Riders on a motorcycle on Saturday shot and killed one Egyptian policeman and wounded a second who were guarding banks in a busy commercial district of the capital, Cairo, Egypt’s state news agency said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the incident, which took place at daybreak in the usually busy Sphinx Square, across the Nile from downtown Cairo. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, an extremist outfit allied with the Islamic State group, has claimed responsibility for a string of similar attacks against police officers and soldiers, mainly in Sinai Province.
Authorities are on high alert during the holiday season, with reinforcements deployed in the capital and around hotels and churches. Extremist attacks have been on the rise since the military ousted former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi last year following mass protests against his year-long rule.
Last year, the Egyptian government declared that Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood was a terrorist group. The group has condemned the militant attacks and insists that it is committed to peaceful protests demanding Morsi’s reinstatement.
Morsi and many of the group’s top leaders were arrested following his overthrow and are now being tried on a wide array of charges — some of which are punishable by death.
On Saturday, Mohammed el-Beltagy, a leading Muslim Brotherhood member, was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting a panel of judges. Presiding Judge Shaaban el-Shami accused el-Beltagy of insulting him during the proceedings for a case in which he and 130 other defendants are accused of staging prison breaks during the January 2011 uprising that toppled former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
El-Beltagy had protested against el-Shami’s registration of evidence from within a glass cage used to hold defendants.
When the judge ordered him out of the room for causing chaos, el-Beltagy said: “This is not justice.”
The judge took his remarks as an insult, and found el-Beltagy in contempt of court for the second time since the trial began. El-Beltagy was also fined US$2,800.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese