Protesters surge around Egypt's presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around President Mohamed Mursi's palace in Cairo on Friday after breaking through barbed wire barricades and climbing onto army tanks guarding the premises.

"The people want the downfall of the regime" and "Leave, leave," they chanted, using slogans used in the uprising that toppled Mursi's predecessor Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Opposition leaders earlier rejected a national dialogue proposed by the Islamist president as a way out of a crisis that has polarized the nation and provoked deadly street clashes.

Elite Republican Guard units had ringed the palace with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday after a night of violence between Islamist supporters of Mursi and their opponents, in which seven people were killed and 350 wounded.

Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead. "With our blood and souls, we sacrifice to Islam," they chanted.

Mursi had offered few concessions in a speech late on Thursday, refusing to retract a November 22 decree in which he assumed sweeping powers or cancel a referendum next week on a constitution newly drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

Instead, he called for a dialogue at his office on Saturday to chart a way forward for Egypt after the referendum, an idea that liberal, leftist and other opposition leaders rebuffed.

They have demanded that Mursi rescind the decree in which he temporarily shielded his decisions from judicial review and that he postpone the December 15 referendum before any talks begin.

A leader of the main opposition coalition said it would not join Mursi's dialogue: "The National Salvation Front is not taking part in the dialogue," said Ahmed Said, a leader of the coalition, who also heads the liberal Free Egyptians Party.

The Front's coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, urged "national forces" to shun what he called an offer based on "arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli".

Murad Ali, spokesman of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said opposition reactions were sad: "What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?" he asked.

Mursi's decree giving himself extra powers sparked the worst political crisis since he took office in June and set off renewed unrest that is dimming Egypt's hopes of stability and economic recovery after nearly two years of turmoil following the overthrow of Mubarak, a military-backed strongman.

The turmoil has exposed contrasting visions for Egypt, one held by Islamists, who were suppressed for decades by the army, and another by their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms.

Caught in the middle are many of Egypt's 83 million people who are desperate for an end to political turbulence threatening their precarious livelihoods in an economy under severe strain.

"We are so tired, by God," said Mohamed Ali, a laborer. "I did not vote for Mursi nor anyone else. I only care about bringing food to my family, but I haven't had work for a week."

ECONOMIC PAIN

A long political standoff will make it harder for Mursi's government to tackle the crushing budget deficit and stave off a balance of payments crisis. Austerity measures, especially cuts in costly fuel subsidies, seem inevitable to meet the terms of a $4.8-billion IMF loan that Egypt hopes to clinch this month.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Mursi on Thursday of his "deep concern" about casualties in this week's clashes and said "dialogue should occur without preconditions"..

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation worries the United States, which has given billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

Said, the leader of the Free Egyptians Party, accused Mursi of ignoring all the opposition's demands in his "shocking" speech on Thursday and of fixing the dialogue agenda in advance.

Ayman Mohamed, 29, a protester at the palace, said Mursi should scrap the draft constitution and heed popular demands.

"He is the president of the republic. He can't just work for the Muslim Brotherhood," Mohamed said of the eight-decade-old Islamist movement that propelled Mursi from obscurity to power.

The Muslim Brotherhood's spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, told Reuters that if the opposition shunned the dialogue "it shows that their intention is to remove Mursi from the presidency and not to cancel the decree or the constitution as they claim".

The conflict between Islamists and opponents who each believe the other is twisting the democratic rules to thwart them has poisoned the political atmosphere in Egypt.

"Is this an environment for people to say 'yes' or 'no' to a document that is going to divide them rather than unite them?" Said asked, referring to the planned vote on the constitution.

Voting for Egyptians abroad starts on Saturday, a week before the ballot in the country itself, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on its official Facebook page.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Edmund Blair and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Jon Hemming)

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Protesters break through barrier round Egypt palace

CAIRO: More than 10,000 protesters opposing Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi swarmed the square in front of his Cairo palace on Friday evening, breaking through barbed wire barriers protecting the compound.

A cordon of soldiers prevented the crowd from nearing the palace's main gate, but elsewhere protesters sprayed graffiti on the outside walls, telling Morsi to "Go" and leave power, AFP correspondents at the scene said.

There was no visible violence, but tensions were high after clashes at the same spot on Wednesday between pro- and anti-Morsi supporters left seven people dead and more than 600 injured.

