People power forces change in Tunisia

[AlicetheKurious]

I haven't seen the vids yet, because internet service has slowed to a crawl. But Khaled Said is our Mohamed Bouazizi. The "We are all Khaled Said" Facebook group is one of the biggest online rallying points for youth in the current uprising in Egypt. The regime unwittingly kicked a real can of worms when it killed him.

[Laodicean]

Excellent article:

How Do We Achieve Peace In A Digitally-Driven, Self-Assembling Society?

What we are witnessing in the 21st century is the empowerment of sovereign individuals to confront the legitimacy and authority of a sovereign nation state's government via digitally driven means. As witnessed in Tunisia, revolution has been attempted and achieved via digitally driven leaderless groups.

...

Revolutionaries are leveraging digital technology to self-organise, to learn and to proliferate. Incumbent leaderships struggle to keep up because their thinking is generationally out-of-step and based on traditional forms of centralised hierarchical control and resource allocation.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-a ... z1CCYq5pZT

[Nordic]

Well I hope this doesn't turn out to be true, but it just popped up over at Rawstory:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/repo ... sts-egypt/

Reports of ‘massacre’ in Suez as protests in Egypt move into third day

Anti-government protests in Egypt moved into their third day early Thursday, with unconfirmed reports of police "massacres" of civilians in the port city of Suez.

In Cairo, protesters "played cat and mouse with police" into the early hours of Thursday, Reuters reported. Opposition groups reported on their websites that electronic communications had been cut off in the city center, and parts of the city were experiencing blackouts.

The official death toll stood at six over the first two days of protests, but social networks were abuzz with claims of police shooting at protesters, many of those reports focusing on the city of Suez, where protesters torched a government building on Wednesday.

"Security forces are committing heinous massacres and there is zero media coverage," read an update on the web page of Suez from Egyptian Association for Change - USA, an opposition group that had joined the call for an uprising starting on January 25.

"Government is trying to cover up what happened in city of Suez. Media banned from entry," read another update. "Reporters from Suez, Al Jazeerah, Dream and Al Mehwar were prohibited from entering Suez to enforce a media blackout on the subject."

Others reported on the web page that a curfew was placed on the city and police were using "live ammunition."

Yet another update asserted that communications and electricity in Suez had been completely cut off, something also asserted by the We Are All Khaled Said protest group, which didn't report a "massacre" but did warn of an impending one.

Suez is completely cut off. Police has been evacuated. Protesters there are very angry. The army is being brought in according to reports. Some sad speculations say that a massive crackdown will take place in Suez on protesters which could end up with a REAL Massacre.
Some 130 people were reportedly injured in clashes between protesters and police in Suez on Wednesday. Officials confirmed that more than 1,000 people have been arrested in protests around the country.

Anti-government protesters appeared to be encouraged by news that Mohamed El-Baradei, a former chief UN weapons inspector and prominent figurehead for Egyptian opposition groups, would be returning to the country amid the protests.

Others noted a significant "shift in tone" in Washington towards the government of President Hosni Mubarak, whom the US has long supported with billions in foreign aid. Reuters reported:

The United States bluntly urged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday to make political reforms in the face of protesters demanding his ouster, in a shift in tone toward an important Arab ally.

In issuing a fresh call for reforms after a day of clashes between Egyptian police and protesters, Washington appeared to be juggling several interests: its desire for stability in a regional ally, its support for democratic principles and its fear of the possible rise of an anti-U.S. Islamist government.
Although Western observers have been cautious thus far not to declare the protests a Tunisia-style uprising, the mood among opposition groups suggested they believe that this is a seminal moment in Egyptian history.

"Egyptians' desire for freedom has reached the point of no return," We Are All Khaled Said declared. "Egyptians have said their word. They want change ... freedom and justice ... There is no coming back. They had their chance."

"Protesters are being released. They say will not stop. Change has come to Egypt. There is no going back. The people have spoken and their demands must be met," the Egyptian Association for Change declared.

JOURNALISTS UNDER ATTACK

The protests in Egypt have taken a particular toll on reporters covering the conflict, with the Committee to Protect Journalists reporting that security personnel beat at least 10 reporters in the first two days of protests.

Egyptian authorities have blocked access to at least two websites of local online newspapers: Al-Dustour and El-Badil, the CPJ stated.

Guardian reporter Jack Schenker described in detail being beaten and arrested by Egyptian security forces.

Other protesters and I were thrown through the doorway, where we had to run a gauntlet of officers beating us with sticks. Inside we were pushed against the wall; our mobiles and wallets were removed. Officers walked up and down ordering us to face the wall and not look back, as more and more protesters were brought in behind us. Anyone who turned round was instantly hit.

