Amid controversy, 2 leave Ford-Iroquois Public Health Department

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Ousted Ford-Iroquois Public Health Administrator Doug Corbett has accepted a buyout for the remaining weeks of his contract and a top assistant, Julie Clark, has resigned effective Friday.

Both have come under fire over a $123,000 no-bid contract awarded to a firm owned by Clark’s husband, Stanley Clark, to install solar energy equipment on health department buildings in Watseka and Paxton.

Both also were defendants in a lawsuit the health department settled last week with the Edgar County Watchdogs for violation of the Illinois Public Information Act. The suit requires the department to pay the public interest group $1,000 and acknowledge violation of the act.

Controversy within the health department surfaced at the beginning of the year when a plan to provide home healthcare in Indiana became public although the department's charter limits it to providing service in Ford and Iroquois counties.

The Indiana move was stopped. Then the health board decided to drop home healthcare entirely because it is available from other providers and the department lost heavily doing it.

Corbett has been administrator since March 2008. His buyout agreement, which Iroquois County officials received on Monday, will pay him $15,876 for the remainder of his contact, which ends Nov. 30, Iroquois County Board Chairman Rod Copas confirmed. However, Corbett was removed from the $89,000 job in early August, with pay through Nov. 30, and has been off the job since then. His pay for that period amounts to $29,700.

Clark has worked for the health department for most of the last 25 years. She started in 1988, but left for 11 months for another job, then returned. Her functions have included community health planner, tobacco program coordinator, quality adviser and public information officer.

Asked who has been running the department, Copas laughed a bit, then said: “the management team is kind of in charge of all the daily work of their departments. .... There is a lot of infighting. People think they’re in charge that aren’t. It’s the nature of the beast.”

With Corbett having signed the buyout agreement, the health board will look for an interim administrator. He said the consensus at Monday’s health board meeting was that a different firm will be hired to conduct a search for Corbett's replacement.

The department also is undergoing a forensic audit that Copas said will cost $50,000 to $60,000.

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U.N. experts leave Syria

Updated at August 31, 2013, 1:47 a.m. ET

BEIRUT U.N. chemical weapons experts have left Syria and crossed into neighboring Lebanon.

An Associated Press crew saw the U.N. personnel cross into Lebanon from Syria through the country's Masnaa border crossing early Saturday.

The team on Friday carried out a fourth and final day of inspection as they sought to determine precisely what happened in the Aug. 21 alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus.

The team took samples from victims for examination in laboratories in Europe.

As earlier reported by CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, the inspectors moved up their departure time Friday.

14 Photos

Play Video

A lot of the inspection team - interpreters and translators - left Syria Friday, but the core group was due to leave at 7 a.m. Saturday. That departure was accelerated Friday to 4 a.m. Saturday, which is an odd time to travel because the route the inspectors are taking - the road to Beirut - is known to be dangerous, Palmer reports.

It wasn't clear whether the departure change was related to a potential U.S. military strike, Palmer reports, but it does seem to be a last-minute and extraordinary decision.

The inspectors began their last day in Syria with a couple false starts as anxiety gripped Damascus residents amid strong signals that the U.S. was preparing to launch strikes in the country and the still-looming possibility of chemical weapons attacks.

The team of 20 scientists and other U.N. workers left their Damascus hotel Friday apparently hoping to revisit the suburbs where an alleged widespread chemical weapons attack left hundreds dead Aug. 21. They've been into the area three times already this week.

They turned back in just minutes, however, possibly because the regime of President Bashar Assad was continuing to shell the eastern Ghouta suburbs. Palmer reported hearing artillery fire as she reported live on "CBS This Morning" Friday.

U.N. experts leave a hotel in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 30, 2013.

/ AP Photo

Instead of making it into the suburbs, CBS News followed the inspectors to a Damascus military hospital, where they were to meet and interview six Syrian soldiers who also allegedly suffered from the effects of chemical agents of some sort upon entering into Ghouta.

