Seoul pulls Asian shares down, solid economic data helps

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tech-heavy South Korean shares dragged down the broader Asian share index on Monday on fears of weaker earnings, but improving economic prospects in Europe and solid U.S. profit reports underpinned sentiment.


The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> inched down 0.2 percent, after seeing its biggest weekly loss in two months last week. Asian markets were in positive territory except in Seoul and Jakarta.


The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) <.ks11> extended losses to an 8-week low with a 0.6 percent slip, as a weakening yen soured the outlook for local exporters and foreign investors reduced their holdings.


Tech-heavy South Korea was also vulnerable to a clouding outlook for high-end smartphone device shipments.


"Investors have begun preempting concerns about exporters' outlooks since automakers announced weak earnings last week, while large-caps continue to be pressured by foreign selloffs," said Kim Hyung-ryol, an analyst at Kyobo Securities.


Global investor sentiment improved on Friday when the German Ifo business morale index improved in January to its highest in more than half a year, further evidence that Europe's largest economy is gathering speed again, and European banks were set to repay the European Central Bank a larger sum of money than expected to underscore stabilising financial system in the euro zone.


In China, data on Sunday showed profits earned by industrial companies rose 17.3 percent in December from a year earlier to 895.2 billion yuan ($143.9 billion), adding to evidence of a fourth-quarter economic recovery.


The yen extended losses to fresh lows, but Japanese equities gave up earlier gains and eased ahead of Japan's corporate reporting season which enters full swing this week.


Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> edged down 0.1 percent after jumping 2.9 percent on Friday to log an 11th straight week of gains, its longest such run since 1971. <.t/>


Against the yen, the dollar hit 91.26 early on Monday, its highest level since June 2010 while the euro touched 122.91, its highest point since April.


New Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for aggressive monetary easing and huge fiscal spending to beat deflation. The yen has fallen some 13 percent since mid-November when he began making those calls as part of his election campaign.


"The potent mix of Abenomics and strong risk appetite abroad is continuing to soften the yen, which means investors will still be buying stocks," said Masayuki Doshida, senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities.


In sharp contrast to U.S. and German equities, the Nikkei remains well below levels before the financial crisis in 2008, reflecting the magnitude of negative effect from the yen's strength. The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> closed at their highest in more than five years on solid U.S. corporate earnings on Friday and Frankfurt's DAX index <.gdaxi> also scaled five-year highs.


The yen is still stronger than around 95 yen before the 2008 financial crisis, but both the euro and the dollar measured against a basket of key currencies <.dxy> hover at levels far below the pre-crisis levels.


SAFE HAVEN SUFFERS


The improving global macroeconomic environment has curbed interest in safe haven assets such as gold.


Spot gold steadied around $1,659.90 (1,053.44 pounds) an ounce on Monday, still below its 200-day moving average. As riskier equities rallied on Friday, bullion saw its biggest weekly drop this year on Friday.


U.S. crude inched up 0.1 percent to $95.95 a barrel and Brent steadied around $113.23.


London copper, another industrial commodity linked to demand prospects, rose 0.4 percent to $8,065 a tonne.


With easing stress in financial markets, investors pumped $5.65 billion into stock funds worldwide in the latest week, with most of it flowing into emerging market stock funds, data from EPFR Global showed on Friday.


The euro hovered near an 11-month high of $1.3480 hit on Friday. The Australian dollar stumbled to an eight-month low against the euro early on Monday. European shares scaled fresh multi-month peaks on Friday.


Investors will focus this week on the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee statement on Wednesday and U.S. nonfarm payrolls due on Friday.


Sluggish equities weighed on Asian credit markets, widening the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index by 1 basis point.


(Additional reporting by Joyce Lee in Seoul and Sophie Knight in Tokyo; Editing by Edwina Gibbs & Kim Coghill)



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India Ink: Where Science and Religion Coexist

MUNDGOD, India — Religion and science have not always been easy friends, as Galileo could attest.

But over the last week scientists and Buddhist scholars have been working in this small Tibetan enclave in southern India to prove that these two worlds can not only co-exist — but benefit each another.

It is the 26th edition of the Mind & Life Conference and the first held in a monastery, for thousands of Buddhist monks gathered here. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, greeted the scientists last Friday and introduced the week-long dialogue about science and religion.

The examination is rooted in the personal story of the Dalai Lama. During his secluded training as a child in Tibet, he would gaze at the night sky through a telescope on the roof of the Potala Palace. He looked at the moon with such intensity he realized the shadows and asperities on its surface contradicted the Tibetan belief that it was lit from within. He took his findings to his tutors.

