Egyptians mass in Cairo to mark Mubarak fall (AP)

CAIRO – Carrying flags and bringing their children along, Egyptians packed into Tahrir Square for a day of prayer and celebration Friday to mark the fall of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak a week ago and to maintain pressure on the new military rulers to steer the country toward democratic reforms.

The groups that sparked the 18-day revolt leading to Mubarak's downfall called the massive gathering the "Friday of Victory and Continuation," a name reflecting both their pride in forcing a change in national leadership and their worries about the future.

People streamed into the square, even though a main access road was blocked by an army jeep and a barricade, and those entering on foot had to present identification to soldiers.

The atmosphere was festive, as organizers hoped it would be, maintaining the upbeat spirit of the earlier protests. Some vendors even sold vuvuzelas, the buzzing horns that became the soundtrack to the World Cup in South Africa last summer.

"We came here because we are excited about Egypt and the revolution," said 48-year-old Ashraf Abdel-Azim, who made his way to the square with his wife, Nadwa, and their 9-year-old son, Ahmed. "We want freedom and change, so we are happy to see it coming."

His wife had prepared a handwritten cardboard sign. "The people want to cleanse the country of corruption," it read.

In one area of the vast plaza, a monument to those killed in the uprising — the Health Ministry has said at least 365 civilians died — had been erected. Many stopped before the monument, laying flowers on the ground or taking pictures of the pictures of those killed.

Organizers planned a lineup of bands in the afternoon, while an ad agency was looking to shoot footage to promote Egypt's tourism industry, which has been hard hit by the nation's political tumult.

Among those waiting in line was a group of about 30 activists from the "Visit Egypt" campaign. They wore matching T-shirts with the slogan "Support Freedom, Visit Egypt" printed on the front.

Despite Friday's festivities, the situation in Egypt remains unsettled amid labor unrest and worries the military council running the country won't implement promised reforms.

Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling council, hasn't even appeared in public since Mubarak stepped down under enormous pressure from the crowds that began protesting Jan. 25, and would not stop despite being attacked by pro-Mubarak forces.

While revolution has been good for national pride, it has pounded the Egyptian economy.

Banks and the stock market have been shuttered by the uprising, and the military has twice warned Egyptians not to strike. Even so, at least 1,500 employees of the Suez Canal Authority protested for better pay, housing and benefits Thursday in three cities — just one example of workers nationwide using this opportunity to voice long-held grievances.

View the original article here

How Egyptians toppled Mubarak – and who will lead them now (The Christian Science Monitor)

Cairo – As a new era dawns in Cairo today, with the sounds of a stunning revolution still echoing across the region, Egyptians face a more sobering task: How to translate the momentum that brought down a regime into meaningful democratic reform.

The unprecedented popular uprising that drove now-former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power after nearly 30 years succeeded in large part because it became a grass-roots movement that could not be contained, negotiated with, or controlled through a few leaders.

But now, there is no clear leadership to tell the protesters milling around Tahrir Square – the epicenter of the 18-day uprising – whether to go home or to stay, keeping pressure on the military as its supreme council decides the country's next steps.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

Some Egyptians, filled with a new sense of freedom and pride in their country, have begun cleaning up Tahrir, which served as a home base for hundreds of thousands of Egyptians pressing for a new democratic order. Some of the protesters-turned-volunteers wore signs that said, "Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're building Egypt."

Just how they'll do that remains uncertain.

Unified by a cause, not a leaderUntil now, the leaderless nature of the uprising has been its strength, allowing the cautious Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood to make common cause with socialists, Coptic Christians, and middle-class youths who know they want a freer Egypt but are uncertain of what ideology should drive them there.

Over nearly three weeks of protests, Egyptians of every stripe coalesced at Tahrir Square with a single unifying demand: Mubarak must go, now.

"They keep saying they don't have a single leader, and that's true," said Ahmed Baher Mansour earlier this week, as he demonstrated with others in the square. "Nobody has asked us to come [for anything] except for our freedom and our dignity."