Palmer reported that the men could have been manning roadblocks around the Ghouta suburbs when the attack occurred last week, or they could have been members of the Syrian army unit that, according to the government, discovered a large stockpile of chemical weapons belonging to rebel fighters in a tunnel in the area after the incident.

Play Video

Play Video

The inspectors are poised to return to the Netherlands in coming days, setting in motion a meticulous process of analyzing samples at specially accredited laboratories.

According to the team's U.N. mandate, the analysis will establish if a chemical attack took place, but not who was responsible for the attack that the White House said Friday killed 1,429 civilians, which is four times greater than previous estimates. The White House also said 426 of the victims were children.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Washington knows, based on intelligence, that the Syrian regime carefully prepared for days to launch a chemical weapons attack.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to get an initial briefing on the U.N. team's work this weekend from disarmament chief Angela Kane. It remains unclear exactly how long the process of examining samples will take.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which provided most of the 12-strong team of inspectors, has stringent guidelines for handling and testing samples at a chain of special labs around the world to ensure it delivers unimpeachable results — which could have far-reaching ramifications once they are reported at the United Nations in New York.

"It has to be accurate. The procedure has to be absolutely rigid and well-documented," former OPCW worker Ralf Trapp told The Associated Press on Friday.

Key to the procedure is a rock-solid chain of custody rules for the samples and analysis of each sample by two or possibly three different labs. The OPCW works with 21 laboratories around the world that have to pass a proficiency test each year to ensure their work meets the organization's standards.

Strictly documenting who has had custody of samples every step of their journey from the chaos of a Damascus war zone to the sterile serenity of a specially certified lab ensures that the material to be tested is what the inspectors say it is.

The labs, and even the inspectors themselves, will likely have been chosen from countries with a neutral stance on the Syrian conflict, experts say. Inspectors at the OPCW generally are analytical chemists and chemical weapons munitions experts.

Samples they gather are put in vials that are sealed and then put in a transport container that is also secured with a fiber-optic seal, said Trapp, who is now an independent disarmament consultant. Every time the container changes hands it is documented.

"A lot of stuff is built into the system to make sure nobody has tampered with the samples or replaced one with another," he said.

Once they have taken custody of the samples, chemists at the laboratories will test them for traces of chemicals banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The samples will be sent to two or three labs whose results will be cross-checked to ensure they match up, again reducing the chance of an inaccurate result.

The inspectors' mission has been shrouded in as much secrecy as is possible in Syria and will remain so once the team returns to the Netherlands.

There has been no official word on what type of samples they have gathered, but media reports suggest they collected soil that could be contaminated and swipes from munitions, along with blood and hair samples from victims and possibly even tissue from corpses, Trapp said.

Officials at the OPCW, headquartered in The Hague close to the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and the European Union's Europol police organization, say team members will make no comment on their return.

That means the first time their full findings are expected to be known will be after they are sent to U.N. headquarters in New York.

What remains unclear is when exactly that will happen. Trapp said the painstaking testing will take several days and the labs working on the samples won't sacrifice accuracy for the sake of quick results.

"In the current situation they would probably be pressed to speed up as much as they can, but there's always the risk if you speed it up too much that you will end up with results that could be contested by somebody," he said.

View the original article here

U.N. experts leave Syria

Updated at August 31, 2013, 1:47 a.m. ET

BEIRUT U.N. chemical weapons experts have left Syria and crossed into neighboring Lebanon.

An Associated Press crew saw the U.N. personnel cross into Lebanon from Syria through the country's Masnaa border crossing early Saturday.

The team on Friday carried out a fourth and final day of inspection as they sought to determine precisely what happened in the Aug. 21 alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus.

The team took samples from victims for examination in laboratories in Europe.

As earlier reported by CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, the inspectors moved up their departure time Friday.

14 Photos

Play Video

A lot of the inspection team - interpreters and translators - left Syria Friday, but the core group was due to leave at 7 a.m. Saturday. That departure was accelerated Friday to 4 a.m. Saturday, which is an odd time to travel because the route the inspectors are taking - the road to Beirut - is known to be dangerous, Palmer reports.