Several army tanks were stationed in the square and nearby but made no movement against the protesters, some of whom clambered atop them to declare the army was "hand in hand" with them.

That was reminiscent of the popular uprising that ousted long-time president Hosni Mubarak early last year, when tanks stood idle amid massive protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, as protesters mixed with soldiers.

The crowd also shouted "We want to see the fall of the regime" -- a slogan common during the anti-Mubarak revolt.

The increasingly strident calls for Morsi to step down followed an address on Thursday in which the president dismissed demands he give up sweeping new powers he decreed for himself two weeks ago and postpone a December 15 referendum on a constitution drafted by a panel of Islamist allies.

Leaders of the main opposition group, the National Salvation Front, rebuffed a grudging offer from Morsi to talk with them about the political crisis his decisions have triggered.

Both Morsi's Islamist backers and the largely secular opposition have dug in their heels in the confrontation, raising the prospect of further escalation.

In his speech, Morsi sought to portray elements of the opposition as "thugs" allied to remnants of Mubarak's regime.

The Front shot back, accusing the president of "dividing Egyptians between his 'supporters of legitimacy'... and his opponents."

The opposition sees the decree as a brazen power grab, and the draft constitution as an attempt to quash Egypt's secular underpinnings in favour of Islamic aspirations.

Demonstrators taking to Cairo's streets said they were determined to stop Morsi.

"We will use any means to bring down the regime," said a young man in his 20s, Ahmad Dewedar, camping out in Tahrir Square, one of the other focal points of protest.

"We won't be peaceful forever," warned a fellow activist Mahmud Ghazawi, 35.

But determination flashed just as brightly among those backing Morsi.

Late Friday, police fired tear gas at hundreds of Islamist protesters, mostly hardline Salafists, who tried to storming the Cairo studios of private Egyptian television channels critical of Morsi's supporters.

Prominent Salafist leader Hazim Abu Ismail had called for the demonstrations on his Twitter and Facebook accounts in order to "cleanse the media" of reporting they see as biased against the Islamists' cause.

Many Egyptian media say the Muslim Brotherhood was seeking to suppress freedom of expression through the new draft constitution.

At a Cairo funeral on Friday for several of the seven killed this week and said to be Muslim Brotherhood members, pro-Morsi supporters dismissed the public protests against the president.

"All the people are with us, with the (draft) constitution," said one Brotherhood supporter attending the service in the Al-Azhar mosque.

That unquestioning backing was not shared by Egypt's top Islamic body, which on Thursday called on Morsi to suspend the decree.

The demonstrations seen this week were the biggest since Morsi took office in June with a slim election victory.

The United States and European Union have called for dialogue to resolve the crisis.

US President Barack Obama expressed "deep concern" in a call to Morsi on Thursday, the White House said.

And on Friday, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay criticised the draft constitution and "the way the process has been short-circuited," saying "people are right to be very concerned."

She highlighted the proposed charter's perceived weaknesses in upholding human rights and gender equality, the primacy of Islamic sharia law in the text and its potential to give the president "excessive power" over the judiciary.

- AFP/fa

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Cabinet approves amendments to Lokpal Bill

NEW DELHI: The government today gave ex post-facto approval to some official amendments to the Lokpal Bill moved in the Rajya Sabha earlier this year.

One of the amendments included applicability of Lokpal Bill to a state only upon passing a resolution by the state legislature.

These amendments were moved by the government on May 21 this year in Rajya Sabha before the bill was referred to a select committee.

After the select committee report was tabled last month, the official amendments have little meaning. But their approval by the Cabinet was necessary.

The other official amendments included: only government-funded NGOs to be under the ambit of the Lokpal and the appointment of Lokpal to be made by a more balanced body where the government has no upper hand.

The select committee has recommended delinking of creation of Lokayuktas in states from the central bill.

The controversial bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha last year, faced opposition hurdle in the Rajya Sabha on various provisions, including the one making it mandatory for states to set up Lokayuktas.

The Prime Minister has been exempted from the ambit of Lokpal on issues of external and internal security, atomic energy, international relations and public order.

The select committee has not recommended any change in the provision relating to "reservation". The original provision said not less than 50 per cent of the members of Lokpal would be from SC, ST, OBC, minorities and women.

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Wash. Pot Smokers Celebrate as Feds Stand Back

Marijuana smokers breathed a puff of relief today as they lit up legally for the first time in Washington state and were not cited, ticketed, or arrested for what is still a federal offense.

