(UK Daily Mail) — Hopes were growing in Cairo this evening that President Hosni Mubarak might be about to step down – with immediate effect.
Military and ruling party officials said the unpopular 82-year-old was about to speak to the nation. Sources indicated he would make an announcement that would satisfy the protesters’ demands. Since their main demand is that he leave office, speculation was high that he would declare his resignation.
The armed forces’ supreme council has been meeting all day long and said it would issue a communique ‘soon’.
Thousands once again thronged Tahrir Square today, the main seat of resistance for 16 days now, while in other areas of Cairo violence flared.
They were cheered further when they heard CIA chief Leon Panatta say there was a ‘strong likelihood’ Mubarak would walk tonight. There was undiluted joy as protesters mobbed soldiers and kissed and hugged each other.
The scenes were a marked contrast to those earlier in the day around the country, but particularly in Port Said, where state buildings and cars were ransacked and set alight in protest at continued corruption and incompetence.
Hossam Badrawi, secretary general of the National Democratic Party said he would be surprised if Mubarak was still leader when Egypt woke up tomorrow.
He revealed that he and his colleagues had been to visit the presidents and asked him to make the decision to satisfy the demands of the people, ie to step aside
He told BBC News 24 Mubarak had been ‘very accommodating’ and ‘showed respect for the people and young people
Events had moved quickly after Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah warned President Barack Obama earlier in the day the U.S. should ‘go easy’ on Egypt, or face a cooling of diplomatic relations.
The Saudi monarch said earlier in the day that his country would prop up Mubarak if America withdrew its aid programme.
Abdullah, 86, told Obama not to humiliate Mubarak, who is under pressure from protesters to quit immediately, in a fiery telephone conversation on January 29, according to the Times, who cited a senior source in Riyadh.
King Abdullah has his own problems in the Middle East, however, after 10 moderate Saudi scholars claimed they have formed the country’s first political party and are seeking his recognition.
Obama’s administration has wavered between support for Egypt in Washington’s conflict with militant Islam and backing for Egyptians who have been protesting for weeks to demand Mubarak and his government quit.
Meanwhile, a wave of strikes added to the chaos in Egypt today with thousands walking out of their state jobs in support of anti-government protests.
Activists called for bigger street demonstrations, defying a warning that the crowds calling for Mubarak’s removal would not be tolerated for much longer.
Efforts by vice president Omar Suleiman to open talks with protesters over reforms have broken down since the weekend, with the youth organizers of the movement suspicious that he plans only superficial changes far short of real democracy. They want Mr Mubarak to step down first.
Showing growing impatience with the rejection, Suleiman raised the prospect of a renewed crackdown. He told Egyptian newspaper editors that there could be a coup unless demonstrators agree to enter negotiations. He suggested Egypt was not ready for democracy and said a government-formed panel of judges, dominated by Mubarak loyalists, would push ahead with recommending its own constitutional amendments to be put to a referendum.
‘He is threatening to impose martial law, which means everybody in the square will be smashed,’ said Abdul-Rahman Samir, a spokesman for a coalition of the five main youth groups behind protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
‘But what would he do with the rest of the 70 million Egyptians who will follow us afterward.’
Mr Suleiman is creating ‘a disastrous scenario,’ he said. ‘We are striking and we will protest and we will not negotiate until Mubarak steps down. Whoever wants to threaten us, then let them do so.’
Mubarak to transfer power to vice-president
(BBC) — Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is to make an address on national television, amid suggestions that he is preparing to step down.
A senior member of Egypt’s governing party, Hossan Badrawi, has told the BBC he “hopes” Mr Mubarak will transfer power to Vice-President Omar Suleiman.
It comes on the 17th day of protests against his 30-year rule.
Earlier, Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq told BBC Arabic that the scenario of President Mubarak stepping down was being discussed.
The BBC’s Lyse Doucet, in Cairo, says the fact that President Mubarak’s departure is even being talked about is a huge development.
Our correspondent, who spoke to Mr Badrawi by telephone, says the 25 January movement – the day when the protests began – will see this as a great victory.
