Photo Of The Day - Cairo Protest

A crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands flooded Cairo's Tahrir Square this morning in the eighth straight day of widespread unrest. As protests continue to spread to other nations in the region, this morning Jordan's King Abdullah fired his entire cabinet.

EGYPT: Google Launches Speak-To-Tweet

Google has created a work-around for Egyptians cut off from the internet. Via the company's official blog:

Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection. We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet. We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.

Nice work, Google.

Fox News: Where's Egypt, Again?

(Source)

EGYPT: Foreigners Begin Evacuation

The United States and many other nations have begun evacuating their embassy staffers and other citizens from Egypt as unrest continues. Americans will be airlifted to "safe haven" countries in the region, from where they must make their own arrangements to get home.

The United States planned to begin charter flights to help Americans leave the country Monday. Other governments and businesses have also said they plan to evacuate citizens amid escalating protests across the country. Canada's government has said it will begin charter flights bound for Europe evacuating as many as 6,000 of its citizens from Egypt Monday. Australia announced Monday that it planned to provide an emergency flight out of Cairo for its citizens on Wednesday. Thai Airways said Monday that it was preparing a special flight to Cairo to bring stranded Thais home at the request of the country's government. And Mexico's government urged its citizens in Egypt to consider leaving the country. Two special EL AL flights with Israelis returning from Egypt landed in Israel Monday morning, Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.

There are 380 American embassy staffers living in Cairo with their families. It's unknown how many other Americans are presently in Egypt, but the number is thought to be in the thousands.

Twitter On Egypt: The Tweets Must Flow

Twitter has issued a statement which partially references events in Egypt.

Our goal is to instantly connect people everywhere to what is most meaningful to them. For this to happen, freedom of expression is essential. Some Tweets may facilitate positive change in a repressed country, some make us laugh, some make us think, some downright anger a vast majority of users. We don't always agree with the things people choose to tweet, but we keep the information flowing irrespective of any view we may have about the content.

The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact. This is both a practical and ethical belief. On a practical level, we simply cannot review all one hundred million-plus Tweets created and subsequently delivered every day. From an ethical perspective, almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits.

Their "the tweets must flow" headline reminded me of this, of course.

Obama Speaks On Egyptian Unrest

Not exactly the resounding calling-out of Mubarak that many had hoped for, but still some strong words.

Mubarak: I Won't Step Down

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak just held a press conference to announce that he will not step down. But he will dissolve the government.

Specifically, Mubarak said that the current government will be forced to resign and he would appoint a new one on Saturday. He gave no indications he himself planned to step down, despite increasing calls for him to do so. The 82-year-old autocrat, who assumed power in Egypt 30 years ago, made the announcement following a day of widespread protests, violence and demonstrations.

CNN reports that Obama administration insiders are not confident that Mubarak will be able to hold power. Meanwhile Egyptian-Americans and ex-pats have begun to hold protest sympathy rallies around the United States, including outside of the White House, where hundreds are gathered at this writing.

UPDATE: Google's usage report shows that internet access in virtually non-existent for Egyptians at the moment.

Tweet Of The Day - Robert Gibbs

As we saw last year in Iran, the roles of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube cannot be underestimated in these things.

Hillary Clinton Calls For Calm In Egypt, Backs Right Of Protesters To Gather

EGYPT: Police Battle Protesters With Tear Gas On Bridge Over Nile

UPDATE: In an interesting development since the above video was made, protesters are now embracing and welcoming the Egyptian army, which has just been deployed. This underscores the possibility of the military taking over the government.

Riots Worsen In Egypt

The Egyptian government has cut off internet access in Cairo as unrest worsens on the third straight day of rioting.

Rioting Continues In Eygpt

Police are retaliating against protesters with fire hoses, tear gas, and batons tonight as Cairo is roiled by its second day of anti-government rioting.

Anti-Government Riots Rock Egypt

Russia Today reports:

Thousands of anti-government protesters, some hurling rocks and climbing on top of an armoured police truck, clashed with riot police on Tuesday in the centre of Cairo in a Tunisia-inspired demonstration to demand the end of Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30 years in power. Police responded with blasts from a water cannon and set upon crowds with batons and acrid clouds of tear gas to clear demonstrators who chanted "Down with Mubarak", and as they demanded an end to the country's grinding poverty.

Want To Feel Better About The World?

Here's a tiny spark of light.

EGYPT: Homo-Erotic Coke Ad?

Copyranter notes: "First of all, congratulations Egyptians on finally getting the convenience of soda bottles with twist-off caps. And secondly, homo-erotic humor on TV in morally repressed Egypt! Brave of the ad agency, Cairo's Fortune Promoseven, since the country has a de facto ban on homosexuality."

UNITED NATIONS: Egypt Blocks LGBT Rights Group From Accreditation

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission's request for accreditation as a consulting group to the United Nations has been blocked by Egypt.

The group, which had applied for "consultative status" at the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) three years ago, is an international NGO and advocacy group focusing on protecting the rights of homosexuals and lesbians worldwide. Diplomats from Western nations that support gay rights complained that Egypt and other developing states that have been criticized by rights groups for discriminating against gays and lesbians prevented the committee from voting on whether to accredit the group, thereby leaving it in limbo. "IGLHRC is disappointed by the vote of the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations to block action on our application," Cary Alan Johnson, head of the New York-based group, said in a statement to Reuters.

The U.N. NGO committee has 19 members, among them the United States and Britain, as well as Egypt, Sudan, Qatar, Pakistan and China. Johnson said it was a "clear case of discrimination against an organization because it defends the human rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi- and transsexual) people around the world." The U.S. delegation defended the work of IGLHRC. "This NGO is committed to combating discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity," the U.S. statement said. "It has contributed to valuable research on HIV/AIDs and its work is well known to this committee."

According to the British delegation, Egypt blocked IGLHRC "on behalf of African countries."

Elton John Banned In Egypt

The Egyptian musicians union that oversees the concerts of foreign performers has banned Elton John from holding a concert there because of his recent comments about Jesus Christ.

"How do we allow a gay, who wants to ban religions, claimed that the prophet Eissa (Jesus) was gay and calls for Middle Eastern countries to allow gays to have sexual freedom," head of the Egyptian Musician Union, Mounir al-Wasimi told DPA. The pop superstar, 63, stirred controversy after his remarks to US celebrity news magazine Parade in February, where he said "Try being a gay woman in the Middle East - you're as good as dead", after saying he believed Jesus was "gay". Al-Wasimi said that he has begun coordinating with security bodies to ban John's concert, saying that the union is the only body "authorised to allow performances by foreign singers in Egypt". In 2008, Elton John performed in the United Arab Emirates to a crowd of more than 13,000 fans.