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Counting the Cost – Egypt’s options post uprising

On this episode of Counting the Cost we look at Egypt’s options post uprising and ask if it should look north to Turkey’s successful model of politics, economics and democracy for inspiration.

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Eyewitness: Egyptian women rejoice

Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series

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Egypt the day after Mubarak quits – live

Egypt is beginning a new political era after mass protests forced President Hosni Mubrak to stand down following 30 years in power. Follow live updates 11.47am: Egyptian airport officials have announced that current or former officials from Mubarak’s government are banned from traveling without permission. 11.44am: Egypt’s state television says the country’s night time curfew has been relaxed. It will now start at midnight and ends at 6am, instead of running from 8pm to 6am. 11.04am: There are protests today in Yemen and Algeria, inspired by the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions. Thousands of demonstrators in the Yemeni capital Sana have clashed with government supporters. The protesters chanted: “The people want the fall of the government. A Yemeni revolution after the Egyptian revolution.” Human Rights Watch said the authorities detained 10 anti-government protesters amid celebrations over Mubarak’s departure last night. The group said the protest turned violent when hundreds of men armed with knives, sticks, and assault rifles attacked the protesters as security forces stood by. “The Yemeni security forces have a duty to protect peaceful protesters,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “In this case, security forces seem to have organized armed men to attack the protesters.” Meanhile in Algeria, thousands of riot police have been deployed in the capital, Algiers, to stop an anti-government demonstration from gathering momentum . Organisers of the anti-government march say several thousand people have gathered in the city centre. About 50 protesters managed to reach the square where the protest was due to take place but they were surrounded by hundreds of police and some were arrested, Reuters reported. 10.39am: The repercussions of Mubarak’s fall are being felt across the Middle East as other countries in the region assess what regime change could mean. Syria, which had strained relations with Egypt due to its position as a key US ally in the Arab world and its peace treaty with Israel, has welcomed Mubarak’s fall. His departure will change the “face of Egypt, the region and the entire world,” reported the al Ba’ath daily of Syria’s ruling Ba’ath Party. The state-run Tishrin newspaper said the protests “brought down the Camp-David regime” – a reference to the 1979 Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Meanwhile Yemen, which has seen spreading anti-government protests in recent months, said it would support the Egyptian people in their search for progress and development. The official news agency Saba said the Yemeni government was confident Egypt’s higher military council would be able to manage the country’s affairs in the transition period. The country’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, arranged an unexpected meeting with military and political leaders late yesterday following Mubarak’s departure. Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 32 years and is a key US ally against al Qaida, last week promised to step down at the end of his term in 2013 in a bid to stave off political unrest. Turkey has urged Egypt’s military to press on with elections. “We hope that Egypt’s military high council will act with common sense and hand over its duty to the new governemnt to be formed as a result of a free and fair election process, and eventually Egypt will proceed to a constitutional democracy,” said a statement issued by prime pinister Tayyip Erdogan’s office today. Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu added that Mubarak’s resignation was an historic development for the Arab world and the region. “Firstly, continuity of the state and public order should be secured. Secondly, people’s demands should be met and a stable and lasting democracy should be built in Egypt through evolution. Thirdly, a transparent road map that the people can follow closely together with the international community should be announced,” he said. 10.39am: Protesters camped out in Cairo are divided about whether to stay or go amid the uncertainty over their country’s future, AP reports. Shopkeeper Gomaa Abdel-Maqsoud says he’s been in Tahrir Square since the protests began on Jan. 25 and is ready to go. He says “I have never seen such happiness in peoples’ faces before; what else do I want?” Nadal Saqr, a university professor, says protesters should stay until the army issues a promised statement with “clear assurances” that their demands for democracy are met. 10.36am: Good morning, this is David Batty with today’s live coverage of Egypt – the day after Hosni Mubarak finally stood down as president after 30 years in power. Here’s a roundup of the current situation following the revolution. • Although thousands are celebrating Mubarak’s departure, what happens next remains unclear. The Egyptian army is now in control and has pledged not to get in the way of legitimate government but world leaders have called for a swift transition to civilian rule. • Thousands of people remained in Tahrir Square in central Cairo overnight to celebrate Mubarak’s departure and more are returning today , waving flags and cheering. •Following the 18 days of protests that toppled the Egyptian government, world attention is turning towards other Arab states, with planned anti-government protests in Algeria facing a clampdown by thousands of riot police . Egypt Protest Middle East Hosni Mubarak David Batty guardian.co.uk

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Khaled Said’s mother celebrates Egyptian revolution

Mark LeVine, an Al Jazeera English commentator, was with the mother of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian who died in police custody on a street in Alexandria last year, when the news came in that Hosni Mubarak had resigned.

