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{Update1} BREAKLING NEWS: Egypt army gives Mursi 48 hours to compromise in crisis

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s powerful armed forces issued a virtual ultimatum to Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, 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 realised 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.

Original title: Egypt Divided Over Morsi and Islamic Fundamentalism

I have been critical of Prof. Cole’s analysis and vision on Syria, however his recent articles have been spot on and very informative. Morsi has pushed the envelop by pressing forward the minority position of the Muslim Brotherhood and refusing to take into account his electoral promises toward the  moderates and the Christian Coptics for a more secular administration. The harsh punishment of capital sentencing in the Alexandria Soccer killings, the push on a fundamental Islamic new constitution, deteriorating economics and fuel shortage, judicial set-backs by court decisions and recent appointments of Islamists with blood on their hands, has caused this call to oust Morsi from power. The Egyptian press has suffered from government repression, censorship and arrests. It was a short-cut for the opposition to use the slogan Morsi is a traitor of the Egyptian revolution. Some news headlines – ‘The 19th Day of the Egyptian Revolution’.

Egypt Divided over Morsi and Fundamentalism

Tens Hundreds of thousands of leftist, liberal and centrist protesters gathered in Tahrir Square on Friday for “The Last Warning” aimed at President Muhammad Morsi of the Brotherhood. Morsi has ruled Egypt for the past year, after winning the presidential election in June of 2012. He has made a series of arrogant and polarizing policy decisions that have so angered the activist youth who led the January 25, 2011, revolution, that they are now calling upon him to hold early further presidential elections. Morsi and his supporters maintain that he was elected to a regular 4-year term, but the youth movements believe he has squandered his mandate and should step down.

At the same time his opponents were gathered in Tahrir, Morsi’s supporters (most of them bussed into the capital from villages in the countryside) were gathered in Nasr City miles away, also in their tens of thousands.

Disputes in Egypt cause for a bleak future

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