Modern Sinbad

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Sitar legend Ravi Shankar dies at 92

Ravi Shankar, who helped introduce the sitar and popularise Indian music in the Western world, famously collaborating with groups such as the Beatles and performing at Woodstock, died near his home in California on Tuesday at the age of 92.

By News Wires (text)

Sitarist and composer Ravi Shankar, who helped introduce the sitar to the Western world through his collaborations with The Beatles, died near his home in Southern California on Tuesday, his family said. He was 92.
Shankar, a three-time Grammy winner with legendary appearances at the 1967 Monterey Festival and Woodstock, had been in fragile health for several years and last Thursday underwent surgery, his family said in a statement.
“Although it is a time for sorrow and sadness, it is also a time for all of us to give thanks and to be grateful that we were able to have him as a part of our lives,” the family said. “He will live forever in our hearts and in his music.”
The statement said Shankar had suffered from upper respiratory and heart issues over the past year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery last week.
The surgery was successful but he was unable to recover.
“Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the surgeons and doctors taking care of him, his body was not able to withstand the strain of the surgery. We were at his side when he passed away,” his wife Sukanya and daughter Anoushka said.
Shankar lived in both India and the United States. He is also survived by his daughter, Grammy-winning singer Norah Jones, three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Shankar performed his last concert with his daughter Anoushka Shankar on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, California, the statement said. The night before he underwent surgery, he was nominated for a Grammy for his latest album “The Living Room Sessions, Part 1.”
Shankar is credited with popularizing Indian music through his work with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and The Beatles in the late 1960s.
(REUTERS)

Date created : 12/12/2012

Bahrain activist Nabeel Rajab's prison sentence reduced

Women in Bahrain hold up a placard calling for the release of Nabeel Rajab (10 December 2012)

Nabeel Rajab is prolific Twitter user with more than 185,000 followers

Bahrain Protests

An appeals court in Bahrain has reduced the prison sentence handed to prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab from three years to two.

The court upheld Mr Rajab's conviction of encouraging "illegal gatherings".
His lawyer, Mohammed al-Jishi, told AP news agency that he had been cleared of a charge of insulting police.
Mr Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, has been a leader of the pro-democracy protests which have rocked the kingdom since February 2011.
The 48-year-old is also one of the most well-known activists in the Arab world, with more than 185,000 followers on Twitter.
Mr Rajab's wife, Sumaya, said she had spoken to him briefly in court on Tuesday after the appeal against his conviction was rejected.
"He told me he was not expecting two years. He was thinking that they would release him," she told the BBC.
Mr Rajab was originally sentenced to a year on each of three identical charges but in two cases the sentences were cut in half.
Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch called the decision "bizarre".
"The Bahraini judiciary is extremely politicised," he said, noting the pressure that international human rights groups have put on the government to release Mr Rajab and other political prisoners.
"They gave an inch to international concern but Nabeel Rajab is still facing two years in jail, punished for exercising his right to freedom of association."
On Sunday, US Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner urged the authorities to "drop charges against all persons accused of offenses involving non-violent political expression and freedom of assembly".
The next day, another activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, was sentenced a month in prison for entering the "prohibited area" of the former site of Manama's Pearl Roundabout - the focus of last year's unrest.

Egyptian army to host unity talks as crisis deepens

By Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad | Reuters – 7 hrs ago

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's army chief will host national unity talks on Wednesday, seeking to end a growing political and economic crisis in the Arab world's most populous nation.

The meeting scheduled for 1430 GMT was called in response to a wave of protests since President Mohamed Mursi awarded himself sweeping powers on November 22 to push through a new constitution shaped by his Islamist allies, which is due to go to a referendum on Saturday.

"We will not speak about politics nor about the referendum. Tomorrow we will sit together as Egyptians," armed forces chief and Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said at a gathering of army and police officials on Tuesday.

Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled him to power in a June election, were expected to attend, while the main opposition coalition said it would decide on Wednesday morning whether to participate. The opposition stayed away from an earlier reconciliation meeting called by Mursi last weekend.

The judiciary committee overseeing the vote decided late on Tuesday that the referendum would be conducted on two days instead of one, as previously planned.