"There are no federal agents out there busting people," Seattle police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said today, hours after a new state law legalizing pot went into effect.

Seattle police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the department's blog, "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a Lord of the Rings marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Voters in the state overwhelmingly pushed through a bill on November's ballot legalizing the possession of marijuana, putting state law in direct contrast with federal law, under which marijuana is still an illegal substance.

Read ABC's Coverage of the "Tipping Point" of Pot Legalization

The U.S. Attorneys Offices in Washington released statements Wednesday, before the law took effect, reminding residents that possessing marijuana was still a federal crime.

California University Launches Marijuana Institute Watch Video

Marijuana Legalization Group Launches TV Ad Watch Video

"Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 6th in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law," read a statement released by the Department of Justice. "The Department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged."

Today, however, no federal agents were out pursuing charges against people celebrating the new state law by enjoying a toke, according to Seattle police.

"We have a great relationship with federal law enforcement in Seattle, and we're not going to be jeopardizing that in any way. We recognize that federal law says it's prohibited... but our primary area of concern is making sure we're enforcing the law our bosses want us to, and our bosses are the general public of Seattle," Whitcomb said.

Calls to the U.S. Attorneys Offices in Seattle and Spokane were not returned today.

Washington's new law, known as I-502, went into effect at midnight, and drew large crowds of smokers to Seattle's Space Needle to celebrate with joints. Officers on the scene did not ticket any participants, despite the fact that smoking in public is still against the law.

Police in Seattle announced that for the first few days of the new law's enactment, officers would only remind users to smoke indoors.

"In the meantime, in keeping with the spirit of (the new bill), the department's going to give you a generous grace period to help you adjust to this brave, new, and maybe kinda stoned world we live in," department spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the department's blog.

"Does this mean you should flagrantly roll up a mega-spliff and light up in the middle of the street? No. If you're smoking pot in public, officers will be giving helpful reminders to folks about the rules and regulations under I-502 (like not smoking pot in public)."

The legislatures in Washington and in Colorado, where legalization will go into effect in January, will still have to decide how to license and tax growers and sellers of pot in the state. The U.S. Department of Justice has not yet said whether it will pursue criminal charges against growers and sellers in those states.

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Military halts clashes as political crisis grips Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Republican Guard restored order around the presidential palace on Thursday after fierce clashes killed seven people, but passions ran high in a contest over the country's future.

President Mohamed Mursi had been due to address the nation, but a presidential source said the Islamist leader, criticized by his opponents for his silence in the last few days, might speak on Friday instead. He did not explain the possible delay.

Hundreds of Mursi supporters who had camped out near the palace overnight withdrew before a mid-afternoon deadline set by the Republican Guard, an elite unit whose duties include protecting the palace. Scores of opposition protesters remained, but were kept away by a barbed wire barricade guarded by tanks.

The military played a big role in removing President Hosni Mubarak during last year's popular revolt, taking over to manage a transitional period, but had stayed out of the latest crisis.

Mursi's Islamist partisans fought opposition protesters well into the early hours during dueling demonstrations over the president's November 22 decree to expand his powers to help him push through a mostly Islamist-drafted constitution.

Officials said seven people were killed and 350 wounded in the violence, for which each side blamed the other. Six of the dead were Mursi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood said.

Prosecutors investigating the unrest said Brotherhood members had detained 49 wounded protesters and were refusing to release them to the authorities, the state news agency said.

The Brotherhood's spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan denied this, saying all "thugs" detained by members of the Islamist group had been handed over to the police or the Republican Guard.

The street clashes reflected a deep political divide in the most populous Arab nation, where contrasting visions of Islamists and their liberal rivals have complicated a struggle to embed democracy after Mubarak's 30 years of one-man rule.

MILITARY'S ROLE

The United States, worried about the stability of an Arab partner which has a peace deal with Israel and which receives $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid, has urged dialogue.

The commander of the Republican Guard said deployment of tanks and troop carriers around the presidential palace was intended to separate the adversaries, not to repress them.

"The armed forces, and at the forefront of them the Republican Guard, will not be used as a tool to oppress the demonstrators," General Mohamed Zaki told the state news agency.

Hussein Abdel Ghani, spokesman of the opposition National Salvation Front, told Reuters more protests were planned, but not necessarily at the palace. "Our youth are leading us today and we decided to agree to whatever they want to do," he said.

