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"Hazem al-Beblawi" .. Liberal economist named new Egyptian PM, ElBaradei VP

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

CAIRO: Egypt’s interim president on Tuesday named liberal economist Hazem al-Beblawi, a former finance minister, as the country’s new prime minister, presidential spokesman Ahmed al-Muslimani said.

Liberal opposition chief and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was named vice president for foreign relations, Muslimani said. The appointments come almost a week after the military overthrew President Mohamed Morsi and chose chief justice Adly Mansour to head the Arab world’s most populous country. ElBaradei was initially tipped to lead the cabinet but his nomination was rejected by the Salafist al-Nur party.

Egypt’s armed forces warned against any attempt to disrupt the country’s “difficult and complex” transition. The statement, read out on state television. Mansour on Monday issued a temporary constitution outlining the timetable for the transition until presidential elections are held next year. The armed forces said that it and the people of Egypt would not accept “the stalling or disruption” of this “difficult and complex” period.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s army-installed interim leader set out plans for new elections by early next year, which were immediately rejected by the ousted president’s Muslim Brotherhood, drawing a stern warning from the military.

The Brotherhood, which has refused to accept the overthrow of its champion Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, slammed the transition blueprint as an attempt to salvage last week’s coup which would do nothing to end an increasingly bloody conflict.

The military has come under huge international pressure to swiftly install an interim civilian administration, pressure that has only intensified since gunfire killed 51 protesters outside a Cairo army base on Monday. Tamarod spokesman Mahmud Badr said the movement would make proposals for changes to the blueprint, which it would present to Mansour later on Tuesday. The Brotherhood rejected the plan outright.

“A constitutional decree by a man appointed by putschists... brings the country back to square one,” senior Brotherhood official Essam al-Erian said in a Facebook posting.The Brotherhood held fresh protests on Tuesday against both Morsi’s ouster and the fatal shooting of at least 51 activists outside the Cairo headquarter of the elite Republican Guard.

“Each province is organising funerals and rallies (Tuesday), and each province will have a central sit-in,” Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad told AFP.At Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque, where Morsi supporters have been camping out for nearly two weeks, several thousand demonstrators, worn out by the heat, listened to speakers urging them to remain steadfast in their demands for his reinstatement.

The Brotherhood released the names of 42 people killed in the shooting, as the interior ministry and military said two policemen and a soldier were also killed. Emotions ran high as people searched for the names of missing loved ones on a list of the dead in hospital, where dozens of bodies were laid on the bloody floor of a makeshift mortuary.

International condemnation of Monday’s bloodshed poured in, with Germany expressing “shock” at the violence, Turkey calling it an attack on “humanity” and Brotherhood backer Qatar urging “self-restraint” and “unity”.

The United States called on the Egyptian army to exercise “maximum restraint”, while also condemning “explicit” Brotherhood calls to violence.The Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), had called for “an uprising by the great people of Egypt against those trying to steal their revolution with tanks” in response to Monday’s killings.

Meanwhile, The United States said Tuesday it was “cautiously encouraged” by a timeline proposed by Egypt’s interim rulers for elections.Washington also again walked a fine line on the issue of whether it would brand the military takeover as a “coup” — a move that would cut $1.5 billion in US aid.

Despite rising domestic political pressure, the White House says it will take its time on making such a judgment, seeking to preserve the limited leverage it has amid turbulent political events in Egypt.

“We are cautiously encouraged by the announcement by the interim government that it (has) a potential plan for moving forward with a democratic process and elections, both parliamentary and presidential,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.Obama’s administration says that withdrawing aid to Cairo to protest the overthrow of Morsi at this stage would not be in US interests.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-24027-Liberal-economist-named-new-Egyptian-PM-ElBaradei-VP

"Over the weekend, negotiations were snarled in a dispute over what role, if any, should be given to Mohamed ElBaradei [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/06/three-reasons-mohamed-elbaradei-is-an-odd-choice-to-be-egypts-new-prime-minister/ ], a Nobel Peace Prize winner, former diplomat and liberal politician who is supported by many liberal and secular members of the anti-Morsi movement, but whom ultra-conservative Islamists deeply distrust."