With polls closed, Egypt waits for president

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians began an anxious wait for their first freely elected president on Sunday after two days of voting that was to be the culmination of their Arab Spring revolution but which many fear may now only compound political and economic uncertainty.

With polling stations closed at 10 p.m. (9:00 p.m. British time), aides to both candidates in the runoff - Ahmed Shafik, a former general who was prime minister when Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, and Mohamed Morsy, an Islamist from the long suppressed Muslim Brotherhood - were claiming their man seemed to be ahead.

Counting was under way but, in a country unused to free elections, it was unclear how soon any indication of the result would emerge. After a first round of voting last month, which knocked out several popular candidates, it took several hours.

On Monday, the new president, whether Morsy or Shafik, will be told, along with the rest of the country, what powers he will have by the ruling generals. Military and legal sources told Reuters the military council would take back legislative powers for now from a new, Islamist-dominated parliament that it has dissolved following a court ruling voiding an earlier election.

Turnout, only 46 percent in the first round of the presidential vote, appeared to electoral officials to have been no higher for the decisive head-to-head contest. Many of the 50 million eligible voters were dismayed by an unpalatable choice between a man seen as an heir to Mubarak and the nominee of a religious party committed to reversing liberal social traditions. Some cast a ballot against both men in protest.

"I'll cross out both Morsy and Shafik because neither deserve to be president," said Saleh Ashour, 40, a shopkeeper in the middle-class Cairo neighbourhood of Dokki as he went to vote. "I want to make a statement by crossing out the two names.

"Just staying away is too passive."

COMPETING VISIONS

Shafik, 70, had promised he had heeded the lessons of the revolution 16 months ago and offered security and prosperity. Morsy, 60, tried to widen his appeal beyond the Brotherhood's committed and disciplined base by pledging to preserve a pluralist democracy and finally end a history of military rule.

In the second city, Alexandria, computer engineer Sameh Youssef, 30, was wary of Islamist rule but wanted to honour the dead of an uprising launched by frustrated young urbanites: "I will vote Morsy," he said. "Not because I like him but because I hate Shafik. Between us and Shafik there is blood."

In Old Cairo, however, 56-year-old physician Khalil Nagih echoed the sentiments of many, including Christians like himself, whose mistrust of the Brotherhood and desire for an end to a year of chaos outweighed anxiety about the army's role:

"I chose Shafik because he has experience of administration and was an officer. He is a straight talker and he speaks to all communities. He says he'll solve our problems and I believe him. Morsy will bring a religious state and take Egypt backwards."

MILITARY DECREE

Whoever wins, Egypt's political landscape is hazy beyond one clear landmark - the 20 or so senior commanders around Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, whose Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) claimed sovereign power after easing out their brother officer Mubarak to appease the millions on the streets.

In what opponents denounced as "coup", the SCAF dissolved parliament after judges, appointed under Mubarak, ruled on Thursday that a legislative election over the winter breached legal rules and would have to be re-run.

The Brotherhood and hardline Islamist allies dominated the new chamber, and risk losing seats in any new vote, having alienated many outside their core support base. Among failings they are accused of was the inability to form a consensus body to draw up the new constitution Egyptians are hoping for.

As presidential voting was ending, military and legal sources told Reuters that the military council would promulgate an amended constitutional decree on Monday returning to itself the legislative powers it handed to parliament this year.

"In the absence of parliament, legislative powers move back to the military council, which has been in charge of the country and will hand over presidential powers to the president soon," a military source told Reuters.

The decree would also define the new president's powers: "The country's head of state will have the power to appoint a prime minister and cabinet ministers," the military source said.

A lawyer who attended a meeting with the military council on Sunday said: "The presidential powers which the military council held until now will now shift to the new president."

"COUP" WARNING

The Brotherhood has rejected the army's power to dissolve parliament and warned of "dangerous days". But though some have compared events to those in Algeria 20 years which ended in civil war between the military and Islamists, many doubt that the Brotherhood has an appetite for violence at present.

Many opponents of military rule have also complained that the Brotherhood has overreached itself in seeking both legislative and presidential power, limiting its broader appeal.

Egyptians massed in their millions against Mubarak in January last year in the hope that his removal would end poverty, corruption and police brutality. Many now seem tired of the social turmoil and political bickering that ensued.

"Egypt writes the closing chapter of the Arab Spring," read a headline on Sunday in independent newspaper al-Watan, which said the election offers a "choice between a military man who aborted the revolution and a Muslim Brother who wasted it".

Monitors said they had seen only minor and scattered breaches of election rules by Sunday morning but not the kind of systematic fraud that tainted elections under Mubarak, despite mutual accusations of irregularities by the rival camps.

