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ElBaradei returns to Egypt calling for democracy

January 27, 2011 Comments off

Self-exiled opposition leader publishes manifesto for toppling Mubarak regime: “It is time for a change; the only option is a new beginning.”

Democracy activist, Mohamed ElBaradei, is expected to return from Vienna to Egypt on Thursday following this week’s protests, laying out his manifesto for change in Newsweek.

“I am going back to Cairo, and back onto the streets because, really, there is no choice,” ElBaradei wrote. “So far, the regime does not seem to have gotten that message.”

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Thousands of Egyptians protest against Mubarak

“The Egyptian people broke the barrier of fear, and once that is broken, there is no stopping them,” he explained.

“Each day it gets harder to work with Mubarak’s government, even for a transition,” ElBaradei wrote. “He has been there 30 years, he is 83 years old, and it is time for a change…The only option is a new beginning.”

“I have hoped to find a way toward change through peaceful means,” he added. “In a country like Egypt, it’s not easy to get people to put down their names and government ID numbers on a document calling for fundamental democratic reforms, yet a million people have done just that.”

“The regime, like the monkey that sees nothing and hears nothing, simply ignored us,” ElBaradei explained.

ElBaradei also laments media censorship in Egypt, explaining that he has “been out of Egypt because that is the only way I can be heard. I have been totally cut off from the local media when I am there.” Read more…

Categories: Egypt, Middle East Tags: , , , ,

Egypt on the boil, Mubarak’s son flees

January 26, 2011 1 comment

Egypt‘s longtime President Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal, seen as his likely successor, has reportedly fled to Britain, along with his family following a Tunisia-inspired protest. The 48-year-old younger Mubarak boarded from an airport in western Cairo a private jet bound for London with his wife and daughter, and nearly 100 pieces of luggage, the US-based Arabic website Akhbar al-Arab reported.

Thousands of Egyptians defied a ban on protests by returning to Egypt’s streets on Wednesday and calling for Hosni Mubarak to leave office, and some scuffled with police. Activists had called on Egyptians to take to the streets again to end Mubarak’s 30-year rule after Tuesday’s “Day of Wrath” involving anti-government protests across Egypt in which three protesters and one policeman were killed. The three protesters died in the city of Suez, and the policeman was killed in Cairo.

Police used riot trucks on Wednesday to break up a crowd of as many as 3,000 people who had gathered outside a Cairo court complex, one of the places where demonstrations had started on Tuesday. Police arrested at least 500 people across Egypt on Wednesday. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the morgue in Suez demanding the release of one of the three bodies, witnesses said. Protesters said he was killed by several gunshots and demanded an autopsy.
“The government has killed my son,” the Suez protesters outside the morgue chanted. “Oh Habib, tell your master, your hands are soiled with our blood,” they said, referring to interior minister Habib al-Adli.

Hundreds of protesters also gathered outside Cairo’s journalists’ syndicate, where the authorities allow regular protests. Police beat some with batons when they tried to break a cordon. Protesters on buildings threw stones at police below. The state news agency said 90 people were arrested while trying to gather in Tahrir square in central Cairo, the focus of the biggest demonstrations. A judicial source said 64 people were detained in Alexandria.

The interior ministry had earlier banned all protest meetings. “No provocative movements or protest gatherings or organisation of marches or demonstrations will be allowed, and immediate legal procedures will be taken and participants will be handed over to investigating authorities,” the state news agency MENA cited the ministry as saying.

One opposition group, the Sixth of April Youth, called on its Facebook page for more protests on Wednesday “and after tomorrow, until Mubarak goes”. Facebook has been a key means of communication for protesters, but Egyptians said the site was blocked on Wednesday. Twitter confirmed its site was blocked on Tuesday, although users could still access it via proxy sites. The Internet has been the main platform for some of the most vociferous criticism of Mubarak. agencies

Categories: Egypt, Middle East, Protests Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Future of Food Riots

January 12, 2011 Comments off
By Gwynne Dyer, January 9, 2011

This is a map of the countries in which there have been food riots

If all the food in the world were shared out evenly, there would be enough to go around.

That has been true for centuries now: if food was scarce, the problem was that it wasn’t in the right place, but there was no global shortage. However, that will not be true much longer.

The food riots began in Algeria more than a week ago, and they are going to spread. During the last global food shortage in 2008, there was serious rioting in Mexico, Indonesia, and Egypt. We may expect to see that again this time, only bigger and more widespread.

Most people in these countries live in a cash economy, and a large proportion live in cities. They buy their food, they don’t grow it.

That makes them very vulnerable, because they have to eat almost as much as people in rich countries do, but their incomes are much lower.

The poor, urban multitudes in these countries (including China and India) spend up to half of their income on food, compared to only about 10 percent in the rich countries. When food prices soar, these people quickly find that they simply lack the money to go on feeding themselves and their children properly—and food prices now are at an all-time high.

“We are entering a danger territory,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, chief economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization, on January 5.

The price of a basket of cereals, oils, dairy, meat, and sugar that reflects global consumption patterns has risen steadily for six months. It has just broken through the previous record, set during the last food panic in June 2008.

“There is still room for prices to go up much higher,” Abbassian added, “if, for example, the dry conditions in Read more…

Categories: Food Crisis, World Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,