Outside Cairo, supporters and opponents of Mursi clashed in his home town of Zagazig in the Nile Delta, state TV reported.

Egypt plunged into renewed turmoil after Mursi issued his November 22 decree and an Islamist-dominated assembly hastily approved a new constitution to go to a referendum on December 15.

Since then six of the president's advisers have resigned. Essam al-Amir, the director of state television quit on Thursday, as did a Christian official working at the presidency.

The Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood, to which Mursi belonged before he was narrowly elected president in June, appealed for unity. Divisions among Egyptians "only serve the nation's enemies", Mohamed Badie said in a statement.

BLOODY CLASHES

Rival factions used rocks, petrol bombs and guns in the clashes around the presidential palace.

"We came here to support President Mursi and his decisions. He is the elected president of Egypt," said demonstrator Emad Abou Salem, 40. "He has legitimacy and nobody else does."

Opposition protester Ehab Nasser el-Din, 21, his head bandaged after being hit by a rock the day before, decried the Muslim Brotherhood's "grip on the country", which he said would only tighten if the new constitution is passed.

Mursi's opponents accuse him of seeking to create a new "dictatorship". The president says his actions were necessary to prevent courts still full of judges appointed by Mubarak from derailing a constitution vital for Egypt's political transition.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay urged the Egyptian authorities to protect peaceful protesters and prosecute anyone inciting violence, including politicians.

"The current government came to power on the back of similar protests and so should be particularly sensitive to the need to protect protesters' rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," Pillay said in Geneva.

Mursi has shown no sign of buckling under pressure from protesters, confident that the Islamists, who have dominated both elections since Mubarak was overthrown, can win the referendum and the parliamentary election to follow.

Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood's secretary-general, said holding the plebiscite was the only way out of the crisis, dismissing the opposition as "remnants of the (Mubarak) regime, thugs and people working for foreign agendas".

As well as relying on his Brotherhood power base, Mursi may also tap into a popular yearning for stability and economic revival after almost two years of political turmoil.

Egypt's pound hit an eight-year low on Thursday, after previously firming on hopes that a $4.8 billion IMF loan would stabilize the economy. The stock market fell 4.6 percent.

Foreign exchange reserves fell by nearly $450 million to $15 billion in November, indicating that the Central Bank was still spending heavily to bolster the pound. The reserves stood at about $36 billion before the anti-Mubarak uprising.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Edmund Blair and Marwa Awad; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Football: Mikel handed three-match ban after United race row

LONDON: Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel was on Thursday suspended for three matches and fined £60,000 (74,320 euros) for clashing with match officials following the controversial 3-2 defeat to Manchester United.

Mikel was reported to have stormed into the officials' dressing room at Stamford Bridge after the Premier League match in October following accusations that referee Mark Clattenburg had racially abused the Chelsea midfielder.

But the FA decided there was "no case to answer" over the allegation Clattenburg said "shut up you monkey" to Mikel and the official was clear of all charges.

Mikel had admitted using threatening and/or abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour in the official's changing room at the end of the game at Stamford Bridge on October 28, said the Football Association.

"Chelsea's John Obi Mikel has been given a three-match suspension to begin with immediate effect and fined £60,000 following an Independent Regulatory Commission hearing today," said an FA statement.

"The Regulatory Commission's independent chairman Christopher Quinlan QC emphasised that the Independent Regulatory Commission accepted, as did The FA, that at the time he threatened the referee the player genuinely believed that the referee had racially abused him.

"But for that factor the suspension would have been significantly longer. Subsequently The FA investigated the allegation that the referee racially abused the player and found that there was not a case for him to answer."

Mikel's suspension will take effect immediately, ruling the Nigeria international out of domestic duty until December 26.

The 25-year-old, who signed a new five-year contract with Chelsea on Wednesday, will miss Saturday's trip to Sunderland, but will be available when his club compete in the Club World Cup in Japan next week.

With Mikel also likely to be absent on African Cup of Nations duty in January, Chelsea interim manager Rafael Benitez has started looking for cover for the Nigerian from within his squad.

Benitez employed David Luiz in midfield during parts of the 6-1 Champions League win over Nordsjaelland on Wednesday and admitted he was prepared to use the Brazil defender further up the pitch to provide an alternative to Ramires and Oriol Romeu in the holding role.

