reuters:
Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around the presidential palace on Friday and the opposition rejected President Mohamed Mursi’s call for dialogue to end a crisis that has polarized the nation and sparked deadly clashes.
The Islamist leader’s deputy said he could delay a December 15 referendum on a constitution that liberals opposed, although the concession only partly meets a list of opposition demands that include scrapping a decree that expanded Mursi’s powers.
“The people want the downfall of the regime” and “Leave, leave,” crowds chanted after bursting through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the palace of Egypt’s first freely elected president.
READ ON: Protesters surge around Egypt’s presidential palace
ohsnapitsalexandrasart:
Stereotypes 3x4feet. This painting represents all the labeling that the media is doing to black women. It shows degrading and stereotypical words that people believe to be true about us. The character cries because she’s getting labeled without people even getting to know who she really is… I think it describes a lot of my life as a black woman living in this world~
inothernews:
“While holding itself out as an honest broker for truce talks between Israel and Hamas over the Gaza conflict, Egypt’s new government sought on Monday to plunge into the battle over international public opinion on behalf of the Palestinian cause — an arena where the Israelis, more experienced in the world of the free press and democratic politics, have historically dominated. In Egypt’s most concerted effort to win more global public support for the Palestinians, advisers to Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who has been an outspoken supporter of Hamas, invited foreign correspondents in Cairo to a background briefing at which a senior Egyptian official sought to blame Israel for the conflict while at the same time maintaining Egypt’s role as an intermediary pressing both sides for peace. “We are against any bloodshed,” the official said repeatedly, arguing that Egypt sought stability and individual freedom for all in the region. Speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting the talks with the Israelis, the Egyptian official argued that the West, which supports Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Gaza, was essentially blaming the victim. “It is so strange people are talking about the rights of self-defense,” he said. “The self-defense of whom? Of the occupied people? Of the besieged people? Of the hurt people? No, the self-defense of the most powerful state in the region and the self-defense of the occupying force of Gaza and Palestine. This is what some of the international community are talking about.” He implicitly compared the leaders of Hamas to George Washington in America or Charles de Gaulle in France: Heros because they resisted foreign occupation by armed force. “Now, there is an occupation going on for decades and these people who are suffering this occupation are trying to resist, are trying to gain their rights,” the official said. “But we are saying no, they don’t have the rights, they have to stay calm, be killed, be occupied, be besieged, and the self-defense is the right of the occupier.” The official called this “a huge manifestation of double standards that we will not allow.” He argued that there was “no comparison” between the level of force used by both sides, and that the Western media had wrongly adopted Israel’s use of the term “rockets” to describe Hamas missiles that were better described as primitive “projectiles.” And he compared the Israeli killing of the top Hamas military official, Ahmed al-Jabari, which in Hamas’s view started the battle, to a hypothetical assassination of Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak. “What would be the reaction of the Israelis? Then can you understand the reaction of the other side?” Echoing an account presented by President Morsi, the Egyptian official said that Israel’s killing of Mr. Jabari had broken an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire agreement that both sides had accepted the day before Mr. Jabari was targeted.”
—
The New York Times, “While Trying to Mediate, Egypt Blames Israel for Gaza Crisis.”
The writer of this story, David Kirkpatrick, was just on CNN, pointing out that in the past, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak would act as an “honest broker” for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but that each time, “He was on Israel’s side.”
brooklynmutt:
President Barack Obama jokingly mimics U.S. Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney’s “not impressed” look while greeting members of the 2012 U.S. Olympic gymnastics teams in the Oval Office, Nov. 15, 2012. Steve Penny, USA Gymnastics President, and Savannah Vinsant laugh at left. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
lardpotato:
The Top Ten Best Quotes of the 2012 Election
beeishappy:
Colbert has advice for some members of the GOP or:
who continually drop the ‘R’ word. [x]
reuterspolitics:
As polls point to a close presidential election, the country faces the possibility of political chaos - from a repeat of the disputed 2000 election to the remote possibility of a new administration with a president from one party and a vice president from the other.
The most likely result on November 6 will be a clear, if close, victory for President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden or Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan.
But with surveys showing the presidential candidates running neck-and-neck just 2-1/2 weeks before Election Day and a number of battleground states still in play, a less straightforward outcome seems more possible.
READ ON: One scenario - A Romney-Biden White House