“When I told my tutors of my interest in science, they replied that it made sense,” said the Dalai Lama during his welcome speech to the conference. “However, although we have an interest in science, that doesn’t mean we have to devote all our energy to it. I spend the majority of my time in meditation on love, compassion and wisdom, which is the source of my interest in science.”

It is this interest he is trying to spark in all Tibetan monks by adding science to their instruction.

“In the Buddhist investigation of reality we traditionally employ four principles of reasoning: dependence, function, nature and evidence,” said the Dalai Lama. Not a far stretch from the way scientists look for evidence. “Both approaches seem to work in parallel,” he said.

The thousands of monks of the Mundgod monasteries have been asked to follow the discussions — whose topics range from Quantum physics to neuroscience — in the Drepung Loseling Monastery’s assembly hall here. Monks who can’t fit into the hall watch the discussions on overflow screens outside on the monastery grounds.

With a strong emphasis on training the mind through meditation, looking within and constant questioning, the long and arduous teaching young monks have to follow in the monasteries requires the same attention to analysis and logic as any scientific curriculum. One difference? Isolation. In Tibet, before the Chinese invasion, the monks were kept from the outside world, practicing their faith in seclusion.

According to Rato Khen Rinpoche, the abbot of Rato Drepung, another Mundgod monastery, “Monastic vocation used to be cocooned by a geographic isolation.”

Today, things have changed. “Maintaining that tradition is not the way to form the 21st century monk,” he explained during an interview at the monastery.

Rato Khen Rinpoche, the first Westerner appointed abbot of a Tibetan monastery (his given name is Nicholas Vreeland), became a monk at thirty. Before he turned to Buddhism he studied and worked as a photographer.

His worldliness did not deter him from becoming a geshe — the equivalent of a Ph.D. in Buddhism, which requires up to twenty years of study — and now an abbot.

“Bringing science to Buddhist monks does not mean bending the belief system,” he insists, “they are parallel, there is no attempt to harmonize the two.”

For the science conference, Rato Monastery has transformed its prayer hall into a conference hall where 40 monks are getting together to edit a Tibetan science and Buddhist philosophy compendium.

The monks are Tibetan scholars from all monasteries who followed a multiple-year science course and are now asked by the Dalai Lama to compile what they learned into a book for their fellow monks. “These are monks who have spent from early morning to late night memorizing ancient texts, having them explained by wise elders and debating them long into the night,” says Rato’s abbot. “They had to leave behind Tibetan beliefs in place for centuries and apply the same strict discipline they had in their Buddhist studies to modern science.”

This is the strength of mind required of the modern monk, he says: a capacity for knowledge, open mindedness and debate, carried alongside the absolute belief in Buddha’s words.

The book will cover, along with Buddhist philosophy, the history of Science — from Galileo’s discovery of the planets’ movements to Darwin’s theory on evolution — tackling basic physics, biology and chemistry topics. Once the editing is over, the monks will go back to their respective monasteries and become the first Tibetan monks science teachers for their fellow monks and nuns.

But the curiosity goes both ways. Scientists have long been fascinated by the effect of the Buddhist practice of meditation on the brain. Richard Davidson, director of the laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has conducted experiments on a dozen of Tibetan Buddhist monks’ brains.

His findings created a stir in brain science circles by suggesting that after meditating for thousands of hours, monks altered the functioning and structure of their brains.

As part of his ongoing research, Dr. Davidson last year connected French monk Matthieu Ricard to 256 sensors and asked him to meditate on compassion. The scans of his brain showed an extraordinary level of gamma waves (activity linked to consciousness, learning and memory), “levels never reported before in the neuroscience literature”, the scientist said.

The left prefrontal cortex also saw increased activity, proof of a larger capacity for “happiness.”

On Sunday, the topic of discussion between the scientists and the Buddhist scholars was the nature of consciousness. The Dalai Lama asked the scientists where the basis for consciousness lies.

Responses from the scientists differed strongly.

Christof Koch, a University of California neuroscience best know for his work on consciousness, said we could speculate but ultimately we don’t know where it lies beyond the brain, its physical basis. He added that all mammals have consciousness but it is impossible to know where it lies (for example, our immune system can function without it).

Matthieu Ricard, the French monk who was a genetics scientist before taking up the monastic life, turned towards his Buddhist teaching more than his scientific past.

“By honest introspection, by following one line of inquiry which is pure experience,” one can reach an understanding of consciousness, he said.

Ricard then addressed the topic of reincarnation and some individuals’ ability to remember past lives.

