Month: February 2011

Cairo, February 03: Supporters of President Hosni Mubarak opened fire on protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Thursday, killing four people and wounding 13, witnesses and television said.

It was the biggest spike in violence since protesters angered by oppression and hardship launched an unprecedented challenge to Mubarak’s 30-year-rule 10 days ago. Many accused the government of backing the pro-Mubarak supporters.

Kabul, February 03: Speaking today to McClatchy, Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, a close ally of President Hamid Karzai, ruled out offering any sort of “power-sharing” to the Taliban or making any changes to the Constitution as part of a negotiated settlement.

“Power-sharing as a condition for making peace is not acceptable to us,” insisted Spanta, adding that the Taliban would be allowed to participate in the election if they agree to disarm and sign the deal, apparently the only thing they get.

Sanaa, February 03: Offers by President Ali Abdullah Saleh not to run for re-election in 2013 appear to have fallen far short of the demands by opposition protesters for democracy in Yemen, and opposition figures have dubbed Thursday, Feburary 3, a “Day of Anger” across the nation.

Protests against the Saleh regime have been growing over the past two weeks, spreading beyond the capital and now reports of even smaller towns having protesters are common, though figures are unreliable in Yemen.

Cairo, February 03: Activists looking for democratic reforms in Syria and Sudan have begun to organise on Facebook and other social media outlets.

A Facebook group of Syrians, completely in the Arabic language, managed to get over 6,000 members in just two days, under the title “Syrian Revolution against (President) Bashar al-Assad.”

The group’s manifesto calls for citizens to protest on February 4 and says they should “no longer keep silent about injustices.” The drafters say they drew inspiration from events in Egypt and Tunisia.

Cairo, February 03: When the revolution comes, everyone will be prepared. At least in Northern Africa and the Middle East, where upsurges of optimism from the increasingly successful revolts in Tunisia and Egypt have led other nations’ oppositions to plan dates for their own.

Egypt’s January 25 was such a decisive moment in that nation’s history, and Thursday, February 3 has ambitious Yemenis looking to repeat the success. Syria has penciled in Saturday, February 5, while Algeria, Bahrain and Libya all have “days of rage” planned in the next two weeks.

Cairo, February 03: Khalid Ibrahim Al-Laisi has been a soldier in the Egyptian army for 20 years. Today, far from shooting protesters, he says the time has come “to revolt against oppression.”

And as protesters vow to continue to press for President Hosni Mubarak to leave now, rather than at election time later in the year as he offered to do Tuesday, Al-Laisi, 38, is the face of an army that is one with protesters, not against them.

Cairo, February 03: Khalid Ibrahim Al-Laisi has been a soldier in the Egyptian army for 20 years. Today, far from shooting protesters, he says the time has come “to revolt against oppression.”

And as protesters vow to continue to press for President Hosni Mubarak to leave now, rather than at election time later in the year as he offered to do Tuesday, Al-Laisi, 38, is the face of an army that is one with protesters, not against them.

Cairo, February 03: Outgoing White House spokesman Robert Gibbs today indicated that President Obama was growing “very concerned” about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s attempts to delay his departure from office, and that the US government no longer considers a September departure acceptable.

Cairo, February 03: After virtually a week of the streets belonging exclusively to the pro-democracy protesters demanding the ouster of Egyptian President-for-life Hosni Mubarak, forces loyal to him took to the streets today, with horses, and whips.

Indeed what had been an entirely peaceful protest after the police had been successfully chased of the streets turned extremely ugly today, with the Mubarak loyalists attacking protesters and throwing molotov cocktails into the crowd.

Cairo, February 03: Egyptian government spokesmen condemned growing western calls for the Mubarak regime to hasten the handover of power, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki claiming they “sought to inflame the internal situation” with the calls.

Though domestic pressure for regime change has been growing steadily the calls for the Egyptian government to seriously begin moving have only recently become more urgent amongst Western, particularly US, leaders, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs adding today that “now means now.”