Lady Gaga’s new single is here (click here to listen), and, shockingly, the Guardian notes, the throngs of people freaking out over it has not yet broken the Internet. Early reactions: It sounds “a lot like Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself,’” writes Michael Cragg for the Guardian . “So much so that…
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Opposition protest blocks streets around pro-Mubarak symbol of power in bid to stop journalists inside ‘spreading more deception’ Egypt’s anti-government protesters have laid siege to the state television headquarters, surrounding army barricades and blocking access to the building. “These people are presenting an alternative reality; even as the country is swept by revolution, they remain inside telling lies,” said Samir Abbas, a 37-year-old former tour guide who had joined the crowds outside the Maspero building. “Just as the presidential palace is a symbol of regime power, so is Maspero. We will stay peaceful, but we won’t let their deception continue.” For the state media, the blockade is merely the latest chapter in a revolution that has brought out the best and the worst of the pro-government press. The state media has been accused of inciting violence against demonstrators by labelling them as foreign agents and refusing to air pro-reform views, yet in recent days hundreds of journalists working for loyalist newspapers have walked out on strike and state TV channels have been rocked by a series of high-profile resignations. “We see this in every revolution; state media employees see which way the wind is blowing and suddenly get a conscience,” said Lawrence Pintak, founding dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and an expert on the Arab media. “In Egypt though it’s part of a longer trend. In recent years, media power has been shifting from the old state mouthpieces to regional satellite channels, private Cairo-based TV stations and the nascent privately owned newspapers. That’s led to a tendency for even government-owned media outlets to begin pushing the envelope as well.” In the early days of Egypt’s anti-government uprising, state television channels refused to broadcast images of the ongoing occupation of Cairo’s Tahrir square, instead accusing an unlikely alliance of Israel, Hamas, the US and Iran of fomenting the unrest. When pro-Mubarak baltagiyya (thugs) began attacking demonstrators, killing some and leaving thousands injured, many anti-Mubarak activists held the information ministry and the state media apparatus responsible. With back-to-back coverage of pro-Mubarak protests dominating the state airwaves, it appeared the “Cairo spring” – a degree of media liberalisation that allowed a number of independent Egyptian outlets to flourish over the past five years – was being brought to an end. “The state media has acted as a tool of the security services to strike at the protests,” Gamal Fahmy, a senior member of the Journalists’ Syndicate, told local news outlet Ahram Online. According to Shahira Amin, deputy head of the state-run Nile TV channel and a senior state TV anchor, the moment protests erupted on 25 January Egypt’s government immediately began ramping up editorial control. The atmosphere inside Maspero became more reminiscent of the 1960s, when Nasser’s state media complex was an unabashed government mouthpiece. “Broadcasting as we do in English and French, we always enjoyed a higher degree of freedom than our Arabic-language colleagues and I was able to express myself as I wished,” she told the Guardian. “That day though press releases began arriving from the interior ministry that were questionable, suggesting that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind the protests. I had a talk-show that night, and my boss told me to talk about the ‘foreign elements’ fomenting unrest.” In the absence of live TV images from Tahrir, Amin decided to go down to the square and see for herself what the situation was. “There weren’t any foreign agents, there weren’t any dollars being distributed, there weren’t any of the lies we were being told through the press releases,” she said. “Instead I found a cross-section of Egyptian society, an all-inclusive movement from old to young and rich to poor.” Amin refused to come into work for several days as the protests escalated; in that time her channel broadcast pre-recorded travel programmes about Red Sea holiday towns and made only occasional references to the massive anti-government uprising sweeping the country, normally by focusing on isolated pro-Mubarak supporters. “You can’t have a revolution in your own country and air a story about a beach resort,” she said. “It was ridiculous. Then I saw the Molotov cocktails being thrown at pro-change demonstrators, the violence of the horsemen, the trucks that were running protesters over. For me, that was the breaking point.” Amin tendered her resignation, the first of many inside the state media apparatus who would follow suit as the protests continued. “I realised then that I had to choose which side I was on. And I realised I couldn’t be the mouthpiece of a regime that massacres its own people; that was a line I couldn’t cross.” This week state TV channels have begun to shift the tone of their coverage, offering air time to protesters and in some cases hailing the occupation of Tahrir square as a positive step. On Monday state-run Al-Ahram – the Middle East’s biggest daily newspaper – carried a frontpage editorial praising the “nobility” of the revolution, though it stopped short of calling for the president to step down. “There’s domestic pressure from protesters and outside pressure from Washington to liberalise editorial control, and that’s what we’re now seeing,” claimed Amin. “Nobody inside Maspero is really happy about the government’s response to the protests, they’re just following orders.” Pintak agrees that there is little ideological backing for Mubarak within the ranks of state media employees. “The change in tone and staff resignations do underscore the degree to which the regime is losing support. But it’s also a sign that the majority of Arab journalists, no matter who they work for and what professional compromises they have made, at root support the idea of political and social change. We did a survey a couple of years ago and asked journalists across the region what they saw as the mission of Arab journalism: 75% said political and social change.” Egypt Middle East Protest Jack Shenker guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The Egyptian military has been torturing protesters, according to famed Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer. Amer and a filmmaker friend spent nearly a week in a military prison “in the middle of the desert” for breaking curfew, he tells the Daily Beast . There he witnessed fellow prisoners being “severely tortured … in…
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Follow the latest tweets on protests around the Arab world from our network of journalists, bloggers and experts Garry Blight Matt Wells Alastair Dant
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As global food prices soar to a record high, how can we deal with this emerging crisis?
