a younger generation of army commanders seeking promotion.

He was trained in the United States and Britain, like many officers in an army that receives $1.3 billion (€1 billion) in military aid a year from Washington.

While saying the army was out of politics, Gan al-Sisi has repeatedly called on Egypt’s feuding politicians to settle their differences. In December, he chaired unity talks to ease tensions ignited by a decree that expanded Mr Morsi’s powers.

Earlier this year, Gen al-Sisi warned that unrest could bring down the state. He also responded to calls for the army to unseat Mr Morsi, saying: “No one is going to remove anybody.”

The army has not said what Mr Morsi’s fate will be under the plan it has said it will implement if the politicians fail to agree.

Gen al-Sisi is something of an Islamist himself, said Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military based at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He was citing materials written by Gen al-Sisi during his training in the US. “As I see it they are trying to assert as much pressure as possible to bring about a compromise settlement,” he said.

The military’s actions this week should be viewed as those of an institution, not individuals, added Nathan Brown, an expert on Egypt at George Washington University.

“The personal inclinations of individual members of the armed forces are not the issue and are not on display here.

“There is one thing we do know about the ideology of the military,” he said: “That it sees itself as having a mission to the state rather than the constitution.” Reuters

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/morsi-role-at-syria-rally-seen-as-tipping-point-for-egypt-army-1.1450612

Comment of the Press Office on the Developments in Egypt

The people’s mobilizations in Egypt very rapidly demonstrate that the political forces which prevailed in the so-called Arab Spring disappointed them. The people’s interests cannot be satisfied either by the Morsi government and the Muslim Brotherhood, which imposed an anti-worker political line to support the monopolies, or the section of the bourgeois class that at this moment is supporting the military coup.

The crisis in the bourgeois political system of Egypt reveals the sharpening of the contradictions amongst section of the bourgeois class regarding the management of power, trapping the people’s indignation and discontent. It is also connected to the competition of the imperialist centres over the safeguarding of the natural resources of the wider region and the energy routes.

Egypt’s bourgeois class possesses alternative solutions in order to secure its interests, the role of the army and the so-called religious movements are some of these solutions. The working class and poor popular strata must not restrict themselves only to the issue of whether one or the other government must leave, they must not be trapped in alleged transitional solutions which are preparing the next anti-people government.

The developments demonstrate that, in order for the people to impose their strength and interests, the mass popular struggles are not sufficient on their own, but they must aim at overthrowing the power of the monopolies in order for pro-people developments to be timetabled.

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2013/2013-07-07-egypt

Mobs make fickle friends. Egypt is not Les Misérables

Western leaders had absurd expectations of the Arab spring. Now they are frantic to depict events in Cairo as not a coup

When is a coup not a coup? Apparently when it is our coup, a "good cause" coup, a goodies' coup against baddies. Yesterday, diplomats in London and Washington were frantic to depict events in Cairo as not a coup but "an accepted fact", a hiccup on the "road map to democracy". Western governments meddling in the Middle East have found it useful to distinguish coups from "military interventions with good intent".

My dictionary calls a coup d'etat "the sudden, violent overthrow of a government … especially by an army". In Egypt soldiers have occupied the airport and radio station, arrested an elected president and begun rounding up 300 of his party leaders. The army command, fat on $1.3bn (£860m) of American money, has installed its own nominees in office "pending" new elections. These, we assume, will have to find a different winner from last year's Mohamed Morsi, now in jail.

Morsi may have won his election only narrowly, but he won. His popularity lay in offering electors security and order amid the turbulence of the Arab spring. He was drifting towards authoritarianism, promoting a one-party state, curbing the courts and rewriting the constitution. Whether or not this was a "constitutional coup" that justified a military counter-coup is moot. Either way, Morsi went too far. His coming to power may have been democratic and his exercise of it less so, but his fall was certainly not.

