Egypt crisis turns violent
Supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi lobbed Molotov cocktails and rocks at each other yesterday as their standoff turned violent near the presidential palace in Cairo.
As the country faces its most divisive crisis since Morsi took power in June, the United States called for an open and "democratic dialogue".
"The upheaval we are seeing... indicates that dialogue is urgently needed. It needs to be two-way," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told journalists in the Belgian capital.
At the heart of the battle is a decree issued by Morsi expanding his powers and allowing him to put to a referendum a disputed constitution drafted by Islamists.
The November 22 constitutional declaration has sparked deadly protests and strikes, but Vice President Mahmud Mekki said a December 15 referendum on the charter would go ahead as planned.
Skirmishes broke out after thousands of Islamists rallying to the call of the Muslim Brotherhood bore down on the presidential palace, tearing down opposition tents and chanting that they would "cleanse" the area.
The two sides threw stones at each other before the secular-leaning opposition protesters, who had besieged the palace in their tens of thousands on Tuesday, escaped into side streets before regrouping.
Prominent opposition leader and former UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Morsi bore "full responsibility" for the violence and that his regime was losing more legitimacy every day.
Tens of thousands of opposition protesters had encircled the palace on Tuesday demanding that Morsi go, opposing the charter and with some calling for a boycott of the referendum.
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