Egyptians demands Israel pay reparations for Biblical plagues

Possibly disregarding that the Biblical ten plagues were brought down on the Egyptians roughly 3,500 years ago, a popular columnist in the North African nation is calling on his government to take the State of Israel to court for compensation, as reported by the Jerusalem-based news portal Israel Today on April 11, 2014.

Publishing his demands right before the Jewish High Holy Days of Passover (known to Jews as Pesach), popular and respected Cairo-based newspaperman Ahmad al-Gamal raised more than a few Hebrew eyebrows when he blamed “the Children of Israel” instead of Pharaoh for the various plagues that were of … well, Biblical proportions.

As cited in the Book of Exodus, for refusing to free the Hebrews from slavery, the Almighty visited the following plagues upon Egypt:

• Drinking water turned into blood (דָם): Ex. 7:14–25
• Multitude of frogs (צְּפַרְדֵּעַ): Ex. 7:25–8:11
• Lice infestation (כִּנִּים): Ex. 8:16–19
• Swarms of biting flies (עָרוֹב): Ex. 8:20–32
• Death of livestock (דֶּבֶר): Ex. 9:1–7
• Men and surviving cattle stricken with infectious boils (שְׁחִין): Ex. 9:8–12
• Storms of fire (בָּרָד): Ex. 9:13–35
• Locusts destroy crops (אַרְבֶּה): Ex. 10:1–20
• Total darkness (חוֹשֶך): Ex. 10:21–29
• Death of firstborn sons (מַכַּת בְּכוֹרוֹת): Ex. 11:1–12:36

As al-Gamal argued, it’s been the Egyptian people who have suffered for well over three millennia, so by his reckoning, the Jews owe him. Without due consideration that the statute of limitations may have already passed, the hostile Hamitic complained “We demand that the State of Israel pay compensation for the ten plagues that our forefathers in Egypt suffered thousands of years ago as a result of the curses of the Jewish forefathers.” Not quite done yet, al-Gamal may be under the impression that the plagues have been continuous since approximately 1,500 BC when he penned “What is written in the Torah is that Pharaoh discriminated against the children of Israel. What have we to do with it? We therefore need not suffer!”

According to the American Lawyers Quarterly, the standard Egyptian statute of limitations is normally between five to fifteen years. Nonetheless, al-Gamal demands the Jewish State be brought before the docket due to the Tribe of Israel wandering in the wilderness for 40 years “the Children of Israel enjoyed our goods, which they stole before abandoning us.”

As cited by Israel Today, a handful of Israeli pundits have fired back at al-Gamal that possibly their country could and would consider reparations, just as soon as Egypt pays them back for making slaves of the Hebrew people 3,500 years ago.

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Pure Evil… Sunni Villagers Drag Shiites From Their Burning Homes & Beat Them to Death in the Street (Video)

In Egypt “proud” villagers lynched four Shiite Muslims in an attack that followed weeks of anti-Shiite rhetoric in the media.
The Sunni villagers torched their homes and then dragged them into the street and beat them to death.

All the while chanting, “Allahu Akbar!” (god is good)
(Warning: Brutal content)

The Sunnis shouted “Allahu Akbar” and “infidels” as they murdered the Shiites.
Reuters reported:

Kasbana Abdelaziz’s house guests had barely arrived when the mob was upon them, hurling petrol bombs and smashing holes through the roof of her home.

The attackers then dragged four men – Shi’ite Muslims who had come to this Cairo suburb for a religious festival – out into the street and beat them to death.

President Mohamed Mursi condemned the “heinous crime” that happened on Sunday and promised swift justice, but his opponents accuse him and his Muslim Brotherhood of allowing ultraconservative Salafist allies to whip up anti-Shi’ite sentiment in return for their support.

“They called us infidels,” Abdelaziz, said, sitting on her floor amid broken concrete, shattered glass and splintered wood. Two of her daughters stood weeping in the room behind her.

The mob killing in Zawiyat Abu Musallem has caused outrage among opposition leaders in Egypt at a time of deep political tension in the Arab world’s most populous country.

Islam, a Religion of Peace? No. Muslims Gang Rape And Brutally Assualt Coptic Christians

So, I guess they were just carrying out Egypt leader Mohamed Morsi’s orders to rape non-Muslim protesters?

Shouts of “Christians” could be heard from the frenzied mob of  ”Allahu Akbar“- screaming Muslim savages as they viciously gang-raped two Coptic Christian women in the streets of Cairo…just like what happened to CBS reporter, Lara Logan.

