Egypt Analysis: So What Happens Now? (El Amrani)

Dawn Near Tahrir Square In Egypt you get the feeling that the upper class has completely ignored the social roots of the January uprising, and at the same time backed a return to similar kinds of politics of patronage, where parties and movements try to buy the poor with handouts and cheap meat at Eid. People don't want to be given charity, they want to be given social rights. This too is political — it's not about economic mismanagement. It's not about an uprising of the poor. It's about the political vision for a social economy.

Whether it's about police brutality, social change or politics, my feeling is that Egyptians want to feel like they've actually had a revolution. Whoever gives them that feeling might win the people in Tahrir over.

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Egypt LiveBlog: Déjà Vu All Over Again

2108 GMT: We still have an overhead feed from Tahrir Square at the top of this entry, but this live video feed appears to be from Mohamed Mahmoud street in Cairo:

2030 GMT: The live images from Alexandria are dramatic. So much tear gas was fired at a car that it lit on fire. At times, the gunfire is almost constant, though it is hard to tell whether the gunshots are tear gas cannisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, or live ammunition.

Protesters are now walking directly into the line of fire of the police.

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Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Newest Battle of Tahrir Square

2134 GMT: The voice of the opposition that is not going away in Tahrir Square:

The President has stepped down, key advisors have stepped down, and the cabinet has offered its resignation, but the people of Egypt have yet to feel the reform that the process has promised. With elections only a week away, the people in the streets are giving a clear mandate: they want the resignation of SCAF, free and fair elections, and the freedom of expression and representation that the military is fighting against until the last minutes of this transitional government.

We close our liveblog with this video:

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Egypt Letter: Alaa Abd-El Fattah Blogs from Jail "These Are My Limits"

I have let down my colleagues of the Maspero detention [those arrested after the 9 October clashes in which 28 people died]....I have let down the convicts who were moved by the commotion that was created for me and decided to tell me about the atrocities of the Ministry of Interior so I can tell the people. They were happy that someone could tell of the baltagiya (thugs) and the organized gangs, and yet I fled for the toilets.

I have exchanged the youthful company of the convicts who were filled with happiness and joy with [the company at Tora] of ones accused of embezzling public funds. [The jail] is full of geezers, depression and boredom.

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Egypt Letter: Returning to Mubarak's Prisons (Alaa)

Alaa at Personal Democracy ForumI did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after five years, after a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail.

The memories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skills of being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4 meters) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unable to remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They was trampled upon three times in one day. I realize suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when I was jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation under similar flimsy accusations and reasons of that incarceration, the only difference is that we have exchanged State Security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to the military moment we are living.

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Yemen, Bahrain, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Surprise Return of Presidents and Protests

Sanabis in Bahrain, blanketed in tear gas today

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2145 GMT: We have taken a Saturday night break to recharge. Apologies for limited service --- we will be at 0600 GMT on Sunday with a full round-up of developments across North Africa and the Middle East and a special feature on Bahrain.

Meanwhile, the latest from Bahrain --- EA sources say Sanabis is a "closed" village with entrances blocked, adding, "It is too dangerous to go out."

In what appears to be a troubling development, there have been a number of house fires in villages where protests have been occurring (see 1110 GMT). What is even more troubling, again from EA sources, are claims that security forces have been setting fires to force out protesters who can be identified and arrested. One source writes, "Police thugs attacking protests in Sanabis who where trying to Extinguish a building on a fire, they attacked us with flashbangs and teargas."

Shaky video of a fire in Sanabis and disorder nearby:

A photograph of Sanabis this evening:

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Egypt Letter: Activist Wael Ghonim Asks Military Rulers For Change, Dialogue, and Democracy

Wael Ghonim in Tahrir Square, Feb 2011After weeks and months, the mode of governance in our nation has not fundamentally changed and the excuse has been “stability,” and it did not matter if the result was stability at the bottom of the pit. No dialogue has engaged the youth, who have been angry at the significantly slow pace of fulfilling the revolution’s demands; the very revolution that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has not missed a chance to show pride in having safeguarded. In fact, some of these young Egyptians have been arrested and detained in military prisons after a military trial, while the key figures of the former regime continued to appear before civil courts despite the atrocity of their crimes. Accusations of treachery have targeted individuals who oppose SCAF policies under the premise that they are trying to sabotage the trust between the people and the Army. However, some of those accused were prominent members of the frontlines of a revolution that the SCAF has described as one of the greatest historical moments in the life of our nation.

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Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Preparing to Fight for Bani Walid

Al Jazeera English's assessment of the fight for Bani Walid in Libya

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0125 GMT: Activists say Syrian security forces have killed at least nine people and arrested dozens in the central cities of Hama and Homs and in the northwestern province of Idlib.

A spokesman of the Local Coordination Committees said dozens of troops backed by at least 30 military vehicles and security forces raided Hama, with a similar operation in Homs that caused the nine deaths, while about 100 people were rounded up in Idlib Province.

Activists based in northern Lebanon also reported sounds of heavy shelling in the Wadi Khaled, an area facing the Syrian town of Tal Kalakh.

The operations occurred as the Syrian regime granted access to the International Committee of the Red Cross to the Damascus Central Prison, in the suburb of Adra.

1856 GMT: Two videos show a Syrian sniper on the roof of a building, preparing to shoot. According to someone on Twitter, the translation is as follows:

Someone off camera asks the sniper, "could you shoot her? If you shoot her you are a real hero, but if not you are a coward." The sniper then said yes, and he takes the shot.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond): Can You "Disappear" All the Protesters?

2030 GMT: Big news from Libya tonight as the opposition National Transition Council has announced the death of its military commander, General Abdel Fattah Younes and two other officers.

The three men appear to have been slain by an assassination squad, possibly a "sleeper cell", in the opposition centre of Benghazi.

Earlier today the opposition had announced that Younes, the former Minister of Interior under Muammar Qaddafi, was going to be detained for questioning over his family's ties to the regime. Tonight the Council said Younes had been killed before he was interrogated.

The Council has announced three days of mourning for the slain commander.

1940 GMT: Back from a break to find claimed footage of a general strike today in Daraa in southern Syria:

And in Hama:

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Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Marching Again in Cairo

1645 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for taking the LiveBlog through the afternoon.

Video testifies to a series of protests across Yemen today, calling for a transitional government. Claimed footage of a march in Taiz attacked by security forces:

A march of women and children in Taiz:

A demonstration in Hodeidah:

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