Dozens killed as Egypt unrest worsens

Egyptian soldiers fired on hundreds of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Mursi before dawn Monday as they were praying outside the facility where he was believed to be detained, dozens of witnesses said. Egypt’s military said armed assailants fired on the soldiers first.

Separately, former finance minister Samir Radwan has emerged as the favourite to become Egypt's interim prime minister, senior political sources said on Monday, as the military-backed transitional administration seeks a way out of political deadlock.Radwan said he had not yet been approached. Interim head of state Adli Mansour has been trying since last week to form a temporary government that can guide the country towards fresh elections at a time of iPhone headset.

In Monday's clash in Cairo, at least 51 civilians were killed, all or most of them shot, and more than 300 wounded, doctors and health officials said.Security officials said one police officer died as well.The shooting was the single deadliest episode of violence since the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s longtime autocratic leader.

It immediately escalated the nearly week-old confrontation between the generals who forced out Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, and Mursi’s Islamist supporters in the streets.In an early sign that the mass shooting had undercut important support for the military’s ouster of Mursi, Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the country’s top Muslim cleric, threatened to go into seclusion until the violence ended.

The grand imam, who participated in talks on a post-Mursi transitional government, said in a statement broadcast on Egyptian state television: "I might be forced to enter into a retreat in my home until everyone takes responsibility for protecting the sanctity of blood and preventing the country from a civil war."The military said its soldiers had fired in response to an attack by gunmen from a "terrorist group" who had attempted to storm the facility, according to Ahram Online, the website of Egypt’s leading newspaper.

Dozens of Islamists who had gathered in vigil for Mursi denied there was any provocation for the attack. Two bystanders who had supported Mursi’s ouster also said that the demonstrators were unarmed and ran in terror as the attack began.Bullet holes in cars, lampposts and corrugated metal barriers indicated that gunfire was coming from the top of a nearby building where the sandbag barriers around makeshift gun emplacements were visible. Bullet casings on the ground and collected by Islamist demonstrators bore the stamp of the Egyptian army.

But Egyptian state television showed film of a pro-Mursi protester firing what appeared to be a homemade handgun at advancing soldiers from behind a corner about 250 yards away. The footage was in daylight, hours after the initial attack began.Another video broadcast on state television, also in daylight and so hours after the attack had begun, showed a masked man among the pro-Mursi demonstrators.

The protesters, witnesses and video footage all appeared to portray the pro-Mursi demonstrators as attempting to fight back against the soldiers by throwing rocks.Early in the morning, Egyptian state media sent out a news alert saying that an army lieutenant had been killed and 200 "armed individuals" were captured, then hours later reported that there were also dozens of civilian casualties.

There were pools of blood on the pavement. Some of the blood and bullet holes were hundreds of yards from the walls of the facility’s guard house, suggesting that the soldiers continued firing as the demonstrators fled.The officer was hiding in a car in the parking lot of a building in a side street that the Mursi supporters were using for shelter. Video footage taken from a window above showed gunfire from the advancing soldiers hitting the car.

El-Sheikh, who signed a petition and joined protests for Mursi’s ouster, said he and others carried the officer’s body out of his car. "He did not have a head any more," he said.The Nasr City hospital, a few minutes’ drive from the scene of the shooting, began receiving hundreds of victims around 4 a.m. and at least 40 were dead, according to Bassem al-Sayed, a surgeon. The doctor said all the victims he saw were men with gunshot wounds.

The emergency wards and the intensive care unit were full of patients and distraught relatives. Near the emergency room, two dozen men lined up to donate blood.The survivors, who were shot in the head, chest or arms, or who had been hit in the face by birdshot pellets, all told roughly the same story. They were attacked without warning with tear gas and gunfire near the end of morning prayers.

Some said soldiers and police officers attacked from opposite sides. Others said that because of the dark, they were not sure which security branch their attackers belonged to."We were praying," said Mahmoud Gomaa Ahmed, 33, who was wounded in the chest. "Before the prayer, nothing had happened at all," he said, responding to accusations by military officials that a group of "terrorists" had attacked the Republican Guard officers’ club.

The killings came a day after the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies vowed to broaden their protests against the president’s ouster and U.S. diplomats sought to persuade the Islamist group to accept his overthrow, its officials said. But the killings Monday seemed certain to inject perilous new factors into the country’s fragile political calculus.

Continuing a push for accommodation that began before the removal of Mursi last week, the U.S. diplomats contacted Brotherhood leaders to try to persuade them to re-enter the political process, an Islamist briefed on one of the conversations said on Sunday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Although by morning some people carried sticks or makeshift clubs, all said that the demonstrators were unarmed. El-Sheikh and another neighbor who opposed Mursi and supported his ouster said the ear cap."Our only weapons were bottles of water and prayer rugs," said Gamal Ali, 37, a teacher.

Even as both sides continued their street demonstrations on Sunday, Egypt’s new leaders continued their effort to form an interim government. Squabbles about a choice for prime minister spilled out into the open on Saturday, exposing splits among the country’s newly ascendant political forces.

The military said its soldiers had fired in response to an attack by gunmen from a "terrorist group" who had attempted to storm the facility, according to Ahram Online, the website of Egypt’s leading newspaper.Dozens of Islamists who had gathered in vigil for Mursi denied there was any provocation for the attack. Two bystanders who had supported Mursi’s ouster also said that the demonstrators were unarmed and ran in terror as the attack began.

