Egypt protests – Monday 7 February

• Barack Obama says Egypt can’t go back to where it was • Opposition say new concessions don’t go far enough • Muslim Brotherhood under intense scrutiny 7.24am: Barack Obama has put further pressure on the Egyptian government to implement democratic reforms, but once he again stopped short of calling for President Hosni Mubarak to resign now. “What I want is a representative government in Egypt and I have confidence that if Egypt moves in an orderly transition process, that we’ll have a government in Egypt that we can work with together as a partner,” he told Fox News. Obama said: “Here’s what we know – that Egypt is not going to go back to what it was… The Egyptian people want freedom, they want free and fair elections, they want a representative government, they want a responsible government. So what we have said is you have to start a transition now.” Here are some clips of the interview from AP. You can see more of the interview with Bill O’Reilly here . The US policy towards Egypt is coming in for increasing criticism. The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief Ewen MacAskill writes: “Flexibility can be advantageous in international relations, but there comes a time when it starts to look like dithering . So it is in the US, where the official position on the Egypt uprising has been changing almost daily.” The Independent’s Robert Fisk reports on the business links to Mubarak of the US envoy Frank Wisner following his significant gaffe this weekend . Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama’s envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator’s own Egyptian government. Mr Wisner’s astonishing remarks – “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical: it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy” – shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama’s judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In Cairo, the opposition says concessions offered by Vice President Omar Suleiman don’t go far enough . One of the protests groups in Tahrir Square has issued a seven point list of demands, from the resignation of Mubarak , to the release of the activist and Google employee Wael Ghuneim. The New York Times says Ghuneim (or Ghonim as it spells his name) could be released as early as today . After disappearing in Egypt more than a week ago, leaving an ominous message on his Twitter account, Wael Ghonim, who leads Google’s marketing efforts for the Middle East and North Africa, is expected to be released by Egyptian authorities to his family on Monday afternoon, a friend of the Ghonim family said Sunday night. “We are not confident, but we are hopeful,” said Habib Haddad, a Boston-based businessman and a close friend of Mr. Ghonim who has been helping lead efforts in recent days to help locate his friend, among many in Egypt who have gone missing in the two-week-old revolt there. “At this point in time, it is important to be hopeful and confident but not to call for celebration yet.” To follow yesterday’s event see Sunday’s live blog , and all the previous Egypt protests live blogs here. Egypt Hosni Mubarak Middle East Matthew Weaver guardian.co.uk

Posted by on February 7, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry