MPLA preponderates

Buttressed by its landslide victory, Angola's ruling party must act now with a new mandate to bolster confidence among the country's youth, contends Gamal Nkrumah A man looks at a copy of the ballot poster at the entrance of a polling station in the Angolan capital Luanda during national elections

Wherever he goes Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, Africa's leading Communist capitalist cannot escape the question. When will the trickle-down effect impact the poorest of the poor in the third largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa and Nigeria -- except that South Africa has a population of 50 million and Nigeria a population of 170 million while Angola only has 20 million. With two-digit economic growth rates over the past decade half of the Angolan population lives below the poverty line.

The United Nations Human Development Index ranks Angola 148th out of 187 countries -- a paradoxically poor performance for one of Africa's wealthiest countries, one blessed with minerals galore, oil and natural gas, and tremendous agricultural potential.

Dos Santos understands that Angola is on course to become an African energy superpower, and the rejuvenation of Angola's capital city and other urban centres is a hopeful sign that the scars of the three decades long civil war are fast healing. Moreover, Angola long involved militarily in its northern neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war, has long pulled out of the Congolese imbroglio.

Angola's National Electoral Commission declared the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (better known by its Portuguese acronym MPLA) as having won a landslide victory of 72 per cent. Its onetime arch rival the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) scooped barely 19 per cent, almost doubling its 2008 tally. UNITA never survived the crushing blow of the assassination of its charismatic leader Jonas Savimbi, an ethnic Ovimbundu, in 2002.

The newly formed political party, the Salvation Electoral Commission CASA-CE trailed behind as a poor third with no more than six per cent. Predictably enough, what the Angolan media played down was that the turnout was down from 80 per cent during the last general elections in 2008 to 60 per cent last week.

"We will not allow a fraud to take place and we will not recognise the legitimacy of any government resulting from elections held outside the law," UNITA's leader Isaias Samakura ominously cautioned before the elections. The turnout in the Angolan capital Luanda, traditionally an MPLA stronghold, was less than 50 per cent. Meanwhile, the MPLA's campaign cost $70 million -- a substantial sum by African standards. UNITA, CASA-CE and civil society groups filed complaints and threatened a legal challenge.

Even now with Savimbi long dead, the doubters are asking many questions, a number of them reasonable enough, about the pace and process of multi-party democracy in Angola.

With its fabulous wealth the country, and the ruling party, do not want to be remembered as one of the wretchedly brief experiments in half-baked African democracies. The restless youth seem determined to run their own affairs, whatever the MPLA government may say. Dos Santos insists that Angola at least is heading in the right direction.

Angolans must be given the chance to disprove these prejudices against African democracy. The MPLA's role model appears to be South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) -- a party that has monopolised power since the end of apartheid on 1994. Both South Africa's ANC and Angola's MPLA claim to be parties of the left -- in the MPLA's case it is avowedly a party with Marxist roots.

What was once Angola's Achilles heel is becoming a competitive advantage. The country was depopulated in the course of five centuries by Portuguese slave traders shipping hapless Angolans to Brazil primarily and South America more generally.

Next, the Portuguese instituted one of the most brutish colonial regimes on the African continent with ruthless exploitation of the peasantry and indentured labour. The Portuguese colonialists deliberately foisted tribal divisions and encouraged ethnic and tribal identities in a most ruinous divide and rule policy.

Angola's low population density has now become a decisive advantage. Still, Angola's ramshackle public services desperately need upgrading. The country has one of the highest rates of disabled people as direct result of the calamitous civil war that claimed the lives of countless Angolans. Dilapidated roads hamper rural development. It is against this grim backdrop that social tensions are brewing.

The Angolan capital Luanda has been home to the largest population of mixed race, or Mestizos residents in Africa, and they formed the basis of the MPLA to begin with. The Mestizos provided the bulk of the early nationalist, anti-colonial leaders and rank and file of the MPLA. Angola's late first president Augustino Neto and the current leader Eduardo dos Santos hail from the Mestizo community.

The MPLA has not yet quite shaken off that particular legacy yet, much to the chagrin of the Bantu groups, numerically far superior, such as the Ovimbundu, the country's most populous ethnic group, the closely related Mbundu and the Bakongo. Tribalism inevitably aggravates inequality, and political tribalism has played a dangerous, destructive and disgraceful role in Angolan politics.

