U.S. student killed in Egypt wanted Mideast peace

The family of an American college student killed in Egypt during violent protests says their son was passionate about the Middle East and was in the country teaching English.

Andrew Pochter, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, died Friday in Alexandria during clashes between government supporters and opponents. His family said in a statement Saturday that he was stabbed by a protester while observing the demonstrations.

Pochter's family says the 21-year-old spent his spring semester studying in Jordan. He was teaching English to children before a planned return this fall to Kenyon College in Ohio, where he majored in religious studies and co-managed the Hillel House Jewish organization.

• Read the original story about Pochter's death

His family says he cared deeply about Middle East culture and "planned to live and work there in the pursuit of peace and understanding."

Kenyon College confirmed Pochter was interning at the non-profit organization Amideast.

"Andrew was a wonderful young man looking for new experiences in the world and finding ways to share his talents while he learned...[He] cared deeply about his family and his friends."

Demonstrations continue

Meanwhile, mroethan 22 million Egyptians have signed a petition calling for the president to step down, the youth group leading the signature campaign said Saturday on the eve of planned mass protests aimed at forcing Mohammed Morsi from office.

The planned demonstrations, which hold the potential to set off deadly clashes and plunge Egypt once again into a dangerous round of civil unrest, reflect the growing polarization of the nation since Morsi took power, with the president and his Islamist allies in one camp and seculars, liberals, moderate Muslims and Christians on the other.

The Tamarod, or Rebel, movement says its petition is evidence of the widespread dissatisfaction with Morsi's administration, and has used the signature drive as the focal point of its call for millions of people to take to the streets Sunday to demand the president's ouster.

Mahmoud Badr, a Tamarod leader, said a total of 22,134,460 Egyptians have signed the petition demanding Morsi's removal. He did not say whether there had been an independent audit of the signatures.

Morsi's supporters, who have long doubted the validity and authenticity of the collected signatures, expressed skepticism about the final count Saturday.

"How do we trust the petitions?" asked Brotherhood member Ahmed Seif Islam Hassan al-Banna. "Who guarantees that those who signed were not paid to sign?" he told The Associated Press.

If authenticated, the collection of so many signatures would deal a symbolic blow to Morsi's legitimacy and put in stark terms the popular frustrations with an administration perceived to have failed to effectively deal with the country's pressing problems, from tenuous security and inflation and power cuts to traffic congestion and high unemployment.

Tamarod, which began its campaign with the goal of collecting more signatures than the 13 million votes Morsi garnered in his 2012 election victory, announced its final tally the day before protests that organizers vow will bring millions of Egyptians into the streets to call for the president's removal.

8 lawmakers resign in protest

Morsi, meanwhile, sought to project a business-as-usual image Saturday, meeting with the defense and interior ministers to review preparations to protect the protesters and vital state facilities during Sunday's demonstrations.

Egypt has been roiled by political unrest in the two years since the uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak, but the round of protests set to kick off Sunday promises to be the largest and holds the potential to be the bloodiest yet.

In the past week alone, at least seven people have been killed in clashes between the president's supporters and opponents in cities in the Nile Delta, while on Friday protesters ransacked and torched as least five Brotherhood offices across the country.

Adding to the tension, eight lawmakers from the country's interim legislature announced their resignation Saturday to protest Morsi's policies. The 270-seat chamber was elected early last year by less than 10 percent of Egypt's eligible voters, and is dominated by Islamists who support Morsi.

With a sense of doom hanging over the country, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi last Sunday gave the president and his opponents a week to reach a compromise and warned that the military would intervene to prevent the nation from entering a "dark tunnel." It was the strongest expression of the military's discontent with conditions in the nation since Morsi took office a year ago.

The opposition, feeling that Morsi may be on the ropes and frustrated by past offers of dialogue that proved to be mostly symbolic, has shown no inclination to compromise, and Morsi offered no concessions to his opponents when he addressed the nation for 2 1/2 hours on Wednesday.

The focus of Sunday's protests is Morsi's Ittihadiya palace in Cairo, but the president has already moved to another presidential compound. He and his family are reported to have moved into the Cairo headquarters of the Republican Guard, the branch of the army tasked with protecting the president and presidential palaces.

As the country waits to see what transpires Sunday, thousands of supporters and opponents of the embattled president held rival sit-ins Saturday in separate parts of the capital.

With expectations of violence running high, the military has dispatched troops backed by armored personnel carriers to reinforce military bases on the outskirts of cities expected to be flashpoints.

In Cairo, the additional forces were deployed to military facilities in the suburbs and outlying districts. Army troops are also moving to reinforce police guarding the city's prisons to prevent a repeat of the nearly half dozen jail breaks during the chaos of the 2011 uprising.

The opposition is demanding Morsi's ouster, saying he has lost his legitimacy through a series of missteps and authoritarian policies. They say early presidential elections should be held within six months of his ouster.