Arthur G. Zajonc, a professor emeritus of physics at Amherst College in Massachusetts, doesn’t consider himself a Buddhist he said. Yet, he added, “I meditate and through that, have come to believe in the possibility of reincarnation.”

The benefits of meditation and contemplative practice should not only be reserved to monks, Mr. Zajonc added. He explained that they could contribute to the education of any college undergraduate before quoting Albert Einstein: “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.”


This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 27, 2013

An earlier version of this post said Arthur G. Zajonc is a professor emeritus of physics at Harvard. He is a professor emeritus of physics at Amherst.

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Michelle Kwan's Wedding Brings Olympic Stars Together: Pics Then & Now





Catch up with Michelle Kwan and the all-star figure skaters who attended her Jan. 19 dream wedding








Credit: Caitlin Maloney



Updated: Friday Jan 25, 2013 | 05:00 PM EST
By: NANCY MATTIA AND CYNTHIA WANG




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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West


New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.


Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.


There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.


___


CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/


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The Lede Blog: Egypt's Soccer Riots, a View From the Ground

Video posted online appears to show fans of Cairo’s Al Ahly soccer team celebrating a court verdict.

It was one of the world’s deadliest episodes of soccer violence — a clash between fans of the Egyptian team Al Masry, of Port Said, and players and fans from Al Ahly, of Cairo, a year ago that killed 74 and wounded over 1,000.

On Saturday, a court in Cairo handed down death sentences for 21 of those involved in the riots. The violence that the verdict prompted, involving hard-core “ultra” supporters of both teams, killed at least 28 and wounded at least 300, my colleagues David Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh reported.

Pictures and video from Port Said and Cairo were markedly different. In Cairo, as the video at the top of this post shows, there were widespread celebrations. In Port Said, a city of about 600,000.

Rioters looted and burned a police barracks and set fire to a police station. They attacked members of the news media, damaging television cameras that sought to film the violence and ending their broadcasts. They closed off all roads into Port Said as well as the railroad station, and the Ministry of Electricity and Energy said rioters had attacked a power facility as well.

Video posted online appears to show protesters in Port Said.

In Cairo, Mr. Kirkpatrick and Ms. El Sheikh reported, the families of those killed in the clash last year “held pictures of the victims in the air. Some danced and chanted. A few fainted. And the Cairo ultras celebrated for hours outside their team’s headquarters.”

Video posted online appears to show celebrations in Cairo.

Tara Todras-Whitehill, a photographer in Cairo, posted further pictures of the celebrations on her Twitter account.

It was not immediately clear where the following picture also posted on Twitter, by Tom Gara of The Wall Street Journal, came from. But it apparently shows a man playing an accordion in the midst of one riot.

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Facebook founder to host fundraiser for New Jersey Governor Christie






(Reuters) – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla, will host a fundraiser for New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie at their California home on February 13, the social networking site said on Thursday.


Zuckerberg and Christie, a potential presidential contender in 2016, have teamed up before, when the tech guru donated $ 100 million to the struggling public schools in Newark, New Jersey, in 2010.






“Mark and Priscilla … admire his leadership on education reform and other issues and look forward to continuing their important work together on behalf of Newark’s school children,” Facebook said in a statement.


The blunt-spoken Christie is seeking re-election in November to a second term as governor. He took office in 2010.


Right now, he doesn’t seem to need much help as his approval rating skyrocketed after Superstorm Sandy hit the state last October. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday found that three-quarters of New Jersey voters approved of Christie’s performance and nearly seven in 10 say he deserves to be re-elected.


New Jersey Democrats also have not rallied behind a single challenger. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney has said he is considering running, but the poll found that Christie would easily defeat Sweeney.


Christie would also trounce Barbara Buono – who has said she will run against the governor – and possible challenger Richard Codey, the poll found. Both are Democratic state senators.


(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco and Hilary Russ in New York; Editing by Eric Beech)


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Liberty Ross Files for Divorce from Rupert Sanders















01/25/2013 at 08:20 PM EST







Liberty Ross


Michael Buckner/Wireimage


It's over for Rupert Sanders and Liberty Ross.

The Snow White and the Huntsman actress, 34, filed for divorce Friday from her director-husband Sanders, 41, in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday, PEOPLE confirms.

News of the filing comes about six months after Sanders's highly publicized cheating scandal with Huntsman's star, Kristen Stewart.

Stewart has since patched things up with boyfriend Robert Pattinson, who she was dating during the fling.

In the court documents, Ross seeks joint custody of the couple's two kids, 5 and 7, TMZ reports. She also asks for spousal support and attorney's fees.

