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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Janet Jackson says she married Al Mana last year

This 2012 publicity photo provided by Guttman Associates shows Janet Jackson with Wissam Al Mana, in a portrait taken by photographer, Marco Glaviano. A representative for Jackson confirmed Monday, Feb. 25, 2013, that the musician and Wissam Al Mana wed last year. (AP Photo/Guttman Associates, Marco Glaviano)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Janet Jackson knows how to keep a secret: The singer has been married since last year.

A representative for Jackson confirmed Monday that the musician and Wissam Al Mana wed last year.

This is Jackson's second secret marriage. She secretly married Rene Elizondo Jr. in 1991. They separated in 1999.

The 46-year-old Jackson first tied the knot when she was 18 to singer James DeBarge, which lasted three months in 1984.

In a joint statement to Entertainment Tonight, Jackson and Al Mana said their wedding was a "quiet, private and beautiful ceremony."

The couple also said they would like privacy and "are allowed this time for celebration and joy."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-25-People-Janet%20Jackson/id-ba5c4c66e79b4065b8db468224bc673e

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Scientists find genes linked to human neurological disorders in sea lamprey genome

Feb. 24, 2013 ? Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have identified several genes linked to human neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury, in the sea lamprey, a vertebrate fish whose whole-genome sequence is reported this week in the journal Nature Genetics.

"This means that we can use the sea lamprey as a powerful model to drive forward our molecular understanding of human neurodegenerative disease and neurological disorders," says Jennifer Morgan of the MBL's Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering. The ultimate goals are to determine what goes wrong with neurons after injury and during disease, and to determine how to correct these deficits in order to restore normal nervous system functions.

Unlike humans, the lamprey has an extraordinary capacity to regenerate its nervous system. If a lamprey's spinal cord is severed, it can regenerate the damaged nerve cells and be swimming again in 10-12 weeks.

Morgan and her collaborators at MBL, Ona Bloom and Joseph Buxbaum, have been studying the lamprey's recovery from spinal cord injury since 2009. The lamprey has large, identified neurons in its brain and spinal cord, making it an excellent model to study regeneration at the single cell-level. Now, the lamprey's genomic information gives them a whole new "toolkit" for understanding its regenerative mechanisms, and for comparing aspects of its physiology, such as inflammation response, to that of humans.

The lamprey genome project was accomplished by a consortium of 59 researchers led by Weiming Li of Michigan State University and Jeramiah Smith of the University of Kentucky. The MBL scientists' contribution focused on neural aspects of the genome, including one of the project's most intriguing findings.

Lampreys, in contrast to humans, don't have myelin, an insulating sheath around neurons that allows faster conduction of nerve impulses. Yet the consortium found genes expressed in the lamprey that are normally expressed in myelin. In humans, myelin-associated molecules inhibit nerves from regenerating if damaged. "A lot of the focus of the spinal cord injury field is on neutralizing those inhibitory molecules," Morgan says.

"So there is an interesting conundrum," Morgan says. "What are these myelin-associated genes doing in an animal that doesn't have myelin, and yet is good at regeneration? It opens up a new and interesting set of questions, " she says. Addressing them could bring insight to why humans lost the capacity for neural regeneration long ago, and how this might be restored.

At present, Morgan and her collaborators are focused on analyzing which genes are expressed and when, after spinal cord injury and regeneration. The whole-genome sequence gives them an invaluable reference for their work.

Morgan, Bloom, and Buxbaum collaborate at the MBL through funding by the Charles Evans Foundation. Bloom is based at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research/Hofstra North Shore-Long Island Jewish in New York. Buxbaum is from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Marine Biological Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Jeramiah J Smith, Shigehiro Kuraku, Carson Holt, Tatjana Sauka-Spengler, Ning Jiang, Michael S Campbell, Mark D Yandell, Tereza Manousaki, Axel Meyer, Ona E Bloom, Jennifer R Morgan, Joseph D Buxbaum, Ravi Sachidanandam, Carrie Sims, Alexander S Garruss, Malcolm Cook, Robb Krumlauf, Leanne M Wiedemann, Stacia A Sower, Wayne A Decatur, Jeffrey A Hall, Chris T Amemiya, Nil R Saha, Katherine M Buckley, Jonathan P Rast, Sabyasachi Das, Masayuki Hirano, Nathanael McCurley, Peng Guo, Nicolas Rohner, Clifford J Tabin, Paul Piccinelli, Greg Elgar, Magali Ruffier, Bronwen L Aken, Stephen M J Searle, Matthieu Muffato, Miguel Pignatelli, Javier Herrero, Matthew Jones, C Titus Brown, Yu-Wen Chung-Davidson, Kaben G Nanlohy, Scot V Libants, Chu-Yin Yeh, David W McCauley, James A Langeland, Zeev Pancer, Bernd Fritzsch, Pieter J de Jong, Baoli Zhu, Lucinda L Fulton, Brenda Theising, Paul Flicek, Marianne E Bronner, Wesley C Warren, Sandra W Clifton, Richard K Wilson, Weiming Li. Sequencing of the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) genome provides insights into vertebrate evolution. Nature Genetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2568