I know and like Egypt but am no expert on the place. Only Egyptians are that. Yet I am familiar with the west's running commentary on each of the crises that now afflict the aftermath of the Arab spring. This takes the form of lectures, judgments and meddlesome suggestions. Egyptians, now locked into a period of desperate uncertainty, surely deserve to be left in peace. Instead, they are treated to the sort of language normally confined to a Victorian nursery.

Thus Barack Obama expresses his "deep concern" at what is happening in Cairo. He cannot bring himself to call it a coup, since he unwittingly financed it. Britain's William Hague delivered his customary finger-wagging: "I call on all sides to show restraint and avoid violence," he vacuously rambled. The UN's Ban Ki-moon warned the generals to "address the needs and concerns of all Egyptians". The EU's Lady Ashton went out on a limb to "condemn all violent acts". We are not told what the rest of the world thinks, but perhaps it thinks Egypt is none of its business.

American and British politicians revelled in the Arab spring. They fell for the magnetism of the mob, rushing to Cairo and Tripoli as local regimes tottered, eulogising the sunlit uplands of western democracy. From the suburbs of Baghdad to the souks of Tunis, a refreshing breeze would bring the Arabs freedom, capitalism and female liberation. Oil would flow, Israel would be secure. "A new beginning was dawning," said Obama in Cairo. David Cameron told the people of Benghazi they were "an inspiration to the world". The lions of neoconservatism were lying down with the lambs of liberal intervention.

Cairo proved no beginning and Benghazi no inspiration. Even where western arms have not sent a pall of death and destruction over the Muslim world, western rhetoric has raised absurd expectations among its urban young. As a result, in almost all the countries supposedly "made safe for democracy", voters have opted for the order of conservative Islam, rather than for liberal secularism. The first call democracy makes on power is not freedom but security.

In almost every case, British public opinion has backed the insurgent mob against the regime, as if sated on Les Misérables. By the time of the Syrian uprising, it assumed that Arab mobs were always in the right and always win. This applied even when, as in Bahrain, this proved not to be the case, or as in Egypt, it required some ethical gymnastics. But then mobs make fickle friends. As Kipling warned, every mob "whose head has grown too large /Ends by destroying its own job /And earns its own discharge".

The global humanitarian impulse is best honoured through distributing charity. This is very different from the impulse to criticise and intervene in another nation's politics. Apart from offending sovereignty, such intervention is often counter-productive to humanitarianism, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is no comfort to hundreds of thousands of Muslim dead that they might possibly have enjoyed a vote, thanks to Britain and America.

The British craving to set the Muslim world to rights is as old as history. It lurks in the genes of British politicians and diplomats, as if the ghost of Lawrence of Arabia still stalked Whitehall. Lord Carrington was trying to sort out the Middle East when Argentina invaded the Falklands. Tony Blair cannot stop himself doing so, long after losing office and relevance.

I remember visiting the multinational force in Lebanon during the civil war in 1982. I asked what a large encampment in a park was for, and was told it was Italy's modest contribution, a large field hospital. When I asked what Britain had offered I was told it was "their good offices in seeking to bring both sides together". No prize for guessing which did more good. Britain's habit of mind is born of a century of imperialism, followed by 50 years of military intervention from Suez to Libya.

If the leaders of foreign states treated Britain this way we would be outraged. If they passed judgment on Northern Ireland, race relations or tax evasion, Britain would regard it as impertinent. If the Sri Lankan or Indonesian or Burmese governments pronounced "concern" over the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust, or found bought peerages or corrupt planning decisions "unacceptable", they would be summoned to the Foreign Office for a flea in the ear. Yet British ministers shower bromides on Egypt in a torrent of patronising hypocrisy.