Continue reading …If you feel like your house is only getting dustier, you may be right: There’s more dust in the world now than there once was, a study finds. In fact, the amount of airborne dust doubled in the 20th century. Where’s it all coming from? There are a few possible…
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High-school hunger-strikers, Ivory Coast and Egypt stir debate and action among delegates A hunger strike by highschool graduates outside the library at Cheikh Anta Diop University greeted World Social Forum delegates on the final day of the event in Senegal. Around two dozen students, who lay on the ground under blankets, are understood to be angry about not getting places at the university. Judging by the signs stuck to nearby posts, the strike was clearly timed to send a message to a forum gathered to discuss ways to create a fairer world. One read: “Why [a] place for foreigners and not for children of the country?” Another said: “Our place is not on the street but in the lecture halls.” By lunchtime the Red Cross had arrived to check the health of the young people. One protester was taken away in an ambulance. Holding the forum at the university has been a bone of contention to some students, who have been removed from classrooms and the library to make way for delegates and the press. It seems classes were going to be cancelled to allow for the forum to go ahead, and to allow students to attend, but the plan was changed. Amy Faye, 22, a third-year economics student, said she didn’t mind the conference taking place, but would have liked time off to attend. “We’ve had to attend class. There’s been no time to attend the forum. It would have been good for us to discover things.” Faye didn’t give her full backing to the hunger strikers, suggesting instead that the whole student body could have been mobilised to take action. Another student said on Thursday that overcrowding is a major problem at the university, with packed halls of residence and classrooms. The cost of university is also believed to be causing simmering tension. A group opposed to military intervention in Ivory Coast set up tents and circulated a petition this morning calling on the international community – including the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Monetary Union – to end the threat of sanctions following the outcome of last November’s presidential election. In a manifesto distributed on Friday, the group, calling itself the Civil Society Group Against Aggression, says there is “no legally defensible basis for the positions taken and for the threats of sanctions brandished against the government of Ivory Coast by the self-proclaimed ‘international community’ since the beginning of the crisis”. The group challenges the international community to “produce a single legal justification that is not an offence against international law or the dignity of Africa” for its actions in the wake of the disputed results. The group says the international community had no right to announce a provisional result by the independent electoral commission as definitive. It says a peaceful solution needs to be found, and advocates negotiations between Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Outtara or a fresh election. The group is holding a press conference later today. Meanwhile, following Thursday’s rumours about the resignation of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, a march from the forum to the Egyptian embassy took place on Friday afternoon. It is clear from talking to people at the forum that there is a strong belief that what has happened in Tunisia and Egypt could happen in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa. At a press conference on Thursday, a local organiser of the forum, Demba Moussa Dembele, said if people “moved and did something”, change could come. Elsewhere around the university campus, groups have been putting together their final presentations to the assembly of assemblies – the final meeting of the forum to showcase what the week-long discussions have achieved and to announce any plans of action. The final assembly begins at 4pm. World Social Forum Ivory Coast Egypt Liz Ford guardian.co.uk
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• Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has resigned • Vice-president announces the army council holds power • Cheers and fireworks as protests turn to celebrations ترجم هذه الصفحة إلى العربية 5.20pm: There are reports that the Egyptian army is to make another statement soon. 5.19pm: Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, has been quick to instill a note of caution : But the game isn’t over, and now a word of caution. I worry that senior generals may want to keep (with some changes) a Mubarak-style government without Mubarak. In essence the regime may have decided that Mubarak had become a liability and thrown him overboard — without any intention of instituting the kind of broad, meaningful democracy that the public wants. Senior generals have enriched themselves and have a stake in a political and economic structure that is profoundly unfair and oppressive. And remember that the military running things directly really isn’t that different from what has been happening: Mubarak’s government was a largely military regime (in civilian clothes) even before this. Mubarak, Vice President Suleiman and so many others — including nearly all the governors — are career military men. So if the military now takes over, how different is it? 5.18pm: Harriet also