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/31_IzH_8VG8/130224142915.htm

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Prime suspect sought in Vegas shooting, crash

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Police are seeking a 26-year-old man as the prime suspect in last week's pre-dawn shooting and crash on the Las Vegas Strip that killed three people and injured several others

The black SUV used as a getaway car was found Saturday as police named Ammar Harris in connection with the shooting and six-vehicle chain-reaction carnage Thursday on the neon-lit boulevard near the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, Bally's and Flamingo resorts,

An aspiring rapper who was driving a Maserati was shot to death, while two people in a taxi died in the crash.

"His location is unknown," police Capt. Chris Jones said of Harris, who sometimes goes by the name Ammar Asim Faruq Harris. Police say he has been arrested for working as a pimp.

Police released a photo that was taken when Harris was arrested last year on pandering, kidnapping, sexual assault and coercion charges. The disposition of that case was not immediately known.

The photo shows Harris with tattoos on his right cheek and words on his neck above an image that appeared to depict an owl with blackened eyes. Jones warned that Harris should be considered armed and dangerous.

Police had been searching for the black Range Rover, with blackout windows and distinctive black rims, since it was last seen speeding from the shooting. It was located at an apartment complex just a couple of blocks east of the neon-lit boulevard, and was impounded as evidence, Jones said.

The shooting killed Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr., who was driving the dark gray Maserati that was peppered by gunfire from the SUV. Taxi driver Michael Boldon and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, of Maple Valley, Wash., died when the Maserati hit their taxi, which exploded in flames.

Boldon, 62, was a family man who moved from Michigan to Las Vegas. Sutton-Wasmund, 48, was a businesswoman and mother of three.

A passenger in the Maserati was wounded in the arm and four people from four other vehicles were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. The Maserati passenger was cooperating with investigators. His name hasn't been made public.

The shocking chain of events had family members and friends in Las Vegas, California, Michigan and Washington trying to grasp the blink-of-an-eye finality of it all.

"My son was a good boy," Kenneth Cherry Sr. told reporters Saturday in a news conference convened by Las Vegas lawyers Vicki Greco and Robert Beckett.

Beckett said they wanted to respond to rumors that the 27-year-old son ? who produced a rap video using the name Kenny Clutch ? was a gangster and a troublemaker. The attorneys had represented his son, and now represent his estate and the family.

"My son was a victim just like the two people in that taxi," Kenneth Cherry Sr. said. "Trouble found him. The people in the taxicab, trouble found them."

Court records show Cherry had no criminal cases or convictions in Las Vegas, and police said there was no record of arrests.

The Clark County coroner determined that Kenny Cherry died of at least one gunshot to the chest. Boldon and Sutton-Wasmund died of injuries in the crash. All three deaths were ruled homicides.

Police say the shooting appeared to stem from an argument at the valet area of the upscale Aria resort-casino about a block south of the crash scene. The shooting happened after a night featuring Morocco-born rapper French Montana at Aria nightclub Haze.

Cherry's parents live in Emeryville, Calif., and the father said his son's body would be taken back to Oakland. He said his son started a music career there and was recognized by other rappers within a West Coast hip-hop strain called hyphy.

Cherry wasn't well-known in wider music circles, according to Chuck Creekmur, CEO of AllHipHop.com.

Kenny Clutch's YouTube music video, "Stay Schemin," shows scenes of hotels along the Strip as he sings about paying $120,000 for his Maserati.

"One mistake change lives all in one night," he raps in one verse.

Kenneth Cherry Sr., who said he runs a cellphone business, said he helped his son make payments on the Maserati. He said he last spoke to him on Wednesday, when they talked about the high cost of the son's cellphone use.