It wasn't clear whether the departure change was related to a potential U.S. military strike, Palmer reports, but it does seem to be a last-minute and extraordinary decision.

The inspectors began their last day in Syria with a couple false starts as anxiety gripped Damascus residents amid strong signals that the U.S. was preparing to launch strikes in the country and the still-looming possibility of chemical weapons attacks.

The team of 20 scientists and other U.N. workers left their Damascus hotel Friday apparently hoping to revisit the suburbs where an alleged widespread chemical weapons attack left hundreds dead Aug. 21. They've been into the area three times already this week.

They turned back in just minutes, however, possibly because the regime of President Bashar Assad was continuing to shell the eastern Ghouta suburbs. Palmer reported hearing artillery fire as she reported live on "CBS This Morning" Friday.

U.N. experts leave a hotel in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 30, 2013.

/ AP Photo

Instead of making it into the suburbs, CBS News followed the inspectors to a Damascus military hospital, where they were to meet and interview six Syrian soldiers who also allegedly suffered from the effects of chemical agents of some sort upon entering into Ghouta.

Palmer reported that the men could have been manning roadblocks around the Ghouta suburbs when the attack occurred last week, or they could have been members of the Syrian army unit that, according to the government, discovered a large stockpile of chemical weapons belonging to rebel fighters in a tunnel in the area after the incident.

Play Video

Play Video

The inspectors are poised to return to the Netherlands in coming days, setting in motion a meticulous process of analyzing samples at specially accredited laboratories.

According to the team's U.N. mandate, the analysis will establish if a chemical attack took place, but not who was responsible for the attack that the White House said Friday killed 1,429 civilians, which is four times greater than previous estimates. The White House also said 426 of the victims were children.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Washington knows, based on intelligence, that the Syrian regime carefully prepared for days to launch a chemical weapons attack.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to get an initial briefing on the U.N. team's work this weekend from disarmament chief Angela Kane. It remains unclear exactly how long the process of examining samples will take.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which provided most of the 12-strong team of inspectors, has stringent guidelines for handling and testing samples at a chain of special labs around the world to ensure it delivers unimpeachable results — which could have far-reaching ramifications once they are reported at the United Nations in New York.

"It has to be accurate. The procedure has to be absolutely rigid and well-documented," former OPCW worker Ralf Trapp told The Associated Press on Friday.

Key to the procedure is a rock-solid chain of custody rules for the samples and analysis of each sample by two or possibly three different labs. The OPCW works with 21 laboratories around the world that have to pass a proficiency test each year to ensure their work meets the organization's standards.

Strictly documenting who has had custody of samples every step of their journey from the chaos of a Damascus war zone to the sterile serenity of a specially certified lab ensures that the material to be tested is what the inspectors say it is.

The labs, and even the inspectors themselves, will likely have been chosen from countries with a neutral stance on the Syrian conflict, experts say. Inspectors at the OPCW generally are analytical chemists and chemical weapons munitions experts.

Samples they gather are put in vials that are sealed and then put in a transport container that is also secured with a fiber-optic seal, said Trapp, who is now an independent disarmament consultant. Every time the container changes hands it is documented.

"A lot of stuff is built into the system to make sure nobody has tampered with the samples or replaced one with another," he said.

Once they have taken custody of the samples, chemists at the laboratories will test them for traces of chemicals banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The samples will be sent to two or three labs whose results will be cross-checked to ensure they match up, again reducing the chance of an inaccurate result.

The inspectors' mission has been shrouded in as much secrecy as is possible in Syria and will remain so once the team returns to the Netherlands.

There has been no official word on what type of samples they have gathered, but media reports suggest they collected soil that could be contaminated and swipes from munitions, along with blood and hair samples from victims and possibly even tissue from corpses, Trapp said.

Officials at the OPCW, headquartered in The Hague close to the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and the European Union's Europol police organization, say team members will make no comment on their return.

That means the first time their full findings are expected to be known will be after they are sent to U.N. headquarters in New York.