It may be ironic that Cairo protesters should demand their army save them from the same politician who so recently saved them from the army. But it is an Egyptian irony, for Egyptians to resolve. All revolutions manufacture their own realpolitik. As for implying that democracy sometimes needs soldiers to act as safeguard against elected politicians who break their promises, we should remember that Horse Guards Parade is just over the wall from Downing Street.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/mobs-egypt-les-miserables-absurd

This is a predictable response and there's a good bit of it going around. File under "a nation of laws" bullshit, where the procedure is valued over the reality. To be sure, the Egyptian military is not a democratic institution, nor can we expect it to a proponent of democracy. The Egyptian military is looking after it's own interests, which require 'stability'. In this case it acceded to the will of the people because it could not do anything else which would not damage it's position.

What we got here is raw democracy. Or, if you take the view of the ruling class, 'mob rule'. And who is this 'mob' but you and I, the working class?

What we got here is raw democracy. Or, if you take the view of the ruling class, 'mob rule'. And who is this 'mob' but you and I, the working class?

As I was reading this piece I kept getting pissed-er and pissed-er. And you hit the nail with your last sentence. This mob he sees down at the end of his nose is us...the shithead...

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called on Saturday for more mass demonstrations in support of ousted President Mohamed Mursi after a huge pro-Mursi march broke up peacefully before dawn, ending a week in which at least 90 people were killed.

The Brotherhood, which has maintained a vigil near a Cairo mosque since before the army removed Mursi on July 3, has said it will not leave the streets until he is restored to power.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians packed into squares and marched along streets in Cairo on Friday to protest against the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, and the US called for the first time for him to be freed.

A large crowd of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood supporters made its way along Ramses Street, close to Tahrir Square, and hundreds were on 6 October Bridge, where some of the worst clashes with anti-Mursi demonstrators took place a week ago.

On Tahrir, thousands more people gathered to attend a celebration of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, organised by groups who had called for Mursi's resignation.

The proximity of the rival factions, only a few hundred metres (yards) apart, raised concerns about more violence.

In last Friday's clashes between the toppled leader's supporters and opponents, 35 people were killed and hundreds wounded across the country.

Three days later, soldiers killed 53 Muslim Brotherhood supporters at the Republican Guard compound where Mursi is being held, in bloodshed that has deeply divided Egyptian society.

Four members of the security forces were also killed in that confrontation, which the military blames on "terrorists". Mursi's supporters call it a massacre and say those who died were praying peacefully when troops opened fire.

The Muslim Brotherhood's key demand is that he be reinstated, but for now, that looks like a lost cause.

Asked whether Washington agreed with the German Foreign Ministry's call for Mursi to be released, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "We do agree."

She declined to say if the United States had officially conveyed its wish to Egyptian officials and the military.

At a Cairo mosque where Mursi supporters have held a vigil for more than two weeks, crowds swelled as people were bussed in from the provinces, where the Brotherhood has strongholds.

"We're here and we're not leaving," said Amer Ali, who drove the five-hour journey from the Nile city of Assiut with his wife and two young children to join tens of thousands of protesters.

"We came with our kids to support legitimacy, democracy, and our civilian president, the first freely elected president in the Arab world."

Many of Egypt's 84 million people have been shocked by the shootings, graphic images of which have appeared on state and private news channels and social media.

The Brotherhood contends it is the victim of a military crackdown, evoking memories of its suppression under Mubarak.

But many of its opponents blame Islamists for the violence, and some have little sympathy for the demonstrators who died, underlining how deep the fissures in Egyptian society are.

Islam Ibrahim, a Brotherhood member, was shot in the knee in Monday's violence, and still does not know if his brother Nasim, a soldier in the Republican Guard, was among those firing.

"I don't like to think about it. If he was (there), I know he wouldn't fire on unarmed demonstrators," he said.

The unrest has raised fear over security in the lawless Sinai peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

Militant groups in North Sinai have promised more attacks and urged Islamists to take up arms, while the army has vowed to step up operations in the region, which is near the Suez Canal, the busy waterway linking Asia and Europe.