LiveLeak (h/t golem b) The attacks took place in broad daylight, amidst a backdrop of brutal violence against the Coptic Christian community that saw several members of their community killed by Muslims in the past week. Christians held a protest against the violence but were met by a larger Muslim mob that forced them to flee into a Cathedral where they were surrounded by the Muslim mob who began hurling Molotov cocktails into the packed Cathedral.

If Youtube removes this, CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO

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The Obama Exodus to the Promise Land

Barak Obama’s journey to the Holy Land hardly resembles the trek of Moses through the wilderness. Nonetheless, his flee from accountability does remind of that often professed transparency. In this case, he cannot hide from his misdeeds. An open question remains, will public outrages banish the POTUS under the weight of his transgressions. Alternatively, will the powers of Pharaoh succeed in suppressing his enemies?

“Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” (NRSV Exodus 　2:14)

This deed is the event that sends Moses on his long journey. The Old Testament is careful to say that Moses killed the Egyptian when no one was around. Yet the implication in the Bible is that you can run, but you cannot hide.　Barry S. Roffman’s Ark Code offers an esoteric, if not bizarre theory that attempts to make a connection with the Hebrew Torah.

Barak OBAMA – REINCARNATION OF PHARAOH, KING OF EGYPT, may be a stretch by most mainstream standards. However, the political point that Obama seeks to dictate to others certainly has the stain of Pharaoh.

“This matrix was originally posted in conjunction with President Obama’s overt hostility toward Israel. When the crisis arose in Egypt where there was widespread opposition to President Mubarak, Obama declared, “What is clear — and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak — is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, and it must begin now.” The demands made by the U.S. President had a tone that made it sound like he was also elected as President of Egypt. There seemed to be no concept of Egyptian sovereignty, or of the need for Egypt to solve its own problems internally. On the matrix, BARACK OBAMA is the axis term. His name is shown at its 6th lowest ELS in wrapped Torah (which requires more than one computer pass through the 304,805 letters of Torah to find). It is directly crossed by one of the Torah’s 8 uses of the term PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT. Perhaps President Obama has a distant memory of being Pharaoh, King of Egypt in a past life. Indeed, there is a statue that backs this idea in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo that was attacked in the rebellion, and which was at the heart of the rebellion in Cairo’s Tahrir Square!

Who will play the role of Pharaoh? As shown above, a statute in the Cairo Museum offers a huge clue. It and the actions of Obama, when combined with the Torah Code matrix above, and the odds below appear to make the answer rather apparent.

The p value of the match of BARACK OBAMA and PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT is just ~0.015. It equates to about one chance in 66 that we could find such a match. By itself this is only of mild interest. However, when the matrix is expanded to just 170 letters, a second occurrence of PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT is seen. With just 7 remaining such terms to match, the p value of the larger matrix is now adjusted to 0.000104, which is about one chance in 9,607 – highly significant.”

Mr. Roffman’s conclusion: “It is not certain who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, but one suspect is Akhenaten. His statue is found in the Cairo Museum, and it is a dead ringer for President Obama.” For an op-ed viewpoint authored by ANDRÉ ACIMAN, in the New York Times, The Exodus Obama Forgot to Mention, illustrates the complexity of living together, much less in harmony.

”PRESIDENT OBAMA’S speech to the Islamic world was a groundbreaking event. Never before has a young, dynamic American president, beloved both by his countrymen and the nations of the world, extended so timely and eager a hand to a part of the globe that, recently, had seen fewer and fewer reasons to trust us or to wish us well.

As important, Mr. Obama did not mince words. Never before has a president gone over to the Arab world and broadcast its flaws so loudly and clearly: extremism, nuclear weapons programs and a faltering record in human rights, education and economic development — the Arab world gets no passing grades in any of these domains. Mr. Obama even found a moment to mention the plight of Egypt’s harassed Coptic community and to criticize the new wave of Holocaust deniers. And to show he was not playing favorites, he put the Israelis on notice: no more settlements in the occupied territories. He spoke about the suffering of Palestinians. This was no wilting olive branch.

It is strange that our president, a man so versed in history and so committed to the truth, should have omitted mentioning the Jews of Egypt. He either forgot, or just didn’t know, or just thought it wasn’t expedient or appropriate for this venue. But for him to speak in Cairo of a shared effort “to find common ground … and to respect the dignity of all human beings” without mentioning people in my position would be like his speaking to the residents of Berlin about the future of Germany and forgetting to mention a small detail called World War II.”