-AFP/ac

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20th anniversary of Babri mosque demolition: The damage has not been undone as yet

LUCKNOW: Twenty years after demolition of Babri mosque, the Ayodhya debate is still on. The frenzy mob which razed the masjid to ground on December 6, 1992, perhaps had little or no inkling that the fanatic act would change the Indian politics for all times to come. Though the Ram Temple issue seems to have lost its electoral appeal, the damage has not been undone as yet and the efforts to polarise votes on religious lines continues, at least in UP, where eight major communal clashes have taken place after Samajwadi Party (SP) came to power in March this year and the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is trying to cobble up the team of Hindutava hardliners who played a crucial role in the Temple movement, leading to the demolition of the masjid.

The communal rift created by the 1990 Ram temple movement which resulted in demolition of the mosque saw the BJP emerging as a national force, particularly in the north and west India, thereby changing the Indian polity forever. Till then the politics mainly revolved around the Congress and anti-Congressism, but post 1992, it became 'triangular' with the addition of the anti-Congress-BJP Third front. The demographic vote equations also changed with the Muslims, who also held inaction of the then Congress government headed by PV Narasimha Rao at the Centre equally responsible for the demolition of the mosque, shifting loyalty to regional parties which they felt could counter the saffron threat. It led to the rise of regional satraps like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav among others.

The upheaval also pushed India into an era of instability which saw four prime ministers heading various coalition governments and two mid-term lok sabha polls between 1990-99. As no single party could win majority since then, the regional parties have been playing crucial role in formation of the governments. The coalition politics still continues but now its more mature and stable than 90s. But in UP, the instability continued from 1989 to 2007, during which period, the state saw ten governments of different permutations and combinations, three mid term assembly elections, four chief ministers, defections in parties and two stints of president rule. Interestingly, while the BJP was able to sustain in other states after Babri mosque demolition, in UP its tally declined steadily with every election.

Many political analysts believe that the 'Mandir' issue should be seen along with the 'Mandal'. After revolting against Rajiv Gandhi over Bofors scam, VP Singh formed Janta Dal in 1989 by bringing all the anti-Congress forces together. In the subsequent elections, the Congress was defeated but Janta Dal could not get the majority either. Singh became prime minister with support of the Left and the BJP. On August 7, 1990, Singh implemented the Mandal commission report providing 27% reservation for other backward classes (OBCs) to mobilise backward vote bank. On September 25, BJP's LK Advani began his rath yatra from Somnath in Gujrat demanding construction of Ram Temple at the disputed site housing Babri masjid in Ayodhya, which the saffron forces claimed was the birth place of Lord Ram.

The yatra, which was to end at Ayodhya, left behind a trail of communal clashes. On Singh's direction, the then Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav's ordered police to intercept yatra at Samastipur and arrest Advani on October 23. On October 30, the then UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav ordered firing on people, who had assembled in Ayodhya on BJP's call, when they tried to storm into the mosque. The firing in Ayodhya and ensuing communal clashes in all over the country left over 500 dead. The immediate impact was that the mandir (communal) politics overshadowed the mandal (caste) politics. As a result, the BJP's number in Lok Sabha rose to 120 in 1991 from 85 in 1989. The BJP also won state assembly elections in five states in 1991 -- UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh.

The communal plank polarised votes across all castes. After assuming power in UP under Kalyan Singh, saffron forces gave call to start 'symbolic' construction of Temple on December 6, 1992, which led to demolition of the mosque. Kalyan was jailed for a day for 'contempt of court'. He had assured the Supreme Court that the government will protect mosque but failed to discharge the constitutional duty. The turn of events led to more communal riots across the country but by razing the mosque down, the saffron brigade killed the goose that laid the golden egg. At least, it was true for UP where caste politics took over communalism after tempers cooled down following fall of the 15th century mosque, allegedly built by a Mughal ruler over ruins of a temple at Lord Ram's birth place after destroying it.

"Temple politics created 'upper caste dominated middle class' vote bank for the BJP. A few dominant OBCs also supported it. The party sustained in the states where it is in direct fight with the Congress. But in UP, dalits by Mayawati and OBCs by Mulayam realised that supporting temple politics means accepting the brahminical order responsible for their repression since ages", said political analysts. In due course, said political observer JP Singh, the BJP also realised that the factor which increased its tally from 2 in 1984 to 182 in 1999 is also the major hurdle in exceeding further. The party had to put the temple issue on the back seat to form a coalition with other parties to assume power at the Centre. This, however, left supporters disappointed, leading to drop in its tally in subsequent elections.