"The committee had officially asked the President to issue a law approving that the referendum takes place on two stages on Saturday December 15 and Saturday December 22," Judge Mahmoud Abu Shousha, a member of the referendum judiciary committee, said. Voting for Egyptians living abroad starts on Wednesday.

"The reason for the splitting of the vote into two stages is due to a shortage of judges needed to supervise the ballot stations," another member of the committee, who asked not to be named, said.

Many judges had decided in a joint meeting on Tuesday to not supervise the vote on a constitution they say had divided the country into two groups.

Outside the presidential palace - where anti-Mursi protesters are demanding the Islamist postpone the vote on a constitution they say does not represent all Egyptians - there was skepticism tinged with some hope.
"Talks without the cancellation of the referendum - and a change to the constitution to make it a constitution for all Egyptians and not the Brotherhood - will lead to nothing and will be no more than a media show," said Ahmed Hamdy, a 35-year-old office worker.

But the fact that the army was calling such talks "is an indication to all parties that the crisis is coming to a head and that they need to end it quickly", he said.

Earlier, Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said disclosed that a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan, a cornerstone of Egypt's economic recovery hopes, would be delayed until next month because of the crisis.

The delay was intended to allow time to explain a widely criticized package of economic austerity measures to the Egyptian people, Said told Reuters.

REBUILD CONSENSUS

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said the measures would not hurt the poor. Bread, sugar and rice would not be touched, but prices of cigarettes and cooking oil would go up and fines would be imposed for public littering. In a bid to rebuild consensus, he said there would be a public consultation about the program next week.

In Washington, the IMF said Egypt had asked for the loan to be postponed "in light of the unfolding developments on the ground". The Fund stood ready to consult with Egypt on resuming discussions on the stand-by loan, a spokeswoman said.

On the streets of Cairo, thousands of opposition supporters gathered outside the presidential palace to demand that Mursi postpone Saturday's referendum.

A bigger crowd of flag-waving Islamist Mursi backers, who want the vote to go ahead as planned on Saturday, assembled at two mosques and remained on the streets as night fell over the Egyptian capital. There were also protests in Alexandria and other cities.

The extended upheaval following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year is causing concern in the United States, which has given Cairo billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland emphasized "deep concerns" over the situation in Egypt and repeated calls on protesters to demonstrate peacefully and on security forces to act with restraint. She declined to be drawn on whether Washington believed the referendum should be postponed.

The latest unrest has so far claimed seven lives in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition. But the Republican Guard has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the presidential palace, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair in Cairo, and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Thursday, 6 December 2012

Protesters Clash in Cairo, More Presidential Advisers Quit

Protesters opposed to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi evacuate and injured fellow protester during clashes between supporters of president Mohammed Morsi and their rivals in front of the president palace, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012.

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Edward Yeranian, VOA News

December 05, 2012

CAIRO — Supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi battled late Wednesday in Cairo with rocks and firebombs, as three key presidential advisors quit to protest the president's handling of the country's constitutional crisis.

Reporting from the scene, VOA correspondent Elizabeth Arrott said the new violence erupted when Morsi's Islamist supporters attacked demonstrators protesting what they describe as a presidential power grab.

"I've seen Molotov cocktails, people armed with iron bars and rocks, some people even pulling branches off of trees in terms of trying to find some kind of weapon to fight with, the crowds pushing back and forth and there are reports of live ammunition being used and again, unconfirmed reports of casualties, of fatalities among the people who are fighting," she said.

Arrott said most of the presidential supporters are men with beards typical of members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, while opponents of the president appeared younger and had some women present.

As clashes continued late Wednesday, there were reports of Muslim Brotherhood supporters attacking journalists outside the presidential palace. Separately, three more presidential advisors announced their resignations to protest the decrees granting Mr. Morsi expanded powers. Five of the president's 17 advisors have quit since November 22.

Opposition protesters want Morsi to abolish a decree he issued last month granting himself sweeping powers that place him above review by the judiciary. Many also oppose a new draft constitution drawn up by a mainly Islamist committee. The draft is set for a December 15 referendum.

Clinton urges talks

Earlier in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the rival sides to hold a dialogue with each other, rather than try to impose their views on each other.

“The upheaval that we are seeing now, once again, in the streets of Cairo and of other cities indicates that dialogue is urgently needed, and it needs to be a two-way dialogue, not one side talking at another side," she said.

Clinton also urged Egypt's new leadership to work to craft a new constitution via a “process that is open, transparent and fair” and doesn't “favor one group over any other.”

Egyptian Vice President Mahmoud Mekki told a news conference that it is possible to reach a compromise over a number of contentious points in the draft constitution, but that the referendum to approve the document would go ahead as planned later this month.

Mekki said that 10 or 12 clauses at most are under dispute and that it could be possible to work out a compromise over them in the days leading up to the vote. He said the president granted himself extraordinary powers to address the “critical situation through which the country is passing,” saying that it was a response to “calls by the people for stability.”

Long protests

On Tuesday, Egyptian riot police fired tear gas outside the presidential palace, where tens of thousands of protesters had gathered while Morsi was inside conducting business.

Police tried to stop the crowd from storming the palace but soon retreated and let the marchers through a barrier and up to the palace walls. Egyptian officials say president left the palace during the march.

Many of the marchers chanted the same anti-government slogans used in the uprising that toppled former authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak.

Mob battles as Egypt crisis grows

Thursday, 6 December 2012

An Egyptian protester wears an eye patch during an anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstration outside the presidential palace, in Cairo (AP)

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Egypt has descended into political turmoil over the constitution drafted by Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi, with at least 211 people wounded as supporters and opponents battled outside the presidential palace.Four more presidential aides resigned in protest over Mr Morsi's handling of the crisis and a key opponent of the Islamist president likened his rule to that of ousted authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.
Both sides were digging in for a long struggle, with the opposition vowing more protests and rejecting any dialogue unless the charter was rescinded, and Mr Morsi pressing forward relentlessly with plans for a December 15 constitutional referendum. "The solution is to go to the ballot box," declared Mahmoud Ghozlan, a spokesman for Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, asserting the charter was "the best constitution Egypt ever had".
Wednesday's clashes outside the presidential palace in Cairo's Heliopolis district marked an escalation in the deepening crisis. It was the first time supporters of rival camps fought each other since last year's anti-Mubarak uprising, when the authoritarian leader's loyalists sent sword-wielding supporters on horses and camels into Cairo's Tahrir square in what became one of the uprising's bloodiest days.
The large scale and intensity of the fighting marked a milestone in Egypt's rapidly entrenched schism, pitting Mr Morsi's Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Islamists in one camp, against liberals, leftists and Christians in the other.
The violence spread to other parts of the country later. Anti-Morsi protesters stormed and set ablaze the Brotherhood offices in Suez and Ismailia, east of Cairo, and there were clashes in the industrial city of Mahallah and the province of Menoufiyah in the Nile Delta north of the capital.
Compounding Mr Morsi's woes, four of his advisers resigned, joining two other members of his 17-member advisory panel who have abandoned him since the crisis began.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a leading opposition reform advocate, said Mr Morsi's rule was "no different" than Mubarak's. "In fact, it is perhaps even worse," the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told a news conference after he accused the president's supporters of a "vicious and deliberate" attack on peaceful demonstrators outside the palace. "Cancel the constitutional declarations, postpone the referendum, stop the bloodshed, and enter a direct dialogue with the national forces," he said on his Twitter account, addressing Mr Morsi. "History will give no mercy and the people will not forget."
The opposition is demanding that Mr Morsi rescind the decrees giving him nearly unrestricted powers and shelve the controversial draft constitution the president's Islamist allies rushed through last week in a marathon, all-night session shown live on state TV.
Speaking at Nato in Brussels, US secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the unrest showed the urgent need for dialogue between Mr Morsi's government and opposing voices on a constitutional path going forward. "We call on all stakeholders in Egypt to settle their differences through democratic dialogue and we call on Egypt's leaders to ensure that the outcome protects the democratic promise of the revolution for all of Egypt's citizens," she said.

