Egyptian uprising - updates and discussion

" I received a txt message from "Egypt Lovers" telling me to go to Tahrir Square and show my support for the regime! The message was translated for me by a friend and I understand it has been sent to everyone. How did the pro-Mubarak supporters do that? How did they get everyones phone numbers? Perhaps because "Egypt Lovers" are actually the interior ministry...?"

I've heard the same thing, but couldn't confirm it. But yeah, from what I was told it was sent out as a spam message through Vodafone.

Khawaga

" I received a txt message from "Egypt Lovers" telling me to go to Tahrir Square and show my support for the regime! The message was translated for me by a friend and I understand it has been sent to everyone. How did the pro-Mubarak supporters do that? How did they get everyones phone numbers? Perhaps because "Egypt Lovers" are actually the interior ministry...?"

I've heard the same thing, but couldn't confirm it. But yeah, from what I was told it was sent out as a spam message through Vodafone.

What's interesting is that they are being unable to trick people inside but outside of egypt too, with such blatant moves. Mubarak forces look quite desperate (i hope i won't have to swallow my words, fingers crossed)

Mubarak forces look quite desperate

Yeah, they do but that's very dangerous. You never know what they might do.

Really good piece from Occupied London on Mubarak's thugs:

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/

We're mirroring the blog here: http://libcom.org/tags/egypt-unrest

Pretty impressive organisation/strategising by the 'Tahrirites'. They've done a good job of taking and controlling space, forcing the goons back.

Also, if Mubarak has enlisted paid thugs, what will he do when they get bored and leave?

Rob Ray

Really good piece from Occupied London on Mubarak's thugs:

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/cairo/

Yeah, that's a very good description/analysis of the role of the Baltagiya. On the protests I went to in Cairo they were always present, typically in nice ordered columns right next to the uniformed police.

I've pasted the whole text in here

Occupied London

The Problem of the Baltagayyah

The most recent story in this lamentable chain of media reports is that of “protestors” in Alexandria turning on one another — internecine violence tainting otherwise peaceful, festive demonstrations of the Egyptian people. This story is, of course, patently untrue. To see the enormity of this falsehood and the many others like it (e.g. “protests turn to looting”) one truly has to understand the reach and extent of the Egyptian security services, particularly the notorious Baltagayyah. Loosely translated to “thugs”, Blatagayyah are more than just your run of the mill voyous. The word has a special relevance for just about everyone in Egypt: that of the paid paramilitaries of the Egyptian state. There are a lot of these fuckers, and they are the prime agents provocateurs of the Egyptian state. Conspiratorial stories of security services actually perpetrating looting, attacking peaceful protestors, or destroying property, too often turn out to be true. Many have been apprehended by ordinary citizens who have discovered state security IDs on them (they appear to have been ordered to carry such IDs in case they are stopped by the army).

Let’s get this straight, this is not the worry about a few bad seeds on the murky fringes of the para-state. The Mubarak regime has maintained a concerted policy of introducing plainclothes thugs into protest situations, sometimes armed with weapons, but always with the impunity to violently quash even the slightest dissent (and the presence of these baltagayyah is inevitably in addition to the obscene amount of uniformed security officers the government will usually deploy to any demonstration, no matter how small). It’s not always certain whether these thugs are full time employees of the regime or simply bored individuals with a penchant for violence and a hankering for a few extra bucks and a chicken sandwich in exchange for a day’s work of beating the hell out of some demonstrators. What is certain is that rarely does any political protest or demonstration go down in Cairo without a healthy dose of baltagayyah violence.

As far as the current protests in Egypt are concerned, we’ve seen them setting fire to cars, destroying small businesses, terrorizing protestors and ordinary citizens alike and looting neighborhoods. All this while disguised as “ordinary Egyptians.” This has been enough to confuse and distort much of the international reporting of protest events. What must be understood is that the baltagayyah are sowing fear and violence to deliberately frighten and terrorize ordinary people. They work by making Egyptians and the outside world question who is perpetrating this violence, but this gruesome charade must be known and publicized because the only result of such fear and doubt is further violence against demonstrators.

Things are speeding up incredibly. Read:

More from the US State Department, with spokesman PJ Crowley suggesting that the US is reconciled to the Muslim Brotherhood being part of whatever government replaces Mubarak's regime.

After urging the Muslim Brotherhood to respect democratic processes, Crowley acknowledged that its presence is "a fact of life in Egypt".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/02/egypt-protests-live-updates#block-101

bit of sideshow comedy:

http://gawker.com/5749601/the-right+wing-nuts-guide-to-egypt

EA liveblog:

0050 GMT: We've all heard of the religious harmony displayed during protests in Cairo. But now we have images showing the chivalry displayed by Christians of Egypt, during this time of crisis: @nevinezaki has this photograph, showing Christians, forming a human chain around their Muslim countrymen to protect them while they pray in Tahrir Square, Cairo:

http://www.enduringamerica.com/storage/christians.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1296694294312

abdu:
Dima_Khatib Security tightened in Sanaa. Ruling party loyalist place tents in Tahrir Av where mass protest is to take place in a few hours #yemen

mar3e:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mar3e/sets/72157625964479562
photoset of mahalla... it looks like it should be today, but it says the photos were taken april 2010, think thats a mistake though

Keep your Eyes open tweeps on #Mahalla Today at 2pm , We are preparing for a demonstration at Elmashhama square #Jan25

It's 4:25 a.m. Cairo time and on Al Jazeera's live video gun fire can be heard and military tanks can be seen moving around Tahrir Square. Apparently a firefight. Not clear on who's fighting whom.

4:40 a.m.

First-hand accounts by phone on Al Jazeera report that it's less like a protest and more like a war zone. At least one protester has just been killed.

Although I was doubtful that a Tiananmen situation would happen, it seems like there's been an hour-long barrage of gun fire aimed at Tahrir Square and the forces of the state might be cracking down on the protest.

Just now a correspondent by phone said that gun fire and molotovs are coming from the pro-Mubarak faction on the fringes of the Square.

Just said the protestors have retaken the overpass. Scenes look a lot calmer. If they've fought this off thats insane, I was convinced I was watching a massacre unfold.

4:55 a.m.

A reporter at the Square just reported that at least 6 protesters were killed (or injured?).

He claims that after an 8-hour battle, protesters pushed past the entrance to the Egyptian Museum and have driven pro-Mubarak forces from the October 6th Bridge overpass, from where they had been throwing molotovs down at anti-government protesters. He says it's a small victory that has lifted the morale of the protesters.

Al Jazeera on Alexandria yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDzd4OV87sc

Army have apparently intervened, clearing out the Pro-Mubarak supporters, says Peter Beaumont of the Guardian:

About ten minutes we started seeing soldiers telling the pro-Mubarak demonstrators to leave the bridge [near the entrance to the square]. Within no more than six or seven minutes the entire bridge was cleared with only one warning shot fired...

I do think it is hopeful, every time we have seen the army intervene in this crisis it has led to a significant lessening of the tension. The problem is we don't know what the orders are. But they have intervened, and for now at least the battle of Tahrir is Square is over.

g:

8.32am:A retired Egyptian general told the BBC that the troops stand ready to fire at pro-Mubarak supporters, apparently confirming what Peter has been seeing on the ground. The general told the BBC's Jon Leyne that Mubarak "would be out of office tomorrow".

8.08am: "Dramatic developments", reports Peter Beaumont from Tahrir Square.

About ten minutes we started seeing soldiers telling the pro-Mubarak demonstrators to leave the bridge [near the entrance to the square]. Within no more than six or seven minutes the entire bridge was cleared with only one warning shot fired...

I do think it is hopeful, every time we have seen the army intervene in this crisis it has led to a significant lessening of the tension. The problem is we don't know what the orders are. But they have intervened, and for now at least the battle of Tahrir is Square is over.

----

7.34am: The Egyptian health ministry says five people have been killed as the violence for the control of Cairo's Tahrir square continues.

"Most of the casualties were the result of stone throwing and attacks with metal rods and sticks. At dawn today there were gunshots. The real casualties taken to hospital were 836, of which 86 are still in hospital and there are five dead," health minister Ahmed Samih Farid told state television.

This morning shots were fired at the anti-government protest camp in Tahrir Square, but the protesters continue to occupy the area.

Medics on the scene says seven people have been killed by gunshot wounds.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount that the violence was orchestrated by the regime.

Some of the pro-Mubarak demonstrators who were captured by the opposition were carrying ID cards that identified them as police.

Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, told the Guardian that the "violence is again an indication of a criminal regime that has lost any commonsense. When the regime tries to counter a peaceful demonstration by using thugs … there are few words that do justice to this villainy and I think it can only hasten that regime's departure."

Graphic accounts of the violence continue to emerge, as questions are asked about why the army did not prevent the violence. Guardian video producer Mustafa Khalili was one of the hundreds of people injured in yesterday's clashes. He wrote:

I was bleeding heavily. People took me to a makeshift medical centre run by nurses who had obviously come straight from hospital to help, where they bandaged my head. They said I needed stitches, but there were so many other injured to look after.. There must have been more than 50 injuries, some of them horrific. I saw one guy whose left eye was bleeding, men with broken arms, broken teeth where they had just been hit in the face by rocks

There were no police, no security forces. The army was there, but was not intervening. The two sets of protesters were left to fight it out.

Peter Beaumont says a troop of soldiers have now taken over at the Anti-Mubarak barricades.

Are they dismantling them, or ar we seeing the first signs of soldiers joining the protesters?

Eyewitnesses who spent the night in Tahrir said there were major shooting incidents at 11pm and 4am local time, the latter involving a sniper equipped with a laser sight. Seven protesters were reported to be confirmed dead at a nearby makeshift medical centre, with three other bodies still unrecovered.

"We had over a thousand injured through the night, including several dead from gunshots," said Dr Dr Ibrahim Fata, a professor of surgery and one of more than 70 doctors who have volunteered to help treat those injured at the square. "It's like a war situation in here; some of the pro-change resistance did not bring their wounded to us because they didn't want to leave their positions. I haven't slept in the last day and a half."

As Dr Fata was speaking the Guardian witnessed a man with a broken spine being brought in on a corrugated iron stretcher, whilst others walked around swaddled in bandages. Some protesters had taped cardboard boxes to their head to serve as a crude helmet.

The shootings came after protesters seeking an end to President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade-long dictatorship were attacked yesterday by supporters of the Egyptian leader, many of whom were found to be carrying police IDs. Molotov cocktails were thrown from buildings and several fires burnt through the night.

By morning it was clear that the pro-change protesters had succeeded in repelling the assaults and holding Tahrir, their main rallying point throughout this ten-day uprising. At a barricade on Meret Basha street, approximately 50 metres from a flyover on Abdel Munim Riyad square, another aid station treated those wounded in the fighting.

About a thousand pro-Mubarak militants continued to mass on the flyover, throwing stones at the crowds below, though it was clear that they were increasingly outnumbered with up to four thousand anti-regime protesters inside the square and many more gathering as mid-morning approached.

Some sections of the roadway are so littered with debris and torn apart by those seeking rocks to throw that they are now impassable. But social organisation amongst the pro-change forces remains strong, with groups cooking breakfast over fires and handing out food amongst the crowds.

looks like things are moving very quickly today. I think when I finish this post, it will already be outdated. oh well

g:
some european countries issued some statement, if I cared at all I would post it

9.50am:Protesters say they have detained 120 people with IDs associating them with police or ruling party. Most were caught while attacking demonstrators, Reuters reports.

Photos of the IDs have been published on Flickr.

9.34am:There has been some rapid political manoeuvring. Egypt's vice president Omar Suleiman has held a dialogue with the country's political parties and national forces in a bid to end the protests, according to Reuters.

The news agency says oppostion leader Mohamed ElBaradei is refusing to take part until Mubarak resigns.
---
EA:
0945 GMT: Mohamed ElBaradei, the appointed voice for the opposition coalition, says he will not accept an offer from PM Ahmad Shafiq to talk, insisting President Mubarak must step down first.

0940 GMT: John Rugman of Britain's Channel 4 reports, "1 journalist punched in face, another stabbed in leg by pro-Mubarak thugs in Cairo this morning. On their way to hospital now."

0933 GMT: Gregg Carlstrom of Al Jazeera English reports, "Talked with several soldiers manning barricades around Tahrir [Square]. Said they have orders not to allow more pro-Mubarak people near the square."

0830 GMT: The Egyptian opposition group Kefaya has said that the events in Meydan Tahrir mean the anti-Mubarak "Friday of Departure" protests will be massive. It added that it is no longer possible to discuss a peaceful exit for President Mubarak and he must be tried in court.

0825 GMT: Jon Williams, the BBC's foreign editor, sends a message, "Journalists in Cairo locked down inside Ramses Hilton. Frontline on doorstep --- Army say pro-Mubarak supporters told to target reporters."

0715 GMT: Ammon News claims from "informed sources" that Libya has been the source of jamming and scrambling of Al Jazeera over the last week.

0704 GMT: Gregg Carlstrom of Al Jazeera English writes, "Just tried to enter Tahrir Square near the museum and got held at knifepoint by pro-Mubarak thugs. Crowd is more aggressive than yesterday."

0659 GMT: An Indonesian relief worker has reportedly been killed in Cairo.
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AJ doesnt seem to have much radically different, other than the financial implications, and that Wafd are a bunch of collaberators

12:05 pm Egypt's finance minister says the loss on Egypt's stock exchange following the crisis now exceeds the one during credit crunch.

12:00 pm Prominent pro-democracy activist Mohamed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood rejected a call by the prime minister for talks saying president Mubarak must leave office first. Prime minister Ahmed Shafiq invited opposition groups to talks. Some groups have agreed, including the liberal, nationalist Wafd party, which is a legal party. The Brotherhood is banned.
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hossam:
TravellerW People in Tahrir arrested an armed amn dawla officer (not a soldier, an officer). Getting his ass kicked as I type. #Egypt #jan25
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Jan25Voices:
CNN: Army deploys a line of soldiers in front of anti-Mubarak protesters; however, few pro-Mubarak have arrived as of yet #jan25 #Egypt
7 min ago

I saw a few possibilities after tuesday. I thought they would

a) let the protests peter out on wed, not bring police back and show mubarak-montages on state tv to break ranks, then strike hard on thursday so everyone is scared/wounded/tired on friday, then have the army lock down cities on friday 'in the name of law and order'

or

b) let the protests peter out on wed and thurs and strike hard on friday... a more brutal option and one which could go worse but still better than:

c) strike hard yesterday, have the army lock down the cities today and dunno, go around taking out certain individual people while they are not in a crowd maybe or try and impose some hardcore order before tomorrow

though they could just be totally incompetent and just try and fucking battle yesterday and today and tomorrow... but that does seem proper dumb. Maybe if suleiman sees it as a way to force opposition parties to the table with him and spend mubarak... seems Wafd has done that but I can't see this tactic working

of course they could've tried not going hard, let things peter out, let people have their demo on friday, and try to shutdown everything saturday or sunday.

It's difficult, as friday will no matter what be big. Nature of god's day in the muslim world... but they really did seem to strike too soon and too brutally. Inshallah all of those tactics won't matter as they will be in a jail cell by sundown.

AJ:
12:22 pm Twenty-two Hezbollah detainees that were convicted of plotting attacks against ships in the Suez Canal and Egyptian tourist sites, were able to escape from their jail in Egypt, Al Rai newspaper reports.

ea:
1010 GMT: Lara Setrakian of ABC News reports, "Just saw a thwarted attack on Tahrir Square --- regime loyalists charging crowd, male protesters run to stop them. One gunshot."

g:
10.19am: "We are going to win... we are in the death throes of a violent regime," protester, and British actor Khalid Abdalla, tells me says from Tahrir Square.