contemplates how the downfall of Mubarak will play in Israel, his great ally: Israel will now be extremely uncertain about future relations with Egypt. The peace treaty between the two countries that has been in place for more than 30 years has not exactly made them warm allies, but the peace has held. Israeli ministers and officials have been warning for almost three weeks that regime change in Egypt could end the “cold peace”. Their worst fears are that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood will gain in power and influence and Egypt will adopt a hostile attitude towards the Jewish state. They are also worried about the impact on Gaza, as Hamas has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. There was no immediate reaction to Mubarak’s resignation from the prime minister’s office, although a statement was expected later tonight. Binyamin Netanyahu has been telling his international counterparts that Israel expects any future Egyptian government to honour the peace treaty and that the international community should be making that clear to an incoming regime. 5.17pm: Harriet Sherwood reports from Israel on the reaction to Mubarak’s demise from Hamas: I’ve just spoken to Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza. He was cautious in his reaction to events in Egypt, saying Hamas had no wish to interfere with Egypt’s internal affairs. But, he added, Hamas hoped to see an improvement in relations between Egypt and all Palestinians. “We are one family,” he said. The Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s close allies, “are present everywhere”, he said. He would not be drawn on whether a new Egyptian regime may wish to review the peace treaty it signed with Israel more than 30 years ago. “There is no clear picture about the new government, but it will be controlled by the army t begin with, he said. “We are hoping to benefit.” 4.59pm: Here’s some reaction from Qatar, from Reuters: The Qatari government said it regarded Egypt’s transfer of power to a military council on Friday as a positive step. “This is a positive, important step towards the Egyptian people’s aspirations of achieving democracy and reform and a life of dignity,” the statement from the Emir’s royal council said. 4.54pm: Mubarak picked an auspicious date to resign. On this day 32 years ago the Iranian revolution took place when the Shah’s forces were overwhelmed. And 21 years ago today Nelson Mandela was freed by the apartheid regime in South Africa. 4.50pm: Wael Ghonim, Google’s head of marketing in the Middle East, annointed by some as the voice of the revolution after his emotional speech on his release from prison, tweeted simply : “Welcome back Egypt”. 4.46pm: Reaction has started to come in from the US and the EU. The White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said: The president was informed of president Mubarak’s decision to step down during a meeting in the Oval Office. He then watched TV coverage of the scene in Cairo for several minutes in the outer Oval (office). The EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said: The EU respects president Mubarak’s decision today. By standing down, he has listened to the voices of the Egyptian people and has opened the way to faster and deeper reforms. It is important now that the dialogue is accelerated leading to a broad-based government which will respect the aspirations of, and deliver stability for, the Egyptian people. The future of Egypt rightly remains in the hands of the Egyptian people. The EU stands ready to help in any way it can. 4.43pm: Tariq Ali has written a piece for Comment is free . He says: A joyous night in Cairo. What bliss to be alive, to be an Egyptian and an Arab. In Tahrir Square they’re chanting, “Egypt is free” and “We won!” The removal of Mubarak alone (and getting the bulk of his $40bn loot back for the national treasury), without any other reforms, would itself be experienced in the region and in Egypt as a huge political triumph. It will set new forces into motion. A nation that has witnessed miracles of mass mobilisations and a huge rise in popular political consciousness will not be easy to crush, as Tunisia demonstrates. 4.42pm: Barack Obama, who appeared humiliated last night when Mubarak gave that infamously equivocal statement, is to speak at the White House at 6.30pm GMT. 4.36pm: The Guardian’ s Twitter map of Middle East protests i s being overrun with outpourings of emotion from Egypt at the moment. It’s a great visual representation of the reactions in the country. Says @Port_Sa3eedy: “Someone slap me… I can’t believe…. I’m tearing down #egypt #mubarak ” 4.28pm: From amidst a cacophony of cheers, our correspondent Jack Shenker describes the reaction of the crowd outside the presidential palace. There was a complete eruption of humanity, I have never seen anything like it. The world’s biggest street party has really kicked off here. There are huge huge crowds of people jumping up and down suddenly as one. Suddenly everyone rushed into the road. I’m being slapped in happiness and bounced around. 4.27pm: Egyptian state TV is showing live pictures of the celebrtions in Tahrir square. “The newsreader is smiling and looks as happy as many of the people down there on the square,” says the anchor on al-Jazeera English. 4.23pm: The Egyptian pro-democracy campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei has cheered Mubarak’s resignation. “This is the greatest day of my life. The country has been liberated after decades of repression,” he told The Associated Press. He said he expects a “beautiful” transition of power. 