What remains unclear is when exactly that will happen. Trapp said the painstaking testing will take several days and the labs working on the samples won't sacrifice accuracy for the sake of quick results.

"In the current situation they would probably be pressed to speed up as much as they can, but there's always the risk if you speed it up too much that you will end up with results that could be contested by somebody," he said.

View the original article here

U.N. experts leave Syria

Updated at August 31, 2013, 1:47 a.m. ET

BEIRUT U.N. chemical weapons experts have left Syria and crossed into neighboring Lebanon.

An Associated Press crew saw the U.N. personnel cross into Lebanon from Syria through the country's Masnaa border crossing early Saturday.

The team on Friday carried out a fourth and final day of inspection as they sought to determine precisely what happened in the Aug. 21 alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus.

The team took samples from victims for examination in laboratories in Europe.

As earlier reported by CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer, the inspectors moved up their departure time Friday.

14 Photos

Play Video

A lot of the inspection team - interpreters and translators - left Syria Friday, but the core group was due to leave at 7 a.m. Saturday. That departure was accelerated Friday to 4 a.m. Saturday, which is an odd time to travel because the route the inspectors are taking - the road to Beirut - is known to be dangerous, Palmer reports.

It wasn't clear whether the departure change was related to a potential U.S. military strike, Palmer reports, but it does seem to be a last-minute and extraordinary decision.

The inspectors began their last day in Syria with a couple false starts as anxiety gripped Damascus residents amid strong signals that the U.S. was preparing to launch strikes in the country and the still-looming possibility of chemical weapons attacks.

The team of 20 scientists and other U.N. workers left their Damascus hotel Friday apparently hoping to revisit the suburbs where an alleged widespread chemical weapons attack left hundreds dead Aug. 21. They've been into the area three times already this week.

They turned back in just minutes, however, possibly because the regime of President Bashar Assad was continuing to shell the eastern Ghouta suburbs. Palmer reported hearing artillery fire as she reported live on "CBS This Morning" Friday.

U.N. experts leave a hotel in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 30, 2013.

/ AP Photo

Instead of making it into the suburbs, CBS News followed the inspectors to a Damascus military hospital, where they were to meet and interview six Syrian soldiers who also allegedly suffered from the effects of chemical agents of some sort upon entering into Ghouta.

Palmer reported that the men could have been manning roadblocks around the Ghouta suburbs when the attack occurred last week, or they could have been members of the Syrian army unit that, according to the government, discovered a large stockpile of chemical weapons belonging to rebel fighters in a tunnel in the area after the incident.

Play Video

Play Video

The inspectors are poised to return to the Netherlands in coming days, setting in motion a meticulous process of analyzing samples at specially accredited laboratories.

According to the team's U.N. mandate, the analysis will establish if a chemical attack took place, but not who was responsible for the attack that the White House said Friday killed 1,429 civilians, which is four times greater than previous estimates. The White House also said 426 of the victims were children.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Washington knows, based on intelligence, that the Syrian regime carefully prepared for days to launch a chemical weapons attack.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to get an initial briefing on the U.N. team's work this weekend from disarmament chief Angela Kane. It remains unclear exactly how long the process of examining samples will take.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which provided most of the 12-strong team of inspectors, has stringent guidelines for handling and testing samples at a chain of special labs around the world to ensure it delivers unimpeachable results — which could have far-reaching ramifications once they are reported at the United Nations in New York.

"It has to be accurate. The procedure has to be absolutely rigid and well-documented," former OPCW worker Ralf Trapp told The Associated Press on Friday.

Key to the procedure is a rock-solid chain of custody rules for the samples and analysis of each sample by two or possibly three different labs. The OPCW works with 21 laboratories around the world that have to pass a proficiency test each year to ensure their work meets the organization's standards.

Strictly documenting who has had custody of samples every step of their journey from the chaos of a Damascus war zone to the sterile serenity of a specially certified lab ensures that the material to be tested is what the inspectors say it is.

