Egypt: Some Of The Latest

   It is Sunday, February 6th, and as we all know, Egypt is still the important topic of the day for most of the world. in America, Egypt may take a back seat to 2 other events. First, there is the NFL's Super Bowl football game which is not all that important in the scheme of things, and then there is the conservative celebration of former scam artist and president, Ronald Reagan. This is an even less important happening.

    Go Green Bay Packers!!

   Back to Egypt.

(All times are local in Egypt, GMT+2)

3:28pm Several thousand anti-government protesters continue calling for the Egyptian president's resignation in Mansoura. Demonstrations across the country are anticipating a press conference later today during which Issam Al-Arian, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is expected to announce the results of talks with Vice President Omar Suleiman.

3:20pm Abdul Monim Abo al-Fotoh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, reiterates to Al Jazeera his group's stance on the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak:

We cannot call talks or negotiations. We went in with a key condition that will not be abandoned, which was that [Mubarak] needs to step down in order to usher in a democratic phase.

2:33pm Participants in talks between the Egyptian government and opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, have agreed to form a constitutional reform committee, AFP quotes a government official as saying.

2:26pm US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has cautiously welcomed the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement in political dialogue in Egypt, telling National Public Radio that Washington would "wait and see" how talks develop.

Today we learned the Muslim Brotherhood decided to participate, which suggests they at least are now involved in the dialogue that we have encouraged ... We're going to wait and see how this develops, but we've been very clear about what we expect."

1:59pm Britain ramps up pressure on Egypt to resolve its crisis and introduce "real, visible and comprehensive change" and transition of power. Pressed on the details of the transition, William Hague, the foreign secretary, told BBC television it might entail "some mixture of a more broadly based government that includes people from outside the ruling elite of recent years."

We have to keep up the pressure for that orderly transition we have called for to visibly take place"

1:48pm The Egyptian stock exchange will remain closed for an eighth day on Tuesday, a stock exchange official tells Reuters. The exchange will announce the new reopening date 48 hours in advance.

1:33pm A Muslim Brotherhood leader tells Al Jazeera there will be a second round of talks involving the officially banned group and the government.

Technorati Tags: Egypt,Protesters,Muslim Brotherhood,Super Bowl Sunday,Ronald Reagan,Current Events

Obama Administration Backs Dictator Mubarak…

….which comes as no surprise seeing as how much President Obama has turned to loving the status quo.

DKOS

U.S. Siding With Egyptian Regime (Updated)

by david mizner     Sat Feb 05, 2011

The central demand of the Egyptian protestors, the one unifying the disparate factions, is that Mubarak leave, and leave soon. They didn't rise up and risk their lives so that the primary cause of their anger and misery could remain. With Mubarak still in power, there would no reason for the reformers to trust the forthcoming pledges of reform. What's more, the protestors are counting on the momentum and publicity that a Mubarak departure would create. If they have a nonnegotiable demand, this is it.

So it's hardly a surprise that protestors are opposing this plan, which would leave Mubarak in power while his hand-picked VP negotiates with them. And it's impossible not to conclude that in backing the plan, the U.S is siding with the regime over the protestors. The signs are ominous.

Instead of loosening its grip, the existing government appeared to be consolidating its power: The prime minister said police forces were returning to the streets, and an army general urged protesters to scale back their occupation of Tahrir Square.

Protesters interpreted the simultaneous moves by the Western leaders and Mr. Suleiman as a rebuff to their demands for an end to the military dictatorship led for almost three decades by Mr. Mubarak, a pivotal American ally and pillar of the existing order in the Middle East.

Just days after President Obama demanded publicly that change in Egypt must begin right away, many in the streets accused the Obama administration of sacrificing concrete steps toward genuine change in favor of a familiar stability.

“America doesn’t understand,” said Ibrahim Mustafa, 42, who was waiting to enter Tahrir Square. “The people know it is supporting an illegitimate regime.

There was some debate earlier this week about the meaning of Obama's statement, which was construed by some as supportive of the protestors. What does it mean for a transition to begin "now." Nothing, of course. It doesn't matter when a transition begins. It matters when it ends.

Yesterday I wrote a diary objecting to a plan to install CIA-backed thug Omar Suleiman as the leader of the interim government. I'm feeling a little silly now for getting ahead of myself and portraying that as a worst case scenario. The worst case scenario, which seems to be playing out as I write this, is that Mubarak stays in power until the fall, at which point another sham election gives the presidency to a Mubarak ally, and the regime carries on in only slightly reconfigured form.

There's ample historical precedent for this kind of American backed dictatorship protection plan, but it's nonetheless bracing to be reading about it in real time. Unless the protest movement finds a way to keep surging and make this plan untenable, then my guess is, change in Egypt will be negligible.

UPDATE: (h/t Muggsy)

Reuters:

Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday it would be a "major setback" if Washington backed Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak or his deputy to lead a new government and warned that protests could grow "more vicious."

ElBaradei, a veteran diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leading opposition activist, was asked about remarks from senior U.S. officials that Washington could support Mubarak or his new Vice President Omar Suleiman to lead a transitional government in Egypt.

"If that were true ... that would be a major setback, I can tell you that," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Cairo.