Mohamed Morsi supporters and opponents clash in Cairo

Witnesses say Muslim Brotherhood supporters stormed sit-in by 300 anti-Morsi protesters outside Egypt's presidential palace

Haroon Siddique and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 December 2012 16.51 GMT

Scuffles outside the presidential palace in Cairo. Photograph: Mahmoud Khaled/AFP/Getty Images

Egyptian protesters demonstrating against Mohamed Morsi's assumption of sweeping powers have clashed with the president's supporters in Cairo, as Morsi's deputy predicted a imminent breakthrough in resolving the crisis over the country's draft constitution.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressed concern about the unrest, urging urgent dialogue between the sides.
Witnesses said Muslim Brotherhood supporters stormed a sit-in by about 300 opponents of Morsi outside the presidential palace, beating participants and destroying tents. Rocks were thrown and people fought with sticks.
The Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who helped form the National Salvation Front coalition to co-ordinate opposition to the president's declaration, accused Morsi's supporters of a "vicious attack" on peaceful protesters, who he said were afforded no protection by police.
He said that the president should protect protesters to preserve "what remains of his legitimacy". It was ElBaradei's Constitution party that had announced the sit-in outside the palace, and another mass rally is planned for Friday. The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom of Justice party, had called on its Facebook page for a counter-protest in response to the sit-in.
It was the second successive day of clashes outside the palace. On Tuesday security forces fired teargas to disperse protesters.
The vice-president, Mahmoud Mekky, said a referendum on the draft constitution would go ahead on 15 December, despite opponents claiming Morsi was attempting to rush the document through.
"I am completely confident that if not in the coming hours, in the next few days we will reach a breakthrough in the crisis and consensus," he said. He denied the president's office was a party to any street violence.
Clinton said the unrest showed that dialogue between the two sides was "urgently needed". She called for a constitutional process that was "open, transparent and fair and does not unduly favour one group over any other".

Egypt’s Brotherhood calls on protesters to leave palace area

Thursday, 06 December 2012

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of Egyptian President Mursi clash with anti-Mursi demonstrators on the road leading to the presidential palace in Cairo on Dec. 5, 2012. (AFP)

By AFP

A spokesman for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood called on Islamists and opponents clashing on Wednesday to withdraw from near the presidential palace and pledge not to return.

Mahmud Ghozlan told AFP the protesters “should withdraw at the same time and pledge not to return there given the symbolism of the palace.”

He said the Brotherhood, which turned out to support President Mohamed Mursi against opposition protesters, was not in touch with its opponents and it was up to security forces to mediate the resolution.

In the same vain, bloodied protesters were seen carried away as gunshots could be heard and the rivals torched cars and set off fire crackers near the presidential palace, where opponents of Mursi had set up tents before his supporters drove them away.

Riot police were eventually sent in to break up the violence, but clashes were still taking place in side streets near the palace in the upscale Cairo neighborhood of Heliopolis.

The health ministry said 211 people had been injured so far.

The violence spread beyond the capital, with protesters torching the offices of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood in the Mediterranean port city of Ismailiya and in Suez, witnesses said.

As scattered clashes carried on into the night, the Brotherhood urged protesters on both sides to withdraw, as did Prime Minister Hisham Qandil.

The Brotherhood’s Mahmud Ghozlan told AFP the protesters “should withdraw at the same time and pledge not to return there given the symbolism of the palace.”

Earlier, the prestigious Islamic institution Al-Azhar, based in Cairo, called for restraint and dialogue, as did the United States and Britain.

“It’s a civil war that will burn all of us,” said Ahmed Fahmy, 27, as the clashes raged behind him.

“This is a failure of a president. He is waging war against his own people,” 56-year-old Khaled Ahmed told AFP near the palace.

“They (Islamists) attacked us, broke up our tents, and I was beaten up,” said Eman Ahmed, 47. “They accused us of being traitors.”

Activists among the Islamist marchers harassed television news crews, trying to prevent them from working, AFP reporters said.

Wael Ali, a 40-year-old Mursi supporter with a long beard, said “I’m here to defend democracy. The president was elected by the ballot box.”

At the heart of the dispute is a decree by Mursi, in which he took on sweeping powers, and the hasty subsequent adoption of a draft constitution in a process boycotted by liberals and Christians.

But despite the protests prompted by the decree two weeks ago, Vice President Mahmud Mekki said a referendum on the charter “will go ahead on time” as planned on December 15.

The opposition would be allowed to put any objections they have to articles of the draft constitution in writing, to be discussed by a parliament yet to be elected.

“There is a real political will to respond to the demands of the opposition,” Mekki said.