An Associated Press cameraman and his assistant were arrested while filming clashes between protesters and police in Cairo on Tuesday, the first day of protests, and had not been released as of this report.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the US was putting pressure on Egypt to release the AP staffers. "We have raised this issue already with the ministry of foreign affairs and we will continue to monitor these cases until they are successfully resolved," he said.

[stefano]

Trying to gauge where the new power will be and how to take advantage:

France replaced its ambassador to Tunisia with a close ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday, just days after the French leader admitted his government had misjudged the situation in its former colony.

The United States said it was ready to assist the country in preparing for its first free elections and encouraged Tunisia's embattled interim government on Wednesday to do more to satisfy the demands of the people. Assistant Secretary of State Jeff Feltman [who flew in a few days ago] said he had met civil society activists and opposition leaders as well as members of the government.

[vanlose kid]

An Egyptian unknown unknown, revealed
By Issandr El Amrani January 26, 2011 at 1:29 AM Share

The most significant thing about today's protests across Egypt is that their scale was totally unexpected. Yes, there has been a wave of protests since late 2004. But none have been nationwide to this extent, and none have been as big. We still do not have a clear picture of what transpired in much of the country, and media focus tended to be on the main protest in Cairo's Midan Tahrir. But that is enough to know that these may be the biggest protest movement since at least the 1977 bread riots and perhaps even the biggest since the 1950s.

It was not predictable, just like Tunisia, because it was an unknown unknown — we did not know that the threshold for such an event had been reached, partly because previous protests had fizzled out or were effectively contained by the regime . While we (here I mean the press, analysts, and activists) knew many Egyptians were tired of the current state of affairs, we did not know that an external change (what happened in Tunisia) could have this kind of impact on a country that, after all, has been protesting for years and that is nowhere as repressive and controlled as Tunisia was under Ben Ali. I suspect the staggering effrontery of the regime during December's parliamentary elections and the moment of national unity after the New Year's Eve January bombing also played a role. A significant number of Egyptians simply do not find the regime credible anymore, and hold it responsible for much of the deterioration of the country — in terms of the socio-economic situation, sectarian relations, and political accountability. Today, a red line has been irrevocably crossed, a barrier of fear transcended.

What tomorrow brings is anyone's guess. The regime might contain and diffuse this, but will probably have to make some significant concessions (such as Minister of Interior Habib al-Adly's head, for a start). Or it might snowball into something much bigger.

This movement, for now, has no leadership. Some opposition personalities participated, but it was mostly organized on Facebook by the campaign in memory of Khaled Said, the young Alexandria killed by police last year. The Muslim Brotherhood did not back it. Mohamed ElBaradei did not back it. The Wafd party did not back it. It appears to be largely a movement of young people inspired by the Tunisian example and the culmination of over six years of activism and rising resentment against the regime, the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak and the apparent acceleration of the project to have Gamal Mubarak replace his father in the last six months. It is also, of course, a protest against an increasingly unaccountable and uncontrollable police state, which is why Police Day was chosen (Mubarak must be kicking himself for making it a public holiday last year). It may become even less accountable if reports of a violent attempt to disband the Tahrir protest are to be believed. As I write these lines, it appears police are successfully driving away people from the square. Three people have thus far been reported dead, a number wounded and countless arrested.

For the first time in recent memory, Egyptian security has also implemented a communications clampdown. Twitter, Bambuser, Ustream are all reported to have been shut down. Some ISPs, including Vodafone Egypt, say that the problem is not with them but with the national internet link. Communications may have also been disabled in specific areas. It's worth remembering that the US is said to have intervened forcefully against Tunisia's disruption of communications (which went beyond this to include hacking of major social media sites) and that Hillary Clinton launched an internet initiative last year — this gives her traction to act here (if the other reasons aren't enough). Mrs Clinton's initial statement was pretty weak, but also came early in the days' development. Personally, I think the US acted as well as can be reasonably expected in Tunisia and should do the same in Egypt, including reaching out to different elements of the regime to convey dissatisfaction (ahem — major euphemism here). But we'll see their fuller reaction tomorrow.





I was not at the protests, so I cannot give an account of the evening. Here are a few places to go, though, for eyewitness accounts and commentary:

Ashraf Khalil at Foreign Policy
Zeinobia at Egyptian Chronicles
The Egyptian government's press release
It's time for Obama to say Kefaya! - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
What will the U.S. do about Egypt? | FP Passport
Tonight in Cairo, the Parliament is Surrounded | The Awl
AP News: Egyptians denounce Mubarak, clash with riot police

There are a lot more around, too — and in English I would follow the reporting from from Daily News Egypt, al-Masri al-Youm, Ahram Online and Bikya Masr. On TV, watch Al Jazeera (English and Arabic) and CNN, whose correspondent Ben Wedeman has been doing some sterling reporting and tweeting.

http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/1/26/a ... ealed.html

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[vanlose kid]

Washington’s Mideast policy under strain

By Daniel Dombey in Washington
Published: January 26 2011 22:35 | Last updated: January 26 2011 22:35
As unrest spreads from Tunisia to Egypt, the Obama administration’s Middle East policy is coming under increasing strain.


