Egypt Live Blog

Egypt's military rulers have until Wednesday to withdraw a constitutional proposal that shields the army from oversight in parliament.

The deadline was put in place by the country's political parties.

Islamist and liberal groups say the army should still have special status but only on issues of national security.

The country's cabinet is in the process of framing a new constitution.

Earlier this month the cabinet announced guiding principles for a new constitution that gave the military exclusive authority to approve any legislation on its internal affairs.

AP reports: A senior Egyptian security official says police have arrested two leading members of an al-Qaida-inspired group in the Sinai peninsula a day after the group's leader was arrested.

The group was behind attacks on Egyptian police and on a gas pipeline transporting fuel to Israel and Jordan.

The official says Abdel-Karim Mohammed Ahmed and Ahmed Salem Awwad were arrested at dawn Monday at their hideout on the outskirts of the northern Sinai town of el-Arish.

He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with orders barring him from being identified publicly.

The group launched a campaign this year under the name al-Qaida in the Sinai calling for the establishment of an Islamic emirate.

Security in Egypt has taken a hit since the February ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

After protesters in New York City's Occupy Wall Street group agreed to send 20 activists to act as election monitors in the upcoming Egyptian election, an Egyptian group calling themselves "Comrades from Cairo" wrote a statement in response, rejecting the idea.

The following is an excerpt from their statement. Read the full statement HERE.

...We have some concerns with the idea, and we wanted to join your conversation.

It seems to us that you have taken to the streets and occupied your parks and cities out of a dissatisfaction with the false promises of the game of electoral politics, and so did our comrades in Spain, Greece and Britain. Regardless of how one stands on the efficacy of elections or elected representatives, the Occupy movement seems outside the scope of this; your choice to occupy is, if nothing else, bigger than any election. Why then, should our elections be any cause for celebration, when even in the best of all possible worlds they will be just another supposedly “representative” body ruling in the interest of the 1% over the remaining 99% of us? This new Egyptian parliament will have effectively no powers whatsoever, and—as many of us see it—its election is just a means of legitimating the ruling junta’s seizure of the revolutionary process. Is this something you wish to monitor?

...Our struggle—which we think we share with you—is greater and grander than a neatly functioning parliamentary democracy; we demanded the fall of the regime, we demanded dignity, freedom and social justice, and we are still fighting for these goals. We do not see elections of a puppet parliament as the means to achieve them...

But even though the idea of election monitoring doesn’t really do it for us, we want your solidarity, we want your support and your visits... We think that activists or as people committed to serious change in the systems we live in, there is so much more that we can do together than legitimising electoral processes ... that seem so impoverished next to the new forms of democracy and social life we are building...

One person was killed and at least 11 were wounded on Sunday in clashes between the army and protesters sparked by concerns about pollution from a fertiliser plant in northern Egypt, the state news agency said.

Protesters closed off the port of the northern city of Damietta, on the Mediterranean, and roads adjacent to it, MENA said, adding that they had prevented ambulances from passing through to help those wounded in the clashes.

The protests began on Tuesday as residents demanded the relocation of a nitrogen plant jointly owned by state-owned Misr Oil Processing Company (Mopco) and Canadian firm Agrium.

A security source said demonstrations in Damietta began over the plan to set up two new fertiliser plants in the area, but ended with the demonstrators demanding the original plant also be shut down.

The security source said at least 11 people had been injured in the clashes as the army tried to disperse protesters. A security source said an army officer was among those wounded, blaming the injury on protesters carrying arms.

A witness said protesters stopped an ambulance from moving to a hospital morgue the corpse of the 21-year-old man, named Islam Abu-Amin, who died in the clashes.

The protesters drove the ambulance that was carrying the corpse to the governor's office and chanted anti-government slogans, the source said.

A medical source said the man suffered a bullet wound.

- Reuters