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Morsi Declares Emergency in 3 Egypt Cities as Unrest Spreads
(New York Times) David D. Kirkpatrick - Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi declared a one-month state of emergency and a curfew in Suez, Ismailia and Port Said on Sunday where the police have lost all control, after four days of clashes in Cairo and other cities between police and protesters denouncing the government on the second anniversary of the popular revolt that ousted Mubarak. Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Port Said on Sunday demanding independence from the rest of Egypt. "The people want the state of Port Said," they chanted. Morsi deployed army troops to secure vital facilities in Port Said, but the soldiers watched without intervening as police battled civilian mobs. In Cairo, fighting escalated near Tahrir Square as speakers demanded the repeal of the Islamist-backed constitution. Young men huddled in tents making incendiary devices, while others set tires on fire to block a main bridge across the Nile. "There is going to be chaos for some time," said Moattaz Abdel-Fattah, a political scientist and academic who was a member of the assembly that drafted Egypt's new constitution.