Viewing the Ed Show video, from the progressive media, Netanyahu Sets US Conservatives Straight on ‘Anti-Israel’ Obama, attempts to give the impression that playing nice with Bibi Netanyahu implies progress. Just how realistic is this assessment, when examined in light of the record of the administration?

How far the daring darling of the peace process has fallen from grace among the Middle East Semites, should not be a surprise. Even the pro-Israel establishment Daily Beast questions Obama’s ability and commitment to engage the eternal feud in the article, How Obama Became Netanyahu.

“When it comes to the Palestinians, Obama is also governed by political fear. Obama’s own dovish instincts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are clear.

Before he won the Democratic nomination in 2008, Obama spoke openly about Palestinian suffering, about the narrow confines of the Israel debate inside the United States, and abouthis dim view of Likud. But ever since his bruising, and ultimately futile, conflicts with Netanyahu over settlements in 2009 and the 1967 lines in 2011, Obama has gone to great lengths to avoid Israel-related fights. During the past 18 months, he’s barely uttered a public word about settlements or the 1967 lines. Last year’s Democratic platform excised previous language pledging a “personal” presidential “commitment” to the peace process. And now Obama is traveling to Israel without any specific plans for moving toward a Palestinian state.

Obama is essentially telling Palestinians to keep their heads down until an Israeli leader comes along who wants to create a viable Palestinian state. Or until ordinary Israelis stop worrying about the ultra-Orthodox and the price of cottage cheese and create another peace movement. Or until politics change in Washington. He’s telling Palestinians to relinquish every form of counterpressure they have and put themselves at Israel’s and America’s mercy, even though this trip itself is evidence that without Palestinian counterpressure, America and Israel will do little else except entrench the status quo.”

Woe is I, for the “so called” reincarnated Pharaoh; his pilgrimage to the Promise Land is not exactly a vacation in Eden. No “parting of the waves” on this visit for the Tempter look alike. Even on the home front, ‘The Bible’ viewers: Seeing Obama in Satan gains traction.

“The similarity was seen and commented upon by people hostile to the president by people who because of the their general political opinions, found it quite “obvious” that the Devil and the president should look so much alike.

Plenty of the president’s biggest fans also saw the similarity and went to social media to spread the word about it. Why? Because, according to them, it was all part of the producers’ plan to smear the president and appeal to the “Bible thumpers” who oppose him.

In other words, both groups saw the president in the Devil – one group because they see the Devil in the president, and the other because they see the Devil in those who strongly oppose the president.”

If not a Pharaoh or a Beelzebub, what precisely is Barak Obama? While he surely would like to be the sheikh of the last days, he certainly is no vessel of revealed scripture. The “born again” Netanyahu – Obama love fest, is no transcendental relationship. Only by answering, Who made you a ruler and judge over us?, can serious minded brothers of good will cross over into the promise land of honest accountability.

Obama is a creature of satanic control and implements global Talmudic law. With the abandonment of Mosaic Law and the New Testament gospel, the international community is executing a worldwide inferno of hatred and death. “Let my people go” applies to all of humanity. The exodus from perdition needs universal acceptance that only obedience to God is the path to paradise.

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I AM is at the doors does not agree with everything in this article. It is an article I wanted to share and have people see though. Blessings and love in Jesus name.

Egyptian mosque turned into house of torture for Christians after Muslim Brotherhood protests

 

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  Amir Ayad lies in a hospital bed after he was allegedly beaten by Islamic hardliners who stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo. (MidEast Christian News)

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  Protesters chant in front of the general prosecutor’s office in Cairo this week after the arrest of a prominent blogger and four others following violent clashes between supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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  Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is under fire from Copts and moderate Muslims, but violent militias are fighting his opponents in the streets. (AP) (AP/Egypt State TV)

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Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear will only get worse.

Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators, some of whom were Muslim, say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members.

“There is no longer anything to hold them back. The floodgates are open.”

– Shaul Gabbay, University of Denver professor on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

“They accompanied me to one of the mosques in the area and I discovered the mosque was being used to imprison demonstrators and torture them,” Amir Ayad, a Coptic who has been a vocal protester against the regime, told MidEast Christian News from a hospital bed.

