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Egyptians reject army’s olive branch
Tagore Chair at Scotland’s Edinburgh Napier varsity
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Libya unveils new govt
Saleh signs power transfer deal
A TV grab of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh after he signed the deal to exit power in Riyadh. — AFP
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Egyptians reject army’s olive branch
Cairo, November 23 “We don’t believe Tantawi. Tantawi is Mubarak, copy pasted. He is Mubarak in a military uniform,” they chanted, giving a sharp rebuff to the ageing military ruler Tantawi, who was once the handpicked defence minister of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Chanting “Leave”, “Leave”, to the Army, the protesters refused to budge from the square and clashed with the police. Five days of unrest across the country has claimed 38 lives so far and left more than 2,000 wounded. Last night, 76-year-old Field Marshal Tantawi, who is ruling Egypt since the fall of Mubarak, addressed the nation and promised that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) is “committed to holding Parliamentary elections on time. Presidential polls will be held before the end of 2012.” The armed forces and the military council are not aiming to rule the country and are and are putting the interests of Egypt above all else and are fully prepared to hold a referendum on transferring power immediately to a civilian authority, if the people demand it.” The speech was rejected by the protesters at Tahrir. Clashes broke out at Mohammad Mahmud, just off the Tahrir Square, which has now become the epicentre of anti-military protest and later health department officials said, three people were brought dead to the hospital, including a 10 year old child. The police and paramilitary forces barricaded all roads leading to the square, shooting tear gas and cane charging the protesters. Despite calls by the army and the police, protesters are refusing to move out from the area, forcing direct confrontation with authorities. The continued standoff brought the country to a fresh crisis as the authorities were unable to stop protests with less than a week before the parliamentary elections, first since ouster of Mubarak. Tantawi had promised to push up Presidential elections in the first half of 2012 but the protesters rejected his olive branch, and remained adamant on formation of a national salvation government. Tantawi made the announcement in an appearance on TV as protesters fought with soldiers and police in streets leading to the iconic square, the birthplace of the revolution. The protesters said they wanted to hear nothing short of immediate end to military rule. The Army now appears to be in direct line of confrontation with the protesters as people are angry at the military council, which they accuse of being an extension of old regime and of resorting to Mubarak-era tactics of stifling dissent. The continued wave of fresh protest have already led to the resignation of the cabinet headed by Essam Sharaf on Monday, ahead of the crucial parliamentary polls which are due from November 28. Already the Egyptian media is dubbing the protest as “A second revolution”, warning that relations between the Army and the public were close to break point. — PTI
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Tagore Chair at Scotland’s Edinburgh Napier varsity London, November 23 “The spirit of Rabindranath Tagore continues to inspire the entire world and it is with great honour that we sign this MoU with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations
(ICCR),” said Professor Dame Joan Stringer, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh Napier University. “It represents a significant step towards the opening of Scotland’s first centre for Tagore Studies at Edinburgh Napier, which we hope will attract research interest from both near and far and, in the spirit of the man himself, will be outward looking, inclusive and visionary,” he said. Suresh
Goel, Director General of ICCR, said the council considers this collaboration with the University to be of great importance since it will promote an academic exchange between India and Edinburgh Napier. “It has been the philosophy of the ICCR that this kind of co-operation contributes to the civilisation of dialogue and understanding on a much more durable basis,” he said. The ICCR will also fund two PhD fellowships dedicated to research on the works of the Nobel Laureate, author, poet and songwriter whose 150th birthday has been celebrated across the world this year. The signing was a “significant step” towards opening a Scottish Centre for Tagore Studies, which it hopes will also become an international hub for promoting Indian culture, education, philosophy, art and literature, the university said in a
statement. Tagore was the first non-white Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 1913 for his collection
‘Geetanjali’. He wrote more than 1,000 poems and 2000 songs and his work has been translated into all the major languages of the world. His connection with Scotland primarily came through his lasting friendship and meeting of minds with Sir Patrick
Geddes, the pioneering Scottish town planner. Tagore’s grandfather, the industrialist and entrepreneur Dwarkanath
Tagore, was honoured with the ‘Freedom of the City’ award by Edinburgh in 1845. — PTI
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Tripoli, November 23 Kib gave the strategic defence ministry to Osama Juili, commander of the Zintan fighters who on Saturday captured Saif al-Islam, the prominent son of slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The interior ministry went to Fawzi Abdelal from the former rebel town of Misrata, whose fighters captured Gaddafi in October. “I can reassure everyone: all of Libya is (represented) in the new government,” Kib told a news conference in Tripoli as he unveiled the new line-up. Other key appointments announced include Abdelrahman bin Yazza to head the oil and gas ministry and Ashur bin Khayyal as interim foreign minister. Lawyer Fethi Tarbel, whose brief arrest on February 15 was the spark that set up a popular uprising against Gaddafi’s regime in the eastern city of Benghazi, was named minister of youth and sport. Tarbel later joined the NTC. NTC vice-chairman and official spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga said the new government had the confidence of the Libya’s ruling body. — AFP
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Sherry is new Pak envoy to US
In a surprise choice, former information minister Sherry Rehman, who earned the wrath of militants for her opposition to Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy law, was on Wednesday named to the key post of the country’s Ambassador to the United States.
Sherry (50) will succeed Husain Haqqani who was forced out of office yesterday following his suspected involvement in a memo handed over to the US, seeking support for President Asif Ali Zardari to avert a military coup after the American raid in which Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2. The controversy over the memo dubbed by the media as “memogate” cost Haqqani his job, in a victory for the powerful military. Sherry, a former federal information minister and a well-known journalist, was a senior politician belonging to the ruling PPP. She was close to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and also regarded as close to Zardari although she resigned in 2009 following differences with him over dealing with the media. She has been a strong advocate of women’s and minority rights and faced death threats for her calls to reform the country’s blasphemy law. “The Prime Minister is pleased to appoint Sherry Rehman as the new Ambassador to the United States,” said the spokesman for the Prime Minister’s office, Akram Shaheedi. Sherry has played a key role in foreign policy issues, including those relating to Afghanistan, through her NGO ‘Jinnah Institute’. Her appointment as Ambassador to the US indicated that President Zardari and the PPP want to retain influence on Pakistan-US relations by having an independent-minded envoy, analysts said. Sherry was elected to the National Assembly or lower house of Parliament twice, in 2002 and 2007, on reserved seats for women. (With inputs from
PTI)
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Saleh signs power transfer deal Dubai, November 23 Saudi state television broadcast live images of Saleh signing the accord in the presence of Saudi King Abdullah and Crown Prince Nayef. Yemeni opposition officials signed the accord after Saleh. It was the fourth attempt to wrap up a power transfer accord that Saleh backed out of on three previous occasions at the last minute, fuelling turmoil that has bolstered Al-Qaida militants next door to Saudi Arabia. Under the GCC plan, Saleh will shift all his powers to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who would form a new government with the opposition and call for an early presidential election within three months. — Reuters
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pro-democracy protesters today demanded an immediate end to military rule in Egypt, clashing with soldiers at the iconic Tahrir Square, rejecting fresh overtures by Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi to hold a referendum for transfer of power to a civilian authority.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed a Gulf initiative on Wednesday to hand over power to his deputy as part of a proposal to end months of protests that have pushed the Arab country to the brink of civil war. 