Last night he witnessed a protester being shot.

I saw a guy with bullet wound to his head with his brain coming out of his forehead. It was the darkest night yet.

But he claimed Mubarak's tactics will not work

These people are not moving. We are a group of unorganised people from all walks of life and all religions and all ages. The strength of our convictions for a desire for social justice, and political justice is what has hold us together.

The Tahrir Square is becoming a self organised space, building barricades,shelters making staves, collecting stones, treating the wounded, sorting out food water and sanitation.

Jason Cortez

The Tahrir Square is becoming a self organised space, building barricades,shelters making staves, collecting stones, treating the wounded, sorting out food water and sanitation.

That's what is most admirable of this upheaval: the degree of organization skills showed by the protestors is amazing. If someone wants an example of how to organize without bosses and/or hierarchy, here it is!

Radio 4 Today programme this morning reported a couple of things I caught:

* A retired Egyptian Army general saying this onslaught by the thugs on protestors has gone far enough, the army is no longer going to allow it from this morning on.

* The allegation that the person in charge of organising the counter-offensive is Gamal Mubarak.

This is pure ill-informed speculation on my part, but my reading of what has happened in the last 24 hours is this.

With the arrival of Wisner and dialogue with US, Mubarak had to accept to make the statement that he would not stand again in 9 months. But in return, the Mubarak faction asked for a chance to try and smash the opposition off the streets. The army faction agreed to allow the Mubarak faction their head for a period to see if they could do it. This must be with the knowledge and at least tacit acceptance of the CIA/US State Dept. The lack of any clear statement from Obama or Clinton over the last 24 hours seems to corroborate that.

Now that the baltagiyah offensive has failed, the army faction has effectively said, "time's up". Also it seems the discontent amongst the ranks about standing idly by, is another factor pushing the army leadership to make its mind up.

As I say, idle speculation. In the meantime, it looks like we're moving into the blame game phase (presumably also why Gamal's name was mentioned in relation to this, as he's bête noire for the army faction).

BBC: Egypt PM apologises for violence

Egypt's prime minister has apologised for the fighting between pro- and anti-government demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square, which killed five people and wounded several hundred.

Ahmed Shafiq pledged to investigate the violence, calling it a "fatal error".
[...]

Is the Army's position shifting?

John Simpson, BBC

"Yesterday tanks were pointing their guns inwards towards anti-Mubarak protesters - now they have turned the guns away towards the pro-Mubarak camp. I suspect that may be significant."

Peter Beaumont, Guardian

Pro mubarak supporters getting gradually pushed futher back onto ramses st hearing shots tanks moving more aggressively

Peter Beaumont, Guardian

Tank under underpass swinging barrel round to try to move nearby pro mubarak people

Anti-Mubarak protesters gaining ground:

Paul Danahar, BBC

" I am standing beneath the underpass just outside Tahrir Square where the anti-Mubarak protesters have pushed back the pro-Mubarak people. The two sides are now just separated by a small patch of grass. Both are breaking rocks and throwing them at each other. There have been bursts of automatic gun fire.The anti forces seem for now to have the momentum.

Tahrir occupation - LIVE at http://bambuser.com/v/1380015
-----
g:

12.38pm: My colleague Harriet Sherwood explains the difficulties of reporting on the protests in Alexandria.

The situation here in Alexandria is now very difficult for journalists. Egyptian national TV has been broadcasting that there are Israeli spies disguised as western journalists, and people on the street are very suspicious.

People who are prepared to speak to us are being denounced by fellow protesters. We have been surrounded several times this morning by angry crowds and have had to retreat.

In general the protests here appear to be diminishing and many people are alarmed by the scenes from Cairo that they have seen on TV. But there are also signs of more involvement by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Talking to people away from the protests, a very mixed picture emerges. A lot are saying that Mubarak's speech on Monday night has swung them towards giving reform a chance. Many speak of wanting security and stability and are very nervous about the volatility of the situation.

There are police on the streets of Alexandria for the first time since I got here 48 hours ago. But they seem to be focusing on directing traffic, and neighbourhood security is still very much in the hands of locals.

<>

12.30pm: Shahira Amin quit her job as a senior reporter at Nile TV yesterday and has been telling al-Jazeera why:

I can't be part of the propaganda machine; I am not going to feed the public lies ... They [Nile TV] are showing the Mubarak supporters, calling them 'the Egyptians'. that is what they are showing all day. They are not showing what's happening in Tahrir Square ... People are dying here, everything is distorted.

Amin added that she had received threats in the past for her insistence on broadcasting the "truth".

"I have had calls from state security. I have had people tell me this is the last time I do this or else."
------
ea:

Prominent on-line activist "Sandmonkey" has been arrested.

1130 GMT: CNN says Yasser El Shimi, a diplomat at the Egyptian Embassy in the US, has resigned in support of the protests.

1035 GMT: Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq has told Al Arabiya that his discussions with the opposition include talks with representatives of groups in Tahrir Square.

Opposition leader Ayman Nour tells BBC Arabic, however, "I just saw on the news that apparently I was in [Vice President] Omar Suleiman's office before speaking to you on the phone."
-----
AJ:

2:04 pm According to an eye witness in Abdelmonaem Ryad square next to Tharir square Mubarak loyalists are preparing firebombs to attack protesters in the area. one of our correspondents saw one person carrying a whole box of them and making his way towards that area. He was apprehended by people and delivered to the army.

1:55 pm The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates Egypt's internet clampdown cost economy $90 million over five days.
-----
hossam:
@nevin_a called on her way to downtown.When i called back a guy picked up,started showering me w insults. I think she's detained by thugs

try to conceal well any medical supplies u r carrying.
-----
abdu:
RT @monasosh: I know for sure they confiscated the sim card of my father, don't know if they arrested him or the others, waiting for news #Jan25

Worrying news: the army is confiscating food supplies from the protesters in Tahrir square #Egypt

Heebzo HAHA!! Ayman Nour live on @BBCArabicNews says "egyptian TV said he is negotiating with the Vice president, whereas hes on the phone W BBC"
----
ajtalk:
Aljazeera Talk Reporter : About 200,000 Protester in Tahrir Square and more people still flowing #jan25 #jan28 #cairo #mubarak #feb1
----
Jan25voices:
LPC Sarah Rifky from #Tahrir: American University in Cairo Prof. Hamam Iman intercepted, assaulted in car on her way to sq. Other Incidents.

g:
12.51pm: There are signs of a police – or military – crackdown in Cairo at the moment coming from Twitter:

SarahKaram1:

Live blog: Twitter

My egyptian friend is recommending I leave Tahrir as police searches for foreigners. @bloggerseif if u get this, shant and u, apartment now.

soniaverma:

Another checkpoint. Now they have taken our passports. #egypt

We are being taken into some kind of custody.

Military have commandeered us and our car.

monasosh:

Last we heard from ppl in Hisham mubarak law center is army police was there now all their mobiles are switched off #Jan25

1.13pm: A report earlier suggested army police were at the Hisham Mubarak law centre. There are now reports that people there were arrested and beaten:
Live blog: Twitter

@RiverDryFilm

Witness report of 8 -12 people arrested from Hisham Mubarak Law Centre + Centre for Economic & Social Rights + 6th April Youth #egypt #jan25

They were being beaten, accused of being Iranian / Palestinian agents. #jan25 #egypt

@monasosh

They arrested my father & all brave human rights lawers, called them spies for hamas & iran so the ppl would turn against them #Jan25
----------
edit: it begins to look bad

1.19pm: Hopes that the army would intervene on behalf of the anti-Mubarak protesters have been dashed, according to some people in and around Tahrir Square.

@estr4ng3d

Military COMPLETELY siding with Mubarak now. Personnel at checkpoints search for foods, med supplies & arrest or send people back #jan25

Either the 'soldiers' involved in the crackdown are thugs in false uniform... or different units are taking different sides:

Reuters

An Egyptian army tank has moved against supporters of President Mubarak as they hurled rocks at anti-Muburak protesters in Tahrir Square, prompting cheers from anti-Mubarak demonstrators

I was just talking to a friend about this. I have a good friend in the egyptian military. Conscripted last year. He is a totally sound guy, and I wouldn't say that about all of my friends. He also can hold his own in any discussion of politics or history (um, except if you ask him who won the 67 war...), which is simply not true for many people I know. Also he was active in egypt about torture victims.

So I keep thinking to myself, if he is in the army, there must be others like him. And others who are trained thugs. But Egypt has a large population, and these demonstrations are quite spread out. I reckon they have to use some conscripts, and different units taking different sides seems inevitable.

Well there are likely different factions within the army leadership. However, the two actions are not necessarily contradictory.

Imagine if the army leadership was concerned that the spectacle of the baltagiya, cops and other Interior ministry related thugs, attacking unarmed demonstrators in Tahrir was destabilising. So they want the confrontations to end - that is their best outcome is that protestors (and contras) abandon the place and order is restored (in fact the army has already called for everyone to stop protesting and go home, at least once).

So of course they want to starve the anti-regime protestors of supplies so as to encourage them to abandon the space. At the same time they want the attacks from the Mubarakites to stop, so they (intermittently) intervene to clear them off.

There's also the additional possibility that the commanders of the tank units in Tahrir have told the upper echelons that they can no longer order their men to sit on their hands, at the risk of fraying morale breaking down into insubordination.

It could be evidence of different groups within the army working at cross-purposes, but it's not impossible that the two actions are part of a coherent agenda.

the ever-repulsive Julie Burchill adds her 2 cents worth of racist bile:

Julie Burchill: Armchair revolutionaries: be careful what you wish for in the Middle East

During a long hard winter, nothing warms the cold blood of the Western armchair revolutionary more than the sight of a bunch of attractive dark-skinned people out on the streets having a right old revolution.
[...]
It would be wonderful to think that what replaces Mubarak will be better. But here's the thing about Middle Eastern regimes: they're all vile. The ones that are "friendly" are vile and the ones that hate us are vile. Revolutions in the region have a habit of going horribly wrong, and this may well have something to do with the fact that Islam and democracy appear to find it difficult to co-exist for long.

The Anti-Mubarak protesters are ridiculously organised. After taking control of the overpass:

Matthew Cassel, BBC

"They've developed a pulley system to get stones to those on bridge, while some just hit metal against metal like a war drum."

al jazeera says as we approach curfew (15 min now) numbers are growing quickly in tahrir, revolutionary numbers.... army are preventing revolutionaries from getting to hilton hotel

this from G blog, also heard it from al jazeera:

2.33pm: Omar Suleiman has confirmed that Gamal Mubarak won't be running for president, according to Reuters citing State TV.

#Egypt vice president says leader Hosni Mubarak's son will not run for president - State TV

2.32pm: The former minister of the interior, Habib al-Adl, is being questioned for his role in the unrest last Friday, al-Jazeera reports, citing state TV. The minister was responsible for ordering police off the streets, it was reported.

Other ministers in the former government are also being investigated. Their assets have been frozen and travel documents removed, the BBC tweets.

Gunshot in the bridge. Apparently the military is pushing the pro-mubarak out of the square and its surroundings. Gunfire in the surroundigs of the square too.

g:

3.03pm: Warning shots are fired as Peter Beaumont describes a battle for a key flyover at the entrance to Tahrir Square.

The pro-Mubarak supporters are very very broken up. Some of the opposition supporters have put a barricade up from which they are throwing stones at pro-Mubarak supporters.

3.06pm: "We are seeing live fire, we are seeing bullets ricocheting off the bridge," Peter Beaumont reports in another update on the battle for flyover.

The gunfire appears to have been directed at pro-Mubarak forces on the flyover, he said. "These are pro-Mubarak demonstrators who are trying to throw petrol bombs at the people bellow them," he said. "We can see someone being carried away who we think has been shot."

It is unclear who is firing the live rounds, Peter said.

Army firing at Pro-Mubarak forces? I haven't heard of any armaments in the hands of Anti-Mubarak protesters.

"We are seeing live fire, we are seeing bullets ricocheting off the bridge," Peter Beaumont reports in another update on the battle for flyover.

The gunfire appears to have been directed at pro-Mubarak forces on the flyover, he said. "These are pro-Mubarak demonstrators who are trying to throw petrol bombs at the people bellow them," he said. "We can see someone being carried away who we think has been shot."

"It is unclear who is firing the live rounds".

A "reporters in egypt" twitter account (quiet useful):

http://twitter.com/avinunu/reporters-in-egypt#

Earlier in this thread i asked myself if there would be a chance of the army officers not being able to control the rank and file...Above squaler or khawaga were wondering themselves about one of their conscripted friends...Couldn't this be possible, that the officers rae having a hard time wondering who their soldiers are going to shoot in case of being ordered?

VERY IMPORTANT:

BREAKING Al Arabiya: Algeria lifts 19 year old State of Emergency Law. TREMBLE, tyrants of the world! #jan25 (via RT @sultanalqassemi)
Twitter -
59
59 seconds ago

http://nefac.net/node/2540

audio interview with a tahrir square revolutionary

Ahmed Ezz, Zohair Garrana, Habib El Adly, & Ahmed El Maghrabi have been prevented from leaving the country & bank accounts, property frozen!

These are some of the biggest klepocrats in Egypt. Ahmed Azz bankrolled Mubarak's last presidential election. He is nearly as hated as Mubarak.

Valeriano Orobón Fernández

VERY IMPORTANT:

BREAKING Al Arabiya: Algeria lifts 19 year old State of Emergency Law. TREMBLE, tyrants of the world! #jan25 (via RT @sultanalqassemi)
Twitter -
59
59 seconds ago

Has any mainstream news source confirmed this? It certainly sounds pretty incredible, given the Alegerian president's very recent comments that an Algerian uprising would be given the "Mubarak treatment."

Look again in the tunisia thread, mate, it has been confirmed by al-jazeera too.

Valeriano Orobón Fernández

Look again in the tunisia thread, mate, it has been confirmed by al-jazeera too.

Yeah, I did a google news search, and it appears to be true.

It's gonna be difficult to follow events from now on:

Al-Arabiya news network is reporting that Mubarak supporters are storming hotels in Cairo and chasing journalists.
Twitter - seconds ago

Guardian:

3.31pm:CloseLink to this update: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/03/egypt-protests-live-updates#block-65 The Daily News Egypt is reporting on Twitter that, not only is Gamal Mubarak not going to stand for president in September (see 2.33pm), but he has also resigned from the ruling National Democratic Party.

Vice President Omar Suliman: Gamal Mubarak resigned from the ruling National Democratic Party #jan25 #fb

Looks like Gamal's had his shot and blown it. If the Al Jazzera reports about Ezz & co are correct, it looks like the Suleiman/Mukhabarat faction are swinging behind the army/"national capitalist" faction and leaving Gamal and his neoliberal "crony capitalist" clique to hang out to dry.

Of course that doesn't lessen the immediate threat from the baltagiya and mabahith (SSI) thugs on the street, as they will be even more desperate now that their patron's star is being eclipsed. If they cannot take on the mass of the protestors in open street battle now, with the army no longer standing by, then that does not mean that targetted revenge attacks against individuals and groups will not continue.

...Which would explain the renewed attacks on foreigners and journalists. Some black humour: journalists are now experiencing that theirs is a risk job when done more or less properly.

Now seriously, it's quite awful:

Al Arabiya reporting from Cairo that a foreign journalist has been beaten to death. I am not going out there to confirm it.
Twitter - 26 minutes ago

Egyptian authorities forced Vodafone to broadcast government-scripted text messages during the protests that have rocked the country, the U.K.-based mobile company said Thursday.

Micro-blogging site Twitter has been buzzing with screen grabs from Vodafone's Egyptian customers showing text messages sent over the course of the protests against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-old regime.