Ayad said he was beaten for hours with sticks before being left for dead on a roadside. Amir’s brother, Ezzat Ayad, said he received an anonymous phone call at 3 a.m. Saturday, with the caller saying his brother had been found near death and had been taken to the ambulance.

“He underwent radiation treatment that proved that he suffered a fracture in the bottom of his skull, a fracture in his left arm, a bleeding in the right eye, and birdshot injuries,” Ezzat Ayad said.

Officials at the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque said radical militias stormed the building, in the Cairo suburb of Moqattam, after Friday prayers.

“[We] deeply regret what has happened and apologize to the people of Moqattam,” mosque officials said in a statement, adding that “they had lost control over the mosque at the time.”

The statement also “denounced and condemned the violence and involving mosques in political conflicts.”

The latest crackdown is further confirmation that the Muslim Brotherhood’s most hard-line elements are consolidating control in Egypt, according to Shaul Gabbay, a professor of international studies at the University of Denver.

“It will only get worse,” said Gabbay. “This has been a longstanding conflict, but now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in power, it is moving forward to implement its ideology – which is that Christians are supposed to become Muslims.

“There is no longer anything to hold them back,” he continued. “The floodgates are open.”

Gabbay said the violent militias that allegedly tortured Ayad work hand-in-hand with police and may, in fact, be beyond the control of increasingly unpopular President Mohammed Morsi. While he may benefit from roving bands that attack demonstrators, they also undermine his claim of being a legitimate leader.

“Egyptian society is split over the Morsi regime, and it is not just a Coptic-Muslim split,” Gabbay said. “The less conservative elements of the Muslim society are increasingly uneasy with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Christian Copts are an easy target, but they are not alone in their mistrust of the Brotherhood.”

Experts agreed that the Copts, who comprise roughly 10 percent of the nation’s 83 million people, are not alone in their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, which took power in hotly contested elections following the 2011 ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak. Moderate Muslims and secular liberals are increasingly uncomfortable with the Islamization of the government.

Sheikh Ahmed Saber, a well-known imam and official in Egypt’s Ministry of Endowments, has blasted Morsi’s justice ministry for allowing persecution of Copts.

“All Egyptians in general are oppressed, but Christians are particularly oppressed, because they suffer double of what others suffer,” Saber told MCN.

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35 Ancient pyramids discovered in Sudan necropolis

At least 35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan.

Discovered between 2009 and 2012, researchers are surprised at how densely the pyramids are concentrated. In one field season alone, in 2011, the research team discovered 13 pyramids packed into roughly 5,381 square feet (500 square meters), or slightly larger than an NBA basketball court.

They date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush flourished in Sudan. Kush shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire. The desire of the kingdom’s people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture.

At Sedeinga, researchers say, pyramid building continued for centuries. “The density of the pyramids is huge,” said researcher Vincent Francigny, a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in an interview with LiveScience.

“Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, more pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were still available in the necropolis.”

This aerial photo shows a series of pyramids and graves that a team of archaeologists has been exploring at Sedeinga in Sudan. Since 2009 they have discovered at least 35 small pyramids at the site, the largest being 22 feet (7 meters) in width.

The biggest pyramids they discovered are about 22 feet (7 meters) wide at their base with the smallest example, likely constructed for the burial of a child, being only 30 inches (750 millimeters) long. The tops of the pyramids are not attached, as the passage of time and the presence of a camel caravan route resulted in damage to the monuments. Francigny said that the tops would have been decorated with a capstone depicting either a bird or a lotus flower on top of a solar orb.

The building continued until, eventually, they ran out of room to build pyramids. “They reached a point where it was so filled with people and graves that they had to reuse the oldest one,” Francigny said.

Francigny is excavation director of the French Archaeological Mission to Sedeinga, the team that made the discoveries. He and team leader Claude Rilly published an article detailing the results of their 2011 field season in the most recent edition of the journal Sudan and Nubia.

The inner circle

Among the discoveries were several pyramids designed with an inner cupola (circular structure) connected to the pyramid corners through cross-braces. Rilly and Francigny noted in their paper that the pyramid design resembles a “French Formal Garden.”

Only one pyramid, outside of Sedeinga, is known to have been constructed this way, and it’s a mystery why the people of Sedeinga were fond of the design. It “did not add either to the solidity or to the external aspect [appearance] of the monument,” Rilly and Francigny write.