An Egyptian military helicopter briefly crossed into Israeli-controlled airspace over the Gaza Strip, in a possible sign of increased security jitters.

Security sources in Egypt and Israel both described the flyover as a navigational error, but it came shortly after militants killed an Egyptian policeman and wounded a second in an attack on a checkpoint in Sinai across the border from Gaza.

Egyptian military helicopters were also seen dropping flyers on a pro-Mursi rally in the town of Al Arish around 50 km from Israel's border, urging them to denounce violence.

Outside the Rabaa Adawiya mosque in northeastern Cairo, tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters prayed and listened to speeches. Some of them have camped out in searing heat, fasting in the daytime since Ramadan began on Wednesday.

In a wooden shack erected on a side street and emblazoned with portraits of Mursi, men prepared vats of rice and lamb. Others put the food in plastic bags to distribute after sundown, when Muslims break their fast.

People squirted water from bottles to cool each other down. Others rested in the shade, dozing or reading the Koran.

The vigil began on June 28, as plans for the June 30 protests that drew millions of anti-government demonstrators to the streets gathered pace.

Since then, the camp has become the de facto base of the Brotherhood, whose leaders live under the threat of detention after prosecutors ordered their arrests earlier in the week.

Judicial sources say Mursi is likely to be charged, possibly for corruption or links to violence. Prosecutors are also looking again at an old case from 2011 when Mursi and other Brotherhood leaders escaped from prison after being detained during anti-Mubarak protests.

His son Osama told CNN that he was proud of Mursi.

"We back any decision you take. Even if you decided to leave the office. Your family, we are all proud of you, God bless you," he said in English.

The detentions and threats of arrest have drawn concern from the US, which has walked a semantic tightrope to avoid calling Mursi's ousting a military coup.

US law bars aid to countries where a democratic government is removed in a coup. Washington, which gives Egypt's military $1.3 billion in aid each year, has said it is too early to say whether Mursi's removal by the army meets that description.

The army has said it was enforcing the nation's will - meaning the huge crowds of people fed up with economic stagnation and suspicious of a Brotherhood power grab who took to the streets to demand Mursi's departure.-Reuters

http://www.tradearabia.com/news/LAW_239578.html

In Egypt's Sinai, militants intensify attacks

Military attack helicopters rattle over the impoverished desert towns of northern Sinai and the sound of gunfire erupts nightly, raising fears among residents of a looming confrontation between Egypt’s military and Islamic militants who have intensified attacks since the ouster of President Mohamed Morsy.

Militant groups have grown bolder, striking security forces almost daily and also turning on local Christians. Some are now openly vowing to drive the military out of the peninsula on the borders with Israel and Gaza and establish an “Islamic emirate.” Further fuelling the turmoil is the long-time resentment among many in the Bedouin population over decades of neglect and harsh security crackdowns by the state.

The military and security forces have widened their presence, and military intelligence officials told The Associated Press an offensive is being planned, but no further details were given.

In a rare move, the Egyptian military sent a helicopter across the border to fly over the southern end of the Gaza Strip early Friday. Egyptian security officials said it was intended as a warning to its Hamas rulers amid concerns that Gaza militants are trying to cross to back those in the Sinai. The security and intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Israeli security officials say their military has not taken any special precautions, but it is watching the situation carefully. They say they remain in close contact with their Egyptian counterparts, and that Egypt has coordinated its security moves in Sinai with Israel, as required by their 1979 peace treaty.

“The situation is not secure. It is better to be home than to go out into the street,” said Moussa el-Manaee, a resident in the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweyid, which has a heavy presence of jihadi groups. “I am afraid to ride my car and catch a stray bullet.”

Sinai has been the most lawless corner of Egypt since the ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in early 2011, with increased violence. Police stations were torched and security forces kicked out of tribal areas where they were notorious for abuses. Shootings took place regularly on police and military outposts.

But after the military deposed the Islamist president on July 3, militant groups have lashed out.

