By nightfall, though, the streets of the capital were relatively quiet as the security forces held back from any action despite warnings on Sunday that they were ready to dismantle the camps. Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said every effort was being made to resolve the situation through dialogue. In a political development, the Nour Party said it could join the assembly writing a new constitution for the country, adding Islamist support to the military's political transition plan following its overthrow of Mursi last month. Nour is Egypt's second largest Islamist party after Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.
The crisis brought on by the removal of the Arab nation's first freely elected president is now focused on the protest camps, where thousands of his supporters are demanding his reinstatement. At the al-Nahda camp, centered round a traffic circle and extending down a palm tree-lined boulevard next to the Cairo zoo, the mood was solemn but not fearful. Asked about the threat of a crackdown, Ahmed Shargawy, a 23-year-old translator, said: "They said that 15 days ago too. They always say they are going to finish it."
A block away, half a dozen armored troop carriers and a few squads of soldiers were positioned outside a police station, but they did not look like part of a strike force ready to move. The authorities are keen to end the protests but they held off from acting over the Eid al-Fitr holiday after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The holiday ended on Sunday. A security source said the delay was also because crowds had swelled the camps after reports of an imminent crackdown.
Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is under pressure from hardline officers to end the sit-ins, security sources say. But Western and Arab envoys and some senior Egyptian government members have pressed the army to avoid using force. Fahmy said the right to peaceful protest would be guaranteed. But he suggested there was a limit to the government's patience. "It is not reasonable for any democratic government to have to accept sit-ins where violence is being used and the security of citizens and the country is being threatened," state news agency MENA quoted him as saying.
"RELIGION, NOT POLITICS"
yah, tanks and fighter planes.... 
~ 
"A BILLION DOLLARS" 
yah, tanks and fighter planes....
~
"A BILLION DOLLARS"
"I thought it was a law that if there was a military coup in a country that we had to suspend aid. Are we saying that it was not a coup in Egypt?"
or the BRUTAL egyptian military 
??? the usual middle east "election process" madness.