The butchery was unsparing. The Angolan civil war ended exactly a decade ago in 2002. And, even as the MPLA attempts to attract a bigger following by staging musical festivals and carnivals where music blares and beer flows, anti-MPLA hip-hop blasting from the speakers of Luanda's candongeiros -- local dance halls. And, not to be outdone, the gangsters, or gatunos (criminals), and jobless youths wreaking havoc in the sprawling shantytowns surrounding Luanda deface the natural beauty and exuberance of the Angolan environment and its people.

None of this is an excuse for failing to act or stifling criticism. In Angola, like in South Africa, there is no time for tribalism. But there are serious differences between the ANC and the MPLA.

Angola urgently needs a more diversified economy. Strong energy revenues have not benefited the most disadvantaged groups of Angolans. South Africa's domestic market could form a solid foundation for its manufacturers to become exporters, reducing its dependence on minerals and agricultural produce. There is a fair amount of industry left in post-apartheid South Africa and that has prospects of competing in the regional, continental and international markets. Angola is bound to rely on energy and minerals for its economic growth and prosperity.

This is the root of it all -- slavery, colonialism and civil war. One of the under-appreciated trends is the rich musical tradition that gives the country its special character. The country is famous for its Kizomba dance and musical style with soft melodies to match the fast-paced Kuduru Techno-House music unique to Angola. Kizomba, Angola's answer to Argentina's Tango is a derivative of Semba, the traditional seductive Bantu "touch of the bellies" dance.

Kazutuka, Kabetula are Congolese, or Bakongo-style dances from northern Angola and the Rebita dance, like Kizomba is danced to songs with Portuguese lyrics. Kilapanda and Angolan Merengue stir the spirit of the nation. Angola's rich cultural heritage lends it a unique place in Africa and the Lusophone world.

If only. There is also the current trend of corruption in high places. And, the spectre of tribalism and ethnic strife haunts the sprawling country. The Ambundu, or northern Mbundu, who constitute around a quarter of the population of the country rival the southern Mbundu, or Ovimbundu, Angola's largest ethnic group constituting around 40 per cent of the total population of the country. The Bakongo in the far north are the third largest ethnic group with slightly less than 15 per cent of the Angolan population.

From its Marxist beginnings, the MPLA today appears as a plutocratic party of the prosperous top echelons of government and the inner circle of Dos Santos and well-to-do family members and high-ranking officials. Cranes and cement-mixers toil relentlessly in the fast-expanding Angolan capital. And Angolans have largely put down their guns to dance and enjoy their spectacular beaches.

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Rab-genome analysis reveals novel insights in Weibel-Palade body exocytosis

Advance Online Publication August 16, 2012 doi: 10.1242/?jcs.104174 Weibel-Palade bodies (WPBs) are endothelial-specific organelles, which, upon fusion with the plasma membrane, release cargo molecules that are essential in critical blood vessel functions such as thrombosis, inflammation and angiogenesis. Despite the importance of WPBs, the basic mechanisms that mediate their secretion are only poorly understood. Rab GTPases play fundamental role in the trafficking of intracellular organelles. Yet, the only known WPB-associated Rabs are Rab27a and Rab3d. Here, to determine the full spectrum of WPB-Rabs we performed a complete Rab-genome screening by analyzing the localization of all Rabs in WPBs and their involvement in the secretory process in endothelial cells. Apart from Rab3 and Rab27, we identified three additional Rabs, Rab15 (a previously reported endocytic Rab), Rab33 and Rab37, on the WPB limiting membrane. A knocking down approach using siRNAs showed that among these five WPB-Rabs only Rab3, Rab27 and Rab15 are required for exocytosis. Intriguingly, we found that Rab15 cooperates with Rab27a in WPB secretion. Furthermore, a specific effector of Rab27, Munc13-4, appears to be also an effector of Rab15 and is required for WPB exocytosis. These data indicate that WPB secretion requires the coordinated function of a specific group of Rabs and that, among them, Rab27a and Rab15, as well as their effector Munc13-4, cooperate to drive exocytosis.