State television has carried footage of a meeting of the high council of the armed forces. State news agency Mena said the high council was in a state of continuous session “to protect the nation, its gains and the aspirations of the people”.
Thursday’s sudden developments came as thousands of Egyptians again took to the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian towns and cities, calling for President Mubarak to step down.
Doctors, bus drivers, lawyers and textile workers were on strike in Cairo on Thursday, with unions reporting walkouts and protests across the country.
The BBC’s Jon Leyne, in Cairo’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the focal point of the anti-Mubarak protests, reports that the protesters there are starting to celebrate after hearing news of Mr Mubarak’s possible departure.
Egypt state-run media journalists state their own uprising
CAIRO (Washington Post) — Over the past few days, journalists working for Egyptian state media have orchestrated a remarkable uprising of their own: They have begun reporting news that casts the embattled government in a negative light.
Whether the change is a sign of a weakened regime that is losing control or the result of a decision by the government to loosen its grip on information remains unclear. But the shift has been hard to miss.
State-run television and newspapers such as the iconic al-Ahram initially dismissed the mass demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak as nonevents. As the crisis has unfolded since Jan. 25, most people have relied on Arabic satellite channels such as al-Jazeera and news accounts from independent Egyptian dailies and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to keep up with events.
As protests against Mubarak’s nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule intensified, state television reported on the first lady’s gardens and call-in shows featured hysterical women and men entreating people to stop demonstrating. Protesters began carrying banners in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square denouncing state-run media and calling the news organizations “liars.”
A day after pro-Mubarak forces were unleashed into Tahrir Square last week, inciting a bloody battle that left thousands wounded, al-Ahram reported on its front page that millions of government supporters had flooded the streets, grossly exaggerating their numbers. State television called the anti-Mubarak demonstrators “destabilizing” forces and accused foreign powers of instigating instability.
“During the first 10 days or so, the Egyptian media was shameful,” said Rasha Abdulla, chairwoman of the journalism and mass communication program at the American University in Cairo. “It was like they were living on another planet.”
But in recent days, state media organizations have started to shift their coverage.
At al-Ahram, after journalists signed a petition telling management that they were frustrated with the paper’s reporting, chief editor Omar Saraya changed his tune. Saraya, who is close to the government and is seen as a staunch regime loyalist, wrote a front-page column praising the “nobility” of the “revolution” and urging the government to carry out constitutional and legislative reforms.
At state-run Nile TV, after two of her colleagues quit, Reem Nour met with her boss and told him that she could not tolerate being censored. She said last week that she would not cover pro-Mubarak demonstrators unless she was permitted to cover anti-government demonstrators as well.
The 22-year-old reporter told her news director that people were laughing at the station’s coverage. He told her to go out and report, she said. On Monday, for the first time, she told her viewers that protesters were demanding that the regime resign.
“There has been a shift,” Nour said. “The shift is happening because there is going to be a change in Egypt after this revolution.”
Hisham Qasim, an independent newspaper publisher in Egypt, called the change in state media coverage a clear sign that “Mubarak is slowly losing control.”
“There’s a feeling that [Mubarak] is going down and nobody can help him so it’s time to save face,” Qasim said.
Pressure from journalists began to increase late last week, after two al-Ahram reporters were killed during demonstrations and the government rounded up dozens of journalists, including employees of state newspapers.
Some joined protesters in Tahrir Square, calling for freedom of expression. Some are turning on their bosses, calling them apologists for the regime.
But a revolt by journalists was probably not the only reason for the change in coverage, Abdulla said. Senior Egyptian officials must have signed off on editorial changes that have led to more straightforward reporting in recent days.
“Nothing in state television happens because journalists want it to happen,” she said. “They all wait for orders to come from above.”
Shahira Amin resigned Feb. 3 from Nile TV after she watched mobs attack anti-government demonstrators in Tahrir Square and saw vehicles run over unarmed civilians, all on Arabic satellite channels.
The anchorwoman said she had not been allowed to portray the protests honestly and could not tell her viewers that the demonstrators’ top demand was the resignation of Mubarak. Another reporter resigned from the channel a few days later in protest.
