Effects of Tunisia and Egypt Spread Across PlanetFebruary 1st, 2011 Things are moving along around the world as people in the Middle East take matters into their own hands and overthrow corrupt dictatorships allied to the USA and their NATO allies. Mubarak has said he will not run for office again under pressure from the protesters in the streets and President Obama. The streets of Egypt seem to be erupting in violence as people are not happy with Mubarak clinging to power until September.
The King of Jordan has dissolved the government in response to protests, Syria is bracing for protests this month, Yemen and Sudan are experiencing protests and who knows where the next place to go will be. Some 200 or more people died in rebellion in Tunisia according to reports.
China has blocked internet access to news about Egypt. They fear another uprising similar to Egypt or Tianamen Square back in 1989 when the Chinese people encouraged by what was going on in Eastern Europe demonstrated and were crushed by the Chinese government. Other countries such as Azerbaijan are facing possible protests.
The president of Turkey has broken silence to support protests in Egypt.
From Bellingham Herald
POSTED: Tuesday, Feb. 01, 2011 Jordan's king sacks Cabinet; protests possible in SyriaBy BORZOU DARAGAHI AND STEPHEN STARR - Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT The dramatic political unrest in Egypt, long a pivotal nation in the Arab world, has intensified demands for change across the region and spurred attempts at reform by nations long ruled by autocrats.
On Tuesday, Jordan's King Abdullah II fired his Cabinet and ordered his new prime minister to pursue political reforms to "correct the mistakes of the past" after massive anti-government protests regionwide and smaller demonstrations at home.
The toppling of an Arab dictator in Tunisia and the continuing popular revolt against Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak has inspired talk in Syria of staging anti-government protests against the reign of President Bashar Assad on Saturday.
The government of Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir in the Arab nation of Sudan has announced a "dialogue" with political parties following protests throughout in the capital in recent days.
And political activists in Yemen, where huge protests broke out last week, have declared Thursday a "day of rage" against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, according to local media.
The political upheaval unleashed by the Jan. 14 ouster of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the ongoing struggle against Mubarak in Egypt is burning its way like a contagion though the Arab world, spread by electronic media and breathless reports on pan-Arab media that are accompanied by images of massive, emotional crowds.
"What's happening in Egypt is going to reshape the region," said Mohammad Masri of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan in Amman.
The new political dynamic is playing out in various countries in different ways.
The fledgling Jordanian government of Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit has been told to take "practical, swift, and tangible steps to launch a real political reform process, in line with the king's vision of comprehensive reform, modernization and development," according to a statement carried by the state-owned Petra news agency.
The announcement came after Jordanians took to the streets in recent weeks demanding that the government respond to popular concerns over unemployment and corruption, although their demands are markedly more modest than those of their Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts, who called for complete regime change.
The Jordanian grievances have been aimed for the most part at Samir Rifai, who was replaced as prime minister by al-Bakhit on Tuesday.
But a Jordanian analyst said the Cabinet change was unlikely to satisfy frustrated citizens who have been demanding political change, economic improvements and fresh faces. Al-Bakhit, a former military official, served as prime minister from 2005 to 2007.
"A measure like today's measure will increase anger, not diffuse it, because people will believe they are not being taken seriously," said Labib Kamhawi, an economist and political analyst. "This is a cosmetic measure. The government itself does not initiate policies, it only implements them. So the Cabinet change does not mean anything."
In Syria, a tightly controlled nation described by human rights groups as a police state, several online campaigns have been launched on Twitter and Facebook calling for protests. One group has called for a "day of rage" on Saturday, similar to the Jan. 25 demonstrations in Egypt that sparked the current uprising there. Another Web page with more than 6,000 members calls for protests in Damascus on Friday and Saturday.
"We want to end oppression and torture and insult (to) people," said a 38-year-old Damascus resident who asked that he be referred to only as Abu Tamaam. He said he would attend protests later this week.
"We want to achieve our freedom," he said. "Syria deserves this."
Syrian authorities and government supporters aren't taking chances. Extra police already have been deployed on the streets of Aleppo in Syria's north, according to news reports and a resident of the city.