Sanders, who has filed his response to the divorce petition, also seeks joint custody of the kids, and wants to share legal fees with Ross, according to TMZ.

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West


New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.


Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.


There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.


___


CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/


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Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.


Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.


The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> has gained 5.4 percent this year and closed above 1,500 - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> is 2.2 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007. The Dow ended Friday's session at 13,895.98, its highest close since October 31, 2007.


The S&P has risen for four straight weeks and eight consecutive sessions, the longest streak of days since 2004. On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended at 1,502.96 - its first close above 1,500 in more than five years.


"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, New Jersey. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."


The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is 3.1 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on October 11, 2007.


The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.


That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.


MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS COME BACK


All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.


Energy shares <.5sp10> lead the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials <.5sp20>, up 6.3 percent. Telecom <.5sp50>, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.


More than 350 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.


"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts , Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minnesota.


The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index <.spcy> has jumped 6.7 percent and the S&P mid-cap index <.mid> has shot up 7.5 percent so far this year.


Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.


"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.


The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.


JOBS DATA MAY TEST THE RALLY


In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.


Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.


The market's resilience could be tested next week with Friday's release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.


"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Alabama. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."


A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .


On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.


Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.


"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."


For the week, the Dow climbed 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent.


(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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The Lede Blog: A 'Black Bloc' Emerges in Egypt

While using Twitter to narrate events in Tahrir Square on Friday, people in Egypt described tires burning in the street, protesters blocking traffic and hurling rocks, and police officers launching tear gas in an effort to break up crowds that had gathered to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood and the country’s new Islamist president.

Many of the actions described on Friday appeared to hew to a script that has become familiar over the past two years, but some in the crowds of protesters appeared to be using new tactics, dressing from head to toe in black, covering their faces with bandannas or kerchiefs and brandishing black flags as they skirmished with security forces.

“Asked one of them who they are they said we don’t talk to media but we are black bloc,” wrote ‏the British-Egyptian journalist Sarah Carr, adding that a member of the group had “mentioned anarchism.”

An article filed on Thursday by The Associated Press reported the presence of a “previously unknown group calling itself the black block.” The article continued, “Wearing black masks and waving black banners, it warned the Muslim Brotherhood of using its ‘military wing’ to put down protests.”

Although largely new in Cairo, the term “black bloc” has been used for years in the United States and Europe to describe a tactic commonly used by anarchists and anticapitalists during large-scale political demonstrations that occasionally devolve into street fights with the authorities.

Participants in the bloc typically dress in black to foster a sense of unity and to make it difficult for witnesses to differentiate between individuals. Members of the bloc often blend in with larger groups of protesters, then break away, linking arms as they rush down streets.

In the United States, at least, black bloc members usually eschew violence against people but have few compunctions about damaging property.

The tactic received attention during the 1999 protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization, when youths dressed in black broke windows and spray-painted graffiti on buildings.

In St. Paul, during the 2008 Republican National Convention, black bloc members roamed through the city smashing bank windows and using hammers to batter a police car.

It is unclear whether there are any connections between American and Egyptian black bloc participants, but the site anarchistnews.org posted a message about occurrences in Cairo, quoting the blog Even If Your Voice Shakes.

Last night, anarchism left the graffitied walls, small conversations, and online forums of Egypt, and came to life in Cairo, declaring itself a new force in the ongoing social revolution sparked two years ago with multiple firebombings against Muslim Brotherhood offices. Later, the government shutdown the “Black Blocairo” and “Egyptian Black Bloc” Facebook pages, but they were soon re-launched.

The site went on to say that Egyptian anarchists had firebombed the Shura Council.

As my colleague Robert Mackey reports, an Egyptian journalist, Sarah El Sirgany, wrote on Twitter, “Vendors tell me it was the Black Block group that attempted to storm the Ikhwan Online building sparking the fight.”

Later, she added, “Now those who had continued the fight are heading to Tahrir, flag of Black Block flying high.”

Opinion on the black bloc in Egypt was not united. In a place where sexual assaults and gropings have become common, one Twitter user, Ghazala Irshad ‏@ghazalairshad, seemed to sound an admiring note: “Egypt’s new Black Bloc (self-proclaimed anti-MB militia) has female members too — just saw one running wearing niqab & angle-length skirt.”

But the activist bloggers Gigi Ibrahim ‏and Adel Abdel Ghafar were more skeptical.

This week a man named Ahmed Ibrahim, who has previously posted YouTube videos that appear to be from Egypt, posted a video titled “Black Bloc Egypt.”

Accompanied by driving music the video shows masked people marching while holding aloft black banners, a black flag with an anarchy symbol and an Egyptian flag.

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