a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

not bothering watching the rest of this tbh

this is terrible

so more riots then eh

DEMONSTRATORS IN LIBERATION SQUARE WAVE THEIR SHOES AT HOSNI MUBARAK

like the CIA guy said to Charlie Wilson, "We'll see."

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Thursday, February 10, 2011 12:55 PM

that could not have been more underwhelming

otm.

not at tv or real computer, what'd he end up saying?

I'm not stepping down, we'll amend this and that, here's two committees, violence will not be tolerated yadda yadda yadda

this dude is gonna end up with his head on a pike unless he gets the army to crush the opposition

mubarak says "psyche"

doh

is anybody else watching CBS' live feed...? the size and scope of the tent village/protesters in the square is nuts

― lmao reminisces about his days in southern china (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, February 10, 2011 2:38 PM

watching this now

here are the bbc summaries/tweets:

2046: Mr Mubarak is live on state TV.

2046: Egypt is calling for a change, he says

2047: Promises to punish those who injured and killed protesters.

2048: Mubarak: I will not listen to diktats from abroad.

2050: Mubarak: I will not stand down until an elected government can take over.

2051: Mubarak: Looks forward to continuing to rule with the support of all of those people who are eager for the safety and stability of Egypt.

2052: Mubarak: Peaceful transfer of power will take place from now until September.

2057: As Mubarak continues to talk, it is now very clear that he will not be announcing his departure from power. He has made it clear he will stay on until September elections. It is highly unlikely this will go down well with the crowds gathered in Tahrir Square.

2105: Reports say Mr Mubarak is delegating power to his vice-president. It seems he is not stepping down, but he is handing some responsibilities to his deputy.

2107: Boos and jeers ring out from Tahrir Square. They're not happy.

2110: Egyptian academic Mamoun Fandy says Mr Mubarak's words "will not wash". He says: "These young people are too smart. I don't know whether the disaster will start tonight or tomorrow, but we're in for a huge confrontation. Whoever wrote that speech is living in a bubble."

Worsening crowd reaction reminded me of a hip hop gig where the promoter comes on three hours late to explain why the headliner is still en route from the airport.

maybe it was bbc sound mixing, but the crowd went nuts around the middle of the speech, the rest was a lot of nationalist-sounding stuff, i wonder if any of them heard it.

that speech came across like his new strategy was to try to bore everyone in tahrir sq into going home. legalese accountant-type shit about articles and amendments, thought he was gonna start talking about spreadsheets, veering into a self-aggrandising potted autobiography like a senile father of the bride? christ. this fucking guy.

also lol deja vu, it was a fortnight ago i first sat down to watch what would surely be mubarak's resignation speech only to gradually realise that it was gonna be no such thing

al jaz subtitles briefly confused me by saying he'd transferred power to suleiman - turned out he'd just delegated a few duties to him. why even bother making concessions if they're gonna be that inadequate

Worsening crowd reaction reminded me of a hip hop gig where the promoter comes on three hours late to explain why the headliner is still en route from the airport.

ha i was just about to accuse you of biting dorian off twitter when i realised it's your new username! i loled.

lex otm

lol

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/stratfor-reports-mubarak-has-already-left-country-speech-prerecorded

vaguely depressing how the outcome is dependent, i guess, on the army. talking of whom when are they going to get off the fence? am i wrong, or does no one really know what they're going to do or what side they're on?

2115: Full quotes from Mr Mubarak's speech: "I was a young man as well when I joined the military and pledged to the nation and sacrificed to the nation. I spent my life defending Egypt's life and sovereignty. The best days of my life were when I raised the flag of Egypt over the Sinai and when I flew plans [planes?] in Addis Ababa. There was no day when I was affected or gave in to foreign pressure."

2116: Another quote from Mr Mubarak's speech: "I believe that the majority of Egyptians know who Hosni Mubarak is and it pains me what has been expressed by some people from my own country. I am aware of the dangers facing us and out of my belief that Egypt is going through a very significant phase in its history, this compels us all to put the interests of the nation first and put Egypt above any consideration."

2119: Lina Wardani, a journalist from al-Ahram newspaper who is in Tahrir Square, tells the BBC: "There is extreme disappointment in Tahrir tonight. This was not the speech the nation was waiting for and was certainly not the speech the protesters in Tahrir were waiting for. Right now there seems to be confusion. There are a lot of people walking out of the square very disappointed, you have more people saying they are leaving right now but just getting a good night's sleep before they come back tomorrow for another very long, very large protest ."

guess i don't have to do that but some ppl said they couldn't get any live streams

it's appriciated!

imagine if Gordon Brown had tried to cling on after the election last year, he might have delivered a speech like that

Now trending: http://twitter.com/#!/search/Ceausescu

(if oddly misspelled)

that's the right spelling? unless you want the thingy under the s (genuine shame that i don't know what it's called BRB)

oh it's still called a cedilla if it's under the s

Ha, you're right - I assumed it was Ceaucescu for some reason (I guess the way the name is usually pronounced in English) and I saw someone else saying it was a misspelling. Obv need to factcheck before spellchecking in future.