With protesters clashing with police in Egypt, a chief US ally in the Middle East for more than 30 years, the Obama administration insists it need not choose between supporting human rights and working with governments that have refused to grant them.

The US has invested enormously in Egypt, providing it with more than $1.3bn in military aid a year and more than $28bn in development assistance since 1975.

However, insiders in Washington concede the US has to work more on contingency plans for the scenarios in Egypt the administration dreads most: bloody repression of peaceful demonstrators or a rise to power of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party.

“It’s one thing when this happens in Tunisia, a marginal Arab state, but you’re now talking about one of the two or three pillars of American security in the region being confronted with the ripple effects of the wave,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East diplomat now at the Woodrow Wilson Centre.

The impression of an administration confused by how to respond was reinforced by President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech, in which he dec lared that the US “stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people” but made no mention of Egypt’s demonstrations.

By contrast, six years earlier, George W. Bush, Mr Obama’s predecessor, had called on Egypt to “show the way toward democracy in the Middle East”. Speaking on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, urged the Egyptian government “not to prevent peaceful protests or block communications including on social media sites”. The US also called on Cairo to release detained journalists.

The day before she appeared to align herself more closely with the government of Hosni Mubarak, saying the Egyptian government was “looking for ways to respond” to those needs and interests and describing it as “stable”.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, policy chief at the state department, said: “We have to be engaging in relations with states and societies at the same time. We do not support people without engaging with their governments; it’s a world of states and we have all sorts of interests that have to be advanced working with states.”

She added: “We don’t deal with governments regardless of the state of their people, of how they treat their people.”

Washington is facing a related conundrum over Lebanon, after the nomination of a prime minister put forward by Hizbollah, which Washington classifies as a terrorist group.

US diplomats say its aid there is likely to be halted, since the new Republican leadership of the House of Representatives will be even less willing to help a Hizbollah-led government than the state department.

The US has seen another key ally receive a battering, with the leak of documents showing the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas making concessions to Israel – without any result. Some US diplomats would like Washington to issue the outlines of a deal later this year as a way to kick-start the stricken peace process.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d437f474-2998 ... z1CEc0kn8p

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[vanlose kid]

ElBaradei returns to Egypt calling for democracy
By JPOST.COM STAFF
01/27/2011 09:23

Self-exiled opposition leader publishes manifesto for toppling Mubarak regime: "It is time for a change; the only option is a new beginning."

Democracy activist, Mohamed ElBaradei, is expected to return from Vienna to Egypt on Thursday following this week's protests, laying out his manifesto for change in Newsweek.

"I am going back to Cairo, and back onto the streets bcause, really, there is no choice," ElBaradei wrote. "So far, the regime does not seem to have gotten that message."

"The Egyptian people broke the barrier of fear, and once that is broken, there is no stopping them," he explained.

"Each day it gets harder to work with Mubarak's government, even for a transition," ElBaradei wrote. "He has been there 30 years, he is 83 years old, and it is time for a change...The only option is a new beginning."

"I have hoped to find a way toward change through peaceful means," he added. "In a country like Egypt, it's not easy to get people to put down their names and government ID numbers on a document calling for fundamental democratic reforms, yet a million people have done just that."

"The regime, like the monkey that sees nothing and hears nothing, simply ignored us," ElBaradei explained.

ElBaradei also laments media censorship in Egypt, explaining that he has "been out of Egypt because that is the only way I can be heard. I have been totally cut off from the local media when I am there."

In addition, ElBaradei slams American relations with Egypt, saying that the West applies "a double standard for your friends...siding with an authoritarian regime just because you think it represents your interests." He expresses incredulity at Clinton's assertion, after riots in Tunisia, that the Egyptian government is stable and "looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people."

The leading Egyptian activist for democracy says the West is convinced "that the only options in the Arab world are between authoritarian regimes and Islamic jihadists."

"That's obviously bogus," ElBaradei claims. "If we are talking about Egypt, there is a whole rainbow variety of people who are secular, liberal, market-oriented, and if you give them a chance they will organize themselves to elect a government that is modern and moderate."