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A grim prophecy in festive robes

Nehad Selaiha watches the first fruit of a cooperation protocol between the State Theatre and Cultural Palaces organisations

So far, the 25 January revolution has effected no material change in the structure, organization, working methods, or funding policies of the public theatre sector. Nor was such a change to be credibly expected in view of the rapid succession of ministers of culture we have had so far (5 ministers in less than 2 years). Key positions in the ministry remain in the hands of the same old familiar faces, all nearing the age of retirement, and are bandied about amongst them in the semblance of a ridiculous game of musical chairs. No wonder that the upgrading of poet Saad Abdel Rahman to the post of head of the Cultural Palaces organization, where he served for years, or the transference of Naser Abdel Mon'im from the headship of the National Theatre Centre to that of the State Theatre Sector have left things pretty much the same as they found them and both seem happy to let the old, halting machines creak along on the same old rusty rails until such time as they inevitably grind to a stop. No fresh visions or reform plans have come from either. More depressingly still, no word from Abdel Mon'im about the long delayed restoration of the National theatre, destroyed by fire on Saturday, 27 September, 2008 and still in ruins, and no word from Abdel Rahman about rebuilding El-Samer theatre, recklessly pulled down in 1985 to be replaced by an ambitious theatrical complex that never materialized.

With the same endemic bureaucracy still bedeviling the Cultural Palaces and crippling its performance, and with the State Theatre growing more anaemic, presenting fewer plays of poorer quality than before the revolution, it was natural, perhaps, that the two organizations should lean on each other for support. Rather than individually address their basic problems and initiate reform, the 2 organisations have recently signed a 'cooperation protocol' which allows troupes belonging to both establishments to pool their resources and work together in joint productions. The first fruit of this project was Madad Ya Shikanara! (Succor, O Shikanara!), a co-production by the Youth State Theatre and Al-Samer Cultural Palaces Company, written by Mohamed Amin Abdel Samad and directed by Adel Hassan. It opened on 9 July (and is still running at the time of writing this article) in a colourful, roofless marquee, pitched for the occasion on the derelict site of the old demolished El-Samer.

Though the show was good, as I shall soon demonstrate, the choice of venue, if it can be called a choice, was painfully ironical. Here were two major theatre-making state organizations, joining forces in a worthy initiative, and the only space they could come up with to house it was this rugged, rat-infested, walled-in piece of waste land! This alone speaks volumes about the dire shortage of suitable performance spaces in Egypt and the decades-long criminal neglect of the infrastructure of theatre. Not only is the Samer company without a home, but so is also the Youth theatre. It has recently lost its original modest venue, the Yusef Idris small hall at El-Salaam theatre, which is the headquarter of the Modern State Theatre Company, when the whole building, with its two halls, rehearsal spaces and offices, was declared unsafe and put out of action after a minor fire in the basement of the adjacent Academy of Scientific Research, to which the theatre originally belonged before it was rented (or taken over) by the ministry of culture.

As a result, the Modern Theatre Company has temporarily taken refuge in Al-Hanager Centre, thus usurping for a time, and may be forever, the only state-run place in Cairo that is supposed to nurture independent artists and theatre troupes. Moreover, the Youth Theatre's other, modest venue ?ê" the Small hall of the Floating Theatre in Giza (originally the home base of the Children's Theatre Company) ?ê" is currently closed for repairs and maintenance, and so is the big hall of the same theatre which serves as the venue of The Comedy Theatre Company. With so many homeless companies and such few venues to go round, not to mention the bureaucracy, mismanagement meager budgets and outdated technical equipment, theatre-making in Egypt has become a real nightmare. And yet, artists go on making theatre, distilling magic out of the ugly, the painful and the mundane