A discovery made in 2012 may provide a clue, Francigny said in the interview. “What we found this year is very intriguing,” he said. “A grave of a child and it was covered by only a kind of circle, almost complete, of brick.” It’s possible, he said, that when pyramid building came into fashion at Sedeinga it was combined with a local circle-building tradition called tumulus construction, resulting in pyramids with circles within them.

People were buried beside the pyramids in tomb chambers that often held more than one individual. This image shows a child who was buried with necklaces.

An offering for grandma?

The graves beside the pyramids had largely been plundered, possibly in antiquity, by the time archaeologists excavated them. Researchers did find skeletal remains and, in some cases, artifacts.

One of the most interesting new finds was an offering table found by the remains of a pyramid. . It appears to depict the goddess Isis and the jackal-headed god Anubis and includes an inscription, written in Meroitic language, dedicated to a woman named “Aba-la,” which may be a nickname for “grandmother,” Rilly writes.

It reads in translation:

Oh Isis! Oh Osiris!

It is Aba-la.

Make her drink plentiful water;

Make her eat plentiful bread;

Make her be served a good meal.

The offering table with inscription was a final send-off for a woman, possibly a grandmother, given a pyramid burial nearly 2,000 years ago.

Source: LiveScience

Egypt’s armed forces chief warns unrest could cause collapse of state

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s comments spark fears military might once again intervene in day-to-day governance of Egypt

In an ominous warning, the head of Egypt’s armed forces has said that continuing civil unrest may soon cause the collapse of the Egyptian state.

Parts of Egypt are in turmoil following five days of rioting in which 52 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured after protests against President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and police brutality turned violent. The unrest comes two years after the start of the 2011 revolution that toppled the former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s comments have sparked fears that the military might once again intervene in the day-to-day governance of Egypt, a country effectively ruled for most of the past century by army officers.

Writing on the army’s Facebook page, Sisi said: “The continuation of the struggle of the different political forces … over the management of state affairs could lead to the collapse of state.”

Sisi, who was appointed by Morsi last year and is also the country’s defence minister, said the army would remain a “solid and cohesive block” on which the state could rely.

Controversially, the country’s new constitution solidifies the army’s judicial independence. It was also asked to help restore order on the streets of Port Said this week, prompting reminders of Mubarak-era state governance.

The military has, however, taken more of a backseat role since Sisi replaced General Hussein Tantawi as head of the armed forces last year. It still controls large parts of the Egyptian economy, but is felt in some quarters to be content for the time being with getting its own house in order.

Asked by the Guardian whether he feared military intervention should the unrest continue, Gehad al-Haddad, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, said: “No. I know enough about the way President Morsi removed General Tantawi to not be worried.”

On a street near Tahrir Square, protesters against the Muslim Brotherhood said they did not fear a military intervention, arguing that either regime was undesirable.

“If the army comes, we will still be on the street,” said Mina Remond, a 20-year-old student standing near clashes between police and demonstrators on the banks of the Nile.

Source: Guardian

Report: Chinese and North Korean Technicians Are Working on Egyptian Scud Missile Systems

It’s an Obama world.
China and North Korean technicians are working Egyptian technicians to modernize their short-range missile systems.

Meanwhile, four F-16 fighter jets left the U.S. last week, bound for Egypt as part of a foreign aid package. (FOX News)

The Free Beacon reported:

China is covertly working with North Koreans to modernize Egypt’s short-range missile systems, raising new concerns among United States intelligence officials about the arms programs of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated government in Egypt.

A group of technicians from China’s premier missile manufacturer that was previously sanctioned by the U.S. government for illicit arms transfers are working in Egypt with North Koreans to modernize Cairo’s Scud missile force.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, reports of the missile technicians from the Beijing-based China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp. (CPMIEC) are raising new concerns about U.S. plans to sell arms to the government of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

The missile activities were detected in connection with Egypt’s Sakr Factory, the main missile production facility that makes Egypt’s Scud-Bs and extended-range Scud Cs.

An Egyptian military official had no immediate comment on the missile support from China and North Korea. A State Department spokesman also had no immediate comment. Other spokesmen declined to comment.

Scud missile and launcher

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Mursi declares state of emergency as protests escalate in Egypt

Clashes at Tawkifeya [Photo: Al Hussainy Mohamed]

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi declared a 30-day state of emergency in three Suez Canal cities yesterday, as protests begun on the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution spread throughout the country. Police and army units fired live ammunition, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds, while protesters attacked police stations and offices of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in cities across Egypt.