In the past 10 days, at least eight security officers have been killed, the most recent on Friday. Two Christians have also died, one a priest. A gas pipeline to Jordan was bombed, ending a lull in such strikes.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/in-egypts-sinai-militants-intensify-attacks/article4912252.ece

Hundreds of thousands of pro-Morsi demonstrators marched and rallied to condemn what they say was a military coup against the country's first democratically elected leader.

Meanwhile, thousands of anti-Morsi demonstrators have flocked in the early evening hours to the Ittihadiya presidential palace and Tahrir Square to celebrate 'the success' of the 30 June that toppled Morsi as well as the anniverssary of Egypt's victory over Israel in the 10th of Ramadan/ 6th of October 1973 war.

Egyptian army's Apache hellicopters threw gift vouchers to anti-Morsi protesters at the presidential palace in Cairo's Heliopolis district, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported on Friday night.

In Sinai, two civilians were killed and one wounded earlier on Friday when suspected Islamic militants fired rockets at an army checkpoint El-Arish in Egypt's restive peninsula, medical and security sources said.

The assailants hit a residential house by mistake, and one of those killed had his legs and head blown off in the attack, hospital sources said.

In Egypt's Nile Delta city of Mansoura, two bystanders – a woman and child – were killed late Friday night during clashes between supporters and opponents of ousted president Mohamed Morsi protesters, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.

Live rounds, birdshot and knives were used, leaving 7 injured, according to witnesses who talked to Al-Ahram Arabic news website.
Back in Cairo, in the early hours of Saturday morning, both rival camps stood their respective grounds.

Pro-Morsi rallies
Early Friday afternoon, a number of pro-Morsi marches converged outside Cairo University in Giza, an area that has hosted many pro-Morsi rallies ove the past weeks.

Other marches made their way to Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo's Nasr City, where Morsi supporters have been protesting since the days leading up to ouster on 3 July.

Military helicopters flew endless sorties over pro-Morsi rallies across the capital through out the day and night.

Protest leaders at Rabaa Al-Adawiya called on demonstrators to march to the nearby Republican Guard headquarters, the venue of clashes between Morsi supporters and the army that killed at least 51 on 8 July.

Ahram Online reporter Ahmed Eleiba said soldiers had stopped tens of thousands of Morsi supporters en route from Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque to Abbassiya where the ministry of defence is located.

"Soldiers have been heavily deployed along Salah Salem Road in Nasr City and other major streets near the march."

Muslim Brotherhood leaders took part in the march, Eleiba added. Protesters were chanting "Peaceful, peaceful!"

"Egyptians participated today after they recognised that 30 June [protests] were exploited to carry out a coup against the democratic course, and that their freedom, dignity and right to choose have been attacked," Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Uasser Mehrez said on Friday.

He also condemned what he described as widespread media blackout against Islamist protests.

Meanwhile, well-known writer Mohamed Abdel Kodous, who was taking part in a pro-Morsi Giza march, said protesters will remain steadfast until the president and the legitimacy is back, Al-Dostour Al-Assly reported.

The pro-Brotherood writer, who is a longstanding member of the executive board of the Journalists' Syndicate, said that no negotiations with the army will take place unless arrested Brotehrhood leaders are released and the freezing of their assets is lifted.

Abdel Kodous went on, however, to slam the 'extremist' discourse at the main pro-Morsi vigil outside Rabaa Al-Adawiya Mosque saying it has repulsed the public.

Anti-Morsi protesters have said they are concerned that supporters of the ex-president will approach Tahrir Square and the presidential palace, raising the spectre of fresh violence.

Security measures had been stepped in the vicinity of Tahrir Square in an attempt to prevent clashes.

No clashes took place near Tahrir on Friday night.

Meanwhile, tens of supporters of Egypt's former president Mohamed Morsi protested on Friday night outside Cairo's Media Production City (MPC) – home to most private Egyptian television and radio stations – accusing the media outlets of anti-Islamist bias.