In UP, the disillusionment of upper casts from BJP was so strong that a section brahmins voted for BSP in 2007 assembly elections and for SP in 2012. But, says political analyst Sudhir Panwar, the divisive politics based on cast and faith has divided farmers, artisans and industrial workers, as a result the issues related to agriculture and labour have become secondary in the priority list of the political parties. "One should also not forget that maximum cases of terror attacks in India have happened after demolition of Babri mosque, which communalized the social-political environment of country further. We need to defeat hardliners, in all the communities, and their political masters, for the sake of the nation and people", he added.

However, political parties seems to be in no mood to leave caste and communal politics. In fact, the BJP leaders said that today party needs the kind of tailwind that was necessary for the party in 1984 when it was reduced to just two seats in Parliament. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad had then came to the rescue. It formed a committee to 'liberate' the 'birthplace' of Lord Ram in Ayodhya and build a temple. Advani was given leadership of the campaign. The BJP gained from the issue till 1999 but decline started thereafter. The decline was mainly because of loss in UP where BJP's seatshare dropped to 10 in 2009 from 51 in 1991.

Today, the BJP has reached a saturation point in most of the states except UP where its prospects may improve. But the situation in UP has gone from bad to worse for the BJP to the extent that it lost the Ayodha seat for the first time since 1989 in the assembly elections held earlier this year. The 'embarrassment' has made saffron forces to sit up and revive the Hindutva agenda, as in 1984, by bringing back the Hindutva mascots like Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh. Simultaneously, the work at the workshop set up in Ayodhya during temple movement to carve pillars for the 'grand Ram Temple' has started, indicating that something is cooking in the saffron camp. The riots under the SP rule have come as a booster.

While the BJP is desperate for a revival in UP, the Congress and SP are also looking forward to cash in on the 'fear psychosis' among Muslims after demolition of the Babri Masjid. The two parties are trying to appease the minority committee by announcing a number of sops. Mulayam has prime ministerial ambitions and that can be fulfilled only if his party is able to win maximum seats in UP. And, it will be possible only if Muslims stick to him, so Mulayam is doing all he can to keep them in good humour. Besides welfare schemes for the Muslims, he has promised to release all Muslims 'falsely' implicated in terror acts. He is even taking support of hardliner Muslims and has inducted some of them in the party.

The Bahujan Samaj Party is also trying to win the confidence of the Muslims by publicising that the community was safe during the Mayawati rule, during which period no riots took place. Mayawati, too, has prime ministerial ambitions. Both SP and BSP are banking on the fact that the Ram Temple movement and the Babri Masjid demolition pushed India into an era of instability. As no single party could win majority after the incident, the regional parties have been playing a crucial role in the formation of central governments. Also, ever since the Muslims have been voting tactically for the party which can stop the BJP. Under these circumstances, Mayawati and Mulayam know that Muslim votes would be crucial for them to become king or kingmakers in 2014.

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Longer tamoxifen use cuts breast cancer deaths

Breast cancer patients taking the drug tamoxifen can cut their chances of having the disease come back or kill them if they stay on the pills for 10 years instead of five years as doctors recommend now, a major study finds.

The results could change treatment, especially for younger women. The findings are a surprise because earlier research suggested that taking the hormone-blocking drug for longer than five years didn't help and might even be harmful.

In the new study, researchers found that women who took tamoxifen for 10 years lowered their risk of a recurrence by 25 percent and of dying of breast cancer by 29 percent compared to those who took the pills for just five years.

In absolute terms, continuing on tamoxifen kept three additional women out of every 100 from dying of breast cancer within five to 14 years from when their disease was diagnosed. When added to the benefit from the first five years of use, a decade of tamoxifen can cut breast cancer mortality in half during the second decade after diagnosis, researchers estimate.

Some women balk at taking a preventive drug for so long, but for those at high risk of a recurrence, "this will be a convincer that they should continue," said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director of the breast cancer program at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study, which was being presented Wednesday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio and published by the British medical journal Lancet.

About 50,000 of the roughly 230,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States each year occur in women before menopause. Most breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, and hormone blockers are known to cut the risk of recurrence in such cases.