The primitiveness and technical shortcomings of the venue were uppermost in my mind as I made my way to see Shikanara. I had seen scores of visiting provincial shows in that same spot, shabbily mounted on small, rickety, make-shift stages, with pathetic lighting and sound facilities, drab curtains and no wings, and had unfailingly writhed with embarrassment for the poor actors. This time, however, as soon as I stepped inside the tent, all my fears were dispelled. Stage designer Mohamed Gaber had made a virtue of all the evils of the place, transforming the derelict site of the demolished El-Samer into a brilliantly lit fairground, in an old quarter of Cairo, during preparations for an annual celebration of some holy sheikh. It struck me as an Egyptian version of what I have always imagined the setting of Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fayre (a comedy written in 1614) to look like. At the back of the gaily coloured marquee, near the entrance, was a modest, make-shift caf??, selling a variety of hot and cold drinks to the audience, in the middle, a children's roundabout, on one side at the far end, a puppet sideshow, on the other, facing it, a live band of folk musicians and singers in their long, traditional robes and turbans, while two painted clowns in motley, a dervish in rags, with rosaries and strings of beads round his neck and swinging a censer, and a fortuneteller in a gypsy costume moved freely among the seated audience, talking and joking with them. One side of the marquee was built to look like a typical old Cairene alley, with a domed holy shrine, a traditional, popular caf??, a newsstand, some shops, and a high archway, suggesting other alleys beyond, and flanked on both sides with attics, rooftops and lattice windows. It would have been wonderful had that structure extended to enclose the whole space within, spreading the action round the audience and allowing them to walk freely around or move their seats as they liked. This, however, would have required more extras, raw material and work and proved all together too expensive. As it was, when the show proper began, the carnival atmosphere retreated to the built side of the marquee, which remained the only lit place and, except for occasional forays by the clowns among the audience, was the sole acting area.

The curious, intriguing title of the play, Madad Ya Shikanara, is deliberately facetious and pointedly satirical; it blatantly joins the sacred and profane, using the word 'madad' (Succor), a prayer or call for help strictly reserved by tradition for sacred figures, to address an imaginary burlesque of a holy man carrying a funny-sounding, nonsensical name. Judging by his name, this Shikanara was most likely a charlatan, an invention of a conman, a figment of some crazed imagination, or a creation of a mind stuffed with drugs or steeped in alcohol. His shrine, however, or, rather, the lucrative, influential job of 'shrine servant', which carries immense power and authority, is the focus of the play and its primum mobile. When the job falls vacant due to the death of its holder, the conflict erupts over whom to succeed him. The conflict divides the alley dwellers, triggering words and deeds that reveal the socioeconomic structure of this little community (a microcosm of Egypt), its clashing interests and ideological differences. Though the wealthy merchants and the leaders of various religious sects vie for the job among themselves, they, nevertheless, band together against the working poor and join forces with the police to wheedle, cheat, and/or terrorize them. Needy, ignorant, and long intimidated, the working poor are at first reluctant to defy their oppressors and waste time quarrelling among themselves over trifles and nursing petty feuds and grudges, thus becoming more vulnerable and easier to infiltrate and deceive. Eventually, however, they are aroused by the intellectual rebel Ghareeb (Stranger in Arabic) who comes amongst them from no-one-knows-where and earns his living as a waiter in the alley's caf??. He preaches resistance, unity and the sharing of power through democratic elections and eventually succeeds in getting them to choose a candidate from among their own ranks and to go to the polls and cast their votes.

Suddenly, however, Ghareeb disappears as mysteriously as he appeared and is rumoured to have been killed. Subsequently, the elections are rigged by the policeman and his agents in favour of the candidate supported by the regime and all the groups ?ê" the working people, the business men, and the warring religious factions ?ê" are furious and suspicious and hurl accusations of treachery and collusion with the regime at each other. The play ends with a gang of long-bearded, white-robed, fierce-looking and gun-waving Salafis suddenly invading the alley through the archway, as if to quell all fights and impose their laws. Whether they will take over the shrine or not is a question the play leaves open. The final scene is a tableau vivant in which all the parties in the conflict, including the newcomers, stand still, glaring at each other.

But this is not the only question the play leaves open; another and more intriguing one concerns the shrine; that it is a metaphor is obvious; but a metaphor for what? For Egypt? For political power? For political Islam? It is a credit to Mohamed Amin Abdel Samad, the author of the Shikanarqa text, that one can convincingly argue in favour of all three answers and still the meaning remains uncertain, dubious and teasingly elusive. One wonders if this short, serious, and thought-provoking political play will gain in concentration and clarity if presented without the many frills contributed by director Adel Hassan, particularly the many religious chants and folk songs contributed at short intervals by Samir Azmi, accompanied by the South Folk and Popular Music Band, the lively antics of the two delightful clowns, Mohamed El-Nabawi and Nawal El-'Adl, and the qaraqoz puppet show presented by Mohamed Abdel Fattah.