They organized themselves into teams to guard the barricades and search for weapons among people joining the crowd. They set up field hospitals and water distribution stations. A group of volunteer engineers even poured cement for public toilets.

And on Friday, Feb. 11, in a display of steadfast, focused anger after Mr. Mubarak defiantly insisted that he would not step down, they busted out of the democracy ghetto of Tahrir Square.

Thousands marched near the presidential residence, previously a sacrosanct no-go zone, and tens of thousands converged on the radio and television building – the nerve center for state propaganda – leaving regime mouthpieces trapped and frightened inside.

In the face of such a display, Mubarak was forced to resign – less than 24 hours after adamantly refusing to do so.

The moment Vice President Omar Suleiman finished his brief announcement that Mubarak had resigned, Cairo erupted. People poured out of their homes, cars began honking wildly, and chants of "It's done! The people brought down the regime!" broke out in Tahrir Square, in front of the state radio and television building, and among protesters at Mubarak's official residence.

"It's like a dream," said Mohamed Aidarus, a mechanical engineer camped outside the presidential palace. "Whatever happens, we've shown that we can make our voice heard and that no government can do whatever they want to us again."

pagebreak

Leadership issue more pressing now

Now the matter of leadership becomes much more pressing. In the weeks and months ahead, prominent forces in Egyptian society – from the military to ruling party members to prominent businessmen – will seek to massage events in their favor.

For the moment, the Supreme Military Council of senior generals has taken charge, with Mr. Suleiman likely to play a key role in managing the transition to a post-Mubar­ak era.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's long-suppressed – and best organized – opposition group, will certainly have a voice. Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency who has become a prominent advocate for democratic reform, will be seeking one, too.

Divided on regime change

The protesters themselves have been split over what comes next – whether Mubarak's stepping down is sufficient or whether full regime change is required. As the Monitor went to press, it was too early to tell whether the coming weeks would yield real democratic reform.

The regime so far appears to have been trying to split the masses with a relentless state propaganda campaign warning of chaos and foreign infiltrators, with Suleiman reaching out to the millions of Egyptians who want a return to normalcy.

"Mubarak and much of the regime have thrived on dividing people, stirring up trouble between Christians and Muslims, making us distrust ourselves, for years," said Maria Hus­­sein, a Tahrir Square demonstrator speaking before Mu­barak resigned. "The whole system needs to be overturned or the revolution won't really succeed."

On one side are Tahrir warriors, with bandaged heads from battles with government thugs, who will settle for nothing short of regime change; on the other are those who are more eager to go back to work than to overhaul the political system they've lived under for decades.

"Yes, we want Mubarak to go, but we also want to work," said Islam Suweis, who runs a small grocery store in central Cairo. "We could all be in danger if this carries on."

Mustafa Kamel al-Sayed, a Cairo University political science professor, speaking shortly before Mubarak resigned, agreed the situation was fraught: "There are already some divisions among the demonstrators. Some are saying, 'Let us give the promise of reform a chance and trust the armed forces, who say they will guarantee reform.' Others are saying, 'No trust is left.' If the process of reform doesn't proceed positively and quickly, this could become very dangerous."

pagebreak

Many of the traditional opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood, have been generally ambivalent about unfolding events, leading to a lack of trust from the street-level protesters. Whether they will be able to win them over will be a test.

Who could play a key role

Suleiman, representing at least a part of the military establishment, is likely to remain a key player.

With vast economic resources at its disposal, the military's commitment to an end to one-party rule and an end to the military's monopoly on the presidency is unclear. It, too, and its various factions, will be influential.

Here are some others who could play a role in the transition, but weren't directly involved in organizing the protests:

•The Muslim Brotherhood has been falling over itself in declaring its support for democracy while insisting it won't run a candidate for president. The Brothers are distrusted by many secular Egyptians and showed more signs of willingness to compromise than other reformers.