Cherry Sr. described his son as an entrepreneur but didn't say how he made money or if he had jobs other than his music production.

Boldon's family in Las Vegas was struggling to cope with his death, said Tehran Boldon, the taxi driver's younger brother.

Boldon's sister, Carolyn Jean Trimble, said Boldon was a father, a grandfather and a car race enthusiast who drove a Mercedes when he wasn't in a cab. He owned a clothing store in Detroit and worked at a car dealership, his sister said, and drove taxis after moving to Las Vegas about 1? years ago.

The irony that a man with a taste for beautiful cars was killed by a sports car wasn't lost on Trimble.

"He would be tickled to death: 'Damn, of all things, a Maserati hit me, took me out like that,'" she said. "I'm happy he didn't suffer."

In Washington, Sutton-Wasmund co-owned a dress shop, said Debbie Tvedt, the office manager for a Maple Valley plumbing company that Sutton-Wasmund started with her husband, James Wasmund. Sutton-Wasmund was in Las Vegas attending a trade show with her business partner.

"It's a big loss," Tvedt said in a telephone interview with AP.

The Maple Valley-Black Diamond Chamber of Commerce website said Sutton-Wasmund was a board member from 2004 to 2011 before becoming a marketing representative.

A phone message left for James Wasmund was not immediately returned.

The famously glowing, always-open Las Vegas Strip was closed for some 15 hours after the crash. Nevada Highway Patrol Sgt. Eric Kemmer recalled a similarly long closure after the 1996 drive-by slaying of rapper Tupac Shakur.

That shooting ? involving assailants opening fire on Shakur's luxury sedan from a vehicle on Flamingo Road ? happened about a block away from Thursday's crash.

The Shakur killing has never been solved.

___

Associated Press writers Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas, Garance Burke in San Francisco, Kathy McCarthy in Seattle and AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/prime-suspect-sought-las-vegas-shooting-crash-101323127.html

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Hacker griffen auch Microsoft an - Kundendaten nicht betroffen

Redmond (dpa) - Nach Facebook und Apple ist auch Microsoft Opfer eines Hacker-Angriffs geworden. Einige Computer seien mit Schadsoftware infiziert worden, teilte Microsoft mit. Es gebe aber keine Hinweise darauf, dass Kundendaten betroffen gewesen seien.

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Governors: Looming cuts threaten economic gains

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, center, seen with National Governors Association Chairman Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, left, and Vice Chairman Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, speaks during the opening news conference of the NGA Winter Meeting in Washington, Saturday, Feb. 23, 2013. The nation's governors say their states are threatened if the automatic, across-the-board budget cuts, known as the sequester, take effect March 1. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, left, leads fellow Democratic Governors Associations members along the driveway of the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. From left are, Shumlin, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Vermont Gov. Maggie Hassan, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, center, accompanied by fellow members of the Democratic Governors Associations, speaks outside the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. From left are, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, Virgin Islands Gov. John De Jongh, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Hassan, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, center, accompanied by fellow members of the Democratic Governors Associations, looks up to the overcast sky, outside the White House in Washington, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. From left are, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, Virgin Island Gov. John de Jongh, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Hickenlooper, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, accompanied by other members of the Democratic Governors Associations, speaks outside the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, following their meeting with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Washington's protracted budget stalemate could seriously undermine the economy and stall gains made since the recession, exasperated governors said Saturday as they try to gauge the fallout from impending federal spending cuts.

At the annual National Governors Association meeting, both Democrat and Republican chief executives expressed pessimism that both sides could find a way to avoid the massive, automatic spending cuts set to begin March 1, pointing to the impasse as another crisis between the White House and Congress that spooks local businesses from hiring and hampers their ability to construct state spending plans.

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a former congressman, noted that the cuts ? known in Washington-speak as "the sequester" ? could lead to 19,000 workers laid off at Pearl Harbor, site of the surprise attack in 1941 that launched the United States into World War II.

"That will undermine our capacity for readiness at Pearl Harbor. If that doesn't symbolize for the nation ... what happens when we fail to meet our responsibilities congressionally, I don't know what does," he said.

The budget fight came as many states say they are on the cusp of an economic comeback from the financial upheaval in 2008 and 2009. States expect their general fund revenues this year to surpass the amounts collected before the Great Recession kicked in. An estimated $693 billion in revenues is expected for the 2013 budget year, nearly a 4 percent over the previous year.