In the absence of those frills, however, some of the play's flaws, like its weak characterization and occasional preachy tone, may become more glaring. It is true that the actors seemed at times irritated and distracted by the constant intrusion of music and song; in the absence of such interruptions, however, parts of their dialogue and some of their speeches might have come across as somewhat pallid, repetitive, unconvincing, or underwritten. Purists may argue that Hassan's amusing frills and the festive ambience contributed by Mohamed Gaber's design may have diluted the drama a bit, and possibly blunted the political edge of the play's warning. But one can also counter argue that thanks to the director's and designer's combined imaginative efforts, Abdel Samad's somewhat dry text gained a vibrant, attractive theatrical dimension and its important message was put across in an entertaining popular form that drew audiences and made the show a definite success.

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President keeps the pressure on Damascus

The anti-Assad line expressed by Mursi in Tehran last week is reiterated at the Arab League in unequivocal terms, reports Dina Ezzat

"Syria, Syria, Syria: You have to do something; it is all up to you and we are here to support you," said President Mohamed Mursi Wednesday morning.

Mursi's statement was made before the opening session of the Arab League Foreign Ministers Council, at the Cairo headquarters of the pan-Arab organisation.

The statement was received with applause from Arab League Secretary-General Nabil El-Arabi and most participating Arab delegations.

Mursi's speech was the first by an Egyptian head of state at the Arab League since ousted President Hosni Mubarak attended the inauguration of a meeting on Iraqi reconciliation seven years ago. Unlike the mild statements Mubarak made then, Mursi's presence and language were uncompromising -- especially on Syria.

"I am telling the ruling regime in Syria that your rule shall not last for long. The Syrian people have said their word, and it is the Syrian people that will have the upper hand," Mursi said.

"I would advise you to refrain from listening to those who are telling you that your rule can persist. I urge you to take the right decision now and not later when it will be too late. You need to part with arrogance and to bow to reality. The Syrian people no longer wants you," he added, addressing -- though he was not present -- Bashar Al-Assad directly.

The president lamented the endless bloodshed suffered by the Syrian people every day, and said that Arab failure to act in support of the Syrian people makes the whole Arab nation responsible for their ordeal.

Mursi's statements came less than a week after harshly criticising the Syrian regime at the opening session of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran. He went as far as equating the Syrian regime with the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Mursi's attack elicited a pointed response by a Syrian diplomat who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly. "Mursi is going the extra mile to appease the Americans. What he is saying is meant to pave the way for wide Arab support for a diplomatic and maybe even military intervention that would be led by the US against Syria," he said.

The Syrian diplomat added that the "attack" is in line with "US directives sent to Cairo through its new Arab ally in Doha". "It is such a shame that Egypt has become a follower of Qatar," he said.

The emir of Qatar is the only head of state to have visited Mursi, mid-August, since he was sworn into office 30 June. Mursi and his Qatari counterpart have met twice since, both on the fringes of an extraordinary summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Mecca, late August, and in Tehran last week.

A presidential aide who spoke to the Weekly denies that the position adopted by Mursi against Syria is the outcome of Egyptian-Qatari diplomatic coordination. "It is a function of the fact that we really see that this regime [in Damascus] has no chance to stay in power."

Meanwhile, the recently assigned UN-Arab League envoy on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected in Cairo in a few days ahead of beginning his mission in the wake of the failure of his predecessor, Kofi Annan.

According to Arab -- including Syrian -- diplomats, Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and an acclaimed international diplomat, has little chance to make a breakthrough in the current crisis in Syria, which started with pro-reform demonstrations in March 2011 and which met a severe military response.

The Syrian opposition, divided as it is, agrees on one thing: Al-Assad has to go. The Syrian regime, however, is not willing to talk about a power transition from Al-Assad and is fighting to survive with some democratic reforms.

Also hindering Brahimi is division within the UN Security Council, with Russia and China still determined to support the Al-Assad regime.

In his speech, Mursi expressed faith in Brahimi.

As Mursi was exiting the Arab League Wednesday, demonstrators gathering not far from the Tahrir Square headquarters of the Arab organisation were shouting: "Down, down with Al-Assad, the butcher of the Syrian people!"