“We were dictated what to say and we were reading press releases from the Ministry of Interior,” Amin said. “I couldn’t be a mouthpiece for someone who slaughters his own people.”
Since her resignation, she has spent every day on the streets, demonstrating against the government. She said she has seen the coverage change. “This could be the start of a liberal media in Egypt,” Amin said. “I hope it’s not just a cosmetic change.”
Brian Stewart, a journalist for CBC and one of Canada’s most experienced foreign correspondents, writes that Ethiopia’s regime has a blasé attitude about food shortage in the country and that he supports The Economist’s description of the regime as one of the most economically illiterate in the world. The following except is taken from Brian’s 2009 article, but still applies today as the U.N. is making yet another call for emergency food aid alert on behalf of 2.8 million Ethiopians.
Ethiopian regime’s blasé attitude about food shortage
The Ethiopian government has said it doesn’t expect this year to be much worse than last, and it is “confident it has done everything it can to feed its hungry people.”
This almost blasé attitude in Addis, gives no comfort at all to aid officials who tend to agree with an Economist magazine’s characterization of Ethiopia’s government as well-meaning but “one of the most economically illiterate in the modern world.”
President Meles Zenawi is unlikely to be reckless enough to downplay a real emergency, but there is always concern that regional officials might dismiss rising malnutrition figures to protect their own political hides.
From what I have seen, Ethiopians hate their nation’s image as a perpetual victim of disasters. And donor nations have clearly grown weary of annual calls for aid.
One can sympathize with both views. But such sentiments cannot be allowed to obscure facts.
Yes, development efforts on the ground are indeed starting to yield progress (and I intend to write about these another time).
But Ethiopia, the 12th poorest nation on Earth, will simply not be able to fully feed itself for many years, likely a generation at least.
The abject poverty of land and population are simply too stark, too intractable to offer a quick end to this recurring nightmare, no matter what economic or market reforms are tried.
Back when I was covering the famine in 1984, I never imagined — or perhaps let myself fear — that Ethiopia would be such a difficult problem for the world to fix.
I underestimated what a grinding, unrelenting effort would be needed to confront its timeless poverty. This time back, I fear we underestimate it still.
MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE — The UNHCR said it has learned that 8 Ethiopian asylum seekers died on February 2 from suffocation aboard a closed container truck in Mozambique. The UNHCR reported the men were among a group of 26 young Ethiopians trying to reach South Africa.
The UN refugee agency said the Ethiopian asylum seekers had been living in the Maratane refugee camp in northern Mozambique, from where they embarked on their ill-fated journey.
The driver of the truck in which they were traveling reportedly only realized the eight had suffocated when he made a stop at Mocuba, after seven hours of driving from the camp.
UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic, said the truck also was loaded with oil. He said three other men in the group had to be hospitalized and later were discharged.
He said desperate people from the Horn of Africa increasingly are taking this dangerous overland route in search of safety.
“They are fleeing the situation of the violence and conflict in Somalia and in the Horn of Africa and, of course, some of them are also fleeing poverty and lack of opportunities in their countries,” said Mahecic. “As far as we know, and the information on this is very sketchy, it is not easily available, many of these people have no other option but to embark on a risky journey and this is a service that is often provided by people with a financial interest in it.”
Mahecic said asylum seekers pay smugglers on average about $2,000 to be transported to safety. He said a lot of them head for South Africa, which is the most popular country of destination. South Africa received more than 222,000 asylum seekers in 2009, he said. That is about one-quarter of the global figure.
“Just to give you the idea of the size of the asylum applications in South Africa, if you combine all the 27 countries of the European Union, they do not match up to the numbers that South Africa is receiving,” said Mahecic. “So, there is definitely a flow in that direction.”
Mahecic noted the Maratane refugee camp is a stopping-off point for many asylum seekers whose ultimate destination is South Africa. He said the camp is becoming congested under the weight of new arrivals. He said the UNHCR is working closely with the Mozambique authorities to improve conditions in the camp.
(Source: IndepthAfrica.com)