"If things that I hear today (are true), that would come down like lead on the people who have been demonstrating," he said.

Technorati Tags: Egypt,Protests,Husni Mubarak,United States,Barack Obama,Current Events

Sarah Palin Refused A Trademark

     In case you did not know it, Sarah Palin has tried to get both her name and her daughters name ( Bristol ) trademarked by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  Well, that is not going to happen be cause apparently she forgot to sign the forms which were submitted to the office.

Reuters

Applications to trademark the names Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin, both for "motivational speaking services," were filed on November 5 by the Palins' longtime family attorney, Thomas Van Flein, but were quickly slapped down by a trademark examiner.

"Registration is refused because the applied-for mark, SARAH PALIN, consists of a name identifying a particular living individual whose consent to register the mark is not of record," the patent agency said in an office action.

"Please note this refusal will be withdrawn if applicant provides written consent from the individual identified in the applied-for mark," the patent office said.

   The forms for the brat, Bristol, will also have to be redone. Her attorney says that the trademarks will be approved when they are submitted in the correct manner.

   What an idiot! Sarah Palin can’t fill out a form and sign it, but she has fantasies of being the President of the United States? Give me a break.

   I think that the idiot believe that having her name trademarked will stop bloggers and such others from using her name in articles that she would not approve of, but that is not going to happen.

Bristol Palin became a fan sensation as a contestant on the popular ABC show "Dancing with the Stars."

An unwed, single mom as a teenager, Bristol Palin has also made a name for herself giving talks about teen pregnancy and abstinence from sex.

    Just what would an unwed mother know about sexual abstinence? Has she become another one of those “ born again “ virgins or something?

   Sarah and Bristol Palin. Go back to Alaska and get lost in the woods on your way back home.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin,Bristol Palin,Trademark Office,Current Events

Mubarak’s Secret Police Busy With Journalist

Original Article

Egyptian Secret Police Taking Journalists

by kck     Sat Feb 05, 2011

Neither freedom nor democracy can exist without a functioning press.

An illustration of what the Egyptian uprising is all about.

Two NYT journalists, Souad Mekhennet, Nicholas Kulish, and their driver were stopped at a civilian checkpoint as they were trying to drive into Cairo Thursday. They were detained for 24 hours. Stopped, searched, seized into custody because they were journalists sending pictures and bearing witness, beginning a frightening and uncertain detention.

Please read this whole NYT account.

We had been detained by Egyptian authorities, handed over to the country’s dreaded Mukhabarat, the secret police, and interrogated. They left us all night in a cold room, on hard orange plastic stools, under fluorescent lights.

But our discomfort paled in comparison to the dull whacks and the screams of pain by Egyptian people that broke the stillness of the night. In one instance, between the cries of suffering, an officer said in Arabic, "You are talking to journalists? You are talking badly about your country?"

A voice, also in Arabic, answered: "You are committing a sin. You are committing a sin."

Yesterday news of the first journalist in Cairo killed was published. Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud, 36, was shot by a sniper as he stood on his balcony photographing Egyptian security forces confronting protesters.

Foreign and Egyptian journalists, photographers, and news staff have been detained, stripped of their equipment, stabbed, beaten, blindfolded and detained. Still, the news reports, video, and phoned in blog posts spread the word. It's as if the uprising is globalized. Courageous journalists enabling and honoring courageous Egyptians and creating a sphere of support and enthusiasm for their demands.     

The free flow of information is the enemy of tyranny.

...we were driven to a military base. The military had been the closest thing Egypt had to a guarantor of stability and we thought once we explained who we were and provided documentation we would be allowed to go to our hotel.

In a strange exchange that only made sense later, Ms. Mekhennet asked a soldier, "Where are you taking us?" The soldier answered: "My heart goes out to you. I’m sorry."

After driving to several more bases we were told we were being handed over to the Mukhabarat at their headquarters in Nasr City...

The Mukhabarat is Egypt's intelligence service run since 1993 by Omar Suleiman, until his reassignment this week.

The Mukhabarat has had a working relationship with American intelligence, including the C.I.A.’s so-called rendition program of prison transfers. During our questioning, a man nearby was being beaten — the sickening sound somewhere between a thud and a thwack. Between his screams someone yelled in Arabic, "You’re a traitor working with foreigners."

Souad Mekhennet is familiar with intelligence agencies and their use of rendition and torture. It was she who broke the story in the NYT about the German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, mistakenly dragged into a nightmare of rendition and torture all because his name was similar to an Al-Qaeda operative. Mr. el-Masri was kidnapped by the United States while on vacation in Yugoslavia, transported to a prison in Afghanistan, and tortured by the CIA. We can only imagine Souad Mekhennet's thoughts and calculations while detained as she saw blindfolded colleagues tied up and pleading for help, hearing the screams and cries of beatings throughout the night. 

What a story. Bone-chilling. Takes my breadth away. The so far relentless demands from the streets for these murderous enemies of free people with armies of thuggish mercenaries to go now. Courageous journalists and witnesses are real and important parts to this uprising. In fact, hopes for democracy anywhere and everywhere depend on a free functioning press. We all owe them our gratitude and support

Technorati Tags: Egypt,Mubarak Thugs,Police State,Jounalist,Current Events,Egyptian Protesters