•Mr. ElBaradei is the most internationally known of the opposition politicians in Egypt right now. But he's spent most of the past decade living overseas and has no real political organization on the ground. A recent poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that just 3 percent of Egyptians support ElBaradei for president (a post he says he is not seeking).

•Egyptians like billionaire Naguib Sawiris, with much to lose, would like to see Egyptian politics open up as a political safety valve, but are seeking a smooth, managed transition.

• And finally, there are the people on the streets, a vast majority of them under 30, meaning they've never known any leader but Mubarak.

Their fury at him and Suleiman is palpable. At least 300 protesters have been killed by Egyptian security forces under their command, and thousands more have been rounded up by the military police and the Mukhabarat, the feared secret police.

"The military police took me, blindfolded me, and handed me to what I think were the Mukhabarat," says Ahmed Bader, displaying cigarette burns on his arms from what he said was three days of detention and interrogation. "We're just asking for our rights.... There's no giving in now."

Transition to post-Mubarak era

Could the youths on the streets demand more than Mubarak's departure? They might.

President Obama and reformers like El­Bara­dei had been hoping for a managed transition in Egypt, fearful that a precipitous Mubarak departure could lead to chaos and a full military takeover.

But after Mubarak and Suleiman publicly dug in their heels Feb. 10, the writing was on the wall – with redoubled public demonstrations.

The military stepped in for the sake of the country the next day, deciding that the president himself was the source of instability.

The military's role in tipping events shows that it hasn't all been people power. The friendly attitude of soldiers in front of the TV building on Friday – they even allowed demonstrators to climb up on their tanks to shake hands and pose for snapshots – made the siege of the government symbol much easier.

Many in Egypt trust that the military will play a caretaker role and ensure a democratic transition. Everyone will soon find out if that trust is well placed.

Egypt's revolution looks as if it's at the end of the beginning, to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill. What comes next will depend on whether the demonstrators can continue to rally masses to their side and whether men like Suleiman resort to force to avoid being swept away.

•Monitor photographer Ann Hermes and Max Strasser contributed reporting from Cairo.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

View the original article here

Govt seeks international action on Mubarak assets (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – A minister urged the international community Sunday to take "concerted" action to deal with any assets held abroad by ousted former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Pressure was growing at home on the government to freeze any of the ousted Egyptian leader's assets in the country after Switzerland did so on Friday.

Business Secretary Vince Cable warned that the government would act against any British bank involved in helping Mubarak improperly move funds but said the British government would not act alone.

"I wasn't aware that he (Mubarak) had enormous assets here but there clearly needs to be concerted international action on this," Cable told the BBC.

"There is no point in one government acting in isolation but certainly we need to look at it. It depends also whether his funds were illegally obtained or improperly obtained."

Cable added that he would be "concerned if the banks had been engaged in anything improper" in relation to funds held by Mubarak, who stepped down on Friday after weeks of protests.

Junior foreign office minister Alistair Burt said the government could not take any action on its own unless it receives a formal request from Egypt.

"There has to be a request made for any of this action to take place," he told the BBC. "There are things that can be done, but so far there has not been a request made and therefore it is not possible to speculate."

The head of the Serious Fraud Office, Richard Alderman, indicated separately that the authorities were already tracking the assets of Mubarak and of former Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted last month.

"The public would expect us to be looking for some of this money if we became aware of it, and to try to repatriate it for the benefit of the people of those countries," Alderman told The Sunday Times.

Mark Malloch-Brown, the junior foreign office minister in the previous Labour government, said Britain should follow Switzerland's lead.

"I think it would be a very prudent thing to do to freeze suspicious accounts here because it will take a new government quite a while to mount some kind of legal claim on them," he said.

"It would be a real pity if when they did the money had gone. I think it would be great for the reputation for the City of London if those accounts were frozen now."

The Stop the War coalition announced plans for a press conference in parliament on Monday featuring Egyptian democracy campaigners to call for a freeze on assets held by the Mubarak in London.

Switzerland on Friday ordered a freeze on any assets belonging to Mubarak and his entourage, although it was not immediately clear if any such assets had been located in the country.