Egypt "wants desperately to catch up with the rest of the world," ElBaradei wrote.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Wednesday that Egypt had to adopt democratic and other reforms and allow peaceful protests. She told Cairo to lay off social media sites like Facebook and Twitter even as activists are using them to organize street gatherings and destabilize the government.

In October, ElBaradei, a former head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, joined the Muslim Brotherhood in calling to end Mubarak's reign and boycott what he called "phony" elections in Egypt. He said he has "total ideological and intellectual disagreement" with the Islamic group, but they agree that they "want a democratic Egypt."

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=205422

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[vanlose kid]

Ripple protests could topple U.S. allies

January 24, 2011|By Nic Robertson, CNN senior international correspondent

Tunisia has brought a blast of reality to Mideast politics. Aging autocrats have been put on notice they can no longer count on docile citizens.

But is an era of unrest approaching? Will the winds of change sweep east along the Maghreb and bring down regimes from North Africa to the Levant and even the Arabian Peninsula?

Beyond doubt, those winds are blowing. Across the region they are being driven by the same social and economic factors, including high unemployment, a booming birth rate, and exploding food prices.

According to the International Monetary Fund, if chronic unemployment and the social tensions that accompany it are to be avoided the Middle East needs to create another 18 million jobs in the next 10 years. From where they stand today that's a very tall order indeed.

Amre Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general and former Egyptian foreign minister, warned regional leaders last week: "It is on everybody's mind that the Arab spirit is broken. The Arab spirit is down by poverty, unemployment and the general decline in the real indicators of development."

Regional parties like the moderate Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood, scent opportunity.

"The same disease is in all Arab countries, we have different degrees only but the same origin of the disease, it is the same dictatorship, lack of democracy, lack of freedom restrictions on civil society," Esam el-Erian, spokesman for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said.

In Egypt as in other countries in the region the Muslim Brotherhood faces constant government harassment.

Hosni Mubarak, the 82-year-old Egyptian president, fears their populist power. He allows them and other opponents of his regime a very limited political voice, enough he hopes to defuse anger at the monopoly of power he has exercised over 30 years in power.

It is a balancing act that is now in peril, according to his critics. Ayman Nour, an opposition leader jailed by Mubarak and only released following U.S. pressure, believes Tunisia's revolt has shortened Mubarak's days in power.

He said: "How change happened in Tunisia was the last resort after all peaceful methods were no longer an option. This is what happened in Tunisia and this is what could happen in Egypt. It is the only solution to a situation that never changes."

There is a presidential election scheduled in Egypt in September this year. The situation is primed, Nour says, everything is ready, all it needs is something to ignite popular passions.

El-Erian of the Muslim Brotherhood talks in more revolutionary terms. "Without solving the main problems we can only delay the revolution, delay the intifada" or uprising he says.

But for all the rhetoric -- and despite several incidents -- the government in Egypt remains very much in control.

In Tunisia the revolt was triggered by anger at the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young vegetable market trader who torched himself over his dire economic plight.

In the week following the flight of Tunisia's President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali to sanctuary in Saudi Arabia, more than half a dozen Egyptians set fire to themselves like Bouazizi.

None triggered wider protests, never mind opened the floodgates to the very real reservoir of anti-regime anger.

But Ibrahim Houdaiby, a savvy young analyst from a family with a long political pedigree, says it is too early to draw conclusions. "There is a lot of anger, and there is a lot of frustration, and if this frustration is not yet tangible and did not yet manifest itself in violent and big forms it is possible that it might happen and it is in nobody's interest that it does."

At a funeral near Egypt's second city Alexandria, where the Egyptian police have an unenviable reputation for brutality, I got a strong sense of just how far away that spark for revolt may be.

The gathering was tiny, just family and close friends. Twenty-five-year old Ahmed Hashem Sayed was the only one of the recent self-immolation cases to die of his burns.

As his slender shroud-wrapped body was being laid to rest only yards away on the other side of the high walls surrounding the tiny cemetery plot crowds going about their daily routines thronged the streets, none but a couple of curious kids joined the mourners.

Sayed's neighbor said his death had nothing to do with Tunisia and everything to do with his own poverty.

Later, on the muddy street of the slum where he lived with his family, his father told me his son was out of work more than he was in it. He didn't want to talk to us, didn't want to attract international attention, didn't want to make a martyr or national hero out of his son.

Houdaiby is sure Sayed was aware of Tunisian burn victim Bouazizi, who like Sayed was young and set himself on fire in economic despair, and although he may not have emulated him, he may well have been influenced by his actions.

The big regional lesson of Tunisia, according to Houdaiby, is that people have learnt they can bring about change themselves.