4.20pm: Our correspondent Chris McGreal in Tahrir Square writes: “Cairo erupts in celebration as 18 days of defiant protest finally delivers a revolution after 24 hours of euphoria, dashed hopes and victory.” 4.17pm: We have now embedded a live video stream from Tahrir Square. You can watch it by refreshing this page. 4.12pm: The full text of the vice-president’s very brief statement: In these difficult circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the position of the presidency. He has commissioned the armed forces council to direct the issues of the state. 4.03pm: There are huge cheers in Tahrir Square. President Mubarak has gone and the army has been entrusted with the republic, it has just been announced. 4.02pm: Omar Suleiman is making a statement now. “President Hosni Mubarak has decided to waive the office of the republic.” 3.54pm: A potentially interesting development from Reuters: A senior Egyptian military spokesman arrived at the headquarters of Egypt’s state television on Friday, a military source told Reuters. Earlier, Egyptian state television had reported that the presidency was due to issue an important statement. 3.49pm: My colleague Harriet Sherwood sends this from Jerusalem: The Israeli media is reporting a telephone conversation between Mubarak and Israel’s trade minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a long-time friend, shortly before the Egyptian president’s speech last night. Ben-Eliezer told Israel’s Army Radio: “He knew that this was it, that this was the end of the road. He was looking for only one thing – give me an honourable way out. ‘Let me leave in an honourable fashion.’” 3.48pm: Here is an interactive map of the Guardian’s Twitter network of Arab protests. 3.44pm: Our correspondent Martin Chulov, who is monitoring events from Amman, says Egyptian state TV is now interviewing protesters. “This time, he must be gone,” Martin says . 3.43pm: We are awaiting a “statement from the presidency” – not, interestingly, from the president. In the meantime Hossam Badrawi, secretary general of the ruling NDP, has announced he has quit the party in an interview on Hayah TV , according to multiple sources. Yesterday he had been prominent among those who were predicting that Mubarak was about to stand aside. “It’s a resignation from the position and from the party,” Badrawi told al-Hayat TV. “The formation of new parties in a new manner that reflects new thinking is better for society now at this stage.” 3.41pm: Al-Arabiya TV is now reporting that police killed 5 people in the clashes in el-Arish ( see 3.32pm ). 3.32pm: There are reports of clashes in the north Sinai town of el-Arish. Al-Jazeera says at least one person died and 20 were injured when people with small firearms attacked a police station. From Reuters: Around 1,000 Egyptians attacked a police station in the north Sinai town of el-Arish on Friday to try to free prisoners, exchanging gunfire with police who retreated to the roof, witnesses said. The attackers set ablaze three vehicles outside and hurled petrol bombs during confrontation. 3.31pm: My colleague Richard Adams in Washington sends the following: White House official just said: Mubarak’s departure to Sharm el-Sheikh a “positive first step”. Also says Suleiman will be “clarifying” what his powers are. Egyptian TV says statement “from the office of the presidency” very, very shortly. Egyptian army tanks surrounding the presidential palace have turned their gun turrets away from the crowd, according to CNN. 3.30pm: On the Arabist blog, Issandr El Amrani has posted his instant thoughts on the situation as he sees it . It’s worth a read. Amrani believes it is “pretty evident that Suleiman is in charge”. He asks why the regime, including the army, still need Mubarak to be nominally in charge. He says: Mubarak needs to be in place, even if only symbolically, for amendments to the constitution to be made. If the constitution is suspended, then this forces the army to take charge itself (presumably through the supreme military council), which opens the way to demands for civilian government and lifts the last layer of distance that the army has vis-a-vis the people. 3.00pm: There are reports that president Hosni Mubarak has left Cairo. Helicopters have been seen leaving the presidential palace in Cairo, and a local government official has said he is in the red sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. After Mubarak’s speech last night, it appeared he had defied the people’s call for him to step aside. But today, Egyptian diplomats are briefing that he has indeed relinquished power to his deputy, Omar Suleiman. The army also stated that a handover of power had begun. The New York Times is portraying this as a significant moment in the protests . It says diplomats are trying to confirm that Mubarak’s speech last night “signalled his irrevocable handover of presidential authority”: Western diplomats said that officials of the Egyptian government were scrambling to assure that a muddled speech Mr Mubarak made on Thursday night that enraged protesters had in fact signalled his irrevocable handover of presidential authority. “The government of Egypt says absolutely, it is done, it is over,” a Western diplomat said. “But that is not what anybody heard” in Mr Mubarak’s speech. To read how events unfolded earlier today click here . Egypt Hosni Mubarak Middle East Live video Haroon Siddique Paul Owen guardian.co.uk
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