At their weekend meetings, governors were focusing on ways to boost job development and grow their state economies, measures to restrict gun violence and implement the new health care law approved during Obama's first term.

Some Republican governors have blocked the use of Medicaid to expand health insurance coverage for millions of uninsured while others have joined Democrats in a wholesale expansion as the law allows. The Medicaid expansion aims to cover about half of the 30 million uninsured people expected to eventually gain coverage under the health care overhaul.

Yet for many governors, the budget-cut fight remains front-and-center and fuels a pervasive sense of frustration with Washington.

"My feeling is I can't help what's going on in Washington," Gov. Terry Branstad, R-Iowa, said in an interview Saturday. "I can't help the fact that there's no leadership here, and it's all politics as usual and gridlock. But I can do something about the way we do things in the state of Iowa."

Indeed, right now no issue carries the same level of urgency as the budget impasse.

Congressional leaders have indicated a willingness to let the cuts take effect and stay in place for weeks, if not much longer.

The cuts would trim $85 billion in domestic and defense spending, leading to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of workers at the Transportation Department, Defense Department and elsewhere.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the cuts would harm the readiness of U.S. fighting forces.

The looming cuts were never supposed to happen. They were intended to be a draconian fallback intended to ensure a special deficit reduction committee would come up with $1 trillion or more in savings from benefit programs. It didn't.

"We should go back and remember that sequestration was originally designed by both the administration and Congress as something so odious, so repellent, that it would force both sides to a compromise. There can't be any question, this is something that nobody wants," said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat.

Obama has stepped up efforts to tell the public about the cuts' negative impact and pressure Republicans who oppose his approach of reducing deficits through a combination of targeted savings and tax increases. House Republicans have said reduced spending needs to be the focus and have rejected the president's fresh demand to include higher taxes as part of a compromise.

Governors said they are asking the Obama administration for more flexibility to deal with some of the potential cuts.

"We know that the cuts are coming, but we also don't want to suffer disproportionately," said Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, a Democrat and chairman of the National Governors Association.

"We're just saying that as you identify federal cuts and savings, allow the states to be able to realize those savings, too," said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican and the association's vice chairwoman. "Give us the flexibility to be able to make the cuts where we think it will be the less harm to our citizens."

___

Follow Steve Peoples at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples and Ken Thomas at: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

___

Online:

National Governors Association: http://www.nga.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-23-Budget%20Battle-Governors/id-f7740b83797745bd886ed10816cb8992

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Blackhawks set NHL record with 2-1 win over Sharks

CHICAGO (AP) ? For 17 games, nobody has been able to beat the Chicago Blackhawks in regulation.

Now they own the best start in NHL history all to themselves.

The Blackhawks set an NHL record for the best start to a season, beating the San Jose Sharks 2-1 on Friday night to give them at least one point in their first 17 games.

Rookie Brandon Saad's short-handed goal early in the third period ? and with 3 seconds left on a San Jose power play ? snapped a 1-all tie and stood up as the game-winner. Chicago (14-0-3) won its fourth straight game to break a mark set by the 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks, who earned points in their first 16 games.

The Blackhawks equaled that run Tuesday with a shootout win over Vancouver.

"It's nice to get another win and make history," the 20-year-old Saad said. "Our group's had a great year so far, so we never expect anything less.

"We're celebrating the win now. I'm sure it will sink in a little bit more tomorrow, but it's awesome to be part of history."

Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville also reflected on the record, but not for long.

"The guys should be proud of the achievement, the accomplishment," he said." I just think we shouldn't be happy with where we're at. We just want to keep trying to get better."

Saad scored the go-ahead goal after closing in on the left wing one-on-one with San Jose defenseman Brent Burns. After a quick fake, Saad fired a shot from the circle that beat San Jose's Antti Niemi just under the glove 2:24 into the period.

"I just took him (Burns) wide and tried to get a shot off," Saad said. "Luckily, I beat (Niemi) glove side. Sometimes power-play guys drop back a little, and I took advantage of it."

Burns gave Saad too much room on the play, however, according to San Jose coach Todd McLellan.

"I thought that we let a player that wasn't very dangerous ? not because he's not talented or anything ? but a player in a situation that wasn't very dangerous skate into a primary scoring spot without even challenging him," McLellan said.

"I'm not sure if our goalie was on the angle or not," he added, "but I'm disappointed we didn't challenge him earlier."

Viktor Stalberg also scored for league-leading Chicago, which has earned a total of 31 of 34 possible points.

Blackhawks goalie Ray Emery made 26 saves to win his fourth straight start and improve to 7-0. Chicago killed all four San Jose power plays, all of which occurred in a span of under 14 minutes late in the second and early in the third periods.

"(The record) is a notch in your belt, Emery said. "It's special to do something as a group.

"The start of the year is the worst time to do it, I think," he added. "You'd rather do it at the end, but it's great."

Patrick Marleau scored for the Sharks, getting only his second goal in 11 games after getting nine in San Jose's first five games.

Both Emery and Niemi were sharp throughout most of the game. But a misplay by Niemi led to Stalberg's goal at 16:40 of the second period, and he seemed fooled on Saad's score. Niemi stopped 32 shots.

Niemi, who was the goalie when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010, also let in a couple of soft goals in a 4-1 loss to the Blackhawks at the United Center last Friday.

Chicago and San Jose faced each other for the third time in 17 days. The Blackhawks defeated the Sharks 4-1 last Friday and 5-3 in San Jose on Feb. 5.

The Blackhawks had a full lineup for the first time since their season opener at Los Angeles.

Chicago defenseman Brent Seabrook, forward Daniel Carcillo and goalie Corey Crawford returned from injuries. Seabrook missed Tuesday's game with a lower-body injury and Carcillo sat out 15 games since suffering a knee injury in the season opener.

Crawford, who sat out three games with a upper-body injury, backed up Emery.

Chicago forward Marian Hossa was back after being hit in the back of the head by Vancouver forward Jannik Hansen on Tuesday and leaving early in the third period. Hansen was suspended for one game by the NHL.

Marleau broke the scoreless tie late in the first period. He connected with 14.2 seconds left to give San Jose a 1-0 lead.

Emery made a point-blank pad save on Joe Pavelski's tip of Joe Thornton's shot from left wing, then Marleau pounced on the rebound in the slot. Emery got his left pad on Marleau's attempt, but the puck barely slid over the goal line.

Stalberg tied it at 1 at 16:40 of the second on a play from the left corner. From a sharp angle and with traffic in front, Stalberg whipped the puck toward Niemi. It struck the inside of Niemi's left pad near the knee and deflected in.

Saad's goal 2:24 into the third made it 2-1.

Then Chicago's penalty killing and alert work by Emery helped preserve the lead.

"I thought we got better as the game went on, each and every shift, Quenneville said. "We certainly got some energy off the penalty kill tonight, none more than getting the shortie in the third."

Niemi was pulled for an extra attacker with 1:10 left, but Chicago kept the Sharks off the puck and off balance. Hossa missed an empty net in the final seconds.

NOTES: The 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks got off to a 12-0-4 start that season and went on to win the Stanley Cup. ... The Sharks played the fifth game of a season-high six-game road trip and are 1-3-1. Chicago C Dave Bolland left the game late in the second period with an upper-body injury and is out day to day. ... Despite the compressed 48-game NHL schedule, San Jose played only one game ? at St. Louis on Tuesday ? since facing the Blackhawks in Chicago a week ago. ... San Jose C Scott Gomez and D Justin Braun were healthy scratches. ... Former Blackhawks player and current broadcaster Eddie Olczyk, a Chicago-area native, was honored in a pregame ceremony for being inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackhawks-set-nhl-record-2-1-win-over-043335846--spt.html

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Egypt opposition leader calls for election boycott

CAIRO (AP) ? A key opposition leader called Saturday for a boycott of upcoming parliamentary elections, saying he will not take part in a "sham democracy."

President Mohammed Morsi's Islamist party, the Muslim Brotherhood, shot back that the opposition was running away from the challenge and wants power without contesting elections.

The exchange reflected a new escalation in political tensions that could spill into even wider strikes and protests ahead of a four-stage vote set to begin on April 28 and last until June. Morsi announced the elections late Thursday night.

"(I) called for parliamentary election boycott in 2010 to expose sham democracy. Today I repeat my call, will not be part of an act of deception," Nobel laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, who leads the main opposition National Salvation Front, wrote on his Twitter account.

He reiterated the opposition's refrain that Morsi, who was elected in a free and fair vote, is acting like former autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.

Almost immediately after ElBaradei's call, rifts began appearing in the opposition which has struggled to unite since it led the successful uprising two years ago that ousted Mubarak.