The labs, and even the inspectors themselves, will likely have been chosen from countries with a neutral stance on the Syrian conflict, experts say. Inspectors at the OPCW generally are analytical chemists and chemical weapons munitions experts.

Samples they gather are put in vials that are sealed and then put in a transport container that is also secured with a fiber-optic seal, said Trapp, who is now an independent disarmament consultant. Every time the container changes hands it is documented.

"A lot of stuff is built into the system to make sure nobody has tampered with the samples or replaced one with another," he said.

Once they have taken custody of the samples, chemists at the laboratories will test them for traces of chemicals banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention. The samples will be sent to two or three labs whose results will be cross-checked to ensure they match up, again reducing the chance of an inaccurate result.

The inspectors' mission has been shrouded in as much secrecy as is possible in Syria and will remain so once the team returns to the Netherlands.

There has been no official word on what type of samples they have gathered, but media reports suggest they collected soil that could be contaminated and swipes from munitions, along with blood and hair samples from victims and possibly even tissue from corpses, Trapp said.

Officials at the OPCW, headquartered in The Hague close to the U.N.'s Yugoslav war crimes tribunal and the European Union's Europol police organization, say team members will make no comment on their return.

That means the first time their full findings are expected to be known will be after they are sent to U.N. headquarters in New York.

What remains unclear is when exactly that will happen. Trapp said the painstaking testing will take several days and the labs working on the samples won't sacrifice accuracy for the sake of quick results.

"In the current situation they would probably be pressed to speed up as much as they can, but there's always the risk if you speed it up too much that you will end up with results that could be contested by somebody," he said.

View the original article here

Survey: Half of new hires leave money on the table

(MoneyWatch) If you're not negotiating a job offer, you might be leaving money on the table -- and you'd have plenty of company. A new CareerBuilder survey of 2,076 hiring managers and human resource professionals and 2,999 U.S. workers found that 49 percent of employees don't negotiate job offers, even though 45 percent of employers are game for a little back and forth. Age was a key factor, with 55 percent of workers 35 years old and older not automatically accepting a first offer and only 45 percent of those between 18 and 24 years old doing the same. And while 54 percent of men entered into salary negotiation, slightly less -- 49 percent -- of women did.

I spoke to Brent Rasmussen, president of CareerBuilder North America, for his take on these interesting results:

MoneyWatch: What was surprising to you about these results?

Brent Rasmussen: It was a little surprising that 38 percent of employers said that if they couldn't meet a candidate's salary requirements, that they wouldn't be able to provide any additional perks like alternative work arrangements, more vacation time, a higher title, etc. For some entry-level roles, the employer may offer a standard package that they're not willing to change. But when it comes to high skill positions where the recruiting environment may be more competitive, companies need flexibility in what they can offer to secure the new hire.

MW: Were some employers willing to offer something else in lieu of greater salary?

BR: One third of employers said they are open to offering flexible schedules while 15 percent said they would allow employees to telecommute once a week. This reflects the growing emphasis companies are placing on providing a good work/life balance for their employees as they look to strengthen recruitment and retention efforts within their organizations.

MW: Why is it so unfortunate that half of candidates accept the initial offer?

BR: Many employers expect to negotiate, so they don't necessarily give you their best offer up front. If you jump on the initial offer, you may not see the full potential of what that employer is willing to pay you.

MW: Why do you think older workers were more willing to negotiate?

BR: Seasoned workers have more experience with negotiating, and they also have a longer work history to showcase skills and barter over the value they can bring to an organization.

MW: Why is it crucial for hiring mangers and candidates to have up-do-date industry salary stats?

BR: Employers who are not effectively tracking current compensation trends and staying competitive with wages for in-demand labor will be at a disadvantage. For candidates, you have a much better chance of making your case for higher compensation when you come to the discussion armed with third party research on average compensation for the job in your geographic area. It helps to validate the market value you are assigning to your expertise and experience.

View the original article here

DHS employee behind racist website on paid leave

WASHINGTON The Homeland Security Department says an employee who runs a racist website predicting and advocating a race war has been put on paid administrative leave.