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The tyrant has gone. Now the real struggle begins for Egypt | Pankaj Mishra

The protesters have stripped Mubarak and his foreign backers of their authority. But the roots of

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Jubilant scenes in Egypt’s Tahrir Square

Jubilant scenes play out across Egypt after revolution forces Mubarak to quit.

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Egypt’s remarkable 18 days

It has been a remarkable two-and-a-half weeks for Egypt – with developments coming thick and fast. Al Jazeera’s Tarek Bazley takes a look back at the 18 days that shook the world.

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It’s been nearly a month since Steve Jobs left active duty at Apple for another unspecified medical issue, but the CEO remains actively involved in leading the company, the Wall Street Journal reports. He’s just doing so from home. Insiders tell the newspaper that Jobs is hosting meetings there and…

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Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney made their pitches to the CPAC convention, even though a Sarah Palin impersonator stole a bit of their thunder. Some highlights: Pawlenty reminded the audience that the nation’s motto is In God We Trust, “and we should stand on that foundation as our founders intended….

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A triumph of the people’s revolution Thirty years of dictatorship disappeared in 30 seconds. This was the time it took for Vice-President Omar Suleiman to announce that Hosni Mubarak had resigned as president of Egypt and that the armed forces council was taking over as head of state. After 18 continuous days of protest in which the occupants of Tahrir Square resisted everything the dying regime dared to throw at them – armed mobs, occasional gunfire, waves of arrest, the shutting down of the internet and the mobile phone network, a media crackdown – the voice of the Egyptian people had finally made itself heard. Whatever follows, this is a moment of historic significance. It re-establishes Egypt as the leader of the Arab world and Egyptians at its moral core. This revolution – the only word that fits – was carried out by ordinary people demanding, with extraordinary tenacity, basic political rights: free elections, real political parties, a police force that upholds rather than undermines the rule of law. Try as some may to paint them as the lackeys of Islamism, they did this on their own and, to a large extent, peacefully. This was a fight in which Muslims and Christians stood side by side. No sectarian flags were visible in Tahrir Square, just the national one. Together they showed that if they could conquer their own fear – one that was wholly rational – they could go on to bring down the most entrenched and venal of dictators. Mr Mubarak’s fate will not be lost on every other dictator in the Arab world and beyond. Their achievement was not without sacrifice. More than 300 died fighting for this moment. Nor does the jubilation on the streets of every town and city in Egypt furnish, in itself, the guarantee of a democratic future. Many important questions were left unanswered last night. The biggest centred on what role the army would play in the transition to whatever beckons. Before the crisis, the upper echelons of the army were far from being the potential balancing force between an unyielding president and an angry street. Senior generals who enriched themselves under the former president became part of what one academic has called a military-Mubarak complex. Almost everyone left in power in post-Mubarak Egypt last night, from Vice-President Suleiman down to provincial governors, are career military men. The symbol and head of the regime has gone, but the component parts which supported it still remain. If the experience of Tunisia is anything to go by, the mass demonstrations of the last two weeks may not be the last. Many will almost certainly demand that Mr Suleiman himself follow his patron’s lead. Even after the revolution started, the former intelligence chief might have played a positive role. But his contradictory statements and actions since then have hardly encouraged the notion that he could be the agent for change. He said that Egypt was not ready for democracy, instructed Egyptians to stop watching foreign satellite channels, and vowed to lift the hated emergency law only when “conditions permitted”. He did, to his credit, talk to representatives of the organisation he once tried hard to crush, the Muslim Brotherhood, but then issued a statement which was so far off the mark that it was denounced by those who had taken part in the meeting. He surely has no further role to play as mediator. The implications of these events for the US are very far-reaching. Washington has struggled to speak with one voice as it went from preaching stability to declaring that the political demands of the Egyptians were universal and touched America’s core beliefs. Post-revolutionary Egypt may not tear up its treaty with Israel. But it could be less easily swayed to do its neighbour’s bidding in Gaza. Politically, Egypt may become more like Turkey. For Egyptians did not merely re-establish their independence from Mr Mubarak. They also demonstrated their independence from the US and its allies. Egypt Middle East Hosni Mubarak Protest guardian.co.uk

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