A win for Shafik may prompt street protests by the Islamists and some of the disillusioned urban youths who made Cairo's Tahrir Square their battleground last year. Should Morsy prevail, he may be frustrated by an uncooperative military elite, for all the generals' pledges to cede power by July 1.

Egypt's armed forces have built up massive wealth and commercial interests, helped since the 1970s by a close U.S. alliance which followed the decision of the most populous Arab state to make peace with Israel.

Many Egyptians say the army is just one wing of an entrenched security establishment that has resisted reform and oversight since Mubarak left and would wield influence long after the promised handover to an elected civilian.

"There is no doubt that the state in all its institutions - judicial, military, interior, foreign and financial - back Shafik for president and are working to that end," said Hassan Nafaa, a politics professor who campaigned against Mubarak.

"It is very difficult to eradicate this spirit of Mubarak."

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Tom Pfeiffer, Edmund Blair and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo and Abdel Rahman Youssef in Alexandria; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Wrongly jailed Nepalese man returns home from Japan

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A Close Look at Home Staging - Robinson Construction

Gone are the days of selling your house the old fashioned way, by hoping and praying that audience like you house. Nowadays, if you want to sell the house at the respectable price, then you may want to read about home staging. Home staging is a powerful way to amp the style worth of a house thus making it simpler that you should sell it to potential customers.

Here are several things that you?d like to understand home staging.?Don?t add too much. Now, the word that less is much more is quite applicable in many ways than a single. If you don?t stop yourself from over-designing the house, you will just find yourself rendering it seem like a disorganized mess.?Speaking of clutter, you need to stack books neatly in a very shelf.

Books ought to be stacked vertically that it is more pleasing on the eyes. If you don?t want to remove your old magazines or other paperback materials, then you might like to think about making or buying inexpensive baskets so that you can have a very destination to put them in.??Don?t keep with the old fashioned methods for designing your house.

Think outside the box. Living area chairs enables you to produce a lounge area with the patio. A coffee table doesn?t have to stay the lounge all the time. Place it in the master?s bedroom to add more class to it. A very important factor about home staging is basically that you should look into thinking out of the box often.?Another thing about home staging is that it?s by pointing out light.

Letting the sun can be found in through clean and properly designed windows can be be extremely enticing to possible buyers as it creates that scene of perfection and peace. Proper lighting is also a good way to visually enhance those less flattering areas of your dwelling. If you can?t manipulate those places into looking more flattering, then consider managing the lights.??Lastly, yet another thing worth remembering about home staging is always that different buyers have different taste. You shouldn?t give up if a person buyer says no.

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Gut bugs confined to quarters by special immune cells

There is a fine line between help and harm. The trillions of gut bacteria that are important for our health are prevented from escaping to cause havoc in other tissues by special immune cells.

A team led by David Artis at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia has demonstrated, using mice, that the immune cells ? innate lymphoid cells ? confine bacteria to the gut by barricading the lining of the gut and neighbouring tissues. Keeping the microbes in check seems to be important: other research has shown that they are abnormally abundant in the blood of people with Crohn's disease.

When the team eliminated the innate lymphoid cells from mice, the bacteria escaped to other parts of the body. The immune cells work by secreting a chemical called interleukin-22. Treatment with IL-22 provided an effective alternative to the immune cells.

Border collies

It is possible that the immune system has evolved several subsets of cells to shepherd specific groups of gut bacteria. "It may be that the immune system is more sophisticated in controlling these bacteria than we thought," says Artis.

The discovery opens up new ways to treat diseases aggravated by bugs that escape from the gut, says Lora Hooper of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

"This work has uncovered some truly exciting new insights into the role of innate lymphoid cells in the gut, showing that they function like border collies that keep intestinal bacteria from escaping to other parts of the body," she says.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1222551

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Straightforward Plumbing Resources Helpful For almost any Choice ...

Posted June 16th, 2012 by papa

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These will be described as Foul Drinking water solutions and Surface Water systems. Foul h2o is whatever that comes from bathrooms, kitchens, utility rooms, vehicle washing places and so on. Waste from these sources should check out your foul h2o drain method. Surface h2o is essentially rainwater. This could discharged into a soakaway, watercourse, surface area drinking water sewer or, significantly in older houses, in to the foul drinking water drainage process. Inside a mixed strategy, the rainwater pipes are discharged to the foul drinking water drains via gully traps which stop foul air escaping through the drains. Nevertheless, contemporary solutions are made to hold the foul drinking water as well as the surface area water apart. It can be particularly essential to make certain that you really do not link foul h2o to a surface water drainage scheme. If you are not sure regarding the drainage platform about your house get help with the Building Command Division previously you start any operate.

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New 'Prometheus' Photo Reveals Unused Character

With all of the controversy that "Prometheus" has drummed up since its release a week ago, the last thing Ridley Scott's most recent movie needs is more mystery. But last week, John O'Connor from Creatures, Inc., the effects shop behind some of the extraterrestrials in "Prometheus," posted some behind-the-scenes photos to his Facebook page that [...]

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Obama calls on lawmakers to end gridlock

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WTO backs U.S. in case against China duties on steel

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Are Libyans turning against the West?

AFP - Getty Images

Members of Libya's security forces look at a British convoy car that was attacked by a rocket-propelled grenade in Benghazi on Monday.

By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

Libyans who overthrew dictator Moammar Gadhafi could now be turning on the West, according to a counter-extremism think tank that says militant Islamists are exploiting the country?s fragile security situation.

A recent string of attacks on Western targets ? including one on United States diplomatic offices in Benghazi ? has been carried out by an armed group whose ?language and choice of targets reflect a Jihadist influence," according to the London-based Quilliam?Foundation.


The warning echoes concerns by observers and some U.S. intelligence sources that the collapse of the Gadhafi regime could be exploited by groups seeking to turn Libya into an Islamic state.

Fourteen armed militias were killed ear Tripoli on Wednesday in the third straight day of fighting, underscoring the country's volatility ten months after Gadhafi's overthrow.

The country is preparing for a July 7 election to choose a national assembly that will write a new national constitution. Bouts of deadly violence, mostly in the southern Sahara and in the mountainous west, have highlighted old feuds between rival factions that pre-date the Gadhafi era.

?The recent events in Libya underline the fragile security situation in the country and the difficulties faced by the Libyan authorities in creating a stable environment, thus generating a security vacuum ready to be exploited by various militant groups,? Noman Benotman, a former?Libyan jihadist?who now works for the?Quilliam?Foundation,?told msnbc.com.

Benotman said a group named the Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman Brigade has claimed responsibility for attacks in Benghazi in recent days -- two against the neutral International Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters and one each against the U.S. offices in the city and the British Ambassador?s motor convoy.

The brigade is named after ?The Blind Sheikh? Omar Abdul Rahman who is?currently serving a life sentence in the U.S.?for his connections to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

Don Emmert / AFP, file

Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, shown here in a picture from 1993, gives his name to the Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman Brigade, which has claimed responsibility for recent attacks in Libya. The so-called Blind Sheikh is currently serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his connections to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

Benotman said the first attack on the ICRC mission, on May 22, was carried out after the group accused the organization of distributing Bibles and facilitating missionary lectures aiming to convert Libyan Muslims to Christianity.

Slideshow: Libya's uprising

The Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman Brigade, and similar groups, ?take advantage of the accessibility to weapons, explosives and combat facilities available in the country since the Libyan revolution,? he said. ?Inspired by a Jihadist ideology, the group can also increase its impact and attract dozens of Libyans who were previously involved in fighting to overthrow the Gadhafi regime.?

He said Libyan authorities ?still face a serious gap in their attempt to control the security situation between the bureaucratic and the operational levels.?

In September, U.S. intelligence officials told the Washington Times that Jihadists among the Libyan rebels planned on the Internet to subvert the post-Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state.

The sources said spy agencies were stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels, and that a U.S. government report circulated Tuesday detailed how extremists were observed ?strategizing? on Internet forums about how to set up an Islamist state in Libya.

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More than 600 former al-Qaida?linked militants, rounded up by the Gadhafi regime during the post-U.S. invasion Iraq?insurgency, were freed from Tripoli's Abu Salim prison during last year?s political revolution.

However, Benotman?s warnings were played down by Richard Dalton, the former British Ambassador to Libya and Associate Fellow of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at British think tank, Chatham House.

He told msnbc.com: ?Libya is not a fertile area for Jihadism, and not a natural recruiting ground for Islamist extremism. Apart from some eastern and southern areas, there is little evidence that Jihadists are posing a substantial threat to the country?s security any more than they would in any other country in the region."

?There is not a political vacuum in Libya. The overall picture is one that is heading more towards progress than setbacks and the ability to overcome incidences of violence.?

The former Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of taking part in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing but was released after eight years for health reasons, has died in Libya of prostate cancer. NBC's Jim Maceda reports from London.

Dr Omar Ashour, director of the Middle East Graduate Studies Program at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, and a visiting fellow in the Brookings Doha Center, has reported that former Jihadists in Libya, such as Abd al-Hakim Belhaj, the commander of Tripoli's Military Council, have been forced to ?mature politically, recalculate strategically, moderate behaviorally [and] modify their ideological beliefs?.

?The National Transitional Council, with the support of NATO has a good chance of avoiding an Iraq-like or an Algeria-like scenario in Libya,? he wrote in an article for Foreign Policy.

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