"What happened in Tunisia will of course impact the way people think. They know if they want things to change, at one point they will be able to change things"

But he adds Mubarak's regime has also learnt lessons, offering to subsidize bread and other essentials, albeit Houdaiby suspects, only until the current crisis seems over.

No doubt though, he says, the government's vehement denials ironically show how troubled it is by the Tunisian revolt.

"When you have the minister of foreign affairs saying that Tunisia could not be compared with Egypt and the situation is completely different and it is ridiculous that people are making any sort of comparison that says that they are worried."

And if they are worried in Egypt, with its large, tough state security forces, then other regional leaders may well be troubled too, warns El-Erian, spokesman for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. "If Egypt tumbles then watch the region follow, if change comes in Egypt, not in Tunisia, it will be domino sequences."

Indeed in the long run the United States may be the big loser. Many of the regimes on the defensive, like Mubarak's, are long-standing US allies.

And that says El-Erian -- who calculates that in a democratic Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood would have a large say -- could have serious implications for the United States.

"We are reflecting the opinion of the people and opinion and sentiments here are against the politics and policies of the United States in the region," he said.

It may sound like a bold statement, but on the streets of Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt to name but a few, U.S. credibility has taken a hammering over the past decade.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have only served to fuel popular anger with the U.S. over the regional autocrats they support.

The implication is if the winds of change do blow down one or two of the region's rulers the political voices emerging may well bring a new dynamic to such intractable problems as Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

That alone could reset the region in a way unimaginable today.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-24/worl ... s=PM:WORLD

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[vanlose kid]

Yemen protests: Thousands call on president to leave

Yemen's protests are said to be inspired by the popular revolt in Tunisia

Thousands of Yemenis are demonstrating in the capital Sanaa, calling on Ali Abdullah Saleh, president for more than 30 years, to step down.

This comes after mass protests in Egypt and a popular uprising in Tunisia that ousted its long-time leader.

Yemeni opposition members and youth activists gathered in four parts of the city, including Sanaa University, chanting anti-government slogans.

They also called for economic reforms and an end to corruption.

Yemenis complain of mounting poverty among a growing young population and frustration with a lack of political freedoms.

The country has also been plagued by a range of security issues, including a separatist movement in the south and an uprising of Shia Houthi rebels in the north.

There are fears that Yemen is becoming a leading al-Qaeda haven, with the high numbers of unemployed youths seen as potential recruits for Islamist militant groups.

'Tunisia-inspired'
Continue reading the main story
Economic and social problems

Protesters gathered in several locations of the city on Thursday morning, chanting that it was "time for change", and referring to the popular uprising in Tunisia that ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month.

Opposition MP Abdulmalik al-Qasuss, from the al-Islah (Reform) party, echoed the demands of the protesters when he addressed them.

"We gather today to demand the departure of President Saleh and his corrupt government," he was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

There have been a series of smaller protests in the lead up to Thursday's mass demonstrations.

On Saturday, hundreds of Sanaa University students held competing protests on campus, with some calling for President Saleh to step down and others for him to remain in office.

Over the weekend, Yemeni authorities arrested prominent rights activist, Tawakul Karman, accusing her of organising the anti-government protests. Her arrest sparked further protests in Sanaa.

After her release from prison on Monday, she told CNN that there was a revolution taking place in her country inspired by Tunisia's so-called Jasmine Revolution.

Protests in Tunisia have ended 23 years of President Ben Ali's rule and ignited unrest elsewhere in the region, including Algeria and Egypt.

President Saleh, a Western ally, became leader of North Yemen in 1978, and has ruled the Republic of Yemen since the north and south merged in 1990. He was last re-elected in 2006.

Yemenis are angry over parliament's attempts to loosen the rules on presidential term limits, sparking opposition concerns that Mr Saleh might try to appoint himself president for life.

Mr Saleh is also accused of wanting to hand power to his eldest son, Ahmed, who heads the elite presidential guard, but he has denied the accusations.

"We are a republic. We reject bequeathing [the presidency]", he said in a televised address on Sunday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12295864

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[vanlose kid]

Guest Post: Why Europe Should Pay Attention To Algeria
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/26/2011 18:01 -0500


Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Strategist, Casey Research

Why Europe Should Pay Attention to Algeria


Tunisia’s uprising has democracy watchers wondering if the instability will spill over into neighboring North African countries, but really that instability is already there. In the first week of the year, Algeria experienced violent protests after the government hiked prices for staple foods like milk, sugar, oil, and flour. Some 800 people were injured in several days of rioting, prompting President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to cut costs on some foods and lower import duties on others. The rioters went home, but odds are they will return to the streets when prices rise again.


