Coptic Christian, woman among Mursi assistants

28/8/2012 CAIRO Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi named a liberal Christian, a hardline Islamist and a woman as assistants on Monday as he sought to reach out beyond his power base in the Muslim Brotherhood to rival groups. Mursi’s appointments, announced just before he left for China on a key trip abroad, were seen as a balancing act between Egypt’s Coptic minority, which has felt threatened by Mursi’s Islamist roots, and the Brotherhood’s ultra-conservative Salafist rivals. Mursi wanted to give representation to “all strands of political opinion and all components of society,” his spokesman Yasser Ali said, announcing the appointments.