A text message received Sunday by an Associated Press reporter in Egypt appealed to the country's "honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honor." The sender is identified only as "Vodafone."

Vodafone Group PLC said in a statement that the texts had been scripted by Egyptian authorities. The company said authorities had invoked emergency rules to draft the messages, whose content it said it had no ability to change.

"Vodafone Group has protested to the authorities that the current situation regarding these messages is unacceptable," the statement said. "We have made clear that all messages should be transparent and clearly attributable to the originator."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110203/ap_on_hi_te/eu_egypt_cell_phones

from Guardian stream

4.58pm: Suleiman blamed the violence on "some other opportunists carrying their own agenda. It might be related to outside forces or other domestic affairs". He said it was "a conspiracy".

This approach was predicted in this morning's Guardian by the novelist Ahdaf Soueif, who wrote:

<>

Suleiman said: "The object behind this was to create the maximum degree of instability, intimidation and defeat the people of Egypt," but he added: "The 25 January movement is not a destructive movement."

Of the army, he said: "Now the armed forces are changing their duties, hand in hand with the people, to protect the people."

He said Hosni Mubarak had discussed how the protesters' demands could be met:

President Mubarak, when he found out the demands expressed by the January 25 were lawful and objective, he discussed how these needs ... could be met ... He has responded to all the lawful demands. We could also have accepted other demands ... However the time limit is thin and tight.

At first sight Soueif appears right - the same old trick of blaming everything on a foreign conspiracy (probably those evil zionists again).

But on a second look, there is an ambiguity here that is almost certainly not accidental. The statement could also be read as a coded announcement that the Gamal/Abdel Ezz clique ("other opportunists carrying their own agenda[...] It might be related to [...] other domestic affairs") is implicated and has been stopped.

OTOH the stale old cliché of the benevolent monarch mislead by his evil conspiring viziers ("...when he found out the demands expressed by the January 25 were lawful...") is entirely old-school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSgxVooJssA

apparently this video is about soldiers joining protests. It's all in arabic though and none of my friends are online to translate, dunno if any of you know anyone

In this link you can see the tweeter messages on real time coming from a google map from where they are being sent:

http://www.mibazaar.com/egypt.html

Nice pic:
Christians (or atheists) protecting muslims while they pray

Bad stuff: i'm reading on twiter loads of messages like this one:

Egyptian GOV is preparing for something NASTY that not one in the world should know about #egypt #jan25 #25jan

It's related to the fact that all journalists are being evacueted.

8.23pm GMT: Here's the tweet from fashion house Kenneth Cole that is currently making the rounds of the internet. It's real:

Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KCless than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®Kenneth Cole

And of course it has now spawned parody Twitter accounts and a hashtag – #KennethColeTweets – for such hilarious follow-ups as: "Chase down Anderson Cooper in style with our new lightweight canvas loafers!"

Wha? Is there someone taking advantage of twiter to advertise his shitty product?

yeah he's a designer, you see his clothes around, I guess, I mean it's not really something I pay attention to but I've heard of him before. He apologized now...

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=9291921501&topic=16039

Al-Jazeera is reporting that the prime minister wants to have talks with "protest representatives". The representatives are likely folks like Baradei and Ayman Nour (though he no longer has the profile he once had). I can't remember if it was Obama or some EU minister saying this, but it was that they recognized that the Muslim Brotherhood would have a future role in a democratic Egypt. If this does occur it may be the first step towards recuperation...

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook

Dear Friends and Family,

Below is a statement from the mother of an Egyptian friend of mine. She is a doctor and spent the day treating wounded anti-Mubarak demonstrators in Tahrir Square today. She asked for her statement to be circulated as widely as possible. However, in order for her identity to be protected from the Mubarak regime, her daughter asked for the family's names not to be reposted. Like I said, I know the writer's daughter personally, and this is genuine, first-hand information.

=== Message from Tahrir Square follows ===

"Despite what happened yesterday, the mood in Tahrir is still

uplifting and encouraging. These people were attacked yesterday by

paid thugs bearing "white weapons" (knives, daggers, swords). Against

these attacks, they defended themselves with only their bare hands and

literally the ground beneath their feet - pulling up the pavement to

throw at their attackers. A lot of them took very serious injuries and

they have lost a lot of blood. Yesterday, as another volunteer doctor

was bringing medical supplies for the victims of the attack, she was

threatened (including sexual threats) by the plain clothes police, and

then they stopped her and confiscated the supplies.

These people [in Tahrir] are heroes, truly. They have been peaceful,

and the young people who have been leading this movement continue to

maintain the security of the city. They are still holding

neighbourhood watches and directing traffic. The country is really

being organized and managed by the youth, who are doing a much better

job than the regime before them. They are replacing the functions of

the regular police.

The people in Tahrir have been there for over a week and they are

exhausted. They haven't slept or washed. But people throughout the

city continue to bring them food and water and other supplies. There

is no cash now, cash flow has stopped, and Mubarak is using this to

stall and try to deplete his enemy -- which is the youth, essentially,

the people of Egypt -- of their resources. Omar Suleiman is doing that

now, too, asking for 70 days to change the constitution. They are

borrowing time from the Egyptian people.

Mubarak knows that he is under the eyes of the world, so he doesn't

use "explicit" force - that is, the regular forces, or people in

uniform. The US has asked him many times not to do so, and he knows he

would be seen as a criminal in the eyes of the world if he did so. He

wants to hide this from the world, so he is using mercenaries and

inmates. This is also why he has come down so hard against the

journalists, especially Al Jazeera.

A lot of people expect the violence to get worse tomorrow, to a

greater extent even than before. Mubarak has a crowd now prepared to

fight for him, who have been trained and given weapons. So there has

been a lot of prayer today. Heavens knows how those horses and camels

got in. There are three big tanks guarding Tahrir and you have to file

in and be screened to enter.

Tomorrow after the Friday prayers, it's expected that some of the

mosques will have "pro-Mubarak" people coming out of them, and others

- many more - will have anti-Mubarak protesters. But the fear of

violence is making some people afraid and some opposition parties have

said they are discouraged to take part tomorrow. There may be hope if

the army comes to the defense of the people.

Everyone in the country - everyone, deep down - knows that the

government is lying to them. They don't believe a thing either Mubarak

or Suleiman are saying. But they are scared for their lives and for

their families. They want to demonstrate tomorrow, but there is a lot

to lose by expressing their opinions, and Mubarak is the cause of this

fear."

I can't remember if it was Obama or some EU minister saying this, but it was that they recognized that the Muslim Brotherhood would have a future role in a democratic Egypt.

i Think you're talking about this:

More from the US State Department, with spokesman PJ Crowley suggesting that the US is reconciled to the Muslim Brotherhood being part of whatever government replaces Mubarak's regime.

After urging the Muslim Brotherhood to respect democratic processes, Crowley acknowledged that its presence is "a fact of life in Egypt".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/02/egypt-protests-live-updates#block-101

Baderneiro Miseravel

i Think you're talking about this:

More from the US State Department, with spokesman PJ Crowley suggesting that the US is reconciled to the Muslim Brotherhood being part of whatever government replaces Mubarak's regime.

After urging the Muslim Brotherhood to respect democratic processes, Crowley acknowledged that its presence is "a fact of life in Egypt".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/feb/02/egypt-protests-live-updates#block-101

Yes, that's it. Thanks!

Interview with a Tahrir Square Revolutionary

NEFAC's International Secretary briefly inteviewed A, a participant in the Egyptian uprising and witness to the Baltagayyah attacks on the Tahrir Square demonstrations.

http://nefac.net/node/2540

aj is saying, reuters says obama is discussing asking mubarak to step down now giving power to a caretaker govt headed by suleiman and military leaders... these guys have no clue

now they say it will be a triumvirate with the defense minister and the head of the armed forces, it's not allowed in the constitution for the vp to take power (not that that means anything) some skepticism if this is true as it would be too dangerous for obama to insist on something and people to not respect his authority...

they interview some girl in tahrir who is a bit vague but says she wants a transition govt before their free elections...

if egyptians buy this you can see the coming roundups before the elections.... but I can't see the oposition parties accepting suleiman etc.

g has it on liveblog:
1.05am GMT: The US is working on a deal with the Egyptian government for Mubarak to resign immediately in favour of a three-man junta, according to the New York Times in a news item just posted:

The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday.

Even though Mr Mubarak has balked, so far, at leaving now, officials from both governments are continuing talks about a plan in which, Mr Suleiman, backed by Sami Enan, chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the Defense Minister, would immediately begin a process of constitutional reform.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cWOK0Lfh7w&feature&skipcontrinter=1

This is REALLY graphic, diplomatic car driving over a crowd...

g:
8.54am: Reuters is reporting thousands gathering in Tahrir Square, Cairo, with protesters shouting "Today is the last day ... Today is the last day." Pop songs are being played over speakers. Many of the crowd had remained over night, either keeping vigil or sleeping in tents or on the ground.

But the crowd are worried by the army's removal of the barricades that had been erected after pro-Mubarak demonstrators had attacked the anti-Mubarak protesters two days ago, leaving at least 10 dead and more than 800 wounded. Omar el-Mahdi, 28, told the news agency:

Protesters ran to argue with the army, but an officer said: "We are on your side, but we have orders from above to clear all barricades." This will open the way for thugs to come in unhindered.

Organisers have called on people to march from wherever they are towards the square, the state television building and the parliament building, which are all within a mile of one another.

Mubarak supporters on the main highway from Alexandria blocked cars from entering Cairo to prevent anti-Mubarak protesters from joining the demonstrations, a witness said.

Protesters had formed human chains to guard the square and were checking the bags and identification cards of people as they entered to keep out pro-Mubarak supporters.

Protesters said barbed wire had been put out at all 12 entrance points to the square.

Protester Shaaban Mindawy, 24, said the army, working with police, had been trying to prevent people from entering the square since Thursday evening.

"The officers were very stubborn," Mindawy said, having found a way in from a side street. "The army was confiscating food and medical supplies that people were trying to bring inside. The officers were telling people that thugs may attack them and take their money."

7.41am: The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood reports:

The demonstration in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, is expected to be very big today, surpassing the 100,000-plus who came out on to the streets on Tuesday.

There have been signs that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has a strong presence in the city, has been organising for today's protest. A vehicle with speakers has been exhorting people to make a stand, and anti-regime activists have been visiting the mosques calling on people to join the protest.

"Tomorrow will be big," said Ahmed Mohammed, 27, a government employee who was protesting yesterday. "We have demands. They are old demands, but nobody listened until now."

The demonstration is expected to begin after Friday prayers and converge, to begin with, on Alexandria's seafront.

The mood, which was buoyant on Tuesday, has steadily turned more aggressive and edgy as pro- and anti-regime protesters have staged furious verbal confrontations and western journalists have been accused of being Israeli spies.

But, although Alexandria was the scene of bloodshed and violent clashes last Friday, it has not since seen street battles like those in and around Tahrir Square in Cairo.

There is still a strong army presence guarding key buildings in Alexandria, and tanks could be heard moving through the streets in the early hours of this morning. Police made a reappearance yesterday, but restricted their role to directing traffic.

Ebtisam Muhammed, a 22-year-old anthropology graduate, feared that the protests were now being manipulated by "dark forces". "They're doing this to bring the temple down," she said.

A poster in support of Egypt Revolution and Beyond which anyone is of course welcome to use :

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RaqIAwxYPp8/TUsxwBf3_4I/AAAAAAAAAQ8/emNLjV3i9zU/s1600/EgyptRevolution_lowres.jpg

And also a letter from U.S. citizens in support of Egyptian Insurrection :

http://allergic2capitalism.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/to-the-people-of-egypt-and-beyond/

Solidarity!

AJ:

10:50am: Egypt's defence minister is visiting Tahrir Square today, a ministry source tells Reuters. "Field Marshal [Mohamed Hussein] Tantawi and leaders of the armed forces are currently in Tahrir Square," the source is quoted as saying.

10:09am: Our correspondent at Tahrir Square says soldiers are preventing people from getting into Tahrir Square from at least one of the entry points.

10:01am: More from our web producer in Cairo: "About 65 soldiers stationed around 6th of October bridge and the museum, wearing riot gear. Limiting access to Corniche, etc."

9:55am: The website World Wide Tahrir calls for sit-ins to be held at Egyptian embassies "from Friday 4th Feb at 20:00 local time in your city(!!!), till Mubarak leaves"

9:50am: Our web producer in Cairo writes on Twitter: "Egyptian state TV reporting that one of its crews was attacked in Tahrir Square. Amusing thought, but is it true? Could be propaganda."

EA:
0720 GMT: The blogger Sandmonkey, who was detained yesterday, is back and in feisty form on Twitter: "Okay, guys, I am using an old laptop till the paranoid friends who took and hid my laptop upon hearing of my arrest come back with it."

0710 GMT: Complementing President Mubarak's phone discussion with American journalist Christiane Amanpour declaring that he wants to leave office but has to stay to prevent "chaos" --- see our special analysis --- Vice President Omar Suleiman has assured Amanpour that there will be no violence against anti-regime protesters.

Despite reports that the US Government is discussing a plan with Egyptian officials for the immediate departure of President Mubarak, Suleiman declares:

My telephone call with [US Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton. We discussed this issue but she didn't ask that President Mubarak step down now. But I told her it was a process, and at the end of it, President Mubarak will leave.

What I hear from President Obama is that he is supporting the people. President Obama told our president that he is a brave man."

0705 GMT: Confirmation Bert Sundström, a reporter from Swedish national television, was found yesterday but was stabbed and seriously wounded. He is now in hospital.

A report comes in that another Swedish journalist, Rimco Andersson, was detained this morning.

-----
daily show on mubarak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=estApiBAIN4

haha it's official, the revolution has been televised (aljazeera), sponsored (kenneth cole), and now has its own celebrity spokesperson (alicia keys)... maybe instead of mubarak stepping down... angelina jolie could just adopt him?

11:36am: An AFP photographer says Defence Minister Tantawi has addressed the crowd in Tahrir Square, surrounded by soldiers, who called on the protesters to sit down.

"The man [Mubarak] told you he won't stand again," Tantawi said, referring to the president's announcement that he will not seek re-election in polls to be held this autumn. Tantawi also repeated a call from the Egyptian government for the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's biggest opposition group, to join a dialogue with the government.

.... what khawaga said before, attempts at recuperation beginning... tbh I'm a bit dismayed this man can even speak in tahrir....

Al Ahram is back online (for the previous 2 days, since internet was restored, their pages were stuck on 27th Jan, with no updates).

The following piece is sourced to AFP, but echoes a point made by someone (Fisk? it's above somewhere) a few days ago about the failure of intelligence agencies to make use of open source intel, both in the interest of promoting the indispensibility of their "secret sauce" covert intel sources, and to allow political filtering and spin to fit the dominant institutional doctrine.

CIA: Obama warned on Egypt

AFP, Friday 4 Feb 2011
Print Send Tweet Stephanie O'Sullivan, nominated by President Barack Obama to the country's second-highest intelligence job, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the administration was warned "at the end of last year."

"We have warned of instability," said O'Sullivan, currently the associate deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committee chairperson, expressed doubts about the ability of the CIA and others to quickly inform the president, the secretary of state, and Congress of threats.

"I have doubts as to whether the intelligence community has lived up to its obligations in the area," she said.

The California Democrat told journalists afterward that she has noted gaps in the collection of information from social networking sites, including Facebook, in the buildup to the Egypt crisis.

"I've looked at some intelligence in this area, which indicates some lacking," she said. When asked, she specified a lacking of "collection" of information.