The move came amid rising expectations of a decisive confrontation with police in mass protests planned for today, the anniversary of the “Friday of Rage” protests of January 28, 2011. On that day, hundreds of thousands of protesters battled police mobilized by then-President Hosni Mubarak in street fighting in Cairo. Mubarak was toppled amid a revolutionary strike wave of the Egyptian working class two weeks later.

Mursi declared a 30-day state of emergency for Port Saïd, Suez, and Ismailia, as well as a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. The state of emergency allows the police and military to detain protesters indefinitely without charge and to prosecute them in military courts, to suspend constitutional rights, and to censor the press.

Mursi threatened to re-establish the state of emergency throughout Egypt: “I always said I’m against any exceptional measures, but I also said I might resort to such measures if I had to. I may even do more for the sake of Egypt, it’s my duty… I instructed interior ministry officials to deal strictly with whoever threatens the people, public, and private institutions.” This is an open threat to crush all opposition to the government.

Shubra march [Photo: Al Hussainy Mohamed]

Mubarak ruled throughout his 30-year presidency under a state of emergency. Mursi’s decision to re-impose it to crush protests testifies to the counter-revolutionary character of his regime.

Mursi’s announcements reportedly led to more protests against the move. In Ismailiya, a new demonstration began with calls, “Down with Mursi, down with the state of emergency.”

Egypt’s bourgeois opposition is cynically issuing calls for protests, which will occur with or without them and over which they are trying to maintain their influence, while simultaneously giving their support to Mursi’s repression. The National Salvation Front issued a statement calling for the suspension of the constitution pushed through by the MB, “retribution” for the killings of protesters, and the dissolution of the government.

However, Khaled Dawoud, a spokesman for the NSF—a coalition led by the liberal Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nasserite Hamdeen Sabahi, and former Mubarak regime official Amr Moussa—declared: “Of course we feel the president is missing the real problem on the ground, which is his own actions. His call to implement emergency law was an expected move, given what is going on, namely thuggery and criminal actions.”

The National Defense Council, led by Mursi and representatives of Egypt’s powerful army officer corps, invited the opposition to “broad national dialogue that would be attended by independent national characters.”

Army units deployed to Port Saïd and Suez yesterday, amid escalating protests over death sentences handed out against 21 fans of Port Saïd’s Al-Masry Football Club. Last year they worked with police to attack fans of Cairo’s Al-Ahly club, who had played a major role in street fighting against Mubarak’s thugs in the 2011 protests in Cairo. Some 73 Ahly fans were killed and roughly 1,000 wounded. (See also: Mass protests in Egypt against pro-junta football riot ).

At the time, MB officials criticized police and the ruling military junta, claiming the tragedy was “the result of intentional reluctance” by the authorities. Now that the MB is in power, however, they are protecting the police. While the Al-Masry thugs worked with Port Saïd police officials during the raid, the announcement of the police officials’ sentence was delayed until March 9, leading to widespread suspicions that they would be let off.

Friends and relatives of Al-Masry fans sentenced to death stormed the jails to free them, setting off a violent confrontation with police forces in which at least 30 protesters were killed, shot with live bullets and birdshot.

On Sunday the army fired on the funeral procession for those killed Saturday, scattering the procession and claiming at least three more lives.

In Suez clashes intensified Saturday, after nine protesters were killed by police on Friday. The protesters were reportedly shot with live ammunition at close range, including some from behind.

Protesters stormed the Suez police station, set prisoners free, and took police weapons. After forcing the security forces to flee, they burned down the building. As during the Friday of Rage on January 28 two years ago, police withdrew from Suez, and the Third Army was sent in to enforce security in the city and crack down on protesters.

The army moved also into Ismailiya, another city on the Suez Canal. Military reinforcements were sent to the headquarters of the Suez Canal Authority. Mursi and the Egyptian military are worried that they can lose control of the strategic waterway. Since the fall of Mubarak, strikes by Suez Canal workers have repeatedly threatened the operations at the Canal, which are critical to global trade and the US military’s presence in the Middle East.

Over the weekend, protests intensified in cities across Egypt. In the industrial city of Mahalla, protesters attacked the city’s police station with rocks and attempted to storm it. Security forces shot tear gas canisters at protesters. Protesters also attacked the Mahalla city council, throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at the building.

