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Egyptian riots day 6: THOUSANDS of Prisoners escape, Musems Looted,many stranded.
More than 102 dead and thousands of prisoners on the loose in Egypt as 30,000 stranded Britons struggle to leave the country
Around 30,000 British tourists were stranded in Egypt today as army planes buzzed low over Cairo on the sixth day of uprisings.
At least 102 people have been killed, more than 2,000 are injured and there were calls for a multi-party democracy to emerge as President Hosni Mubarack’s grip on power loosens.
Gangs of armed men attacked at least four jails across Egypt before dawn today, helping to free hundreds of Muslim militants and thousands of other inmates as police vanished from the streets of Cairo and other cities.
Now scroll down to see the video:
Show of strength: Egyptians surround an army tank during protests in central Cairo on the sixth day of action
Last night a handful Brits that managed to board flights returning back from Cairo described their relief at escaping the riot-torn country. Read more…
Thousands rally against government in Yemen
SANAA, Yemen – Tens of thousands of people are calling for the Yemeni president’s ouster in protests across the capital inspired by the popular revolt in Tunisia.
The demonstrations led by opposition members and youth activists are a significant expansion of the unrest sparked by the Tunisian uprising, which also inspired Egypt’s largest protests in a generation. They pose a new threat to the stability of the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, which has become the focus of increased Western concern about a resurgent al-Qaida branch, a northern rebellion and a secessionist movement in the south.
Crowds in four parts of Sanaa have shut down streets and are chanting calls for an end to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for nearly 32 years.
“We will not accept anything less than the president leaving,” said independent parliamentarian Ahmed Hashid.
Opposition leaders called for more demonstrations on Friday.
“We’ll only be happy when we hear the words ‘I understand you’ from the president,” Hashid said, invoking a statement issued by Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali before he fled the country. Read more…
Egypt on the boil, Mubarak’s son flees
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
Tunisia Riots: Government on brink of Collapse
Unity Government in Tunisia Fractured by Resignations
Police formed a line in front of protesters in Tunis on Tuesday.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
TUNIS — Five or more ministers from opposition parties resigned from Tunisia’s unity government on Tuesday, bowing to a wave of street protests against the cabinet’s domination by members of the ousted president’s ruling party and putting mounting pressure on his prime minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, to resign as well.
As the leaders of the established opposition parties renounced the unity government, the revolutionary passions unleashed across the region continued to reverberate, as two more men in Egypt set themselves ablaze on Tuesday and a third was stopped before he could do so. Those self-immolations followed six others, all in apparent imitation of the one that set off the Tunisian uprising a month ago.
The new unity government was showing strains practically from the moment it was sworn in on Monday, with new protests focused on its links to the former president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Read more…
The Future of Food Riots
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…
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