"It's very concerning. Maybe the CIA doesn't consider that it should be collecting open-source data, but my view is that open-source data can be very, very important."
[...]

prayers have ended... watch

Al Ahram: Egypt in Revolution: a minute by minute account of "Departure Friday"

12:30 Ahram Online correspondent says hundreds of thousands are joined in Friday prayers. She described the scene as totally amazing, similar only to scenes of prayers during the Hajj in Mecca. The thousands who are not praying encircle those engaged in prayer providing them with protection.

12:18 Friday sermons start in mosques all over Egypt, with government appointed preachers urging young protestors to calm

12:10 Protestors ready for a mass friday prayer on Tahrir Sq.

12:00 Ahram Online correspondent in Tahrir says tens of thousands continue to descend on the square; as has been the case throughout the week, protestors’ have organized special security details to check IDS of all incomers. All those connected with the police in any way are barred from entery.

for all you fans of Bedouin with RPGs

le Parisien

11h25. La roquette antichar, de type RPG, tirée sur le siège de la Sécurité de l'Etat dans la ville d'El-Arich (nord de l'Egypte), près de la frontière de la bande de Gaza, a provoqué un incendie du bâtiment et des vitres brisées. L'origine du tir est pour l'instant inconnu.

some twitter feeds:

/3arabawy
/mar3e
/abdu
/jan25voices
/sumayaholdijk
/AJtalk
/occupiedcairo
/annierebekah

BBC front man and all-round cunt Matt Frei, said on the late news last night that the idea that the Egyptian state and its secret services were behind yesterday's concerted repression was "a conspiracy theory".

egyptian friend on fb says amr moussa is in tahrir... opprotunist fuck

Mark.

Article in Spanish from CGT North Africa

Avanza el sindicalismo autónomo en Egipto

An autonomous confederation of unions has been created. Five points are the basic reivindications:

1º El derecho al trabajo que el estado debe garantizar. En cualquier caso, una prestación de desempleo para todos los parados.

Right to work guaranteed by the state, in any case unemployment benefits for everybody

2º Un salario mínimo interprofesional de 1200 libras egipcias, con subida adaptada al IPC, más cobro de horas extras y festivos. El salario máximo debe tener una limitación en diez veces superior al salario mínimo, como tope.

Basic interprofessional salary (BIS) of 1200 egyptian pounds, RPI increased plus overtime and holiday paid. A limit to maximum salary that cannot be more than 10 time the BIS

3º Derecho a servicios sociales básicos. A la salud, a la vivienda, a la educación, como servicios públicos gratuitos y de calidad. Derecho a una jubilación digna.

Right to basic social services: quality health, housing and education as free and state funded services. Right to a decent retirement for all

4º Derechos sindicales plenos. Creación de listas sindicales propias, sin ingerencia del gobierno y la empresa. Acabar con todos los obstáculos legales que limitan o impiden el ejercicio de los derechos sindicales.

Full union rights. Right to their own union lists without government or business interference. Abolition of every legal obstacle that limit or hinder union practices

5º La puesta en libertad de todos los detenidos desde el 25 de enero.

Free all put into prison since 25th january

Hardly anarchist or revolutionary but quite bold anyway. Basics actually.

Interview with Egyptian anarchist:
http://libcom.org/library/egypt-unrest-interview-egyptian-anarchist

Live Al Jazeera footage from Cairo protests here;
http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/546?task=view

Steven.

Interview with Egyptian anarchist:
http://libcom.org/library/egypt-unrest-interview-egyptian-anarchist

thank you mate, this was great

on a side note if I remember correctly anarchist in arabic means 'messy one' or something like that

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/germany-freezes-arms-exports-egypt

Interview with Egyptian anarchist:
http://libcom.org/library/egypt-unrest-interview-egyptian-anarchist

Sweet. Thanks. I'd heard of this group only after I left :(

g live blog:

2.24pm: Al Jazeera is reporting that top military officials are taking a close interest in troop deployment around Tahrir square. One of their correspondents, Jacky Rowland, told the network how she saw a very senior army official arrive in a limousine at the 6th of October bridge – one the entry points to the square – to inspect troops there before being driven off slowly.

and (mainly crap but one nice part where an old lady tells some guy who looks a bit tpo comfortable with a bullhorn that they 'shouldn't take the kids revolution away from them'):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/feb/04/egyptians-london-protest-mubarak-video

g:
3.36pm: Four aides of the former interior minister Habib al-Adli have been arrested, al-Jazeera reports. Adli had a travel ban imposed on him yesterday and his bank account frozen.

g live blog... this might be a grave new development..

4.56pm: The award winning Egyptian journalist and blogger Wael Abbas tweets that he has been arrested by the army.

g live blog... this might be a grave new development..

4.56pm: The award winning Egyptian journalist and blogger Wael Abbas tweets that he has been arrested by the army.

He's now apparently been released according to James Buck's (a journalist who's in the past covered labour issues in Egypt) twitter feed.

3arabawy

Popular Committees in Sharqiya are running security, protecting public property, organizing traffic…

Sharqiya is in the Nile Delta

g live blog:

sabotage in the sinai-- Jack Shenker said it is thought that the explosion is linked to the ongoing dispute between Mubark's government and the Sinai Bedouins, rather than being directly related to the current protests against the regime.

10.33am: The immediate removal of Mubarak from office will not be sufficient to stop the mass protests in Egypt, Jack Shenker writes in the Guardian. In a piece filed late last night, Shenker notes that the coalition of protesters have drawn up a common list of radical demands.

These include:

• The resignation of the entire ruling party, including the new vice-president Omar Suleiman, whom the Obama administration believes is best placed to oversee a transition of power.
• A broad-based transitional government appointed by a 14-strong committee, made up of senior judges, youth leaders and members of the military.
• The election of a founding council of 40 public intellectuals and constitutional experts, who will draw up a new constitution under the supervision of the transitional government, then put it to the people in a referendum. Fresh elections would then be held at a local and national level.
• The end of the country's emergency law.
• The dismantling of the state security apparatus.
• The trial of key regime leaders, including Mubarak.

11.35am: Fox News has reported there was an assassination attempt on Egypt's vice-president Omar Suleiman late yesterday, although this has not been confirmed by other sources.

The news network reported two of Suleiman's bodyguards were killed in the failed assassination. However, a senior security source has denied the report, according to Reuters.

11.44am: Protest leaders say they have met Egypt's prime minister to discuss ways to ease Mubarak out of office so negotiations can begin on the nation's future, AP reports.

----
EA:
0800 GMT: More on this morning's sabotage of the Israel-Egypt gas pipeline in north Sinai....

A small amount of explosives were placed in a control station, starting a fire which lasted for three hours until it was contained about 45 minutes ago. There are no reported casualties and no "major damage".

Egyptian officials are pointing to disenchanted Bedouin as likely suspects for the explosion.

Authorities have turned off the gas flow until repairs are completed.

0805 GMT: An activist (http://www.twitter.com/mosaaberizing) sends in a stream of tweets from near Tahrir Square....

We're sitting in front of their tanks after the army tried to remove the barricades we set up near the [National] Musuem. Now chanting "protect us with tanks, your brothers died here". Thousands of protesters surrounding them now, making it clear the tanks will have to run them over before moving any further.

0850 GMT: This morning's sabotage of the gas pipeline in North Sinai was on the branch into Jordan, not the branch into Israel as initially reported.

The Government said banks will reopen on Sunday and the stock market on Monday.

Ahram Online posts a report on the tensions between the military and protesters over the removal of barricades around Tahrir Square (see 0805 GMT):

No sooner had protesters detected the army's intentions than, with shouts and whistles, hundreds of their numbers, who had been spread around the enormous square, rushed to the northern edge, surrounding an army bulldozer that had started trying to remove the barricade. A leading Muslim Brotherhood member taking part in the occupation tried to convince the overwhelmingly youthful protesters to allow the army to go on with the dismantling of the barricade but was shouted down.

The standoff continues, with army officers trying to convince the protesters to let them get on with the job they've been ordered to do, but the protesters, fearing that this is an attempt to clear the way so that police forces, and or thugs, would later make another attack on the protest with the aim of emptying the square....

Meanwhile, according to our correspondent, the protesters continue to use their bodies as a protective shield around the barricade, and the army remains bound by its pledge not to use violence against them.

1120 GMT: Evan Hill of Al Jazeera English reported 15 minutes ago, "Altercation at the main [anti-regime] protester barricade by Egyptian museum. Soldiers gather at the barricade, and some protesters are hopping over. There is also now a line of soldiers inside the square itself separating the interior from the protesters at the museum barricade."

And now: "Tank pulled up to the museum barricade, its barrel facing inward. Scores of protesters are chanting in front of it and sitting on the ground."

1145 GMT: A senior Egyptian security source has denied last night's report that there was an assassination attempt on Vice President Omar Suleiman this week.

AJ:

2:44am An Al Jazeera correspondent says that there are reports of more pro-Mubarak protests expected on Saturday - they're anticiapted to be larger and more organised than what we've seen in recent days.

6:00am The curfew, which has been widely ignored, is now officially lifted for the day, but takes effect again at 7pm tonight. That's a relaxation compared to recent days when the curfew timings were 5pm to 7am.

7:49am There are differing reports of how many have died in the last 11 days of protests and clashes. The Egyptian health minister says 11 people have died, while the United Nations says 300 people may have been killed across the country since protests began. New agencies have counted more than 150 dead in morgues in Alexandria, Suez and Cairo.

8:04am Our correspondent says the situation in Tahrir Square appears to be getting "more tense" with some kind of "stand-off" - two different groups forming and troops in helmets apparently getting ready to be deployed.

9:03am Our reporter says pro-democracy groups are getting ready for confrontations, setting up metal barriers and three layers of human walls.

11:12am One of our correspondents in Cario says on Twitter that a soldier told her yesterday that the curfew, to take effect at 7pm, will be enforced strongly from tonight onwards. Since protests started, the curfew has been largely ignored, with scores of people sleeping in Tahrir Square overnight.

12:27pm Our correspondent in Alexandria says the mood there is reminiscent of "some kind of hangover" today with quiet streets a day after hundreds of thousands took to the streets, calling on President Mubarak to step down.

Some people are scratching their heads, wondering what more they need to do to make it clear to the president that they don't want him.

12:38pm: More protests are expected in the centre of Alexandria later in the day. There will also be a funeral service in one of the suburbs for a protester who passed away yesterday after being injured in protests during Egypt's "day of anger", January 28.

12:40pm One of our reporters just wrote on Twitter: "colleague counted 15 snipers on top of egyptian museum, mostly facing october 6 bridge"

1:07pm This was just posted on Twitter from our web producer on the ground in Cairo: "Altercation at the main protester barricade by Egyptian museum. Soldiers gather at the barricade, and some protesters are hopping" and "There is also now a line of soldiers inside the square itself separating the interior from the protesters at the museum barricade."

1:34pm The latest from our web producer in Tahrir Square: "Two tanks now at museum barricade with barrels facing inward. No chance they'll fire, but it's the intimidation factor. No Mubarak people."

hossam:

the army is moving in, trying to remove Barricades around Tahrir set up by protesters near Abdel Moneim Riyadh sq.

protesters have slept in front of the tanks to stop them.

10 mins earlier, Dr Beltagui of the Ikhwan asked protesters not to resist the army. He was booed

the army is trying to ban people from entering Tahrir. The soldiers r trying to block Qasr el Nil bridge. #jan25

from day 1 i've been screaming: Do NOT trust the army. This is Mubarak's army not Egypt's army. #jan25

the army has deployed soldiers, cordoning off protesters who r sleeping in front of the tanks from the rest of the square.

Kasr El Nil check point moved up to the entrance of the bridge itself, increase in army presence http://yfrog.com/h4wmqtj

WIfe of murdered Egyptian journo on BBC says he was at the office when he was shot by sniper not at home #jan25

The army has allowed a group of 100 Mubarak's thugs into Qasr el-Nil bridge now. #Jan25

abdu:

lindseyhilsum Checkpoint on road fm Alex to Cairo collecting journalists - we've bn here nearly an hour. Boring. #egypt @channel4news

mar3e:

nothing new but some video from mahalla demo yesterday
http://egytimes.org/2011/02/3265
http://bit.ly/exMYig

http://twitter.com/evanchill :

Video from Sunday: Driving through Cairo's neighborhood checkpoints before they started abducting journos. http://ow.ly/3QPva

from g liveblog:

12.35pm: Here's the latest from AP on the meeting between opposition leaders with the prime minister over ways to ease Mubarak out of office.

A self-declared group of Egypt's elite called the "group of wise men" has circulated ideas to try to break that deadlock. Among them is a proposal that Mubarak "deputise" his vice-president Omar Suleiman with his powers and, for the time being at least, step down in everything but name.
The "wise men," who are separate from the protesters on the ground, have met twice in recent days with Suleiman and the prime minister, said Amr el-Shobaki, a member of the group. Their proposals also call for the dissolving of the parliament monopolised by the ruling party and the end of emergency laws that give security forces near-unlimited powers.
The protesters are looking into the proposal floated by the "wise men," said [Abdel-Rahman] Youssef, who is part of the youth movement connected to Nobel peace laureate and prominent reform advocate Mohamed ElBaradei.
"It could be a way out of the crisis," Youssef said. "But the problem is in the president … he is not getting it that he has become a burden on everybody, psychologically, civicly and militarily."
Israa Abdel-Fattah, a member of the April 6 group, another of the youth movements driving the demonstrations, said there is support for the wise men's proposal among protesters.
Youssef underlined that the 12-day-old protests will continue in Tahrir Square until Mubarak goes in an acceptable way.
"There is no force that can get the youth out of the square. Every means was used. Flexibility, violence, live ammunition, and even thugs, and the protesters are still steadfast," he said.

----
wtf, wisemen? this looks bad... removing mubarak is important symbolically, not just in egypt but across the region, but if they accept a transition govt led by suleiman... well you can see how things could turn bad.

g:

2.44pm: There has been an explosion at a church in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, Reuters reports.

The cause and the scale of the blast are not yet clear, according to the news agency.

Witnesses said they saw several armed men around the church but it was not clear whether they were involved. Smoke rose from the Mari Gerges church, which was empty of people, they added.

AJ:

4:50pm The head of the army's central command speaks to the masses in Tahrir Square urging them to leave the square, they chant back at him "We are not leaving, He [Mubarak] is leaving".

4:35pm 500 protesters have arrived in Tahrir Square from the port city of Suez. The protesters have called for another day of protests tomorrow called "the day of the martyred". Also on Sunday, the Copts in Egypt have called for Sunday mass to take place in Tahrir Square.

http://issuu.com/alitambara/docs/stand_w_the_people_of_egypt_gameover/1

GAME OVER poster

mubarak has resigned has head of the ndp

ea live blog has this:
1710 GMT: Seven demands have been reportedly forwarded by the Tahrir Square protesters to the government that should be immediately be met for them to end protests:

1. Resignation of the president

2. End of State of Emergency

3. Dissolution of The People's Assembly and Shora Council

4. Formation of a national transitional government

5. An elected Parliament that will ammend the Constitution to allow for presidential elections

6. Immediate prosecution for those responsible for deaths of the revolution's martyrs

7. Immediate prosecution of the corrupters & those who robbed the country of its wealth

Source? (like a link)

Hamas stopped a similar demonstration in the Gaza Strip in support of the protests, arresting some women and hassling others a few days ago, according to Human Rights Watch.

Tahrir Square is being turned into a cast-iron kettle. There's no doubting the continuing elan, courage and spirit of revolt of the protesters here and elsewhere - there's no let up in this. But they are hemmed in, surrounded and many plain-clothes police are roaming the streets according to the BBC. The situation is potentially unfavourable - dangerous even - for them under the present circumstances.