As of this writing, there are ongoing protests and clashes in the capital city, Cairo. On the iconic Tahrir Square, the symbol of the Egyptian Revolution, and its surrounding streets, protesters are defying attacks by Egyptian security forces.

On Sunday demonstrators blocked the 6th of October Bridge, leading to downtown Cairo, as well as the Sadat metro station, bringing the metro traffic to a halt. On the Corniche al-Nil, security forces fired tear gas at protesters who defended themselves by throwing stones. Protesters also attacked the Ministry of Supply and Social Affairs, setting the building on fire.

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Clashes in Egypt after Morsi grabs absolute power

Does Egypt have a new Pharaoh? Nearly two years after a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime liberals and secular Egyptians accuse the Brotherhood of monopolizing power, dominating the writing of a new constitution and failing to tackle the country’s chronic economic and security problems. Mursi on Thursday issued a decree that puts his decisions beyond any legal challenge until a new parliament is elected. Opponents immediately accused him of turning into a new Mubarak and hijacking the Egyptian revolution.

On Friday supporters and opponents of President Mohammed Morsi clashed in the worst violence since he took office, while he defended a decision to give himself near-absolute power to root out what he called “weevils eating away at the nation of Egypt.”

“I don’t like, want or need to resort to exceptional measures, but I will if I see that my people, nation and the revolution of Egypt are in danger,” Morsi told thousands of his chanting supporters outside the presidential palace in Cairo.

“I am for all Egyptians,” Mursi said on a stage outside the presidential palace, adding that he was working for social and economic stability and remained committed to the revolution.

But even before he spoke, thousands from each camp demonstrated in major cities, and violence broke out in several places, leaving at least 100 wounded, according to security officials. Tens of thousands of activists massed in Tahrir itself, denouncing Morsi. In a throwback to last year’s 18-day anti-Mubarak uprising, they chanted the iconic slogan first heard in Tunisia in late 2010: “The people want to overthrow the regime.” They also yelled “erhal, erhal,” — Arabic for “leave, leave.”

The president’s decree has consolidated his power but looks set to polarize Egypt further, threatening more turmoil in a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring.

“The decree is basically a coup on state institutions and the rule of law that is likely to undermine the revolution and the transition to democracy,” said Mervat Ahmed, an independent activist in Tahrir protesting against the decree.

Leading liberal Mohamed ElBaradei, who joined other politicians on Thursday night to demand the decree was withdrawn, wrote on his Twitter account that Mursi had “usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh”.

Morsi and the Brotherhood contend that supporters of the old regime are holding up progress toward democracy. They have focused on the judiciary, which many Egyptians see as too much under the sway of Mubarak-era judges and prosecutors and which has shaken up the political process several times with its rulings, including by dissolving the lower house of parliament, which the Brotherhood led.

His edicts effectively shut down the judiciary’s ability to do so again. At the same time, the courts were the only civilian branch of government with a degree of independence: Morsi already holds not only executive power but also legislative authority, since there is no parliament.

His move came at a time when he was enjoying lavish praise from U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers on Wednesday. Clinton had been in Cairo for extensive talks with Morsi before the truce was announced.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, said in a statement that the edicts raise “concerns” for many Egyptians and for the international community, adding that the country’s revolution had aimed in part to prevent too much power from being concentrated in one person’s hands.

The U.S. urged “all Egyptians to resolve their differences over these important issues peacefully and through democratic dialogue,” she said. The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process, while the United Nations expressed fears about human rights.

Morsi’s declaration of his power to take any steps necessary to prevent “threats to the revolution,” public safety or the workings of state institutions. Rights activists warned that the vague — and unexplained — wording could give him even greater authority than Mubarak had under emergency laws throughout his rule.

“God will humiliate those who are attacking our president, Mohammed Morsi,” said ultraconservative cleric Mohammed Abdel-Maksoud.

“Whoever insults the sultan, God humiliates him,” he added.

The state media described Morsi’s decrees as a “corrective revolution,” and supporters cast them as the only way to break through the political deadlock over drafting the constitution. Almost two years after Mubarak was toppled and about five months since Mursi took office, Egypt has no permanent constitution, which must be in place before new parliamentary elections are held. An assembly drawing up the constitution has yet to complete its work. Many liberals, Christians and others have walked out accusing the Islamists who dominate it of ignoring their voices over the extent that Islam should be enshrined in the new state.

Sources: ABC news, Reuters.