February 2011 - Foreign Policy Public Health Blog

The Tahrir Show

Greetings from the center of the world. I'm in Cairo, Eygpt, where thousands of protesters remain holed up in Tahrir Square in the heart of this city's decaying Beaux-Arts downtown, fighting pitched street battles with pro-regime thugs and defiantly...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 10:21 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Middle East, Egypt

Zimbabwe media: We'll have none of this Egypt stuff here

Over the last few days we've been covering how democratic protesters in countries ranging from Yemen to Russia are trying to invoke the events in Egypt and Tunisia to bolster their cause. But one Robert Mugabe's government seems to be trying to...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 8:22 AM by FP Passport

Algeria to lift state of emergency

Big news out of Algeria today. Official media are quoting President Abdelaziz Bouteflika saying that the country's state of emergency -- which has been in place for the past 19 years -- will be lifted . There's a pretty big caveat, though: Bouteflika...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 8:02 AM by FP Passport

Vodafone: Government made us send pro-Mubarak text messages

Using emergency powers provisions that give it the right to order mobile phone networks to send text messages to subscribers, the Egyptian government has apparently ordered Vodafone to send a message urging citizens to confront "traitors". Check...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 7:46 AM by FP Passport

Socialist International finally kicks out Mubarak

The Socialist International -- the global federation of center-left parties that includes Britain's Labour Party and the French Socialist Party -- finally got around to expelling Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party this week, after giving...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 7:26 AM by FP Passport

Morning Brief: Egypt protests turn violent

Egypt protests turn violent Top story : The anti-government crowds in the streets of Cairo came under gunfire today as the protests that have recently rocked Egypt took a bloody turn. The attacks marked an escalation to the violence that has left over...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 2:33 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Morning Brief

Human rights analyst: Egyptian government sent thugs to attack the demonstrators

Speaking by phone from Cairo, Human Rights Watch's Joe Stork told me that he is alarmed by the U.S. media coverage portraying the clashes on the streets as spats between "rival protestors" -- citizens who have two different visions of the...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 11:52 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Middle East, Arab World

Egypt returns to the Internet

The above video illustration by the Internet monitoring service Renesys shows the moment Egypt's Internet returned to life -- one ISP at a time -- starting at around 9:30 UTC (11:30 Cairo time) this morning. Interestingly, the Noor Group's ISP...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 11:40 AM by FP Passport

It's not over yet in Algeria

Protests against the government of longtime Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, sparked largely by rising food prices , broke out last month around the same time as the unrest in neighboring Tunisia. But since a mass demonstration on Jan. 22, the...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 11:02 AM by FP Passport

Who you calling a 'thug'?

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Today's crackdown in Tahrir Square is horrific, but can anyone truly claim it's surprising? Journalistic parlance seems to have settled on the word "thug" to describe...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 9:44 AM by FP Passport

Filed under: Middle East, Egypt

Exclusive: The bloodbath in Tahrir Square

I just spoke on the phone with journalist Maryam Ishani , who is currently just outside the melee inside Tahrir Square. She described the brutal scene she has witnessed today, including the targeting of foreign journalists, attacks on horseback, Molotov...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 9:44 AM by FP Passport

Jordan's king doesn't want to play dominoes

Jordan's King Abdullah dismissed his government yesterday in response to growing protests against its economic policies. FP had previously listed Jordan as one of the country's that might follow Tunisia in overthrowing their ruler, and this latest...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 9:10 AM by FP Passport

White House condemns Egypt violence

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has issued the following statements on the bloodshed in Tahrir Square, condemning the violence but stopping short of holding the Egyptian government responsible for it: The United States deplores and condemns the violence...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 8:40 AM by FP Passport

Erdogan's Cairo speech

Nicholas Noe's MideastWire blog has a translation up of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's speech, delivered on Turkey's NTV network last night. It's probably the most forceful and unequivocal statement on the situation in Egypt made...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 8:18 AM by FP Passport

The wave hits Yemen

While the main story today is obviously the fast-developing and increasingly violent chaos on the streets of Cairo, there's also a major development in Yemen. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978 has announced that he will step down at...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 8:00 AM by FP Passport