“We’re a million now!” protesters cried, as crowds kept surging to the landmark square, shadowed by the burned headquarters of Mr. Mubarak’s ruling party and a vast complex housing a bureaucracy many Egyptians accuse of endlessly humiliating them.
While the numbers fell short , the protest rivaled some of the most epic moments in Egypt’s tumultuous modern history, from the wars with Israel to a coup that sent a corpulent monarch packing on his yacht in 1952. With little regard, protesters defied a curfew that has become a joke to residents here and overcame attempts by the government to keep protesters away by closing roads, suspending train service and shutting down public transportation to Cairo. Some walked miles to the square, whose name means “liberation.” Others woke up there in the muddy patches where they have slept for days.
The unrest is spreading.
The momentous events in Egypt, the most populous Arab country and once the axis on which the Arab world revolved, have reverberated across the region. King Abdullah II of Jordan fired his Cabinet after protests there Tuesday, and organizers in Yemen and Syria, with their own authoritarian rulers, have called for protests.
In scale and message, the protests in Egypt marked a remarkable moment of unity in a country that once represented the Arab world’s nexus but has stagnated under the withering authoritarianism of Mr. Mubarak’s regime. Peasants from southern Egypt joined Islamists from the Nile Delta, businessmen from tony suburbs rubbed shoulders with street-smart youths from gritty Boulaq in a square that served as a vast tapestry of a country’s diversity joined in the bluntest of message: Mr. Mubarak must surrender power.
“Go already,” read one sign held aloft. “My arm’s starting to hurt.” ...NYT
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I was shocked to hear that Al Jazeera English is available in the US in only a few places but not on regular cable and satellite services. As someone who dropped TV about a decade ago because of issues with news quality and accessibility, I can only guess just how lousy a job our TV coverage of Egypt (and other issues) has become. But I do get Al Jazeera English and it's a superb news channel. I see others are enthralled by it, too.
Al Jazeera is also endearing because it exudes hustle. It constantly gets scoops. It has had gritty, hands-on coverage across the greater Middle East, from Gaza to Beirut to Iraq, that other channels haven’t matched. Its camera crew, for example, was the first to beam pictures from Mingora, the main town of Swat, enabling Al Jazeera to confirm that the Pakistani military had, in fact, prevailed there over the Taliban. ...Robert D. Kaplan, Atlantic
Al Jazeera English (and Arabic) can be followed on Link TV via DirectTV on satellite. They allowed me to cut out all US channels (including local) except for HBO, ShowTime, Sundance, Starz, etc., along with C-Span and Link.