Those rioters are not just angry about high food prices. Unemployment in Algeria is officially at 11%, but estimates from outside of the government run much higher, along the lines of 25%. Inflation keeps creeping up, and the country’s impoverished population, who has very little freedom, has grown distrustful of the government. A massive boycott rendered the results of the last presidential election, where Bouteflika won with 92% of the vote, almost meaningless.

But Algeria is not poor – an OPEC member, it is the ninth largest crude oil producer in the world. More importantly for this conversation, Algeria is the world’s sixth largest natural gas producer, pumping out just over 3 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas in 2008. At the beginning of 2010, the country’s proven natural gas reserves stood at 159 Tcf, the tenth largest in the world, and notably, Algeria exports some 3.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas each day to Europe.

On top of the natural gas flowing to Europe through pipes, Algeria has become a key supplier of liquefied natural gas, or LNG. In 2008, Algeria exported 711 Bcf of LNG, and 90% of it went to Europe.

Europe is growing increasingly reliant on LNG – for two reasons. First, Europe does not like relying on Russia for natural gas because that gas has to come through Ukrainian pipelines. Three times in the last five years, there have been major supply disruptions due to allegations that the Ukrainians were siphoning off gas. The most serious disruption came in January 2009, when 18 European countries reported major drops or complete gas cut-offs.

Second, Europe’s energy needs continue to rise, but many European governments have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Since natural gas is low-carbon and clean-burning, it has become a key part of Europe’s future energy strategy.

The EU has a “four corridors” plan for its natural gas needs: it will draw from Norway, a reliable supplier; Russia, through those Ukrainian pipelines; North Africa, primarily Algeria; and Central Asia and the Middle East, through Turkey. It would be a great plan, if only it were closer to reality. The Turkish route relies on the long-planned Nabucco pipeline, which is making very slow progress towards construction. And Norway’s reserves are dwindling. Up steps Algeria in importance.

Algeria already supplies 20% of Europe’s natural gas and more than 30% of the EU’s LNG imports. And in November, European LNG import volumes set a new record high – Europe imported a staggering 302 Bcf of LNG, shattering the old record (set only in September) by 52 Bcf. The United Kingdom, facing its coldest winter in years, alone accounted for 73 Bcf. Whether the average Brit, Spaniard, or Italian realizes it, they rely on Algeria.

And along with high unemployment, high food prices, and little freedom, Algeria’s citizens are justifiably angry that their country’s resource wealth is not making things better for the average person. If Algeria’s rioters return, spurred on by their Tunisian neighbors or by their own government’s inadequacy, and overthrow Mr. Bouteflika in favor of an anti-European government, gas prices could take a serious jump. And LNG is transported by ships, not pipelines, so if Europe is not willing to pay those higher prices, the ships will simply sail to other countries that will.

This is no certain thing – no one knows if Algeria will follow in Tunisia’s footsteps, especially if the current confusion in Tunisia evolves into prolonged chaos. And Algerians know how important oil and gas revenues are for their country – even during Algeria’s bloody civil war in the 1990s, during which some 160,000 people died, oil and gas exports were not affected.


http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest- ... on-algeria

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[vanlose kid]

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[vanlose kid]

Egyptian Markets Fall as Protests Gather SupportBy KAREEM FAHIM and LIAM STACK
Published: January 27, 2011

CAIRO — Despite government efforts to crush sometimes violent protest, several days of demonstrations against the almost 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak seemed to be taking a toll on the country’s economy on Thursday and galvanizing support beyond the streets.

The secretary general of Mr. Mubarak’s ruling party said it was willing to open talks with the youths who have powered the protests, but offered no concessions, The Associated Press reported.

Safwat el-Sherif, the secretary general of the National Democratic Party, also called for restraint from both security forces and protesters on Friday, when more demonstrations have been called for, The A.P. said.

On Wednesday, the authorities outlawed public gatherings, detaining hundreds of people and sending police officers to scatter protesters who defied the ban and demanded an end to Mr. Mubarak’s rule.

But protesters communicating on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have called for a major demonstration on Friday, the Muslim holy day and the start of the Egyptian weekend.

On its Web site, the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest organized opposition group, said it would join “with all the national Egyptian forces, the Egyptian people, so that this coming Friday will be the general day of rage for the Egyptian nation.”

Since they erupted Tuesday, the protests have largely seemed spontaneous and leaderless, propelled by young demonstrators with no affiliation to Egypt’s small and largely toothless opposition groups.

Now the older opponents are rushing to catch up. “It was the young people who took the initiative and set the date and decided to go,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Wednesday with some surprise during a telephone interview from his office in Vienna, shortly before rushing home to Cairo to join the revolt.