Some activists criticized the boycott call, saying it would alienate the masses and allow the Islamists to maintain their domination of parliament.

The Brotherhood has emerged from the uprising as Egypt's most powerful political group, winning both parliamentary and presidential elections.

The deputy head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, Essam el-Erian, responded to ElBaradei's call on his Facebook page saying "running away from a popular test only means that some want to assume executive authority without a democratic mandate."

"We've never yet known them to face any election or serious test," he said of the opposition leaders.

In Egypt's first free elections in 2011, the Brotherhood won nearly half of seats in parliament and the more conservative Salafis won a quarter, making the two Islamist groups dominant.

Liberal and secular parties have trailed significantly in all elections since Mubarak was toppled. Their outreach across Egypt, while growing, is still dwarfed by the Islamists' well organized network of charities and programs that assist the poor.

Nearly half of Egypt's 85 million people live below the poverty line, subsisting on less than $2 per day.

Blogger and commentator Mahmoud Salem, a longtime activist who protested against Mubarak and now opposes Morsi, said he disagreed with boycott calls because it offers no real alternative to the current political impasse.

"Where's ElBaradei's party, its plan, its economic vision? Let's say a boycott is the right answer. What will they do so that they can be competitive in the next election?" Salem said.

He said that ElBaradei is also partly calling for a boycott of the vote because the opposition has been unable to win a significant number of seats.

"In reality, it will end up as a parliament composed of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafis, or members of the ex-regime," he said.

The opposition has accused Morsi and his Brotherhood backers of using election wins to monopolize power in tactics similar to the former regime. They accuse him of reneging on a promise to form an inclusive government representative of the Christian minority, women, and liberals.

Elections under Mubarak's three-decade rule were widely rigged and the chamber was dominated by members of his ruling party.

The state-run MENA news agency reported that the president is studying changing the starting of date of elections following an outcry by Coptic Christians in Egypt.

The first phase coincides with Palm Sunday and Easter for Egypt's minority Christians, who tend to travel during the holidays and have consistently voted against the Muslim Brotherhood.

ElBaradei's opposition coalition, which was only formed late last year, had warned for weeks it could boycott parliamentary elections if certain conditions were not met first.

The NSF said it wants a real national dialogue that leads to the formation of a national unity government, changes to the new constitution and stability.

On the second anniversary of the Jan. 25 uprising this year, anger spilled out onto the streets and violence again engulfed the nation.

About 70 people died in a wave of protests, clashes and riots in the past four weeks, and more than half were killed in the city of Suez Canal city of Port Said alone.

The lower house of parliament, which drafts laws in Egypt, was disbanded on June 14, 2012 after the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that a third of the chamber's members were elected illegally. The upcoming elections are aimed at reinstating the legislature.

Former lawmaker Mostafa al-Naggar, a centrist who beat an ultraconservative, popular Salafi candidate in 2011, said calls for a boycott will be ineffective unless there is unity among the opposition. He said mixed messages will confuse voters and push people away.

He wrote on Twitter that "the decision to boycott the next elections is extremely dangerous because it will clear the arena for the ruling party and its allies to dominate the legislative and executive authorities."

Morsi's supporters say that delaying elections, protesting and boycotting after years of autocracy under Mubarak is affecting Egypt's ability to lure foreign investors and tourists again.

The political unrest has hit Egypt's foreign currency reserves, which have fallen below a critical level to less than $14 billion.

Meanwhile, many residents of the city of Port Said blame Morsi's policies for the turmoil.

A civil disobedience campaign in the city started a week ago.

More than 1,000 people, including hundreds of employees of the Suez Canal Authority, protested Saturday outside one of the vital waterway administration's gates. Shipping in the international waterway has not been affected.

The protesters are demanding retribution for those killed during unrest in the city and for officials to be on trial. On Friday, around 15,000 protested against Morsi and hung effigies of him in the main square there.

There have also been near daily protests in Cairo and in the textile producing city of Mahalla.

Since Morsi's election win as Egypt's first civilian and Islamist president last summer, his popularity has eroded.

Thousands took to the streets in December when he issued power-grabbing decrees temporarily that allowed his supporters to rush a draft constitution to a nationwide vote before a high court packed with Mubarak appointees could disband the process.

It passed with 64 percent amid low turnout and a boycott by thousands of overseeing judges.

___

Amir Makar in Cairo and Mosaad el-Gohary in Port Said contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-opposition-leader-calls-election-boycott-140854316.html

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