Bullet holes in cars, lampposts and corrugated metal barriers indicated that gunfire was coming from the top of a nearby building where the sandbag barriers around makeshift gun emplacements were visible. Bullet casings on the ground and collected by Islamist demonstrators bore the stamp of the Egyptian army.

But Egyptian state television showed film of a pro-Mursi protester firing what appeared to be a homemade handgun at advancing soldiers from behind a corner about 250 yards away. The footage was in daylight, hours after the initial attack began.

Why Mombasa Is Tourist Magnet and Kampala Is Not

At a risk of sounding like one given to resurrecting tried and tired clichés, I will say this: culture is everything.And also culture shapes our perception and informs our investment decisions. A child, who is brought up in a culture and tradition of not respecting other people's property, would not have manners to return a dropped wallet to the rightful owner.

For such a person, stealing is a cultural issue. It is done with pride and ease to the gratification of his peers. Moral decadence becomes a way of life.Therefore, I am often not surprised when street urchins gorge out our side mirrors. That is the life they have known.When some of the victims of the Namungoona inferno chose to steal fuel other than deter the thieves from someone else's property, for me it clearly illustrated that stealing had become a cultural matter that brought a lot of pride to some families in Uganda.

President Museveni also once intimated to the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, that Uganda is full of iPhone headset. Last week, I was in Kenya's coastal area. While in Mombasa, I had a cultural shock which made me change my perception about some parts of Kenya. It also gave me a clue as to why Mombasa is more attractive to tourists than other areas of Kenya.

Granted, Mombasa has some of the best beaches and a well-developed hotel industry. But that is not the reason in my view why tourists flock there. It is culture. The Mombasa people abhor thieves.While in Nairobi one is worried about being attacked on the street with knife wielders, losing the wallet or having your drink spiced with drugs, especially if you patronise dingy bars, in Mombasa when your wallet drops and it has the identification papers, it will be returned to the owner with all its contents intact.

Why? The reasons are partly linked to the puritan culture of Muslims. Muslims are not raised to own wealth fraudulently. That is mali ya haramu or biashara ya haramu (forbidden wealth or forbidden business).

They believe that one must work for his wealth and in doing so he must not infringe on the rights of others. In fact, those who possess wealth are urged to lend money interest-free (bila riba) to their brethren, and when the borrowers prosper, then they are supposed to pass on the profits to the needy so as to uplift their lives as well.

Filming the Ballarat edition of the show commenced yesterday at Craig’s Hotel, where preliminary takes of the contestants entering the hotel could be seen by pedestrians.Curious passers-by stopped to take photos and catch a clear view of the remaining contestants, some taking to Twitter to spoil the surprise.

MasterChef Australia executive producer Margie Bashfield said the rich history of Ballarat was in line with the theme of the episode’s challenge.“When Masterchef moved from Sydney to Melbourne one of the things we wanted to do – which we weren’t able to do in Sydney – was get out of the city and into the regional areas of the state,” Ms Bashfield said.

“The beauty of being based in Melbourne is that there are numerous incredible regional areas all about an hour from our base at the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds.“I had heard Craig’s Hotel being spoken about on Melbourne radio and thought we needed to check it out. “We came up and looked at a couple of locations and Craig’s Hotel was perfect. “It had all the necessary requirements for filming and it is a magnificent building with its own great history.”

Celebrity judges Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan will be in town today for filming.With clear, free eyes Bloodsworth has since campaigned against capital punishment and is now head of advocacy for Witness to Innocence, a coalition of exonerated death-row inmates who campaign against capital punishment.

Bloodsworth's most recent success was his leading role in the movement to end the death penalty in Maryland, the state that once tried to kill him. Governor Martin O'Malley signed the law abolishing that state's death penalty on May 2 this year.

Bloodsworth's ordeal began in 1984 when a neighbour saw on TV an identikit sketch of the suspect in the particularly savage rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl near Baltimore. The neighbour thought it looked like Bloodsworth and called the police.

Another eyewitness later incorrectly placed him with the victim. Despite his clean criminal record he was soon convicted and sentenced to death.''I was accused of the most brutal murder in Maryland history,'' Bloodsworth, now 52, told an audience during the Maryland campaign earlier this year. ''It took the jury 2? hours to send me to the gas chamber.''While on death row he read about a conviction secured by the use of DNA, a science the public had barely heard of in the early 1990s, and with the help of his lawyers and supporters he had his case thrown out.

The Puerto Rican-born fruit picker was convicted of murdering a beauty school owner in 1983 largely on the evidence of two suspect witnesses, one of whom was a paid informant who negotiated a deal in exchange for his testimony.

Melendez was on death row for 16 years before a defence lawyer found transcripts - not presented to the jury - of another man, Vernon James, confessing to the crime.Other defence lawyers soon found another 20 witnesses who heard James, who has since died, either discussing or confessing to the custom keychain, reported The Florida Bar News in 2009.

In December 2001, an appeals court judge granted a new trial and criticised the prosecutor for withholding evidence from the defence and jury about James' incriminating statements.Were the Timely Justice Act in place earlier, ''I would be dead today,'' Melendez says.About three years ago, Melendez was attending an anti-capital punishment conference in Pennsylvania when he locked eyes with the man who was to have executed him, Ron McAndrew, the former warden of Florida State Prison.