An acquisitions officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who deals with small businesses, Ayo Kimathi, operates the website War on the Horizon. It includes descriptions of an "unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race." Kimathi is black.

Kimathi has been with the department since 2009. He was told Friday that he is being put on paid administrative leave.

His website criticizes whites, gays, those of mixed race, and blacks who integrate with whites. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, earlier this week reported on Kimathi's role in running the site.

Kimathi hasn't responded to email and phone calls requesting comment.

View the original article here

Egypt street clashes leave at least 82 dead

Updated 9:36 PM ET

CAIRO Egypt's capital descended into chaos Friday as vigilantes at neighborhood checkpoints battled Muslim Brotherhood-led protesters denouncing the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi and a deadly crackdown. The fiercest street clashes Cairo has seen in more than two years of turmoil left at least 82 people dead, including 10 policemen.

60 Photos

The sight of residents firing at one another marked a dark turn in the conflict, as civilians armed with pistols and assault rifles fought protesters taking part in what the Muslim Brotherhood called a "Day of Rage" — ignited by anger at security forces for clearing two sit-in demonstrations Wednesday that sparked nationwide clashes in which more than 600 people died.

Play Video

Military helicopters circled overhead as residents furious with the Brotherhood protests pelted marchers with rocks and glass bottles. The two sides also fired on one another, sparking running street battles throughout the capital's residential neighborhoods.

Across the country, at least 72 civilians were killed, along with 10 police officers, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Friday's violence capped off a week that saw more than 700 people killed across the country — surpassing the combined death toll from two and a half years of violent protests since the ouster of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak until the toppling of Morsi in a July 3 coup.

Play Video

Play Video

Unlike in past clashes between protesters and police, Friday's violence introduced a combustible new mix, with residents and police in civilian clothing battling those participating in the Brotherhood-led marches.

Few police in uniform were seen as neighborhood watchdogs and pro-Morsi protesters fired at one another for hours on a bridge that crosses over Cairo's Zamalek district, an upscale island neighborhood where many foreigners and ambassadors reside.

Friday's violence erupted shortly after midday prayers when tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters answered the group's call to protest across Egypt in defiance of a military-imposed state of emergency following the bloodshed earlier this week.

Reporting from Cairo, CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata said as soon as the mosques emptied, the squares filled with demonstrators. Security forces blocked off some of the main roads -- but protestors converged from every direction, leading to the bloody confrontation that followed.

Armed civilians manned impromptu checkpoints throughout the capital, banning Brotherhood marches from approaching and frisking anyone wanting to pass through. At one, residents barred ambulances and cars carrying wounded from Cairo's main battleground, Ramses Square, from reaching a hospital.

By choosing Ramses Square as the focus of Friday's demonstrations, the Brotherhood appeared to be trying to establish another protest site to replace the two forcibly cleared Wednesday — but this time in an area that cuts through the heart of Cairo. The area is near Tahrir Square, where the army put up barbed wire and deployed 30 tanks outside the Egyptian Museum overlooking the area as a buffer between the protesters and a small anti-Brotherhood encampment in the square.

Several of the protesters said they were ready to die, writing their names and relatives' phone numbers on one another's chests and undershirts in case they were killed in Friday's clashes.

Tawfik Dessouki, a Brotherhood supporter, said he was fighting for "democracy" and against the military's ouster of Morsi.

"I am here for the blood of the people who died. We didn't have a revolution to go back to a police and military state again and to be killed by the state," he said during a march headed toward Ramses Square.

Heavy gunfire rang out over a main overpass where pro-Morsi protesters were marching toward Ramses Square. Video online showed protesters trying to flee the bullets, with at least one person jumping off the high overpass and others hanging off the side. Some used a rope to get down. It was not immediately clear where the bullets were being shot from.

Alia Mostafa of the Anti-coup Alliance, a group that works closely with the Brotherhood, said snipers were shooting down at protesters in the Ramses Square area.

"Police are firing live ammunition from the roof tops of the nearby police station," she said.