On Tuesday evening, Syrian and sympathetic Egyptian and Arab demonstrators attempted to attack the Syrian embassy in Cairo. Egyptian security forces defended the premises with dozens injured on both sides.

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Deconstructing the third dimension - how 3D culture microenvironments alter cellular cues

Advance Online Publication July 13, 2012 doi: 10.1242/?jcs.079509 July 1, 2012 J Cell Sci 125, 3015-3024. Brendon M. Baker and Christopher S. Chen*

Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, 210 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA ?*Author for correspondence (chrischen{at}seas.upenn.edu) Much of our understanding of the biological mechanisms that underlie cellular functions, such as migration, differentiation and force-sensing has been garnered from studying cells cultured on two-dimensional (2D) glass or plastic surfaces. However, more recently the cell biology field has come to appreciate the dissimilarity between these flat surfaces and the topographically complex, three-dimensional (3D) extracellular environments in which cells routinely operate in vivo. This has spurred substantial efforts towards the development of in vitro 3D biomimetic environments and has encouraged much cross-disciplinary work among biologists, material scientists and tissue engineers. As we move towards more-physiological culture systems for studying fundamental cellular processes, it is crucial to define exactly which factors are operative in 3D microenvironments. Thus, the focus of this Commentary will be on identifying and describing the fundamental features of 3D cell culture systems that influence cell structure, adhesion, mechanotransduction and signaling in response to soluble factors, which – in turn – regulate overall cellular function in ways that depart dramatically from traditional 2D culture formats. Additionally, we will describe experimental scenarios in which 3D culture is particularly relevant, highlight recent advances in materials engineering for studying cell biology, and discuss examples where studying cells in a 3D context provided insights that would not have been observed in traditional 2D systems.

Key words Funding

This work was supported in part from grants from the NIH [grant numbers EB00262, EB08396, HL73305, GM74048] and Center for Engineering Cells and Regeneration of the University of Pennsylvania. B.M.B. acknowledges financial support from a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award. Deposited in PMC for release after 12 months.

This article is part of a Minifocus on Mechanotransduction. For further reading, please see related articles: ‘Finding the weakest link – exploring integrin-mediated mechanical molecular pathways’ by Pere Roca-Cusachs et al. (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3025-3038). ‘Signalling through mechanical inputs – a coordinated process’ by Huimin Zhang and Michel Labouesse (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3039-3049). ‘United we stand – integrating the actin cytoskeleton and cell–matrix adhesions in cellular mechanotransduction’ by Ulrich S. Schwarz and Margaret L. Gardel (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3051-3060). ‘Mechanosensitive mechanisms in transcriptional regulation’ by Akiko Mammoto et al. (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3061-3073). ‘Molecular force transduction by ion channels – diversity and unifying principles’ by Sergei Sukharev and Frederick Sachs (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3075-3083).

© 2012. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd

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Controversial new posts

Recent appointments by the Shura Council to the National Council of Human Rights and the state-owned newspapers have renewed concerns over the apparent Islamisation of the country, reports Reem Leila

Members of the Shura Council's general committee met to endorse the final list of members of the Supreme Press Council and to name the new board chairmen of state-owned newspapers on 4 September. The new appointments came just 24 hours after the council had announced the formation of a new National Council of Human Rights (NCHR).

There will be 80 members of the NCHR, 27 of them appointed and forming the council's permanent members. The remaining members will be consultants to the council and will meet with the permanent members once each month. The NCHR's secretary-general will be elected from among the council's appointed members, or chosen from outside the council as stipulated by law.

The appointments made by the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt's parliament, are the second since the toppling of former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. During the meeting of the council's general committee, council speaker Ahmed Fahmi refused nominations made by the council's human rights committee to the NCHR, saying that these should be made "by members of the Shura Council's general committee" instead.

According to Ezzeddin El-Komi, deputy chairman of the Shura Council's Human Rights Committee, the council had agreed to appoint judge Hossam El-Gheriani as head of the NCHR and leftist Abdel-Ghaffar Shokr as deputy. El-Gheriani is known to be an Islamist-leaning figure.