I haven't seen many reports the involvement of workers; strikes, expressions of solidarity or independent actions, which is what this movement needs.

There's been no "revolution" here as the bourgeoisie says. There's been a tremendous upheaval from the masses as part of a welcome international phenomenon, but the military regime, its secret police and special forces are still very much in control. They've even shown some adaptability and political nonce in ekeing out "concessions" while settling some internal scores in relation to Gemal and co.

I haven't seen many reports the involvement of workers; strikes, expressions of solidarity or independent actions, which is what this movement needs.

I miss that too and expect the worst unfortunately.

What should we make of this?
Gazans feed hungry Egyptian Army - The Palestine Telegraph

Gaza Strip, (Pal Telegraph) - Palestinians in Gaza strip have been seen sending food to the Egyptian army deployed along Gaza Strip borders who are prevented access to food for ten days .

Witnesses reported that security forces of Hamas government and humanitarian committees are providing food and meals for the Egyptian soldiers on the borders, southern Rafah city.

Adding that the Egyptian army asked the ministry of interior in Gaza to provide them with food since the Sinai Bedouin prevented their access to food.

Pointing out that the Egyptian army avoided entering housing areas because of fear of being attacked by Sinai Bedouins who control many roads in Sinai and the Egyptian Rafah and Elshaikh Zwied.

Dozens of Egyptian security agents and Bedouin were killed in violent clashes erupted at the beginning of the past week, sources added.

Security forces of Hamas movement in Gaza intensified their existence along the borders and prevented anyone from approaching.

Jano Charbel, journalist and syndicalist, on his arrest by police and subsequent break out from prison.

Jano

On Friday, January 28th - the popular uprising known as "Friday of Rage" took place throughout a number of Egyptian cities. In Cairo, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets following Friday noon prayers.

In an attempt to impose an information blackout, authorities had cut-off all Internet and cellphone services - in Cairo and a number of other cities - earlier on Friday morning.

Despite this decreased ability to communicate and coordinate street action, tens of thousands poured onto the streets from their homes and mosques in central Cairo's district of Abbassiya. Heading for Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, they chanted anti-Mubarak slogans as they marched peacefully down Ramses Street towards Ramses Square - where riot police and state-security forces had been deployed.

From an armored truck teargas canisters were fired at these protesters as they approached the square. Tens of canisters were fired amongst the marchers, before they started fighting back with rocks.

As a journalist covering this "Friday of Rage," I marched along with the protesters. Although I openly supported this anti-Mubarak protest march I was not involved in chanting, or the rock-throwing.

I was doing my job taking photos and videos of these clashes around the square. When a plain-clothed policeman hurling rocks back at protesters noticed that I was filming him in action. As he ran towards me I told him "journalist, I'm a journalist." I quickly found out that he was a member of the infamous state-security forces.

He tugged at the camera strap around my neck, I pulled back and told him "let go of my camera, I'm here doing my work." He cursed at me, and struggled to drag me along, until three of his parters-in-crime came to his assistance.

I was beaten with batons, kicked, punched, slapped and thrown over a fence as I held onto my camera. However, with enough force and brutality they managed to pry the camera from my hands. I knew at that moment that I would never see my camera again, and that all the photos/videos I had taken of this unprecedented uprising would be lost.

With the camera in their possession I thought that these state-security forces would cease beating me. They did not however, I was dragged by the collar of my jacket and beaten mercilessly until I was at another fence. At this point one of these policemen held my arms behind my back, while two or three others threw me over the fence - headfirst - onto the asphalt street below.

When my head hit the ground I could only hear a whistling-sound in my ears. For a second I thought I was dead, my second thought was that I might be paralyzed. I then moved my arms and got back on my feet. The state-security forces continued to curse me as they pulled me to a large blue prisoner-transport truck.

I was detained in this truck along with sixteen protesters, mostly youth. We were held in this parked truck for around half an hour; as we peeped outside the small grated windows we saw that thousands of more protesters had began confronting the police forces in Ramses Square.

The police were clearly losing the battle. Rocks began raining down upon the police forces, occasionally hitting the truck we were in. Teargas canisters were hurled back in our direction, nearly chocking us within. Under threat of being overrun, the truck sped-off.

After driving us around for around two hours, the truck pulled into the Central Security Forces' training camp in Tora - located in Southeastern Cairo. We were interrogated by plain-clothed officers, and then locked-up in the prison within this camp. Around 700 people, mostly youth protesters, were being held in this prison.

After languishing in our cells for around three hours, we began hearing loud and constant banging noises from another cell down the hall. Then an outburst of cheers could be heard. The banging noise then arrived outside our own cell. Suddenly the door of our prison cell swung open.

I'm not sure how the first group got out, but our fellow inmates had broken themselves out of their prison cells and then liberated us. One group unscrewed pipes from the bathrooms, and began pounding into the prison wall. Eventually three large holes were punched through the wall.

From these holes, a group of activists began negotiating with the conscripts and officers standing outside. Another group threatened to destroy the prison's main gate, and make a jailbreak. The conscripts expressed sympathy with us, and eventually junior officers informed us that we would soon be released.

Indeed, after only five hours, we were all released from the prison. Officers told us to leave without our personal IDs and belongings, but we demanded that they be returned. Soon enough some 700 IDs, cellphones, and personal belongings were returned to us and we were released.

Although I have not been able to retrieve my camera, and although my face and body are still bruised - I feel liberated by the spirit of resistance and rebellion amongst Egyptian youth. This spirit and determination served to defeat police forces on the streets of Cairo, and this same spirit managed to release us from prison.

If sustained, this revolutionary spirit will successfully bring down the Mubarak dictatorship which has oppressed Egypt for the past 30 years. The revolution of Egypt's youth is at hand.

http://she2i2.blogspot.com/2011/02/account-of-police-brutality-targeting.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mYShuvVVLDs

wael ghonim getting nicked

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Viq8ftoZpQQ&feature=player_embedded

unarmed protester killed in cold blood

from the comments section of the guardian live blog... sounds proper bogus tbh but the US has done more boneheaded things before.

reading his past comments he does seem to be from charlestown, so, well I guess it could be true
----
FWIW,

Units of the US Marines at Camp Lejune in North Carolina have been put on 24 hour alert status. They would be part of a follow on force. Army units, possibly units of the 82nd Airborne or other Marines would go in first. The mission is in Egypt.

This is just an alert, no mission orders have been issued according to some friends of mine at Lejune. I'm posting this just for information. I suspect the media is aware but they won't report anything at this point. My information is second hand.
---
two responses:

The Marines deny any raising of alert is Egypt related. For what it is worth.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2011/02/ap-mullen-us-ready-to-assist-in-egypt-020411/

-----
I can't find any online info, or even rumors, about Camp Lejeune.

However, the Pentagon has sent an amphibious assault ship (600-800 Marines, plus helicopters, etc.) to stand by in the Red Sea, and an aircraft carrier group is apparently holding position in the eastern Med.

The story is that this is all in support of the possible need to assist in evacuating Americans.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/02/egypt-pentagon-moving-warships-preparing-for-possible-evacuations.html

Interview by an Israeli journalist of an Al Jazeera reporter Makes it appear that at least as far as what is going on in Tahrir, the class content is low and the MB recuperation is just under the surface, ready to come out. An interesting read.

The opposition has split over whether to come to Suleiman's talks, but the Muslim Brotherhood and El-Baradei have both refused. If Suleiman is allowed to become the head of the new government, either through a clampdown on the protesters or some kind of negotiations, he will be much, much worse than Mubarak. Part of the reason Mubarak hasn't left yet is because he's completely delusional about the threat the protesters face to his regime. Suleiman has no such illusions, so he will use whatever force is necessary to keep himself in power.

Also, the Vice-President position was vacant for most of Mubarak's regime until just a few days ago. Either Mubarak is now withdrawing to hold power behind the scenes while Suleiman runs the government, or he is preparing to make a quiet exit hoping that no-one will notice...fat chance.

squaler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Viq8ftoZpQQ&feature=player_embedded

unarmed protester killed in cold blood

chilling.

the street protests are being tolerated, probably in the hope that the demonstrators will eventually wear themselves out

sounds quite plausible. the big demo a couple of days ago didn't get mubarak out (which was the immediate aim: "departure day"), how long can it be kept going?

I hope this can be put up as a post on the front page of libcom.
thanks

"We're Not Leaving Until Mubarak Leaves"
Kara N. Tina

This interview with Egyptian revolutionary socialist journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy was conducted on Saturday, February 5th at 8pm (Egyptian time). Due to time limitations we were only able to address half of the questions we had prepared. Below el-Hamalawy comments on the current decisive moment faced by those on the streets of Egypt, working-class participation and action, and the role of the army amongst other topics.

The situation in Egypt is developing incredibly fast, can you describe what's happening in the streets right now?

As i am talking to you there are more than 15,000 demonstrators in Tahrir square who are still occupying it. Earlier in the day the army came to evict the protestors by trying to destroy the barricades they set up near the Egyptian Museum and although the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the square Dr. Beltagui had ordered and called upon everybody via the microphone to not resist the army, people shouted back at him including the base cadres of the Al-Ikhwān [Muslim Brotherhood] who were there. People ran and lay in front of the tanks in order to stop them which they managed to do. Later the army sent the commander of the central region, which is basically Cairo and the surrounding areas, along with three generals, to convince the protesters to leave but they shouted back at him saying "We're not leaving until Mubarak leaves."

It's raining in Cairo now, it's very cold but the protestors are holding out and more from the other provinces, specifically from Suez, have descended on Cairo to join the occupation today. In the meantime the government is continuing with its witch-hunt and demonization campaign against the protestors, blaming them for whatever malaise the country is going through at the moment which is actually the fault of the government and not the protestors.  This follows twelve days of continuous protests starting on the 25th of january. The 25th of January is National Police Day here in Egypt and that's when the protests actually started. The Egyptian government wanted to basically liberate the Liberation Square, Tahrir Square, from the protestors today. And they started that in the morning but they have failed. It has been announced that tomorrow the government will resume work and they have called on all civil servants to attend to their jobs and to go to their factories. They wanted to smash the occupation of Tahrir today. But as I'm talking to you that occupation continues.

What are some of the hurdles the protest movement is facing, are there divisions emerging while trying to find common ground?

Yesterday the square was completely packed with more than 1 million protestors and Alexandria witnessed similar protests as well as the other provinces. But there are definitely big problems that the protest movement is now facing. Which way is the way forward? Today it has been announced that Gamal Mubarak and Safwat El-Sherif, who is one of the most hated figures and was the secretary general of the National Democratic Party, will be removed from their positions and one of Gamal Mubarak's associates, Dr. Hossam Badrawi was to take the secretary general position instead. There was also news that appeared on Al Arabiya, BBC and Al Jazeera  that Hosni Mubarak had resigned as the president of the NDP, but of course not from his post as President. But now there is confusion because these reports have been denied, then confirmed again and then denied, so we are waiting to see. 

It is true that virtually all the opposition groups, whether they are the traditional political parties or the youth groups, have taken part in the uprising but the protests still remain spontaneous. Which means on the one hand, the people always surprise you by their militancy from below that exceeds all expectation, but on the other hand, there is always confusion about what is the way forward and what the clear alternative is. This could pose the threat of this revolution being hijacked. At the moment we have many people claiming to represent the downtown occupation and some of them are even engaged in negotiations with the government. Some groups say they will not negotiate until Mubarak goes, some think that if Mubarak goes we can negotiate with Omar Suleiman [vice president appointed by Mubarak on January 29th, ex-director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services and the CIA's go-to-guy on rendition], others say both Mubarak and Omar Suleiman have to go. 

Is there momentum towards protestors taking over the means of production and other institutions of Egyptian society? 

On the ground, organizing mechanisms are evolving slowly. Protestors have set up security committees to watch the exits and entrances to the square and to defend it from attacks by Mubarak's thugs. There are makeshift hospitals that have also been erected in the square to treat the injured form the clashes with the thugs. 

Discussions continue in circles that the protestors have put together in order to try to reach some unified demands and people take the platform where there is a mic and address the protestors. Whatever resolutions that the people like they cheer and whatever they don't like they boo. The uprising up until now contained elements from all Egyptian society, whether it is the urban poor, the working class, and even sons and daughters of the Egyptian elite could be seen in the protest. But as the revolution continues, some polarization has started to happen naturally. Between those who are tired, meaning the middle class and the upper middle class who are saying that we should stop now and try to reach some compromise with the government, and those who basically have nothing to loose and who have sacrificed a lot, like the urban poor and the working class. 

The intervention of the working class in the movement is also another question mark, because definitely in some of the provinces where mass protests were organized they contained a majority of workers. But we still haven't seen an independent movement by those workers. Except in very few cases. For example I received a report about a textile mill owned by a company called  Ghazl Meit Ghamr in Daqahliya, which is a province in the Nile Delta. The workers there have kicked out the CEO, they have occupied the factory and are self-managing it. This type of action has also been repeated in a printing house south of Cairo called Dar El-Ta'awon. There as well the workers have kicked out the CEO and are self managing the company. There are two other cases in Suez, where the clashes were the worst with the security forces during the uprising. The death toll is very high in Suez, we don't actually know the real death toll until now. In two factories there, the Suez Steel Mill and the Suez Fertilizer Factory, workers have declared an open-ended strike until the regime falls. Other than that we have not seen, at least to my knowledge, independent working class action. 

The last thing i would like to note is that the so-called popular committees have been springing up in the neighborhoods here in Cairo and in the provinces. This happened following the collapse of our police force and their cowardly withdrawal in front of the people last Friday [January 28th]. The government started whipping up the security paranoia amongst the citizens in addition to sending plainclothes thugs who were affiliated with the security services, just as it happened in Tunisia, to attack public and private property and fire shots in the air. Citizens immediately stepped in and started forming these popular committees to protect their neighborhoods. They have set up checkpoints, they are armed with knives, swords, machetes and sticks and they are inspecting cars that are coming in and out. In some areas, such as the province of Sharqiya, the popular committees are more or less completely running the town, organizing the traffic etc. But in many cases they also work in coordination with the army.

The army has played an important role in the uprising in Egypt, even receiving support from the US. Can you explain the role of the army amidst the protests?

Our army as you probably know is the biggest army in the Arab world. It receives 1.3 billion dollars from the USA every year. The military institution has always been the ruling institution we have in Egypt, even if our President hasn't put on the military uniform since 1952. Their intervention by descending on to the streets on the night of Friday, the 28th of January, was based upon the order from the chief of the army, who at the end of the day is Hosni Mubarak. When the army first appeared in the streets they were positively welcomed by the people since the police is hated much more than the army here in Egypt. One reason is that the army does not have much contact with the civilians on a daily basis, unlike the police of course. Since people were sick of the police and paranoid of the security situation they initially welcomed the army to the neighborhoods and also to the entrances and exits of Tahrir Square. However we all know that, number one, the army can't be trusted and number two, that when you hear Obama and the US administration coming out strongly in favor of a power transition supervised by the Egyptian military you understand what their role is in keeping Egypt stable. Specifically making sure there isn't a radical regime that could threaten the security of Israel, the security of the Suez Canal and the continuous flow of oil. 

The US administration itself has probably made a fool of themselves for the zillionth time owing to their position vis-a-vis the Egyptian revolution. Initially when the protests started HIllary Clinton immediately announced that they were not worried whatsoever and that the Mubarak regime was stable. And Joe Biden went on air and refused to label Mubarak as a dictator. Why? Because Mubarak is a friend of United States and a friend of Israel. This shows you the hypocrisy of the Americans when it comes to their barometer of who is a democrat and who is not. And now when they have finally reached the conclusion that Hosni Mubarak was to be overthrown, they are working day and night in order to secure his removal as smoothly as possible. 