At least 12 people were killed near the square as some in the crowd tried to attack a police station, security officials said. Inside Al-Fath mosque near Ramses Square, where the Brotherhood urged its Cairo supporters to converge, blood-soaked bodies with bullets to the head and chest lay next to one another.

An Egyptian man covered with blood shouts inside the Al-Fath mosque that is being used as a makeshift hospital and is receiving casualties from clashes between security forces and supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi in Ramses Square, downtown Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Aug. 16, 2013.

/ AP Photo/Khalil Hamra

The mosque-turned-morgue was also being used as a field hospital where the wounded were being wheeled in on wooden crates. One corpse had a name and phone number scribbled on the chest.

In his report, CBS News correspondent D'Agata indicated the emergency room to the hospital near the protests. Demonstrators have been marching straight into the gunfire. With the lack of ambulances, motorcycles were being used to evacuate the wounded. He described it as "pandemonium."

The Facebook page of the army spokesman, Col. Mohammed Ali, accused gunmen of firing from the mosque at nearby buildings. The upper floors of a commercial building towering over Ramses Square caught fire during the mayhem, with flames engulfing it for hours.

Dozens of protesters remained in the mosque overnight and military and police forces surrounded the area, raising fears a raid could lead to more bloodshed.

There was little hope that an evening curfew would curb the violence as the Muslim Brotherhood called on Morsi's supporters to stage daily protests.

Friday's violence highlighted how dangerous the divisions in Egypt have become as similar battles played out in cities across the country, where people brandishing weapons attacked police and residents fired at one another.

Gunmen targeted police check points and at least 10 police stations came under attack. Egypt's security forces were rocked by the country's 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak and have not fully recovered since.

In the canal city of Suez, 14 people were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces. In Egypt's second-largest city of Alexandria, 10 people were killed during clashes between the two rival camps. Security officials said violence was also fierce in the province of Fayoum, just west of Cairo, where seven people were killed during an attempt to storm the main security building there, a security official said. Two policemen died in the attack.

In the southern province of Minya, protesters attacked two Christian churches, security officials said. At churches across the country, residents formed human chains to try to protect them from further assaults, and a civilian was killed while trying to protect a church in Sohag, south of Cairo, authorities said.

View the original article here

Egypt street clashes leave at least 82 dead

Updated 9:36 PM ET

CAIRO Egypt's capital descended into chaos Friday as vigilantes at neighborhood checkpoints battled Muslim Brotherhood-led protesters denouncing the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi and a deadly crackdown. The fiercest street clashes Cairo has seen in more than two years of turmoil left at least 82 people dead, including 10 policemen.

60 Photos

The sight of residents firing at one another marked a dark turn in the conflict, as civilians armed with pistols and assault rifles fought protesters taking part in what the Muslim Brotherhood called a "Day of Rage" — ignited by anger at security forces for clearing two sit-in demonstrations Wednesday that sparked nationwide clashes in which more than 600 people died.

Play Video

Military helicopters circled overhead as residents furious with the Brotherhood protests pelted marchers with rocks and glass bottles. The two sides also fired on one another, sparking running street battles throughout the capital's residential neighborhoods.

Across the country, at least 72 civilians were killed, along with 10 police officers, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Friday's violence capped off a week that saw more than 700 people killed across the country — surpassing the combined death toll from two and a half years of violent protests since the ouster of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak until the toppling of Morsi in a July 3 coup.

Play Video

Play Video

Unlike in past clashes between protesters and police, Friday's violence introduced a combustible new mix, with residents and police in civilian clothing battling those participating in the Brotherhood-led marches.

Few police in uniform were seen as neighborhood watchdogs and pro-Morsi protesters fired at one another for hours on a bridge that crosses over Cairo's Zamalek district, an upscale island neighborhood where many foreigners and ambassadors reside.

Friday's violence erupted shortly after midday prayers when tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters answered the group's call to protest across Egypt in defiance of a military-imposed state of emergency following the bloodshed earlier this week.