Tamoxifen long was the top choice, but newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors — sold as Arimidex, Femara, Aromasin and in generic form — do the job with less risk of causing uterine cancer and other problems.

But the newer drugs don't work well before menopause. Even some women past menopause choose tamoxifen over the newer drugs, which cost more and have different side effects such as joint pain, bone loss and sexual problems.

The new study aimed to see whether over a very long time, longer treatment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the University of Oxford in England and other researchers assigned 6,846 women who already had taken tamoxifen for five years to either stay on it or take dummy pills for another five years.

Researchers saw little difference in the groups five to nine years after diagnosis. But beyond that time, 15 percent of women who had stopped taking tamoxifen after five years had died of breast cancer versus 12 percent of those who took it for 10 years. Cancer had returned in 25 percent of women on the shorter treatment versus 21 percent of those treated longer.

Tamoxifen had some troubling side effects: Longer use nearly doubled the risk of endometrial cancer. But it rarely proved fatal, and there was no increased risk among premenopausal women in the study — the very group tamoxifen helps most.

"Overall the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially," Dr. Trevor Powles of the Cancer Centre London wrote in an editorial published with the study.

The study was sponsored by cancer research organizations in Britain and Europe, the United States Army, and AstraZeneca PLC, which makes Nolvadex, a brand of tamoxifen, which also is sold as a generic for 10 to 50 cents a day. Brand-name versions of the newer hormone blockers, aromatase inhibitors, are $300 or more per month, but generics are available for much less.

The results pose a quandary for breast cancer patients past menopause and those who become menopausal because of their treatment — the vast majority of cases. Previous studies found that starting on one of the newer hormone blockers led to fewer relapses than initial treatment with tamoxifen did.

Another study found that switching to one of the new drugs after five years of tamoxifen cut the risk of breast cancer recurrence nearly in half — more than what was seen in the new study of 10 years of tamoxifen.

"For postmenopausal women, the data still remain much stronger at this point for a switch to an aromatase inhibitor," said that study's leader, Dr. Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a paid speaker for a company that makes one of those drugs.

Women in his study have not been followed long enough to see whether switching cuts deaths from breast cancer, as 10 years of tamoxifen did. Results are expected in about a year.

The cancer conference is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Health Science Center.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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John McAfee Seeks Asylum, Thanks God for 'Sanity'

Eccentric software tycoon John McAfee, wanted for questioning in the shooting death of his neighbor, has made his escape from Belize to Guatemala, where he told ABC News he will be seeking asylum.

"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," McAfee said. "I chose Guatemala carefully."

McAfee, 67, has been on the run from police in the Central American country of Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull. Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.

McAfee has been hiding from police ever since – a tactic his new lawyer, Telesforo Guerra, says was necessary.

"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him." Guerra is Guatemala's former Attorney General, and, says McAfee, the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha.

McAfee says the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.

"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s___," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"

Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images

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Anti-Virus Pioneer John McAfee Hiding in Belize: Police Watch Video

McAfee will hold a press conference at 3 p.m. Eastern Time in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denies any involvement in Faull's death.

For three weeks, McAfee has been on the run, blogging about his flight, flinging accusations at the Belize government and demanding the release of several friends who have been arrested. He zipped around in speedboats and vans, dyed his hair and beard black and said he'd been sleeping in a bug-infested bed.

Over the weekend, a post on his blog claimed that he had been detained on the Belizean/Mexico border.

On Monday, a follow-up post said that the "John McAfee" taken into custody was actually a "double" who was carrying a North Korean passport with McAfee's name.

That post claimed that McAfee had already escaped Belize and was on the run with Samantha and two reporters from Vice Magazine.

McAfee did not reveal his location in that post, and a spokesperson for Belize's National Security Ministry, Raphael Martinez, told ABC News on Monday that no one by McAfee's name was ever detained at the border and that Belizean security officials believed McAfee was still in their country.

However, a photo posted by Vice Magazine on Monday with their article, "We Are With John McAfee Right Now, Suckers," apparently had been taken on an iPhone 4S and had location information embedded in it which revealed the exact coordinates where the photo was taken - in the Rio Dulce National Park in Guatemala – as reported by Wired.com.

A subsequent blog post on McAfee's site confirmed that the photo had mistakenly revealed his location, and said that Monday was "chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters."

"We made it to safety in spite of this handicap," the post reads. "I had to cancel numerous interviews with the press yesterday because of this and I apologize to all of those affected."

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