Cross-national inspiration was crucial for the wave of uprisings that we are witnessing, has there been the emergence of networks of coordination across Arab nations that are continuing and can pose as a viable alternative to the political landscape we see today? 

The domino effect was definitely evident after the uprising in Tunisia. When Ben Ali was overthrown this was very much positively received by Egyptians who could draw parallels between the Tunisian situation and the Egyptian situation. There were also several protests that had already broken out in solidarity with Tunisia. The main slogan chanted in Tahrir Square and around the country is "El-Sha'ab yourid isqat el-Nizam" . This was the same slogan chanted by the Tunisians, "The people want the government to fall." It is true that in the days leading unto the uprising there was much discussions over the internet and Tunisian activists were transferring some of their experiences when it comes to confronting the police, such as activist kits you should have with you when you are facing the police. But we don't have any concrete mechanisms for coordination yet. All we get are tweets and emails saying "solidarity", "we like what you are doing", "you are a source of inspiration" etc. But i'm afraid that there aren't any governing or coordinating mechanisms between these two movements yet. How will this develop in the future no one knows but I am personally hoping that this will be the start of something bigger. Because already the domino effect is spreading. You've seen Yemen. They have had mass protests against their dictator, who had to come out promising not to run again in elections and not to groom his son for succession. There were similar protests in Jordan and the King was quick to intervene and dissolve the cabinet and bring in a new one. There was already a mini-uprising in Algeria even before Egypt, which was put down brutally by the usual force of the Algerian state. But they have also had to make concessions , they removed the emergency law and they lowered the prices of basic commodities. It is still to early to judge, the uprising here is only 12 days old, in Tunisia it took one month. We'll see how it goes.

Hossam el-Hamalawy's photography from the streets:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/sets/72157625821089247/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/sets/72157625947671262/

His Blog:
http://www.arabawy.org/blog/

His Twitter:
http://twitter.com/3arabawy

Al Ahram: Arab revolts bad news for Al-Qaeda: experts

[...]
"The jihadi groups are at a crossroads," said Dominique Thomas, an expert in radical Islam at the School of Higher Studies in Social Sciences in Paris.

"If these events snowball, and raise democratic expectations in the region and people are able to overthrow dictatorships with pressure from the street, that would be a stunning blow to their theories," he said.

"If it's the will of the people that topples regimes, Al-Qaeda and jihadi groups will find it hard to bounce back and modify their narrative," he said.

"And, amid all this excitement, they've been strangely quiet. They're probably confounded. Bin Laden or Zawahiri will have to speak out soon, or their whole discourse will lose credibility," he said.

Another leading expert, Jean-Pierre Filiu of New York's Colombia University and Paris' Sciences-Po, agreed. "Al-Qaeda was caught completely unawares by the popular uprisings in the Arab world," he told AFP.

"They've gone completely silent on the subject, incapable of commenting on the news, so far is it beyond their understanding," he said.
[...]

AA: Employees detain vice president of Egyptian workers union

Ahram Online , Monday 7 Feb 2011
Vice president of the Egyptian Workers Union, Mostafa Mongy, has been detained since Monday morning by employees demanding his immediate resignation.

Accused of corruption, Mongy has been under detention at the Workers’ University, where he works as its manager. The employees detaining Mongy demand his resignation from the university and his exclusion from the union.

"If it's the will of the people that topples regimes, Al-Qaeda and jihadi groups will find it hard to bounce back and modify their narrative,"

errr - not so: Al Quaida has voiced support for the revolts in Tunisia and Algeria - see this report from Jan 13th (in French).

AA: Emboldened Egyptians demand affordable homes

Reuters , Monday 7 Feb 2011
Print Send Tweet Hundreds of Egyptians demanding cheaper apartments rallied outside a government office on Monday, emboldened to press their case by mass demonstrations calling for the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.

Many stood for hours outside the downtown offices with their application forms. Some shouted that they would join the protest camp in nearby Tahrir Square if officials did not give way: "If you don't let us in, we will head to Tahrir."

Soheir and Amr, a married couple in their late 30s who were looking for an apartment they could afford, said they would not leave the governorate office area until they got what they saw as their right.

"How come they tell us to come on a certain day and then tell us to go away, saying there is nothing here for you? Aren't they aware of what is going on in Tahrir and that people will no longer surrender and will continue to pursue their demands?" said Amr, who declined to give his family name.

The governerate eventually opened its doors and let the home-seekers in, but officials refused to answer a reporter's questions.
[...]
Before the eruption of the anti-government demonstrations on Jan. 25, a protest of even a few hundred people was a rarity and seen as a challenge to the state.

However as the movement to topple Mubarak enters its 14th day, even Egyptians who have not joined the demonstrations are beginning to try to assert their rights.
[...]

It apparently still keeps going on. I'm glad. Quite moving the text on the brotherhood. It reminds me, up to a point, Vienet's text on may 68, enragés and situationists..., when he describes the explosion of communication among people that usually wouldn't talk to each other. Even in case the revolt is suppresed i hope the crack on the wall that divided them gets bigger and bigger. That conversation is a victory, even tiny, against separation.

Samotnaf

"If it's the will of the people that topples regimes, Al-Qaeda and jihadi groups will find it hard to bounce back and modify their narrative,"

errr - not so: Al Quaida has voiced support for the revolts in Tunisia and Algeria - see this report from Jan 13th (in French).

That's AQIM, the Al Qaeda Organisation of the Islamic Maghreb, formerly the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC). Personally I wouldn't consider them to be Al Qaida proper (i.e. Bin Laden, al Zawahiri & co). In fact the whole GSPC saga is murky in the extreme. I certainly wouldn't dismiss out of hand the allegations of folk like Jeremy Keenan, that they have been at least partly manipulated by the Algerian intelligence services in the past, if not entirely a pseudo-gang. But anyway, that's a digression. It'll be interesting to see what al Zawahiri eventually comes out with in relation to Egypt.

3Arabawy reporting about a few industrial actions that have started. Hopefully we will see more of this soon.

3Arabawy

we need industrial actions. We need the suez canal workers and air traffic controllers to strike. #egyworkers #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
the employees r requesting his immediate resignation over corruption #egyworkers #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
the university employees besieged Mostafa Mongi, vp of the state backed federation of trade unions. #egyworkers #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
the employees at Workers University in Nasr City r staging sit in. #egyworkers #jan25
3 hours ago
»

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
another sit in is going on now in Suez Trust Textile plant. #egyworkers #jan25
3 hours ago

Guardian Egypt stream

3.26pm: The Mubarak government's attempts to mollify protesters continue with an announcement today that public sector salaries and pensions are to increase by 15%. From the Associated Press:

Newly appointed Finance Minister Samir Radwan says some 6.5 billion Egyptian pounds ($960 million) will be allocated to cover the increases, which will take effect in April for the 6 million people on public pay rolls. In the past, public sector employees have been a pillar of support for the regime, but in recent years as prices have soared, their salaries have stagnated in value forcing the government to periodically announce raises to quell dissatisfaction.

BBC: Egypt government struggles to finance itself

The Egyptian government is struggling to finance itself as foreign investors pull out and the currency drops.

It had to scale down a bond auction on Monday as state-owned banks failed to stump up enough cash.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian pound fell to a six-year low as investors pulled money out of the country, although the fall was less than expected.

Although banks have reopened their doors, the stock exchange will now remain closed until at least Sunday.[nb this appears to be wrong, see below]
[...]
The Egyptian stock market had dropped 17% in the two days prior to its closure on 27 January.

The Egyptian pound has also proved more resilient than expected, with the market effectively reopened over the weekend as Egyptian banks were allowed to trade again.

The dollar has gained just 2.3% against the Egyptian currency since the protests began on 25 January.

Although the central bank has not yet intervened to steady the currency, there are market rumours that the state-owned banks have been doing so instead, by selling their dollars to buy Egyptian pounds.

Cash shortfall

It comes after the banks were required to reopen their doors on Sunday, resulting in queues of customers seeking to withdraw cash for the first time in over a week.

In a bid to preempt any run on the banks by big depositors, individual withdrawals have been limited to 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($8,400), and up to $10,000 in foreign currency.

Yet despite this limit on their cash outflows, and despite selling their dollars, the banks were reportedly unwilling or unable to come up with all of the E£15bn sought by the government at a treasury bills auction on Monday.

With foreigners having pulled out of the market altogether during the crisis, the government was forced to reduce the amount it planned to borrow by at least E£1bn, according to the Reuters news agency.

Its borrowing cost in the auction was said to be about 11% - 1.5 percentage points higher than before the protests began.

It comes after the government was forced to cancel its previous debt raising exercise at the height of the crisis last week.
[...]

in fact, a check at Egypt stock exchange website shows there was trading activity today, although for reduced hours, according to Al Ahram.

The stock exchange indexes all recorded substantial falls - EGX30 -20.94 %, EGX70 -25.55 %, etc. Now to be fair those are year to date figures, but even so the 1 month graphs all look pretty dire.

Egypt turmoil spurs Saudi market outflows

Foreigners withdrew more than 1 billion riyals from Saudi Arabia's markets as unrest in Egypt fueled concern about the stability of the region, a top executive at Jadwa Investment Bank said

Reuters, Monday 7 Feb 2011

Turmoil in Egypt, which sparked a region-wide slump in stock markets, has raised risk premiums and will likely delay planned bond and equities issuances from Middle East borrowers.

"We think over 1 billion riyals ($267 million) was withdrawn through the swap agreement in the last three days of January, which reflects an increase in the risk premium foreign investors attach to this region," Paul Gamble, head of research at Riyadh-based Jadwa Investment, said in an interview.

Saudi Arabia, the largest market in the region and the world's top oil exporter, does not allow direct foreign ownership, and investors generally participate through swap instruments such as participatory notes.

As the unrest in Egypt threatens to engulf neighboring states, there are big question marks on how investor friendly future government policy will be.

The executive, however, does not see similar events unfolding in the top oil producing Gulf state.

"There are big differences in the economy of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. GDP per capita is a lot higher, unemployment is a lot lower, and subsidies are generous on many food products," Gamble said.

"We don't see the economic similarities between the two."
[...]

That's not a particularly significant amount of money in terms of Saudi finances, but interesting to see the link made back to the food price question, which was also alluded to earlier on the Guardian stream:

2.02pm: My colleague on the environment desk, Fiona Harvey reports, on the effect food prices have had on Egpyt's uprising:

Food prices have hit record levels in recent weeks, according to the United Nations, and soaring prices for staples such as grains over the past few months are thought to have been one of the factors contributing to an explosive mix of popular unrest in Egypt and Tunisia.

The crises in those countries have served as a stark example of what can happen when food prices spiral out of control and add to existing political problems, said Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute. "It's easy to see how the food supply can translate directly into political unrest," he said

Now that needs to be balanced by two things - 1) a number of demonstrators and groups in Egypt have gone out of their way to emphasise their political motivation, rather than bread prices, 2) the Guardian spin is focussed on a climate change driven supply shock angle, rather than any consideration of the impact of financial market activity on price, independently of supply, via commodity index funds and so on.

Ocelot: my mistake - my ignorance - didn't know there was an Al Quaeda distinguishable from Al Quaida; just assumed there were different spellings for the same organisation.

Er... no, my fault on the spelling front there. It's the same name whatever the latinised spelling (القاعدة‎).

My point was that although AQIM may have adopted the AQ brand, (and received a welcoming letter from al Zawahiri) there's no evidence that the GSPC has integrated into the AQ structures particularly. Or, more contentiously, according to some analysts, still genuinely act independently from an agenda set by Algerian intelligence services. But, like I say, that's a bit of a digression.

Interesting and sombre analysis by the Arabist.

Arabist

There is an Egyptian maxim describing the approach to administering power long employed here and elsewhere: ‘if you starve them they’ll eat you, fill them they’ll kill you, keep them half hungry, they’ll leave you alone.’ It’s a solid strategy in rigid hierarchical societies like Egypt’s, but it fails when insular leadership can no longer gauge the people’s reality, and consequently goes too far. Lucky for them there’s a back-up plan, another tried and true technique called ‘divide and rule’. The regime has set it in motion and it is working all too well.

People are turning away from the demonstrators partly because they are confused, tired of the disruptions and generally broke, but also because the state is helping them along by pretending to compromise, by raising suspicions regarding the demonstrators’ motives (whether suggesting they are in cahoots with hostile foreign powers or that they are relatively privileged idealists who are gumming up the works for everyone else) and last but not least, by asserting that their resolve threatens Egypt’s stability.

Yet citizens overcame their fear of a formidable security apparatus to demand that the president stand down. He had come to symbolize everything they could no longer endure, above all, the politics of intimidation and exclusion. That is why the committees of ‘wise men’ meeting with Vice President Omar Suleiman are so disturbing. A really ‘wise’ man would know it’s pointless- and dangerous - to negotiate with a man of his credentials. His appointment merely underlined the regime’s inability to effectuate significant reforms (as if the last 30 years was not evidence enough). Einstein: ‘you can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.’ Trotsky: ‘You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on - into the dustbin of history! ‘

Hopefully, the pro-democracy contingent can coalesce into a movement to address not the regime (who already knows its demands) but the people, and remind them what they’re fighting for. Sympathetic agencies and individuals worldwide could contribute to a campaign to win popular support. Egyptians nationwide should be reminded, visually and persistently, of the uprisings’ dead and wounded, of how citizens have been repeatedly deceived by state rhetoric, and robbed of rights by a brutally enforced martial law that has impoverished their cultural, political and personal lives. Millions living in the ‘ashwiyyat, as well as in the countryside, do not have computers and internet. But they can read pamphlets, see posters, and listen to radio. Pop culture figures who participated in the demos could tour and perform. The state has a propaganda machine that fabricates lies and broadcasts them widely, while all the pro-democracy movement has to do is tell the truth - albeit repeatedly and in a variety of creative ways.

People who were born under the Emergency Law must be informed of what life was like – and could be like - without it. Egyptians should be re-exposed to their own history, the birth of nationalism and the 1919 revolt against the British occupation and the monarchy, the military coup of 1952 and its outcomes, good and bad, the bread riots of 1973 and so on. They should see pictures of other freedom movements, of the Berlin Wall falling and of heroes, like the 19-year old German pilot who flew a small plane from Hamburg to Moscow, eluding everyone’s radar and landing smack in Red Square, to the flaming embarrassment of soviet leaders in 1987. Or the 23-year old Czech artist David Czerny who covertly painted a Russian tank - mounted in Prague as a symbol of the occupying Soviet power –an incandescent pink in 1991. These bold but playful acts of civil disobedience captured the popular imagination and boosted morale.

Egyptians are closer to change than ever, and cannot let it slip from their grasp. They have managed to send a moving message - that stability which comes at the cost of basic freedoms is a sham – and that the proofs of this are everywhere. Defensive thinking and an obsession with security, the pillars of fear-driven politics, have destabilized and divided humanity. Leaders in Egypt and elsewhere have convinced themselves - and many of us - that the only world order we can trust is one that goes boom. But the ‘order’ they have sold us is an illusion, all brawn and guile, no brains and less heart. Poverty, war, oppression and environmental devastation are, by contrast, very real.

President Mubarak, unfortunately, is not alone in believing that chaos will ensue if he and his regime go. But chaos has broken loose precisely as a result of his failed policies. Yes, Egypt will be an even bigger mess than before, but a potentially constructive one. Yes, Egypt is losing revenues, but malesh. For two decades, the state has managed to rally people to the cause of economic reform along capitalist lines. Citizens sacrificed across the board, accepting derisive wages or coping with joblessness and rising costs of living while enjoying few if any fiscal benefits, and this in the virtual absence of civic and political freedom. Surely Egyptians would be willing to work for a greater and more equitably rewarding cause - a self-governed, renewed and reinvented nation.