Reporting from Cairo, CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata said as soon as the mosques emptied, the squares filled with demonstrators. Security forces blocked off some of the main roads -- but protestors converged from every direction, leading to the bloody confrontation that followed.

Armed civilians manned impromptu checkpoints throughout the capital, banning Brotherhood marches from approaching and frisking anyone wanting to pass through. At one, residents barred ambulances and cars carrying wounded from Cairo's main battleground, Ramses Square, from reaching a hospital.

By choosing Ramses Square as the focus of Friday's demonstrations, the Brotherhood appeared to be trying to establish another protest site to replace the two forcibly cleared Wednesday — but this time in an area that cuts through the heart of Cairo. The area is near Tahrir Square, where the army put up barbed wire and deployed 30 tanks outside the Egyptian Museum overlooking the area as a buffer between the protesters and a small anti-Brotherhood encampment in the square.

Several of the protesters said they were ready to die, writing their names and relatives' phone numbers on one another's chests and undershirts in case they were killed in Friday's clashes.

Tawfik Dessouki, a Brotherhood supporter, said he was fighting for "democracy" and against the military's ouster of Morsi.

"I am here for the blood of the people who died. We didn't have a revolution to go back to a police and military state again and to be killed by the state," he said during a march headed toward Ramses Square.

Heavy gunfire rang out over a main overpass where pro-Morsi protesters were marching toward Ramses Square. Video online showed protesters trying to flee the bullets, with at least one person jumping off the high overpass and others hanging off the side. Some used a rope to get down. It was not immediately clear where the bullets were being shot from.

Alia Mostafa of the Anti-coup Alliance, a group that works closely with the Brotherhood, said snipers were shooting down at protesters in the Ramses Square area.

"Police are firing live ammunition from the roof tops of the nearby police station," she said.

At least 12 people were killed near the square as some in the crowd tried to attack a police station, security officials said. Inside Al-Fath mosque near Ramses Square, where the Brotherhood urged its Cairo supporters to converge, blood-soaked bodies with bullets to the head and chest lay next to one another.

An Egyptian man covered with blood shouts inside the Al-Fath mosque that is being used as a makeshift hospital and is receiving casualties from clashes between security forces and supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi in Ramses Square, downtown Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Aug. 16, 2013.

/ AP Photo/Khalil Hamra

The mosque-turned-morgue was also being used as a field hospital where the wounded were being wheeled in on wooden crates. One corpse had a name and phone number scribbled on the chest.

In his report, CBS News correspondent D'Agata indicated the emergency room to the hospital near the protests. Demonstrators have been marching straight into the gunfire. With the lack of ambulances, motorcycles were being used to evacuate the wounded. He described it as "pandemonium."

The Facebook page of the army spokesman, Col. Mohammed Ali, accused gunmen of firing from the mosque at nearby buildings. The upper floors of a commercial building towering over Ramses Square caught fire during the mayhem, with flames engulfing it for hours.

Dozens of protesters remained in the mosque overnight and military and police forces surrounded the area, raising fears a raid could lead to more bloodshed.

There was little hope that an evening curfew would curb the violence as the Muslim Brotherhood called on Morsi's supporters to stage daily protests.

Friday's violence highlighted how dangerous the divisions in Egypt have become as similar battles played out in cities across the country, where people brandishing weapons attacked police and residents fired at one another.

Gunmen targeted police check points and at least 10 police stations came under attack. Egypt's security forces were rocked by the country's 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak and have not fully recovered since.

In the canal city of Suez, 14 people were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces. In Egypt's second-largest city of Alexandria, 10 people were killed during clashes between the two rival camps. Security officials said violence was also fierce in the province of Fayoum, just west of Cairo, where seven people were killed during an attempt to storm the main security building there, a security official said. Two policemen died in the attack.

In the southern province of Minya, protesters attacked two Christian churches, security officials said. At churches across the country, residents formed human chains to try to protect them from further assaults, and a civilian was killed while trying to protect a church in Sohag, south of Cairo, authorities said.

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