I'm amazed. I've seen Twitter trending topics misspell much easier names than that.

Looks like the crowd is headed toward the state TV building. Suleyman is speaking.

'youth and heroes of egypt, please go back home, go back to work'

'do not listen to what foreign media tell you, they want to harm egypt [i think], listen to your conscience'

I think the only ex-prez Obama could put on the phone w/ Mubi now is Nixon. They should've frozen him.

i trust everyone on twitter is following @bencnn right? by far the best to keep one informed

xps oh my fucking god, seriously? this is why installing suleiman as prez is not remotely a solution either

Ha Morbs.

2138: Full quote from Mr Suleiman: "The 25 January movement has succeeded in making a change in the party of democracy, history has begun. Constitutional decisions have been taken, commissions were formed to implement what the president decided in terms of directives in his 1 February speech. What the president announced today stresses once again his national feeling and his siding with the legitimate demands of the people and his commitment to the many pledges he made in the past. It also proves his awareness of the seriousness of the situation that Egypt is going through. The president had put the supreme interests of the people above everything else."

2141: It's doubtful anyone in Tahrir Square heard Mr Suleiman's speech - the noise of chants and horns is deafening.

2143: Mamoun Mandy (see entry at 2110) tells the BBC: "This is the first time I've been convinced that the people around Mubarak gave him a distorted image of what has been going on on the ground. On the ground, you'd never remotely think that speech was acceptable. It was written from a pre-25 January world which has no connection with what's going on on the ground. I am so worried about the future of this city. Mubarak's regime has only a few hours to decide: is it Mubarak or Egypt? If they do not accept the demands of the people, I think we are in for something really ugly tonight."

oh wait it's not a cedilla! it's a virgula, which looks almost identical.

Several languages add a comma (virgula) to some letters, such as ș, which looks like a cedilla, but is more precisely a diacritical comma. This is particularly confusing with letters which can take either diacritic: for example, the consonant /ʃ/ is written as "ş" in Turkish but "ș" in Romanian, and Romanian writers will sometimes use the former instead of the latter because of insufficient font or character-set support.

A week ago I was thinking, uh oh, here comes another Romania, and then I thought, nah. But now I think, well, maybe. Personally, I'd like to see a reality show featuring several former Arab heads of state exiled to a house in Saudi Arabia.

King Abdullah gets in a fight with Hosni over who has to clean the bathroom

x-post Fun fact: I once (literally) stumbled into an open house at the EU headquarters in Belgium. The English language tour group we were stuck in was mostly Romanians, because apparently Romanian is one of the hardest languages to translate so when in doubt the EU usually just defaults to English.

speaking of Romania, I think one of the key differences here is that what really did Ceaucescu in was the the upper military turned against him - Gen. Stanculescu (who grabbed Ceaucescu, put him on trial, and had him shot) was Ceaucescu's Deputy Minister of Defense up until 3 days before the "trial". The only people who stayed loyal to Ceaucescu were the secret police. It isn't really clear how enamored of Mubarak Egypt's military command is, but I don't think they'll be complicit in his trial and murder. Maybe they'll just let a mob do it, but I dunno...

(btw the only reason I know that is because I am reading Sebestyen's "1989" right now - loads of crazy parallels)

seems the military has a lot to gain by pulling him out of there, unless they really think they can put this whole thing back in the box

i've stumbled into a bit of a wikipedia hole. didn't know that ceauşescu's daughter zoia was a mathematician, and that she died of lung cancer a month after her playboy brother died of cirrhosis. (their other brother is a physicist, and still alive.)

not that they need my approval but these protestors are so incredibly impressive--cant even count the number of times over the last two weeks when i thought "this is probably it, everyone will go home now," and they just stuck it out

Well, the question is what happens when he outright orders them to fire on protestors. They said they wouldn't, but he also hasn't told them to yet. If he does and they go the full Iran, this revolt will go into remission. If they don't, then it's more or less over.

Mohamed ElBaradei: "Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now"

it seems like there's also an internal split in the army between the actual conscripted troops and the upper echelons of command. at least, that's what it seems like.