In the early hours of Saturday, hundreds of supporters of the ousted president were organising a march from Istiqama Mosque in Giza Square to the nearby Islamist sit-in in Nahda Square, paralysing traffic and forcing citizens to walk

Tahrir celebrates army 1973 victory

Thousands at Tahrir paid tribute to the martyrs of the 6 of October War as several banners were put up in praise of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives to defend Egypt's land.

Many set off fireworks and held the national flag chanting "Long live Egypt."

In addition, protesters held up posters of military commander-in-chief and Defence Minister Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who has recently gained popularity after the army deposed Morsi on 3 July amid mass nationwide protests against him.

Hundreds had started gathering on Friday at the main stage in the square shortly after breaking their Ramadan fast after sunset.

Parents of martyrs killed in violent clashes over the past couple of years spoke on stage and called upon Egyptian authorities to bring those responsible to justice.

The event was organised by Rebel (Tamarod) campaign, which spearheaded the 30 June protests, and the 30 June Front.

Thousands have also gathered at the presidential palace in Heliopolis to commemorate the anniversary of the 1973 war.

Meanwhile, military planes dropped national flags on the crowds in Tahrir. Jet fighters also carried out air-shows in the skies of Cairo to commemorate the 10th of ramadan anniversary. Consequently, Cairo International Airport halted air traffic for a period of 2 hours between 3pm and 5pm and from 5pm to 6pm per request by the Egyptian Air Force.

Pro-Morsi demonstrators also hail 1973 war

Morsi loyalists also marked the anniversary of Egypt's victory over Israel in the 1973 war with Israel, an event celebrated as a national and military victory, despite recent tensions between the Islamists and Egypt's army.
There is a difference between the "army and the murderous coup leaders," Hassan Ibrahim, secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said on the main stage of the Rabaa Al-Adawiya protest in Cairo's Nasr City on Friday evening.

"The Egyptian people embraced the army forty years ago when it defeated the Zionists in the 1973 War." he told the protesters.

"[However], there should be a clear distinction between those who carried out the coup [against Morsi] and the rest of the Egyptian army that we appreciate and trust," Ibrahim said.

Pro-Morsi demonstrators outside Cairo University in Giza held their shoes in the air, in an act of insult, as military planes flew across the sky Friday afternoon.

The FJP’s website also reported that protesters at Rabaa Al-Adawiya chanted "God is great" [Allahu Akbar] as the planes passed overhead. The website described the action as an act of threat from the army saying that the protesters "only fear their God."

Military planes flew across the capital and several governorates on Friday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Egypt's military victory against Israel during the 1973 war on Friday.

Islamists storm hospital grounds
In the late afternoon hours, tens of Morsi loyalists have stormed Friday the Abbasiya Hospital for Mental illnesses, climbing through the fences before setting camp in the hospital's garden.

The move came after roughly five thousand pro-Morsi protesters, according to Al-Ahram Arabic news website, blocked the Salah Salem road in both directions near the Abbasiya Hospital, causing the traffic to come to a standstill.

In the early evening hours, the military fired teargas in the evening at a group of pro-Morsi protesters near the presidential palace in Heliopolis, in a bid to hold them back from accessing a nearby street, where rival anti-Morsi rallies are taking place, state news agency MENA reported.

Protesters, however, continued to attempt to push past the army lines. Troops responded by firing more volleys of teargas to disperse the crowd, MENA added.

One of the protest organisers called on 50 women to move to the frontline in the fight to deter the army from attacking the march.

Morsi supporters mobilise nationwide

Supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi protested across Egypt's governorates on Friday.

Thousands gathered at Alexandria's Al-Qaed Ibrahim Mosque and chanted anti-military slogans such as "[army chief] El-Sisi, Morsi is my president."

In Gharbiya's Tanta hundreds called for Morsi's return to the presidency.