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/02/01/1846189/jordans-king-sacks-cabinet-protests.html
From NIKKEI.Com
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
China Blocks Egypt Protest Reports BEIJING (Dow Jones)–Chinese authorities have blocked the word "Egypt" from searches on Twitter-like microblogging sites in an indication of concern among Communist Party leaders that the unrest there could encourage similar calls for political reform in China.
Internet censors also appeared Sunday to have deleted almost all of the comments posted beneath the few limited reports on the unrest - mostly from the state-run Xinhua news agency - that have been published on Chinese news sites in the past few days.
The strict online controls illustrate the party's concern that the Internet is providing China's citizens with a new means of information and organization that could challenge its monopoly on power, as has happened with other authoritarian governments in recent years.
Chinese authorities also stepped up their efforts to control the Internet after the "color revolutions" in the former Soviet Union in 2003-05, and the pro-democracy protests in Iran in 2009. They completely shut down Internet access in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang for several months after riots there in 2009.
China now appears to be tightening media and Internet restrictions in the run-up to once-a-decade leadership succession next year, when President Hu Jintao and six other top leaders are expected to retire from their party posts.
China - which has close diplomatic relations with Egypt and has sold it millions of dollars of weapons - also issued a warning to Chinese citizens there on Sunday, urging them to reconsider their travel plans or seek assistance from the Chinese government in Egypt.
China's state media have provided limited coverage of the unrest in Egypt, including the scores of reported deaths, the cutting of Internet and cellphone access, and President Hosni Mubarak's appointment of a vice president. Most newspapers, television stations and news portals have stuck closely to the official Xinhua reports, which they have not featured prominently, while refraining from independent reporting or commentary.
One of the only exceptions was the Global Times, a popular tabloid published by China's Communist Party, which said in a commentary in English and Chinese on Sunday that "color revolutions" couldn't achieve real democracy.
"In the West, democracy is not only a political system, but a way of life. Yet some emerging democracies in Asia and Africa are taking hit after hit from street-level clamor. Democracy is still far away for Tunisia and Egypt. The success of a democracy takes concrete foundations in economy, education and social issues," the commentary said. "As a general concept, democracy has been accepted by most people. But when it comes to political systems, the Western model is only one of a few options. It takes time and effort to apply democracy to different countries, and to do so without the turmoil of revolution."
Internet censors, meanwhile, appear to have been working hard to ensure that China's army of 457 million Internet users don't provide any independent commentary on the events in Egypt - or comparisons to China.
Searches on Sunday for "Egypt" on microblog functions of Chinese Web portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com revealed only messages saying either that the results couldn't be found, or couldn't be displayed. "In accordance with the relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results could not be displayed," said the response on Sina.com's microblogging site, Sina Weibo.
Twitter, Facebook and other foreign social-networking sites are blocked in China, and Internet censors routinely prevent access to other sites they consider politically sensitive or illegal under Chinese law. But Chinese microblogging services are rapidly becoming a popular alternative source of information, with the number of registered users hitting an estimated 75 million in 2010, up from eight million in 2009, according to a recent report by market-research firm Analysys International.
News portals mostly stuck to Xinhua reports, with at least 53 publishing one on Sunday that said that President Mubarak had appointed a new premier, and included a brief biography of the new appointment, but it made no mention of the unrest.
The Global Times' Chinese site was one of the few that published several brief reports from other sources, saying for example that Israel had boosted security on its borders, and that Mr Mubarak's two sons had arrived in Britain.
However, almost all of those reports had no comments at all beneath them - which is unusual for such a major world news story, unless censors have removed comments because they are deemed too politically sensitive.
China's authorities appear to have grown increasingly concerned about the spread of unauthorized news reporting and commentary through microblogging and other websites, especially those under the control of local, rather than national, authorities.
In November, China's propaganda czars launched a six-month campaign against "fake news," according to a report on Friday in the Press and Publications Report, a journal published by the General Administration of Press and Publication. It quoted Zhai Huisheng, senior media official in charge of training journalists, saying the campaign involved teams of media officials holding conferences with journalists at provincial, prefectural and city levels.
In another example of tightening restrictions, state media reported this month that local police banned the photocopying of politically sensitive material on the campus of Peking University.