On Thursday, Dr. ElBaradei insisted that he would attend the Friday demonstrations and urged Mr. Mubarak to step down. “He has served the country for 30 years and it is about time for him to retire,” he told Reuters. “Tomorrow is going to be, I think, a major demonstration all over Egypt and I will be there with them.”

At the stock exchange, meanwhile, the benchmark Egyptian index fell on Thursday to its lowest level in over two years, shedding more than 10 percentage points and forcing a brief suspension of trading, news reports said.

“It’s clear today that the inability to control the situation in the streets yesterday is panicking investors,” The Associated Press quoted Ahmed Hanafi, a broker with Guthour Trading, as saying. “The drop we saw yesterday is being repeated. At this rate, it’s going to continue to fall hard.”

The streets of downtown Cairo were largely quiet on Thursday except for a small knot of protesters outside the Egyptian lawyer’s syndicate. Uniformed police stood guard nonetheless in Tahrir Square, an epicenter of the demonstrations.

On Wednesday, the skirmishes started early in the afternoon, and soon, small fires illuminated large clashes under an overpass. Riot police officers using batons, tear gas and rubber-coated bullets cleared busy avenues; other officers set upon fleeing protesters, beating them with bamboo staves.

Egypt has an extensive and widely feared security apparatus, and it deployed its might in an effort to crush the protests. But it was not clear whether the security forces were succeeding in intimidating protesters or rather inciting them to further defiance.

In contrast to the thousands who marched through Cairo and other cities on Tuesday, the groups of protesters were relatively small. Armored troop carriers rumbled throughout Cairo’s downtown on Wednesday to the thud of tear-gas guns. There were signs that the crackdown was being carefully calibrated, with security forces using their cudgels and sometimes throwing rocks, rather than opening fire.

But again and again, despite the efforts of the police, the protesters in Cairo regrouped and at one point even forced security officers, sitting in the safety of two troop carriers, to retreat.

“This is do or die,” said Mustafa Youssef, 22, a student who marched from skirmish to skirmish with friends, including one nursing a rubber-bullet wound. “The most important thing to do is to keep confronting them.”

Late on Wednesday, Reuters reported, protesters in Suez set a government building on fire, according to security officials and witnesses; the fire spread through parts of the provincial administration office but was put out before the flames engulfed the entire building.

Dozens of protesters also threw gasoline bombs at the office of the ruling party in Suez, Reuters reported, but they did not set it on fire. Police officers fired tear gas to push back the demonstrators.

Elsewhere, the authorities had better success smothering the unrest. A significant police presence in Alexandria, where protesters on Tuesday tore down a portrait of Mr. Mubarak, managed to contain demonstrations quickly when they began Wednesday. Several dozen young men tried to gather on the Corniche, a boulevard along the Mediterranean, but the gathering was quickly broken up by more than 100 police officers in riot gear assisted by plainclothes security officers. The baton-wielding officers arrested several protesters as the rest scattered.

The government said about 800 people had been arrested throughout the country since Tuesday morning, but human rights groups said there had been more than 2,000 arrests.

Abroad, there were growing expressions of concern from Egypt’s allies. The United States ambassador in Cairo, Margaret Scobey, called on the government “to allow peaceful public demonstrations,” and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated that call in blunt remarks to reporters. The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, speaking to reporters, said, “We are very worried about how the situation in Egypt is developing.”

But Egyptian officials, at least publicly, were mostly dismissive.

In a statement, Mr. Mubarak’s National Democratic Party reiterated the government’s assertion that the protests were engineered by the Muslim Brotherhood. Abdel Moneim Said, a member of the N.D.P. and the chairman of Al Ahram, which publishes the state-owned newspaper of the same name, explained the government’s lack of concern.

“The state is strong,” he said. “There is a history of there being a moment of exhaustion, and there is a kind of resilience on the part of the government. It happened with the terrorist groups.”


Mona El-Naggar and Dawlat Magdy contributed from Cairo, and Nicholas Kulish and Souad Mekhennet from Alexandria, Egypt.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/world ... ndex.jsonp

*

[AlicetheKurious]

The revolt has spread from Cairo to every corner of Egypt, from Alexandria in the north to Aswan in the south, from Marsa Matrouh in the west to Rafah in the east. One demonstrator has been killed by police in North Sinai. Most of the demonstrations have been dispersed, by brute force or otherwise for now, but the situation in Suez, the largest city on the Red Sea coast, remains dire and is escalating.

Unlike in Cairo and Alexandria, the demonstrations in Suez were met immediately with ferocious violence by the police, including live bullets. The first day, 2 people were killed. Their relatives gathered the next day at the police station and were joined by other protesters. Once again, the police attacked the protesters with tear gas and bullets and sticks. I don't know many other details, but last night protesters attacked the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) headquarters in Suez, tearing down Mubarak's picture and trying to set the building on fire with molotov cocktails. They also threw molotov cocktails at the police station. Today, the regime cut off water and electricity from the town and temporarily cut off cellular and land telephone lines.