A similar freeze on Ben Ali's assets last month resulted in the blockage of a sum in the "two-digit millions" in Switzerland pending legal action for its recovery by Tunisian authorities, officials said.

View the original article here

How Egyptians toppled Mubarak – and who will lead them now (The Christian Science Monitor)

Cairo – As a new era dawns in Cairo today, with the sounds of a stunning revolution still echoing across the region, Egyptians face a more sobering task: How to translate the momentum that brought down a regime into meaningful democratic reform.

The unprecedented popular uprising that drove now-former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power after nearly 30 years succeeded in large part because it became a grass-roots movement that could not be contained, negotiated with, or controlled through a few leaders.

But now, there is no clear leadership to tell the protesters milling around Tahrir Square – the epicenter of the 18-day uprising – whether to go home or to stay, keeping pressure on the military as its supreme council decides the country's next steps.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

Some Egyptians, filled with a new sense of freedom and pride in their country, have begun cleaning up Tahrir, which served as a home base for hundreds of thousands of Egyptians pressing for a new democratic order. Some of the protesters-turned-volunteers wore signs that said, "Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're building Egypt."

Just how they'll do that remains uncertain.

Unified by a cause, not a leaderUntil now, the leaderless nature of the uprising has been its strength, allowing the cautious Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood to make common cause with socialists, Coptic Christians, and middle-class youths who know they want a freer Egypt but are uncertain of what ideology should drive them there.

Over nearly three weeks of protests, Egyptians of every stripe coalesced at Tahrir Square with a single unifying demand: Mubarak must go, now.

"They keep saying they don't have a single leader, and that's true," said Ahmed Baher Mansour earlier this week, as he demonstrated with others in the square. "Nobody has asked us to come [for anything] except for our freedom and our dignity."

They organized themselves into teams to guard the barricades and search for weapons among people joining the crowd. They set up field hospitals and water distribution stations. A group of volunteer engineers even poured cement for public toilets.

And on Friday, Feb. 11, in a display of steadfast, focused anger after Mr. Mubarak defiantly insisted that he would not step down, they busted out of the democracy ghetto of Tahrir Square.

Thousands marched near the presidential residence, previously a sacrosanct no-go zone, and tens of thousands converged on the radio and television building – the nerve center for state propaganda – leaving regime mouthpieces trapped and frightened inside.

In the face of such a display, Mubarak was forced to resign – less than 24 hours after adamantly refusing to do so.

The moment Vice President Omar Suleiman finished his brief announcement that Mubarak had resigned, Cairo erupted. People poured out of their homes, cars began honking wildly, and chants of "It's done! The people brought down the regime!" broke out in Tahrir Square, in front of the state radio and television building, and among protesters at Mubarak's official residence.

"It's like a dream," said Mohamed Aidarus, a mechanical engineer camped outside the presidential palace. "Whatever happens, we've shown that we can make our voice heard and that no government can do whatever they want to us again."

pagebreak

Leadership issue more pressing now

Now the matter of leadership becomes much more pressing. In the weeks and months ahead, prominent forces in Egyptian society – from the military to ruling party members to prominent businessmen – will seek to massage events in their favor.

For the moment, the Supreme Military Council of senior generals has taken charge, with Mr. Suleiman likely to play a key role in managing the transition to a post-Mubar­ak era.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's long-suppressed – and best organized – opposition group, will certainly have a voice. Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency who has become a prominent advocate for democratic reform, will be seeking one, too.

Divided on regime change

The protesters themselves have been split over what comes next – whether Mubarak's stepping down is sufficient or whether full regime change is required. As the Monitor went to press, it was too early to tell whether the coming weeks would yield real democratic reform.

The regime so far appears to have been trying to split the masses with a relentless state propaganda campaign warning of chaos and foreign infiltrators, with Suleiman reaching out to the millions of Egyptians who want a return to normalcy.