"Materials that express hate against the Party, the State or the social politics are forbidden," reads an order issued by local police to each of the campus's 29 photocopying rooms, according to the Global Times. "Do not photocopy. Call the police immediately after [the materials] are found."
http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20110131D3ZNY523.htm
EURASIANET
Azerbaijan: Protests in Egypt Are Reverberating in Baku January 31, 2011 - 12:03pm, by Khadija Ismayilova
The question of how Azerbaijanis will or should interpret Egyptian protestors' ongoing struggle against President Mubarak appears to be gaining increasing currency among critics of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and many young Azerbaijanis.
Ties between the two countries largely hinge on energy — the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) is involved in oil trade and processing in Egypt — and on good works. First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva, head of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, serves on the board of the Alexandria Library and has a secondary school named in her honor in the Cairo suburb of Qaulubiyya, which contains a monument to the late President Heydar Aliyev.
Officials in Baku appear to be taking measures to ensure that public parallels between the Egyptian and Azerbaijani leaderships stop there. Days after protests began in Tunisia and Egypt, the Azerbaijani government's anti-corruption commission, overseen by presidential administration Chief of Staff Ramiz Mehdiyev, met on January 27 for the first time since 2009. A number of import duties, often seen as benefiting government-friendly monopolists, have been abolished as well.
Sources in the government tell EurasiaNet.org that in recent days they have received directives advising them to avoid irritating the population and to work effectively and build public trust.
Some government critics, meanwhile, are trying to highlight similarities between Mubarak's and Aliyev's administrations.
A group of 100-plus non-partisan and opposition candidates, along with activists from political parties and non-governmental organizations, gathered on January 29 to urge the Azerbaijani government to either hold new parliamentary elections, or brace for popular protests similar to those seen in Egypt and Tunisia.
The leaders of the group's main opposition parties – Musavat and Popular Front of Azerbaijan — have not said whether or not they would be the ones organizing protests. Azerbaijan's opposition is not known for its political muscle, but one political commentator, Shahveled Chobanoghlu, notes that events in Egypt and Tunisia have shattered myths about political change in Muslim countries.
"The first myth is that there is no opposition. If you don't see the opposition, it does not mean there is no opposition," said Chobanoghlu. "Election results in both of these countries show the absolute leadership of the ruling parties. So, where did all of these protesters come from?"
The second myth, he added, is that an Islamic opposition will come to power if a secular government collapses – a concept that some local critics argue prompted the Azerbaijani government's recent arrest of an Islamic political leader and clamp-down on the hijab in schools, among other measures.
Despite Azerbaijan's lack of a robust opposition, one political analyst, a government critic in Baku, expressed hope that the example of Tunisia and Egypt will encourage Azerbaijanis – where the median population age is similarly young, 28.5 years old – to push for "systemic changes."
Tunisia, Egypt and Azerbaijan all suffer from "corruption, poverty . . . rigged elections, a refusal to share power, [excessive influence by families of the] First Ladies, and monopolization of the economy in favor of the ruling families," argued Arastun Orujlu, director of Baku's East-West Research Center.
A number of active Azerbaijani Facebook and Twitter users are drawing similar parallels. Such users are openly debating whether the Azerbaijani army would "support the nation," if demonstrations against what they perceive as government abuses of power were held, whether the Azerbaijani police "act like in Tunisia" or whether "the Azerbaijani opposition is ready to seize the moment."
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62802
From Al Jazeera
Turkish PM backs Egypt protesters
Erdogan urges Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to "lend an ear to the people's cries" and herald a new era of reform.
Last Modified: 01 Feb 2011 12:09 GMT
Turkey has finally broken its silence over the Egyptian crisis after major newspapers criticised the government for its inexplicable silence on the issue.
Addressing members of his AKP party in parliament, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, has thrown his weight completely behind the protesters in Egypt.
Erdogan appealed to Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president: "You have to listen to the wishes of the people in order to create security and stability. First you must take steps that are good for Egypt. You must take steps that satisfy the people."
Erdogan said on Tuesday that he was putting off a visit to the Egyptian capital of Cairo next week, but would go once Egypt returns to normal.
Turkey is hailed as the only democratic country in the Muslim world.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201121115128839350.html
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