Among the 80 members are four Copts, Georgette Quillini, a lawyer and former MP, Edward Ghaleb, a member of the Coptic Church's Confessional Council, veteran writer Louis Greis, and Ihab El-Kharrat, head of the council's Human Rights Committee.

The council will also include Islamist figures, among them Mohamed Tosson, a prominent lawyer from the Muslim Brotherhood and former chairman of its legislative committee, Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud, another Brotherhood lawyer, who defended Khairat El-Shater when the Supreme Electoral Committee excluded the latter from the presidential race, Nader Bakkar, spokesman of the Salafist Nour Party, and Mahmoud Ghozlan, a Brotherhood spokesman who was imprisoned three times in 2002, 2005 and 2007 for opposing the previous regime.

Mohamed El-Beltagui, a prominent leader of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has also been appointed to the NCHR. El-Beltagui was an MP in 2005, but withdrew from the 2010 parliamentary elections upon the instructions of the Muslim Brotherhood. He is famous for defending the Palestinian cause.

Other figures include Abdallah Badran, head of the Nour Party bloc in the Shura Council, who is known for having criticised former prime minister Kamal El-Ganzouri and members of his government for not attending sessions of parliament. Ahmed Seif El-Islam, secretary-general of the Lawyers Syndicate, is also a member, as are leftist activists Wael Khalil and Mohamed El-Damati, head of the syndicate's Freedoms Committee.

Other nominees include actors Wagdi El-Arabi and Yehia El-Fakharani. El-Arabi declared his affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood in June 2011.

The NCHR has various topics on its agenda, including social, economic and political issues that have to be addressed in order to grant people their rights and to ensure that there is no discrimination.

Quillini told the Weekly of her happiness at her appointment, saying that in her view there were several controversial issues that needed to be raised at the council. "Despite the recent appointment of Copts to the presidential team, cabinet and NCHR, their representation is still low. The law on unified places of worship should be passed to the People's Assembly for approval," she said.

According to Quillini, there are more Islamists than Copts on the council, but what matters is quality, not quantity. "This is what I intend to prove during my membership. I struggled for Coptic rights when I was an MP, and I will continue fighting until we have reached our goals. We are all equal, and there should not be any discrimination due to differences of religion," she said.

At the same time, writer and novelist Alaa El-Aswani refused his appointment to the council. El-Aswani tweeted: "a free journalist and novelist must not bind himself to any governmental entity in order to be able to criticise the government's performance when necessary without being embarrassed" to do so.

Activist Ahmed Harara, who lost his sight in the course of the 25 January Revolution, also refused his appointment to the council, without giving a reason.

Activist Wael Khalil, who accepted membership of the NCHR, said he would use it to accomplish the goals of the 25 January Revolution. "The council is currently facing serious challenges, among them the reform of the relationship between the government, the police and the people," he said, adding that it would also work to improve the status of women in society, which had been compromised after the revolution.

Activist Mohamed Bahieddin Hassan, head of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights, said that the formation of the new council was proof of the Islamisation of the country and of different organisations and associations.

"The council in its new incarnation will not be independent, and instead it will be controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. In the past, it was controlled by the now-dismantled National Democratic Party [NDP]," the former ruling party. "It used to appear to be an independent entity, but it was controlled by NDP tycoons. Now there will be no difference: the only difference is that instead of the NDP, it is the FJP that controls everything," Hassan said.

At the same time, the Shura Council also announced new appointments to the Supreme Press Council, including Shura Council head Ahmed Fahmi, eight chairpersons and eight editors-in-chief of state-owned newspapers, and four editors-in-chief of party-affiliated newspapers.

New appointments also included the head of the Press Syndicate, Mamdouh El-Wali, liberal politician Osama El-Ghazali Harb, Ibrahim Hegazi, Mohamed Khuraga and Mohamed Negm.

The new appointments included the head of the General Union of Press, Printing and Publishing Workers, Talaat El-Meneisi. Basiouni Hamdan, Mahmoud Alameddin, legal expert Omar Salem, a former minister of legal affairs, and judge Mohamed Abu Naas.

Several Islamist figures joined the Press Council, such as Salafist Nour Party members Ahmed Khalil and Tarek El-Sahri, and Muslim Brotherhood members Fathi Shehabeddin, head of the Shura Council's Culture Committee, and journalist Qotb El-Arabi.

