Mursi, Egypt army pledge lives in ‘final hours’ showdown

(Reuters) – Egypt’s army commander and Islamist President Mohamed Mursi each pledged his life to defy the other as a deadline approached on Wednesday that will trigger a military takeover backed by protesters.

The military chiefs, wanting to restore order in a country racked by protests over Mursi’s Islamist policies, issued a call to battle in a statement headlined “The Final Hours”. They said they were willing to shed blood against “terrorists and fools” after Mursi refused to give up his elected office.

Mursi said, “The price … is my life.”

Iran’s Ahmadinejad seeks strategic axis with Egypt

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the first visit to Cairo by an Iranian leader in more than three decades, called for a strategic alliance with Egypt and said he had offered the cash-strapped Arab state a loan, but drew a cool response.

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“We must all understand that the only option is to set up this alliance because it is in the interests of the Egyptian and Iranian peoples and other nations of the region,” the official MENA news agency quoted him in remarks to Egyptian journalists published on Wednesday.