I don't know how many are dead now, in total, but in Suez there are at least 6 dead and 50 injured, some severely. There have been reports of additional bodies in the streets, and that they were collected by police. The police are still using live bullets and tear gas and the demonstrators are throwing rocks and molotov cocktails.

What's really cool is that demonstrators in Suez are in close contact with their counterparts in Tunisia, who are sharing their experience and giving them practical tips and advice about how to neutralize tear gas and otherwise minimize the danger in clashes with police.

Tomorrow, Friday, will be a very important day.

[Mallard]

Thanks Vanlose Kid and Alice for any updates. You save me a boatload of time surfing the net when all I need to do is get to this thread.

Is Anonymous really going to be any kind of force in all this? Hmmmm... I have to wonder. I didn't expect Anonymous, but then again they are Legion and should be expected.

There has never been anything like this, at least in my lifetime.

[Mallard]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/01/27/yemen_protests_video_tunisia/index.html?source=rss&aim=/news/feature

Yemen protests against government mark latest Middle East uprising
The wave of dissent across North Africa has reached Yemen in the heart of the Middle East
By AHMED AL-HAJ, Associated Press
AP/Hani Mohammed
Yemeni students chant slogans calling on their president Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave the government and follow Tunisian ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile during a protest in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011.Tens of thousands of people called for the Yemeni president's ouster in protests across the capital on Thursday inspired by the popular revolt in Tunisia.

The demonstrations led by opposition members and youth activists are a significant expansion of the unrest sparked by the Tunisian uprising, which also inspired Egypt's largest protests in a generation. They pose a new threat to the stability of the Arab world's most impoverished nation, which has become the focus of increased Western concern about a resurgent al-Qaida branch, a northern rebellion and a secessionist movement in the south.

Crowds in four parts of Sanaa have shut down streets and are chanting calls for an end to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for nearly 32 years.


"We will not accept anything less than the president leaving," said independent parliamentarian Ahmed Hashid.

Opposition leaders called for more demonstrations on Friday.

"We'll only be happy when we hear the words 'I understand you' from the president," Hashid said, invoking a statement issued by Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali before he fled the country.

Saleh has tried to defuse simmering tensions by raising salaries for the army and by denying opponents' claims he plans to install his son as his successor.

After the Tunisian turmoil, he ordered income taxes slashed in half and instructed his government to control prices. He deployed anti-riot police and soldiers to several key areas in the capital, Sanaa, and its surroundings to prevent riots.

That hasn't stopped critics of his rule from taking to the streets in days of protests calling for him to step down, a red line that few dissenters had previously dared to cross.

Nearly half of Yemen's population lives below the poverty line of $2 a day and doesn't have access to proper sanitation. Less than a tenth of the roads are paved. Tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes by conflict, flooding the cities.

The government is riddled with corruption, has little control outside the capital, and its main source of income -- oil -- could run dry in a decade.

Saleh's current term in office expires in 2013 but proposed amendments to the constitution could let him remain in power for two additional terms of ten years.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Yemen to step up security cooperation with the United States during an unannounced visit this month to shore up ties.

Following the Obama administration's pattern in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Clinton also emphasized that the United States wanted a broader relationship with Yemen beyond the fight against violent extremists. Clinton was the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Yemen in two decades.

Radicals have used the country as a base for launching attacks on the U.S. The radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, thought to be hiding in Yemen, is suspected of having inspired some of those attacks.

Clinton said the U.S. supports efforts to address the underlying causes of extremism: poverty, corruption, social inequality and political divisions that have boiled into an insurgency. She said Yemen must stop the practice of child marriage and enact reforms.

In the past five years, U.S. military assistance to Yemen has totaled about $250 million. In 2010, military and civilian aid was almost evenly split and combined for about $300 million.

Military aid to Yemen would reach $250 million in 2011 alone, U.S. officials said, and Clinton said there will be additional development aid.

Yemen has been the site of numerous anti-U.S. attacks dating back to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor, which killed 17 American sailors

Just last month, several CIA operatives were the targets of a failed bombing at a restaurant in a Sanaa suburb, and Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was thought to be behind the attempted bombing of an American airliner landing in Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

Al-Awlaki is thought also to have inspired the deadly 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. The al-Qaida group's fighters attacked the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa twice in 2008.

With the help of U.S. money and training by elite U.S. commandos, Yemen is setting up provincial anti-terrorism units to confront al-Qaida in its heartland.