For an Egyptian pro-democracy movement to survive the current behind-the scenes machinations and go the distance, it will have to start harnessing the popular sentiment that inspired this uprising in the first place, by reminding people of who they are and could be, and not what a dustbin mentality has tried to make of them. It sounds trite, but it’s true: united we stand; divided we fall.

http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/2/7/golia-divide-and-rule.html

Wael Ghonim's interview, with crying on the air, has apparently re-invigorated protesters in Tahrir.

obviously there's a lot about Wael Ghonim in the coverage today, but I thought one commentator's caveat on that angle worth noting:

G

1.49pm: The numbers in the square now runs in to the hundreds of thousands in one of the biggest turnouts to date, and they are still streaming in. Chris McGreal reports from Cairo.

There are long lines snaking along roads leading to the square.

I'd also just take issue with the statement that protesters say they were inspired to turn out by release of Wael Ghonim. Undoubtedly some were, but Tuesday is one of the two days a week when mass protests are scheduled and also a lot of the people I spoke to said they were there because they wanted to show the regime that they were not going to compromise in the negotiations - that Mubarak has to go. They planned to turn out anyway, Ghonim aside.

Looks like quite a few strikes breaking out the past day or so:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/latest-updates-on-day-15-of-egypt-protests/?src=twt&twt=thelede#strikes-reported-at-suez-canal-and-across-egypt

http://english.ahram.org.eg/~/NewsContent/1/64/5239/Egypt/Politics-/Demonstrations-and-strikes-across-Egypt.aspx

Thousands of Luxor's unemployed and those affected by the impaired tourism sector gathered in front of the Labour Force Authority to register their names and seek compensation and financial aid as designated by the ministry of finance.

Head of the authority Abdraboh Hassan said that its employees have worked from eight in the morning receiving applications and registering them. He added that owners of small businesses, investors and businessmen have the right to apply for compensation as well, though not through the authority.

A large number sought unemployment benefit, many of whom graduates or diploma holders from the classes but were unable to find jobs. Others applicants do not hold regular jobs or have been afflicted by the suspension of tourism.

This comes at a time when most tourism companies and hotels started downsizing plans after suffering severe losses due to the complete absence of tourism in the city.

Labour protests escalated in Suez with textile workers joining in and demonstrating with 2000 others demanding their right to work. Ali Fuad, a worker at the station, said: "We are having a sit-in today to demand our rights, which are in the text of the workers' law, our right to obtain the annual increase in salary which the management refuses to give us so we strike with all the laws that uphold the right of workers."

Mohamed Abdel-Hakam factory, head of the factory syndicate, confirmed workers have continued their sit-in for a third day.

In the city of Suez itself, around 2000 youths demonstrated to demand the chance to work. Amid expectations of growing labour protests in Suez, officials from the local council have attempted to meet the protesters and end the crisis.

In Mahalla, more than 1500 workers of the Abu El-Subaa company in Mahalla demonstrated this morning, cutting the road, demanding their salaries and stating that it is not the first time. The workers have staged repeated sit-ins for two years as they demand their rights and mediation between the workers and the company's owner, Ismail Abu El-Subaa.

More than 2000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical company in the city of Quesna have gone on strike demanding higher wages and benefits that have been suspended for years. The workers are also calling for the dismissal of managers who have ill-treated workers.

Around 5000 unemployed youths demonstrated this morning in front of Aswan governorate building, which they tried to storm. The protesters chanted their demand that the governor be dismissed.

In Kom Ombo, around 1000 protesters called for the president, Hosni Mubarak, as security remained absent.

Dozens of liver patients gathered in the governorate of Menoufeya at noon today over the lateness of their vaccinations. They were due to receive their treatment from the Hilal hospital three days ago. Dr. Murhaf El-Mougy, Menoufeya's general director of medical insurance, stated that the governorate was late in receiving the vaccination from its manufacturer. He attributed the delay to the curfew imposed during the demonstrations in Egypt.

In Cairo, more than 1500 public authority for cleaning and beauty workers in demonstrated in front of the authority's head quarters in Dokki. According to a statement by the head of the authority on Egyptian television, their demands include an increase in their monthly wages, to LE1200, and a daily lunch meal. The workers are also demanding for permanent contracts and the dismissal of the authority's president.

And in Menya, thousands demanded the removal of the ruling regime in Egypt and Mubarak's resignation. Amid heavy security, the demonstrators marched towards the governorate building.

In recent days, Menya has witnessed several demonstartions, most of them opposed to the regime. However, demonstrations in favour of Mubarak have been staged.Violence as a result of these protests has lead to 72 people being injured, demonstrators and security personnel, according to Dr Adel Abu Ziad, deputy of the ministry of health in Menya.

Strikes of Suez Canal and Egypt Telecom workers:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/5231/Egypt/Politics-/Suez-Canal-workers-go-on-strike-.aspx
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/14/5226/Business/Markets--Companies/Telecom-Egypt-employees-protest-for-wages-.aspx

first - correction: - I mistakenly said that the stock exchange was open on reduced hours yesterday, given the evidence of the website and a brief earlier mention in Al Ahram, this appears to have been wrong. The SE website is still listing the same data, and there's this confirmation that it's closure has been extended to this coming Sunday.

and finally a little more industrial action news

AA: Suez Canal workers go on strike

Ahram Online, Tuesday 8 Feb 2011

Suez Canal Company workers from the cities of Suez, Port Said, and Ismailia began an open-ended sit in today. Disruptions to shipping movements, as well as disasterous econmic losses, are expected if the strike continues. Over 6000 protesters have agreed that they will not go home today once their shift is over and will continue their in front of the company's headquarters until their demands are met. They are protesting against poor wages and deteriorating health and working conditions.

AA: Demonstrations and strikes across Egypt

Thousands of Luxor's unemployed and those affected by the impaired tourism sector gathered in front of the Labour Force Authority to register their names and seek compensation and financial aid as designated by the ministry of finance.
[...]
Labour protests escalated in Suez with textile workers joining in and demonstrating with 2000 others demanding their right to work. Ali Fuad, a worker at the station, said: "We are having a sit-in today to demand our rights, which are in the text of the workers' law, our right to obtain the annual increase in salary which the management refuses to give us so we strike with all the laws that uphold the right of workers."

Mohamed Abdel-Hakam factory, head of the factory syndicate, confirmed workers have continued their sit-in for a third day.

In the city of Suez itself, around 2000 youths demonstrated to demand the chance to work. Amid expectations of growing labour protests in Suez, officials from the local council have attempted to meet the protesters and end the crisis.

In Mahalla, more than 1500 workers of the Abu El-Subaa company in Mahalla demonstrated this morning, cutting the road, demanding their salaries and stating that it is not the first time. The workers have staged repeated sit-ins for two years as they demand their rights and mediation between the workers and the company's owner, Ismail Abu El-Subaa.

More than 2000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical company in the city of Quesna have gone on strike demanding higher wages and benefits that have been suspended for years. The workers are also calling for the dismissal of managers who have ill-treated workers.

Around 5000 unemployed youths demonstrated this morning in front of Aswan governorate building, which they tried to storm. The protesters chanted their demand that the governor be dismissed.

In Kom Ombo, around 1000 protesters called for the president, Hosni Mubarak, as security remained absent.

Dozens of liver patients gathered in the governorate of Menoufeya at noon today over the lateness of their vaccinations. They were due to receive their treatment from the Hilal hospital three days ago. Dr. Murhaf El-Mougy, Menoufeya's general director of medical insurance, stated that the governorate was late in receiving the vaccination from its manufacturer. He attributed the delay to the curfew imposed during the demonstrations in Egypt.

In Cairo, more than 1500 public authority for cleaning and beauty workers in demonstrated in front of the authority's head quarters in Dokki. According to a statement by the head of the authority on Egyptian television, their demands include an increase in their monthly wages, to LE1200, and a daily lunch meal. The workers are also demanding for permanent contracts and the dismissal of the authority's president.
[...]

AA: Telecom Egypt employees protest for wages

The protest at Telecom Egypt began at 9AM today when thousands of workers demonstrated in front of the Ramses branch of the company, stating their demands, which include raises by 10 per cent and sacking the company's managing director, Tarek Tantawi, threatining an open sit-in if their demands are not met.

The demonstration later spread to other branches including those in Zamalek and Heliopolis.

Workers rejected negotiating with Tantawi and insisted on directing their complaints to Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel directly.

The headquarters of Telecom Egypt in the Smart Village also witnessed some strikes yesterday.

Not so much a "political" strike wave building towards a general strike to overthrow the regime or anything like that, so far. But like the small protest at the housing authority yesterday, a symptom of a process of progressive erosion of authority and emboldening of people to stand up against long-running injustices and bullying.

edit: oops. crossed with Ed's post.

This from a few days ago calling for a strike in Suez.
http://egypt.alive.in/2011/02/01/strike-in-the-suez-canal/

If I understand correctly the strike on at the moment is ancillary workers and won't affect traffic.

The link in my post talks about "disastrous economic losses" (though that could be journo hyperbole):

Suez Canal Company workers from the cities of Suez, Port Said, and Ismailia began an open-ended sit in today. Disruptions to shipping movements, as well as disasterous econmic losses, are expected if the strike continues. Over 6000 protesters have agreed that they will not go home today once their shift is over and will continue their sit-in in front of the company's headquarters until their demands are met. They are protesting against poor wages and deteriorating health and working conditions.

Too long to re-post here. Great article.

AA: In Egypt's Tahrir Square: Life is a battlefield

...although I have to confess the story about the brain made me laugh. "Sorry son. We're good, but we're not that good..."

More workers actions:

coffee_n_cream She's Got the Blues
#EgyWorkers strikes: >1500 public authority for cleaning & beauty workers demo'd @authority's HQ in Dokki http://bit.ly/ebXhS9 #egypt #jan25
54 seconds ago

coffee_n_cream She's Got the Blues
#EgyWorkers strikes: ~5000 unemployed youths tried to storm Aswan governorate building http://bit.ly/ebXhS9 #egypt #jan25
3 minutes ago

coffee_n_cream She's Got the Blues
#EgyWorkers: >2000 workers from Sigma pharma co in Quesna on strike 4 higher wages & suspendd benefits http://bit.ly/ebXhS9 #egypt #jan25
5 minutes ago

coffee_n_cream She's Got the Blues
#EgyWorkers strikes: 1500 workers in Mahalla demonstrated this morning, demanding their salaries. http://bit.ly/ebXhS9 #egypt #jan25
7 minutes ago

coffee_n_cream She's Got the Blues
#EgyWorkers strikes: In city of Suez, around 2000 youths demonstrated to demand the chance to work. http://bit.ly/ebXhS9 #egypt #jan25
9 minutes ago

I must correct my previous comment. El-Baradei and the Muslim Brotherhood BOTH went to the conferences. Sorry :(

Even as the opposition "leaders" prepare to throw their hats in the ring with Suleiman, the government has been stepping up its repression of protesters--a government the so-called "leadership" is now becoming a part of.

Suez Canal workers at five separate companies are on strike:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/5231/Egypt/Politics-/Five-Suez-Canal-companies-workers-go-on-strike,-no.aspx

Labor, professional protests join popular uprising The list grows by the hour.

Aljazeera taking notice as well

http://www.ituc-csi.org/egypt-ituc-supports-strikes-and.html?lang=en

In Suez, Cairo, Luxor, Mahalla, Menya, Quesna…workers are protesting in support of the struggle for democracy and to demand the respect of their social and trade union rights. Many sectors are involved including textiles (Mahalla Spinning Company, Misr Spinning and Weaving Company), cement (Helwan Cement Company), coal (Helwan Coke Company), tourism, telecoms, and the pharmaceutical industry (Sigma in Quesna). Several companies linked to the Suez Canal Company are also concerned, although maritime traffic has not been affected. Public sectors, such as education and the postal service have also been affected by this widespread movement.

I don't know if someone posted this link already, but the Times is reporting that industrial action has been spreading outside of Suez, to provincial textile and pharmaceutics factories. In addition, in several cities government and police buildings have been set onf fire by protesters. In Port Said 300 slum dwellers attacked government property.
http://nyti.ms/e3jZj6

From 3Arabawy's Twitter feed.

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
The police is cracking down brutally on the people in Kharga, Wadi el-Gedid Province. Live ammunition is being used on wide scale. #Jan25
34 minutes ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
telecom #egyworkers r blocking the traffic in Ramses. #jan25
1 hour ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
there is revolt taking place now in all state run newspapers by journalists against their pro governest editors. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
shabab i can't keep up with the updates. There r strikes everywhere! #jan25 #egyworkers
3 hours ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
tomorrow more oil workers from the provinces will descend on Nasr City to join protests in front of oil ministry. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
the railway technicians in Bani Suweif r on strike. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
tomorrow Ghazl Mahalla #egyworkers will start a strike. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
several factories in suez have gone on strike. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
Misr Helwan comany workers r on strike. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
at least 2 military production factories in Welwyn r on strike. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
public transportation workers in 3 garages r on strike. #jan25
3 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
thousands of oil workers r now protesting in front of the oil ministry. #jan25
3 hours ago

AymanM Ayman Mohyeldin
by 3arabawy
thousands of factory workers have gone on strike now in #mahalla #suez #helwan #jan25 #tahrir
7 hours ago

arabist arabist
by 3arabawy
Ahram protest mostly young people who want permanent job contracts. But still chanting about revolution.
5 hours ago

arabist arabist
by 3arabawy
Am in lobby of the old Ahram building, where a strike / protest has just started. Just like everywhere else. #jan25
5 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
the news of egyworkers strikes r being announced in Tahrir microphones. Protesters cheer. #jan25
5 hours ago

3arabawy Hossam عمو حسام
i am marching with a small group of trade unionists heading to Tahrir. #jan25 #egyworkers
5 hours ago

Al Masry Al Youm: Trains disrupted as 1000s of railway employees strike

Some 3000 Egyptian National Railways (ENR) employees went on strike demanding that Transport Minister Atef Abdel Hamid reconsider their incentives. The protesters sat on railway lines, disrupting train services, and threatened not to move until their demands are met.

Egyptian Railway Authority (ERA) head Mustafa Qenawi along with a number of ERA management held talks with the protesters in an attempt to break the strike and restore train services.

An official source at the Transport Ministry told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the ENR had received instructions to respond to all of the demands and to resolve the strike peacefully.
Meanwhile, Public Transport Authority (PTA) drivers and employees said they will begin a strike on Thursday to demand that their incentives be reconsidered. One driver told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the strike will begin at the PTA’s Nasr City main branch and that bus services will be suspended until their demands are achieved.

Just to add to this list of strikes (taken from Le Monde):

At Cairo airport there are strikes of service companies and security companies; public sector workers from the department of government statistics are also demonstrating in the capital, and there's a strike of a gas company in Fayyoum.

I'd say the dilemma for the rulers and for the would-be rulers is that the more Mubarak delays his exit, the more the proletariat develop its own initiatives, thus making the dominant forces' desires for a peaceful orderly transition to bourgeois democracy increasingly impossible; but on the other hand, a brutal repression, which is what they (at least Mubarak and Suleiman) are considering but are in a quandry over, would make Mubaraks' replacements' chances impossible unless the US intervenes against Mubarak (a very risky venture, but one they may be considering), which Mubarak, unless he's completely dumb (which might be possible), must know by now. He must have given up on retaining power, but he'd want to hold on to his capital, and ordering a massacre, even if ostensibly it's Suleiman (or the leaders of this possible coup he's talking about) doing the ordering, could risk that and maybe worse - not something he'd like in his old age. On the other hand, all their hesitations are causing more problems for them (including the US and other world powers) by the hour, but their hesitations are virtually unavoidable for them.

