Mubarak cleared: Egypt protests as ex-leader charges dropped

About 2,000 people massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the 2011 revolution. At least one person was reported killed in the clashes.
Mubarak was originally sentenced to life in jail then cleared in a retrial.
In a TV interview after the ruling, Mubarak said he did "nothing wrong".
The former president, 86, is serving a separate three-year sentence for embezzlement of public funds.
He is currently being held in a military hospital, and is expected to serve at least a few more months of this sentence.
Mubarak, his former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and six others had been convicted of conspiracy to kill and were sentenced to life in prison in June 2012, but a retrial was ordered last year on a technicality.
In all, some 800 people are thought to have been killed as security forces battled protesters in the weeks before Mubarak resigned on 11 February 2011.

'No justice'
 
Within hours of the court's decision, demonstrators arrived on Tahrir Square.
Liberal opponents of Mubarak were joined by supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Shortly after the arrival of the Islamists, police used water cannon and tear gas, driving the protesters into side streets.
The former president gave an interview by phone to private Sada al-Balad TV after he was cleared.
"I did nothing wrong at all," he said, adding that he had been "relying on God" while he awaited the decision.
Mubarak's elected successor, President Mohammed Morsi, lasted only a year in power before being ousted by the military in July 2013 during mass anti-government protests.

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US Black Friday quieter as bargains spread over two days

The traditional scrum of sharp elbows was notably less intense on Black Friday in the US this year.

The crowds, gathering at the US's big shopping centres, appeared to have exhausted some of their shopping enthusiasm on Thursday.
As last year, many retailers had opened their doors early to try to pull shoppers in ahead of rivals.
"The consumer clearly enjoys shopping on Thanksgiving," said Target's chief executive, Brian Cornell.
And, when opening the New York Stock Exchange for Friday's shortened day of trading, he welcomed the way the holiday season "has moved from an event on Black Friday morning to a multi-day event."
Many shoppers headed straight to the shops whilst still digesting their Thanksgiving turkey on Thursday, forming queues outside Macy's by 6pm on what is becoming known as "grey Thursday".

Target boss Brian Cornell welcomed the shift towards earlier shopping when opening trading at the NYSE

Cyber shopping But if footfall was subdued, online sales came to the fore.
Wal-Mart said Thursday was its second-highest online sales day ever after last year's Cyber Monday, the first Monday in December when many people order items they'd like to arrive in time for Christmas.
BestBuy's website went offline after what the company said was "a concentrated spike in mobile traffic."
The hope for many retailers is that the slowly improving US economy, combined with lower petrol prices, could push consumers to buy more than they have in recent memory.
Black Friday has been the top sales day of the year since 2005, according to ShopperTrak which tracks data on stores globally, beating into second place the Saturday before Christmas when last-minute shoppers stock up on Christmas gifts.

As with last year, many stores chose to open a day earlier on what is now being called "grey Thursday"

However, that could change this year as Thanksgiving shopping and online sales eat into Black Friday's peak performance.
Shift to labour
The earlier start to holiday shopping has placed even more focus on the plight of workers who must often leave their families in order to help shops open on Thanksgiving.
Outside a Wal-Mart in northern New Jersey, nearly a hundred members of the OUR Wal-Mart campaign - a coalition of unions and Wal-Mart employees - protested what they said were unfair working conditions at the nation's largest retailer.

Labour organisers and Walmart workers staged protests at 1,600 locations on Friday

Surrounded by dozens of police officers in the brisk cold, they chanted slogans like "Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart you're no good, treat your workers like you should" and waved banners.
Inside the store, however, Wal-Mart representatives disputed their claims.

"They're really not representative of our associates at all. Our associates are in here working hard and they're excited to be here. This is the most fun day of all," a Wal-Mart spokesperson, Bill Wertz, told the BBC.

Wal-Mart's Bill Wertz said the views of the protestors outside weren't indicative of most workers

And as for shoppers whose habits the protestors were hoping to influence?
"It does affect my shopping affect my shopping, I told myself I wasn't going to purchase too much," says Gary Philip, a shopper walking into the store.
"But," he added, "I couldn't resist on getting a tree for a better price."

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Pope Francis due in Turkey for historic visit

Pope Francis will arrive in Turkey shortly for what is billed as a historic trip to help interfaith dialogue in the country.

At the start of the three-day tour he is set to meet newly-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
He then plans to visit Istanbul for a meeting with the head of the Orthodox Christian church.
It will be only the fourth time in history that a pope has visited Muslim-majority Turkey.
During his trip Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Istanbul's Sultan Ahmed mosque, the 17th Century place of worship popularly known as the Blue Mosque.
He is also due to sign a joint declaration with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, on trying to bridge the divides between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.

The Pope (left) is due to meet Patriarch Bartholomew I (right) during his visit

The visit comes at a time of heightened political sensitivity in the region.
Turkey is now home to at least 1.6 million refugees from war-torn Syria, most of them living close to the border separating the two countries.
According to the BBC's Turkey correspondent Mark Lowen, there is a humanitarian angle to Pope Francis's trip.
Many expect him to touch on the plight of the region's refugees, he said.
In an interview on the eve of his visit, the Pope made his feelings on the Syrian conflict known.
He told an Israeli newspaper that the persecution of Christians in the region is "the worst" it has been since Christianity's earliest days.
Although most of Turkey's 80 million citizens are Muslims, there are around 120,000 Christians in the country - once the centre of the Orthodox Christian world.

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Former Tory minister Owen Paterson to urge UK's EU exit

Ex-environment secretary Owen Paterson will tell business leaders the UK could flourish economically outside the EU.
The move is likely to put pressure on the prime minister, amid Tory divisions over the party's position on Europe.
David Cameron says he wants to renegotiate the UK's EU membership ahead of an in/out referendum by 2017.
The prime minister's promise to hold a vote on Europe if the Conservatives win the next election was interpreted by some as an attempt to halt the rise of UKIP, which senior Tories feared could prevent them from winning an overall majority at next May's general election.
But four days after UKIP defeated the Tories in the Rochester and Strood by-election, Mr Paterson will suggest to Mr Cameron he has to be prepared to leave the EU if he wants negotiations on a new relationship with Brussels to succeed.
He is expected to urge him to give a manifesto commitment to invoking article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
This would give formal notice of Britain's intention to quit the EU and would

spark two years of negotiations ahead of a 2017 referendum.
Mr Paterson, who lost his Cabinet job in the summer, will use his speech in London to the Eurosceptic Business for Britain group to say making such a pledge could be "enormously attractive to uncommitted voters".
And he will say it would give the UK's negotiators a very clear mandate.
Mr Paterson will also make clear that his own preferred option would be for the UK to withdraw from the political structures of the EU and instead, like Norway, forge a trade deal, which would include access to the single market.
"The eurozone has already embarked upon a path that we can never follow. We are simply recognising that reality. We must either be fully committed to 'Le Project' or we must build an entirely new relationship," he will say.
Downing Street has not commented ahead of the speech.

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