CAIRO // At least 11 civilians were killed and more than 100 wounded yesterday in early-morning clashes in Cairo.
A gang of men alleged to be paid thugs attacked a group of protesters who had been camping for several days outside of the ministry of defence in Cairo's Abbaseya district.
The initial attack began around 1am with bloody battles continuing on and off until midmorning.
Police and military forces deployed in the early afternoon, bringing calm to the area more than 12 hours after the clashes began.
There appeared to be widespread use of firearms. Tarek Shalaby, a Cairo activist who visited the scene yesterday at dawn during one of the lulls in the violence, said he saw "so much blood splattered everywhere" and empty shell casings littering the ground.
The identity of the attackers remains a subject of intense speculation. Several protesters said they were either plain-clothed security officers or paid thugs, but their claims could not be verified.
The sit-in outside the defence ministry began on Friday evening, when supporters of the ultraconservative Salafist politician Hazem Abou Ismail protested at his disqualification from the presidential race on the ground that his late mother had US citizenship.
Almost immediately, the protest encampment ran into trouble. A smaller assault on Saturday, again by unidentified attackers, left one protester dead and dozens injured.
In response to that violence, many Egyptian activists rallied to the cause. They turned the Abbaseya sit-in into wider protest against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), the senior generals who have run the country since Hosni Mubarak was forced out of power by a popular uprising last February.
Since assuming power, the Scaf has gradually alienated most of the country's political forces. Mr Shalaby said that by yesterday the Abou Ismail supporters in Abbaseya numbered about 30 per cent of the protesters, with the rest being hardcore anti-Scaf activists.
In the past few weeks large Friday protests in Tahrir Square have resumed, with protesters demanding that the Scaf stick to its promise to cede executive power by June 30, once Egypt's first post-Mubarak presidential elections are concluded. Egyptians are scheduled to vote on May 23-24, with runoffs, if necessary, set for mid-June and a winner to be announced on June 21.
Campaigns are in full swing with the former foreign minister Amr Moussa, the moderate Islamist Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh and the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Moursi regarded as the front-runners.
Yesterday's violence prompted Mr Aboul Fotouh and Mr Moursi to announce a temporary suspension of their campaigns in protest.
"We hold the Scaf and the security forces fully responsible for the protection of the protesters," said Yehia Ahmed, a spokesman for Mr Moursi's Freedom and Justice Party.
Tonight's highly anticipated televised presidential debate, the first of its kind in Egypt, was postponed until next week. And a meeting scheduled for yesterday between the Scaf and political party leaders to discuss ways to restart the process of drafting a new constitution fell apart when more than half the party representatives boycotted in protest.
Yehia Ahmed, a spokesman for Mr Moursi's campaign, said there were "looming rumours that the Scaf is leaning toward delaying the elections".
Even before the latest violence broke out, Mr Moursi warned in a Tuesday night rally that 30 million people would take to the streets if the Scaf didn't hand over power on June 30.
Nevertheless, Egypt has already proven proficient at holding reasonably successful elections amid continuing outbreaks of violence. Last winter, the Scaf oversaw complex multiround parliamentary elections that had a robust voter turnout and were generally regarded as legitimate. Violent clashes broke out in Tahrir square a week before the first round of the regionally staggered votes, and then again in between the first and second round.
In a possible attempt to allay those fears, state media reported yesterday afternoon that the Scaf was considering handing over power immediately after the May 23-24 vote, provided there is a clear-cut winner and no run-off is necessary.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Film: In Syria
Dir: Philippe Van Leeuw
Starring: Hiam Abbass, Diamand Bo Abboud, Mohsen Abbas and Juliette Navis
Verdict: Four stars
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Retail gloom
Online grocer Ocado revealed retail sales fell 5.7 per cen in its first quarter as customers switched back to pre-pandemic shopping patterns.
It was a tough comparison from a year earlier, when the UK was in lockdown, but on a two-year basis its retail division, a joint venture with Marks&Spencer, rose 31.7 per cent over the quarter.
The group added that a 15 per cent drop in customer basket size offset an 11.6. per cent rise in the number of customer transactions.
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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1.
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United States
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2.
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China
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3.
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UAE
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4.
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Japan
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5
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Norway
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6.
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Canada
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7.
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Singapore
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8.
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Australia
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9.
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Saudi Arabia
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10.
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South Korea
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
Engine: 0.8-litre four cylinder
Power: 70bhp
Torque: 66Nm
Transmission: four-speed manual
Price: $1,075 new in 1967, now valued at $40,000
On sale: Models from 1966 to 1970
FULL%20FIGHT%20CARD
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Scores
Day 2
New Zealand 153 & 56-1
Pakistan 227
New Zealand trail by 18 runs with nine wickets remaining
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
more from Janine di Giovanni
Venom
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed
Rating: 1.5/5
'HIJRAH%3A%20IN%20THE%20FOOTSTEPS%20OF%20THE%20PROPHET'
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Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
The Gentlemen
Director: Guy Ritchie
Stars: Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant
Three out of five stars
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
Price: Dh133,900
On sale: now
The specs: 2018 Mazda CX-5
Price, base / as tested: Dh89,000 / Dh130,000
Engine: 2.5-litre four-cylinder
Power: 188hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 251Nm @ 4,000rpm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.1L / 100km
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
OPTA'S PREDICTED TABLE
1. Liverpool 101 points
2. Manchester City 80
3. Leicester 67
4. Chelsea 63
5. Manchester United 61
6. Tottenham 58
7. Wolves 56
8. Arsenal 56
9. Sheffield United 55
10. Everton 50
11. Burnley 49
12. Crystal Palace 49
13. Newcastle 46
14. Southampton 44
15. West Ham 39
16. Brighton 37
17. Watford 36
18. Bournemouth 36
19. Aston Villa 32
20. Norwich City 29
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
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Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
