7/16/12

OH NO HILLARY! SHE WAS PELTED WITH TOMATOES AND SHOES?!



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Hillary Clinton's motorcade pelted with tomatoes and shoes as Egyptian protesters shout 'Monica, Monica'Bye!
Hillary Clinton was targeted by protesters who threw tomatoes and their own shoes at her motorcade during a visit to Egypt on Sunday.
Demonstrators also mockingly chanted 'Monica, Monica' in reference to Bill Clinton's extra-marital affair.
The Secretary of State was on her first trip to Egypt since the election of the country's new Islamist President, Mohammed Morsi.
A senior State Department official said that neither Mrs Clinton nor her vehicle, which were around the corner from the incident, were struck by any of the projectiles. 
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As well as the shouts of 'Monica', some demonstrators chanted, 'Leave, Clinton.'
The assault on her motorcade came on the day Mrs Clinton spoke at the newly re-opened U.S. consulate in Alexandria, addressing accusations that the U.S., which had long supported former president Hosni Mubarak, was meddling in Egyptian politics.
'I want to be clear that the United States is not in the business, in Egypt, of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which of course we cannot,' Mrs Clinton said.
The meeting came a day after she met Mr Morsi, whose powers were clipped by the military days before he took office.
The president fired back by reinstating the Islamist-dominated parliament that the army leadership had disbanded after a court declared it void, deepening the stand-off before the new leader even had time to form a government.
The result has been acute political uncertainty as the various power centers try to find a way to get along in a country that still has no permanent constitution, parliament or government more than a year after Mubarak's downfall.
In their hour-long meeting, Mrs Clinton and Mr Tantawi discussed Egypt's political transition and the military's 'ongoing dialogue with President Morsi,' a U.S. official reported.
'Tantawi stressed that this is what Egyptians need most now - help getting the economy back on track,' the official said.
Mrs Clinton 'stressed the importance of protecting the rights of all Egyptians, including women and minorities'.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Tantawi said the army respected the presidency but would not be deterred from its role of 'protecting' Egypt.
'The armed forces and the army council respects legislative and executive authorities,' he said in a speech to troops in the city of Ismailia. 'The armed forces would not allow anyone to discourage it from its role in protecting Egypt and its people.'
Ties with the United States, which provides Egypt with an annual $1.3billion in military aid, were strained this year when Egyptian judicial police raided the offices of several U.S.-backed non-governmental organisations on suspicion of illegal foreign funding and put several Americans on trial.
The spat ended when Egyptian authorities allowed the U.S. citizens and other foreign workers to leave the country.
During her speech, Mrs Clinton said: 'When we talk about supporting democracy, we mean real democracy.'To us real democracy means that every citizen has the right to live, work and worship as they choose, whether they are man or woman, Christian or Muslim.'Real democracy means that no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else.' That was a message she is likely to have repeated in meetings on Sunday with women and Christians, both groups that fear their rights may be curtailed under a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government.


She wanted, in very, very clear terms, particularly with the Christian group this morning, to dispel that notion and to make clear that only Egyptians can choose their leaders, that we have not supported any candidate, any party, and we will not,' a senior official told reporters.

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