Do others think this is a fair assessment?

I don't know about the others who have been paying attention to this, but, personally, I think it is a fair assessment of the situation so far.

I'm no expert but that does seem like a fair assessment. Though I'd add that, if it's true that strikes are spreading like wildfire, then the genie is out of the bottle, and Mubarak's resignation will do nothing to stop things from progressing.

Mubarak's resignation will do nothing to stop things from progressing.

I'd say it'd even encourage more intitiatives, just as the promise of a 15% pay rise for public sector workers has encouraged things, but then him not going is doing that; so damned if they do damned if they don't.

And, by the way, I'm no expert either.

I'd say that it's a fair assessment. I would add that the protests have taken a turn towards class politics rather than a people's politics. I've seen/read that middle class and "upper" class Egyptians are very much against the strikes, are arguing against them and are advocating supporting the national economy (I think there was a suggestion that every Egyptian should pay LE 100 to the stock exchange or the national bank in order to "save" the economy that can only benefit the rich).

Khawaga

I'd say that it's a fair assessment. I would add that the protests have taken a turn towards class politics rather than a people's politics. I've seen/read that middle class and "upper" class Egyptians are very much against the strikes, are arguing against them and are advocating supporting the national economy (I think there was a suggestion that every Egyptian should pay LE 100 to the stock exchange or the national bank in order to "save" the economy that can only benefit the rich).

That's something that I began to notice from them after the protesters at Tahrir Square managed to defeat the old bastard's henchmen.

I find it a fair assessment too and keep wondering about the army

I agree as well, it seems like a plausible assessment.

About the military, this article Why Mubarak is Out is the best account I've read so far of the different factions of the rival security forces and state-sanctioned gangs.

Below is a brief summary cut-and-pasted from the article.

The cops:

Paul Amar

In Egypt the police forces (al-shurta) are run by the Interior Ministry which was very close to Mubarak and the Presidency and had become politically co-dependent on him. But police stations gained relative autonomy during the past decades. In certain police stations this autonomy took the form of the adoption of a militant ideology or moral mission; or some Vice Police stations have taken up drug running; or some ran protection rackets that squeezed local small businesses. The political dependability of the police, from a bottom-up perspective, is not high. Police grew to be quite self-interested and entrepreneurial on a station-by-station level.

Thuggish street gangs:

Paul Amar

These street organizations had asserted self-rule over Cairo’s many informal settlements and slums. Foreigners and the Egyptian bourgeoisie assumed the baltagiya to be Islamists but they were mostly utterly unideological. In the early 1990s the Interior Ministry decided “if you can’t beat them, hire them.” So the Interior Ministry and the Central Security Services started outsourcing coercion to these baltagiya, paying them well and training them to use sexualized brutality (from groping to rape) in order to punish and deter female protesters and male detainees, alike.

At the same time the baltagiya began to be used:

Paul Amar

the Interior Ministry also turned the State Security Investigations (SSI) (mabahith amn al-dawla) into a monstrous threat, detaining and torturing masses of domestic political dissidents.

Murbarak's private army (often mistaken as police):

Paul Amar

Autonomous from the Interior Ministry we have the Central Security Services (Amn al-Markazi). These are the black uniformed, helmeted men that the media refer to as “the police.” Central Security was supposed to act as the private army of Mubarak. These are not revolutionary guards or morality brigades like the basiji who repressed the Green Movement protesters in Iran. By contrast, the Amn al-Markazi are low paid and non-ideological. Moreover, at crucial times, these Central Security brigades have risen up en masse against Mubarak, himself, to demand better wages and working conditions. Perhaps if it weren’t for the sinister assistance of the brutal baltagiya, they would not be a very intimidating force. The look of unenthusiastic resignation in the eyes of Amn al-Markazi soldiers as they were kissed and lovingly disarmed by protesters has become one of the most iconic images, so far, of this revolution. The dispelling of Mubarak’s authority could be marked to precisely that moment when protesters kissed the cheeks of Markazi officers who promptly vanished into puffs of tear gas, never to return.

The military:

Paul Amar

The Armed Forces of the Arab Republic of Egypt are quite unrelated to the Markazi or police and see themselves as a distinct kind of state altogether. One could say that Egypt is still a “military dictatorship” (if one must use that term) since this is still the same regime that the Free Officers’ Revolution installed in the 1950s. But the military has been marginalized since Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israel and the United States. Since 1977, the military has not been allowed to fight anyone. Instead, the generals have been given huge aid payoffs by the US. They have been granted concessions to run shopping malls in Egypt, develop gated cities in the desert and beach resorts on the coasts. And they are encouraged to sit around in cheap social clubs.

These buy-offs have shaped them into an incredibly organized interest group of nationalist businessmen. They are attracted to foreign investment; but their loyalties are economically and symbolically embedded in national territory. As we can see when examining any other case in the region (Pakistan, Iraq, the Gulf), US military-aid money does not buy loyalty to America; it just buys resentment. In recent years, the Egyptian military has felt collectively a growing sense of national duty, and has developed a sense of embittered shame for what it considers its “neutered masculinity:” its sense that it was not standing up for the nation’s people. The nationalistic Armed Forces want to restore their honor and they are disgusted by police corruption and baltagiya brutality. And it seems that the military, now as “national capitalists,” have seen themselves as the blood rivals of the neoliberal “crony capitalists” associated with Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal who have privatized anything they can get their hands on and sold the country’s assets off to China, the US, and Persian Gulf capital.

The forces around Soleiman:

Paul Amar

The Vice President, Omar Soleiman, named on 29 January, was formerly the head of the Intelligence Services (al-mukhabarat). This is also a branch of the military (and not of the police). Intelligence is in charge of externally oriented secret operations, detentions and interrogations (and, thus, torture and renditions of non-Egyptians). Although since Soleiman’s mukhabarat did not detain and torture as many Egyptian dissidents in the domestic context, they are less hated than the mubahith. The Intelligence Services (mukhabarat) are in a particularly decisive position as a “swing vote.” As I understand it, the Intelligence Services loathed Gamal Mubarak and the “crony capitalist” faction, but are obsessed with stability and have long, intimate relationships with the CIA and the American military. The rise of the military, and within it, the Intelligence Services, explains why all of Gamal Mubarak’s business cronies were thrown out of the cabinet on Friday 28 January, and why Soleiman was made interim VP (and functions in fact as Acting President). This revolution or regime change would be complete at the moment when anti-Mubarak tendencies in the military consolidate their position and reassure the Intelligence Services and the Air Force that they can confidently open up to the new popular movements and those parties coalesced around opposition leader Elbaradei. This is what an optimistic reader might judge to be what Obama and Clinton describe as an “orderly transition.”

The 15% pay rises were apparantly accompanied by cuts in bonuses and incentive pay.
The repression is already underway and accompanies the "democratic" process. Apart from the outright killings outside of Cairo, the BBC reports tonight that people leaving the square are being picked off by the secret police.

All imperialisms are concerned by events, not just the Arab regimes. The Israeli bourgeoisie are frightened enough to start making threats about war and military might. All the usual suspects, the US, GB, France, Russia and so on, along with Israel and the Arab states have had a virtual free hand for their dirty dealings in the Middle East for decades. Now they have to take the social situation into account and this is a new element. This wave of protest, particularly as it takes in more proletarian elements, is a blow not to just to this or that imperialism, but to imperialism generally.

From the Guardian:

11.26pm: Canada's Globe and Mail has an interview with Ahmed Saleh, a former member of the April 6 Youth Movement and one of the earliest protesters, on what happens next:

"The dozens of activists, many of them under 35, who started the uprising on Jan. 25, largely via the Internet, are trying to organize themselves into a unified structure to take on the government," Mr Saleh said.

"They are holding meetings with protesters, the political opposition, trade-union activists and leftists."

"We are trying to find a mechanism to represent people not just in Tahrir Square but all over the country that can be fair," Mr Saleh said. "We want to build a true co-ordination. All those who are protesting, sacrificing their lives receiving stones and bullets, there has to be a co-ordination between them so no one hijacks their victory. It is no longer ours, we were only the starting point."

Strikes spreading?!

http://juralibertaire.over-blog.com/article-egypte-irruption-de-mobilisations-ouvrieres-10-fevrier-66870357.html

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Egypt&alllanguages=1&languagename=English&langcode=en&lang=English

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/10/trade-unions-egypt-tunisia

There are no exact parallels, but much of this reminds us of what happened in Poland in 1979-80. There, as in Egypt and Tunisia, we saw a mixture of a repressive, single-party state with trade unions that functioned as an arm of the ruling party. But there was also a network of NGOs that quietly worked behind the scenes, in workplaces and communities.

The result was the 1980 strike at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, the formation of Solidarnosc, and the end not only of the Communist regime in Poland but of the entire Soviet empire.

Today's pro-democracy revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia are the culmination of that process, and where it will lead we cannot predict – though Poland does provide an appealing model.

The pressing point is that experts misjudged the tumult in Egypt and Tunisia largely because they ignored and overlooked the democratic aspirations of working-class Tunisians and Egyptians. To understand why so many authoritarian Arab regimes remain fragile, one need to only to look through the window on to the court of labour relations.

I got hold of Hossam el-Hamalawy via Twitter yesterday and he said that the strikes (apart from a handful of earlier actions) really started two days ago. I wonder why it started only recently.

uh-oh

AA: Army may have taken over power in Egypt

Ahmed Eleiba , Thursday 10 Feb 2011
Print Send Tweet The just released Communique #1 of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, announcing that the Council will remain in an open-ended session, in order to safeguard "the people's achievements and demands", is being interpreted widely as indicating that the Egyptian army has effectively seized political power in the country. A senior field commander gave Ahram Online's correspondent in Tahrir sq his own interpretation of the statement. According to the senior army officer who preferred anonimity, the Supreme Council is about to announce, in statement #2, that it has taken over authority in the country, for an interim period, the duration of which is to be determined later.

Asked about what such a step might mean for the president, the vice-president and the prime minister, the armed forces commander said "these are people who have no power over the of the armed forces."

and

Mubarak to address the nation in hours

President Hosni Mubarak is to deliver a televised address to the nation within hours, according to Egyptian state TV. It is widely believed that Mubarak will announce that he stepping down, though it is as yet not known if this will take the form of a resignation or the transferring of his power to the vice president. The announcement of the prospective address by the president comes in the immediate wake of the release of Communique #1 of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which declared the council was in open-ended session in order to safeguard the nation and the achievements of its people.

looks like things went into overdrive at ~ 5pm Cairo time (GMT +2)
AJ stream

7:02pm Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman, says: "The president is watching the same thing you are. I don't know what the outcome will be."

6:49pm: Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera correspondent, notes the military's Supreme Council has only ever held three open sessions in its history. 1967, 1973 - and today.

6:44pm: Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros reports the military presence in downtown Cairo has increased in recent hours, with greater numbers of tanks making a highly visible presence.

6:37pm: White House says situation in Egypt is 'fluid'.

6:36pm: State TV reports Mubarak will address the country tonight.

6:23pm: Egypt's prime minister says Mubarak "is still president, and no decisions taken has changed that".

6:21pm: Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Cairo, says the million-man march planned for tomorrow has already begun - Tahrir Square is absolutely packed.

6:19pm: Al-Arabiya reports Mubarak is on his way to the red sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh with chief of staff. No immediate confirmation.

6:15pm: NDP chief reportedly stopped Mubarak making speech, handing power to VP Suleiman.

6:05pm: Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from Cairo, says roads to Cairo airport are reportedly being closed.

6:00pm: The CIA chief reportedly says there is a "strong likelihood" Mubarak will step down tonight.

5:39pm: Huge chant, Tahrir Square seemingly in unison, shouting: "The army and the people in one hand - the army and the people are united."

5:35pm: Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent, reports: "Now, for the first time, we are getting the sense that senior military officers are discussing 'national issues', which is a very significant development indeed."

5:30pm: "Ambiguous" statement from military confirms its “commitment and responsibility to safeguard the people and to protect the interests of the nation, and its duty to protect the riches and assets of the people and of Egypt”. Mentioned the demands of the people are “lawful and legitimate”. Understood the military council met separately from Mubarak.

5:23pm: NDP Secretary General Hossam Badrawi says he expects Mubarak to respond to the demands of the people tonight. An official statement from the military is imminent.

5:20pm: A senior military commander is reported to have told protesters that all their demands will be met, but no official confirmation is yet available

5:15pm: Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Cairo, confirmed the new demands of those in Tahrir Square include the entire administration to resign – not just President Mubarak. They want a one-year transitional period before full parliamentary elections - during which a three-person presidential council should run the country while a panel of experts write a new, permanent constitution – taking advice from opposition groups and senior, high-profile Egyptians, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

5:09pm: The Supreme Council of Egyptian Armed Forces is meeting to study its position toward the ongoing crisis.

this bit earlier in the afternoon seems important:

2:07pm The security chief for the Egyptian city of Wadi al-Jadid (New Valley) was sacked and the police captain who ordered police to shoot at protesters was arrested and will be tried. At least five people were killed and dozens wounded in three days of clashes between police and citizens

AA: Mubarak expected to handover power to army, go to Sharm

Ahmed Eleiba , Thursday 10 Feb 2011
Informed sources, speaking to Ahram Online, confirmed speculation that President Hosni Mubarak will announce that he is stepping down in a televised address later tonight. According to these sources, Mubarak will announce the transfer of his presidential powers to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and not to Vice President Omar Suleiman.

According to these same sources, Mubarak will then be accompanied to the Sinai resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

The ever-reliable "informed sources". Still, two for one (Suleiman as well) would be nice. I guess we'll soon see what the price is.

When the army issues 'Communique #1' then you know something's afoot. I wonder if it was the increase in strikes that pushed them to move?

It could be that the momentum of the demonstrations has shifted now that the state power of Mubarak and his inner-circle as well as the police and security forces has shown itself as submissive rather than continuing to be obstinent. From whats been posted here and shown on US media, it doesn't seem like the striking workers have reached the point where their own initiative and creativity in struggle is progressing. They're certainly moving towards that at the moment, but it sounds like once the military steps in as the benevolent People's Guardian, the strikes will stop and the demo's will turn into jubilent party's and then fizzle out. I don't think I know anywhere near the full story on the ground so I'm sure I'm missing a lot, and would be happy to be proven wrong, but to put emphasis on the self-organization of the strikers and Egyptian working-class in general right now is pre-mature I think.

Medical workers, transport workers, Suez Canal workers and many workers in Mahallah joined the strikes today. Whatever late stage and whatever the degree of self-organisation, the working class began to throw its hat in the ring.

I think that the Egyptian state can well afford to get rid of Murabak. In fact I thought that they brought him back from the dead (or his mansion in Sharm-el-Sheik) some weeks ago so that they could hold his dismissal/resignation as a card to play. The military are still in control of Egypt with or without Mubarak.

Be careful what you wish for with the analogy of Solidarnosc in 1980. It was that "free trade union", backed by the western democracies, that delivered the workers up to the forces of reaction and repression.

but to put emphasis on the self-organization of the strikers and Egyptian working-class in general right now is pre-mature I think.

Yeah, I agree. But the strikes really started only two days ago so who knows? What's happening is certainly not a good development for the working class. I think a lot of the Egyptian bourgeoisie, particularly those with a stake in the economy, are very happy with what they are seeing (and they've also argued against strikes). Also if the protests do fizzle out I am concerned about what the army would actually do to some of the more militant activists.