Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Big Day --- And Not Just in Cairo

0107 GMT: Fox News reports that an assassination attempt on newly-appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman left two people dead this week. Neither Fox nor anyone else has confirmed this story. When asked the question, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had this to say: 

"I'm not going to ... get into that question,"

0100 GMT: Members of hacktivist group Anonymous have targeted the government websites of Yemen and Egypt in solidarity with the protests in those country against the dictators. They used Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks to make websites unavailable for viewing. 

Click to read more ...

Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Day After The "Day of Revolution"

0005 GMT: The situation in Suez has become further tense. Reports coming in from Egypt suggest that the city has effectively been cut-off from the rest of the country. Landlines, cell phones and internet are down. People continue to protest in the city and there have been sporadic reports of clashes, injuries and at least 2 deaths which cannot be confirmed yet.

0002 GMT: RNN reports that 5,000 protesters are holding a sit-in in El-Geish Street in Suez. 

0000 GMT: Egyptian blogger and activist Rowand Helmii, who has been arrested by police on her way home, has her cell phone and is tweeting from inside a police car in Cairo. 

I was arrested around ( 15 mayo ) if it helps I was heading home;#jan25

@Noor1Noor2 I have no idea what my exact location is but here is my full name rowand sameh hassan mohammed helmii

Thank you guys so much for all the support don't worry I'll get out in a bit won't be late and gonna be at the protest tomorrow ;) :) #jan25

Click to read more ...

WikiLeaks and Algeria 2009: "Sitting on a Volcano" After Bouteflika Wins "Choreographed and Heavily Controlled Election"

In April 2009, the US Embassy in Algiers reviews the political and social situation after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won a third term with more than 90% of the vote in "a carefully choreographed and heavily controlled election".

The conclusion? "With Bouteflika's hold on power secure, Algeria now faces an urgent need for dialogue between the population and the state."

Click to read more ...

Tunisia (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Scorecard for the Protests

Saturday's Protest in Algiers1655 GMT: Egypt's Minister of Industry and Commerce Rachid Mohammed Rachid has raised worries over investment because of the effects of the situation in Tunisia, which "worries lots of people" and "raises questions about political stability". Rachid told reporters he was instructing assistants to issue daily statements about new foreign investment to give a reassuring message.

Egypt's stock market dropped 8% last week.

1650 GMT: In Tunisia, Larbi Nasra, the owner of Hannibal TV, and his son have been arrested and charge with high treason and conspiracy against state security.

The broadcasts of Hannibal TV have been suspended.

Nasra was close to the family of Leila Trabelsi, the wife of former President Ben Ali.

Click to read more ...

Algeria and Tunisia Videos: Saturday's Protests in Algiers and Tunis

Latest footage of Saturday's protest in Algiers:

f

4-minute clip of Saturday's protest and clashes w police in Algiers:

Click to read more ...

Tunisia (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A March in Algeria?

1830 GMT: From Alec Ross of the US State Department: "Secretary Clinton spoke with Tunisia PM Ghannouchi today. She encouraged transition to open democracy and on-going reforms."

1710 GMT: In Mauritania, the family of Yacoub Ould Dahoud, who set himself on fire on Monday inside his car in front of the Senate building in Nouakchott, has confirmed that he has died.

1650 GMT: EA readers looking for an introduction to the current issues in Algeria may wish to read analyses by Hugh Roberts and by Amal Boubekeur.

Click to read more ...

Egypt Snapshot: "Tunisia and Algeria Riots Won't Happen Here" (Sarant)

Riots seen recently in Algeria and Tunisia are unlikely to spread to Egypt despite deteriorating economic conditions, experts say.

Although Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt are countries which, to a certain extent, are facing similar challenges --- bleak job prospects, unemployment, skyrocketing staple prices and the looming crisis of aging leaders--Egypt’s peculiar political context could render it immune to North Africa’s social upheaval.

Click to read more ...

Tunisia and Algeria: How Protests Put "Arab Regimes on Edge" (Lynch)

It's very clear that most Arab regimes are on edge over the possibility of the spread of the protests in Tunisia and Algeria. Arab columnists and TV shows have been excitedly debating the real causes of the protests and what they might mean, while in country after country warnings are being sounded of a repeat of the "Tunisia scenario."

Click to read more ...

Tunisia and Algeria Video: The Protests and the Response by the "West"

On Monday, Al Jazeera's Inside Story considered the response --- or lack of response --- of the US and the European Union to the unrest in Tunisia and Algeria, speaking with analyst Hugh Roberts, Algerian lawyer Saad Djebbar, and Samuel Laufer of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement.

Algeria: How a "Fundamental Political Deficit" Leads to Demonstrations (Roberts)

It has been widely suggested that the riots have been food or hunger riots, in that they were supposedly triggered by the steep increases in the prices of staple goods, notably sugar and olive oil. These increases were not decreed by the government; the private sector traders appear to have raised prices of their own accord, in reaction to the government's attempts to impose new regulations on their transactions. The government's decision was, in principle, part of the necessary and long overdue attempt to curb the rampant informal sector of the economy by subjecting the trade in foodstuffs to basic regulation and so bring it back into the formal sector. But if so, the government has clearly had no conception of the political difficulty and magnitude of this task and seems to have supposed that it could effect changes of this nature by simple ministerial fiat.

But there can be little doubt that the price increases were simply the last straw. The greater part of Algerian society has been in a permanent state of moral revolt against the regime for the last four or five years. In particular, riots have been a frequent -- one might well say a regular -- feature of the Algerian political landscape for the last decade, since the massive and protracted riots in Kabylia, the main Berber region, in 2001. Since 2005, scarcely a fortnight has gone by without a riot somewhere in the country.

Click to read more ...