In Sharqiya's Zagazig protesters chanted slogans such as "Say it strong, Morsi is the president" and "We are not afraid of the thugs, we will protect ourselves by legitimacy."

The army committed a coup against Egypt's legitimate president, Ahmed Shehata, the Freedom and Justice Party's leader in Zagazig, told Al-Ahram Arabic news website.

Hundreds gathered in Fayoum after Friday prayers. They called for army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to stand trial for "carrying out a coup" against Morsi.

In Upper Egypt's Beni Suef, thousands called for the reinstatement of Morsi and the suspended constitution. They chanted against El-Sisi and the 'pro-coup' media.

Thousands rallied in Marsa Matrouh in north western Egypt after Friday prayers.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/1/76866/Egypt/Mass-proMorsi-marches-across-Cairo-Friday.aspx

MB is not just going away. They represent a significant portion of the working class, reactionary though they are. One might expect them to side with the ruling class but given their history with the army and recent events that seems dubious. Their strength does not seem to be as great as advertised but is enough to be 'players'. When it comes time for the army to depose the 'technocrats' they will support the move, who knows after that. Like the Christian conservatives here they are the death howl of world view already buried by modern material developments, a matter of time but probably messy times.

Groups submit suggestions for new constitution

Suggestions from the Press Syndicate, the Egyptian Trade Union Federation and the 6 April movement were submitted to the Legal Experts Committee on Sunday, the deadline for proposals to amend the 2012 constitution.

On Saturday, the Press Syndicate board discussed nine articles it would offer to the committee. Khaled Al-Belshy, member of the syndicate board and editor in chief of Al-Badil newspaper, said the articles discussed by the board included: freedom of expression, opinion, press and media is guaranteed, prohibiting the alteration or cancelation of communication and publication documents.

The press syndicate stressed the press is an “independent popular authority.” In its suggestions, it called for a national council to handle press issues, the guaranteed independence of media, a commitment to transparency, and for the right of journalists to obtain information.

6April also offered its suggestions on Sunday to the Legal Experts committee. In a Sunday statement, the movement said its proposals relied on contributions from the Write your constitution campaign.

The campaign was first founded in 2011 “in the belief in the importance of the constitution” and it relaunched the Say no campaign in opposition to the 2012 constitution and called the citizens to refuse it in the referendum.

Gebaly Al-Meraghy, head of The Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), submitted a draft with its suggestions for the constitutional amendments to come to Ali Awad Saleh, interim president advisor for constitutional issues and rapporteur of the committee.

ETUF proposed an amendment to article 27, for the workers to have a share in project administration and profits, with a proportion not lesser than 10%.

It also suggested the amendment of article 56, in order to guarantee the creation of syndicates and unions on “a democratic basis”. In its amendment suggestion, it denounced “the chaotic creation of so-called independent syndicates that are outside the scope of legitimacy.”

ETUF stated that it considers the representation of workers and farmers in parliamentary councils one of the most important gains of the 1952 revolution, the January 25 and the 30 June revolutions. It demanded that 50% of parliamentary institutions be formed of workers and farmers (as the 2012 constitution indicated).

The Legal Experts Committee held its fourth meeting on Saturday in the headquarters of the dissolved Shura Council. It continued to discuss proposals presented via e-mail, fax and phone. The committee has not disclosed these suggestions, nor the articles which would be amended. It met again on Sunday to continue its work and examine the suggestions.

“We will only unveil these articles when our work deadline expires [a month from the date of its formation by a presidential decision on 8 July 2013], since announcing them could cause disarray in the public opinion,” said Saleh.

The committee is tasked to discuss all the controversial articles in the 2012 constitution such as article 2, article 219 dealing with the Islamic Sharia, article 14 dealing with minimum wage, article 43 stipulating that ‘freedom of belief is safeguarded’ and article 198 dealing with military trials for civilians.

http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/07/28/groups-submit-suggestions-for-new-constitution?