Osama Ayoub, assistant editor of October magazine, Khaled Salah, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabei, Sameh Mahrous, assistant editor of the Al-Gomhuriya newspaper, leftist political figure Wael Qandil, the editor-in-chief of Al-Shorouk newspaper, Naglaa Mahfouz, Ashraf Sadek, Souad Abul-Nasr, and Mohamed El-Abd all also joined the Press Council.

Additional appointments included Geel Party President Nagui El-Shahabi and professor of political science and economics Ayman El-Mahgoub, along with Magdi El-Maasrawi, Mohamed El-Gawadi, Khaled Hassanein, Azza Youssef, Mohamed Hassanein, Ashraf Saber, Abeer Beshr, Hedayat Abdel-Nabi and Mohsen Hassan.

Veteran writer Salah Eissa reportedly objected to the new nominations to the Press Council. "The Shura Council eliminated all those who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as those who have perspectives on improving the country," he said.

Eissa added that the changes aimed to ensure the control of the Shura Council over the Supreme Press Council, as well as the state-owned newspapers. "They want to implement their own policy without listening to anyone's objections," he said.

In the same session, the Shura Council also announced the appointment of new chairmen of the board of the state-owned newspapers. Chairman of the Press Syndicate Mamdouh El-Wali will be the head of Al-Ahram, instead of Abdel-Fattah El-Gebali. The new chairpersons include Ahmed Sameh at Akhbar Al-Youm, Yehia Zakaria Ghanem at Dar Al-Hilal, Mustafa Abu Zeid at Dar Al-Tahrir, Kamaleddin Mahgoub at Dar Al-Maaref and Shaker Abdel-Fattah at the Middle East News Agency (MENA). Sayed Abdel-Fattah at the National Company of Publications and Mohamed Gamaleddin at Ros El-Youssef have kept their posts.

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Finding the weakest link - exploring integrin-mediated mechanical molecular pathways

Advance Online Publication July 13, 2012 doi: 10.1242/?jcs.095794 July 1, 2012 J Cell Sci 125, 3025-3038. Pere Roca-Cusachs1,*,‡, Thomas Iskratsch2,* and Michael P. Sheetz2,3

1University of Barcelona and Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, Barcelona 08028, Spain

2Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA

3Mechanobiology Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore, 117411, Singapore?‡Author for correspondence (rocacusachs{at}ub.edu) ?* These authors contributed equally to this work

From the extracellular matrix to the cytoskeleton, a network of molecular links connects cells to their environment. Molecules in this network transmit and detect mechanical forces, which subsequently determine cell behavior and fate. Here, we reconstruct the mechanical pathway followed by these forces. From matrix proteins to actin through integrins and adaptor proteins, we review how forces affect the lifetime of bonds and stretch or alter the conformation of proteins, and how these mechanical changes are converted into biochemical signals in mechanotransduction events. We evaluate which of the proteins in the network can participate in mechanotransduction and which are simply responsible for transmitting forces in a dynamic network. Besides their individual properties, we also analyze how the mechanical responses of a protein are determined by their serial connections from the matrix to actin, their parallel connections in integrin clusters and by the rate at which force is applied to them. All these define mechanical molecular pathways in cells, which are emerging as key regulators of cell function alongside better studied biochemical pathways.

Key words Funding

The work of our laboratory was supported in part by a grant by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [grant number BFU2011-23111].

This article is part of a Minifocus on Mechanotransduction. For further reading, please see related articles: ‘Deconstructing the third dimension – how 3D culture microenvironments alter cellular cues’ by Brendon M. Baker and Christopher S. Chen (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3015-3024). ‘Signalling through mechanical inputs – a coordinated process’ by Huimin Zhang and Michel Labouesse (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3039-3049). ‘United we stand – integrating the actin cytoskeleton and cell–matrix adhesions in cellular mechanotransduction’ by Ulrich S. Schwarz and Margaret L. Gardel (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3051-3060). ‘Mechanosensitive mechanisms in transcriptional regulation’ by Akiko Mammoto et al. (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3061-3073). ‘Molecular force transduction by ion channels – diversity and unifying principles’ by Sergei Sukharev and Frederick Sachs (J. Cell Sci. 125, 3075-3083).

© 2012. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd

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