LATEST: Egypt — Pro-Morsi Women Protest in Cairo

At least 46 people were killed and 152 others wounded on Saturday evening in a wave of bombings in commercial areas of Iraq’s capital Baghdad.

The attacks were in mostly-Shia areas in the neighbourhoods of Jididayh, Karrada, Baiyaa, Shurta, Tobchi, and Zafaraniyah after the breaking of the daily Ramadan fast.

Earlier in the day, gunmen in pick-up trucks shot and killed Bassem Mahmoud, the local leader of a local Sunni militia and two of his bodyguards near the city of Baquba, 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of Baghdad.

The Associated Press counts more than 250 dead from bombings and other attacks since the start of Ramadan on July 10.

(Featured Photo: Site of a Baghdad car bombing last week)


Egypt: Pro-Morsi Women Protest in Cairo

Thousands of women supporting former President Mohamed Morsi demonstrated on Sunday afternoon, criticizing the coup and the deaths of other women from gunfire by security forces against protests:

Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Rejects Prime Minister’s Call for “Dialogue”

The Muslim Brotherhood, the main party behind the deposed Morsi Government, has rejected the call of the interim Prime Minister for dialogue.

Hazem El-Beblawi said in an interview on State TV on Saturday, “Now I see we have to return to harmony. Divisions cannot last.”

The Brotherhood quickly responded that dialogue was precluded by the July 3 coup and subsequent use of force. “There can be no dialogue when the gun barrels are pointing towards the anti-coup protesters,” Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad said in response to Beblawi’s comments.

Earlier on Saturday, interim President Adli Mansour appointed a 10-member committee of experts to amend the Constitution that was suspended following the military takeover.

The four university professors and six judges have 30 days to make their amendments, which will then be presented to a 50-person body representing different groups in Egyptian society.

The larger panel has another two months to make final changes to the draft before submitting it to the President.

Mansour will then have 30 days to call a referendum on the Constitution.