"Mubarak and much of the regime have thrived on dividing people, stirring up trouble between Christians and Muslims, making us distrust ourselves, for years," said Maria Hus­­sein, a Tahrir Square demonstrator speaking before Mu­barak resigned. "The whole system needs to be overturned or the revolution won't really succeed."

On one side are Tahrir warriors, with bandaged heads from battles with government thugs, who will settle for nothing short of regime change; on the other are those who are more eager to go back to work than to overhaul the political system they've lived under for decades.

"Yes, we want Mubarak to go, but we also want to work," said Islam Suweis, who runs a small grocery store in central Cairo. "We could all be in danger if this carries on."

Mustafa Kamel al-Sayed, a Cairo University political science professor, speaking shortly before Mubarak resigned, agreed the situation was fraught: "There are already some divisions among the demonstrators. Some are saying, 'Let us give the promise of reform a chance and trust the armed forces, who say they will guarantee reform.' Others are saying, 'No trust is left.' If the process of reform doesn't proceed positively and quickly, this could become very dangerous."

pagebreak

Many of the traditional opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood, have been generally ambivalent about unfolding events, leading to a lack of trust from the street-level protesters. Whether they will be able to win them over will be a test.

Who could play a key role

Suleiman, representing at least a part of the military establishment, is likely to remain a key player.

With vast economic resources at its disposal, the military's commitment to an end to one-party rule and an end to the military's monopoly on the presidency is unclear. It, too, and its various factions, will be influential.

Here are some others who could play a role in the transition, but weren't directly involved in organizing the protests:

•The Muslim Brotherhood has been falling over itself in declaring its support for democracy while insisting it won't run a candidate for president. The Brothers are distrusted by many secular Egyptians and showed more signs of willingness to compromise than other reformers.

•Mr. ElBaradei is the most internationally known of the opposition politicians in Egypt right now. But he's spent most of the past decade living overseas and has no real political organization on the ground. A recent poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that just 3 percent of Egyptians support ElBaradei for president (a post he says he is not seeking).

•Egyptians like billionaire Naguib Sawiris, with much to lose, would like to see Egyptian politics open up as a political safety valve, but are seeking a smooth, managed transition.

• And finally, there are the people on the streets, a vast majority of them under 30, meaning they've never known any leader but Mubarak.

Their fury at him and Suleiman is palpable. At least 300 protesters have been killed by Egyptian security forces under their command, and thousands more have been rounded up by the military police and the Mukhabarat, the feared secret police.

"The military police took me, blindfolded me, and handed me to what I think were the Mukhabarat," says Ahmed Bader, displaying cigarette burns on his arms from what he said was three days of detention and interrogation. "We're just asking for our rights.... There's no giving in now."

Transition to post-Mubarak era

Could the youths on the streets demand more than Mubarak's departure? They might.

President Obama and reformers like El­Bara­dei had been hoping for a managed transition in Egypt, fearful that a precipitous Mubarak departure could lead to chaos and a full military takeover.

But after Mubarak and Suleiman publicly dug in their heels Feb. 10, the writing was on the wall – with redoubled public demonstrations.

The military stepped in for the sake of the country the next day, deciding that the president himself was the source of instability.

The military's role in tipping events shows that it hasn't all been people power. The friendly attitude of soldiers in front of the TV building on Friday – they even allowed demonstrators to climb up on their tanks to shake hands and pose for snapshots – made the siege of the government symbol much easier.

Many in Egypt trust that the military will play a caretaker role and ensure a democratic transition. Everyone will soon find out if that trust is well placed.

Egypt's revolution looks as if it's at the end of the beginning, to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill. What comes next will depend on whether the demonstrators can continue to rally masses to their side and whether men like Suleiman resort to force to avoid being swept away.

•Monitor photographer Ann Hermes and Max Strasser contributed reporting from Cairo.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

View the original article here

How Egyptians toppled Mubarak – and who will lead them now (The Christian Science Monitor)

Cairo – As a new era dawns in Cairo today, with the sounds of a stunning revolution still echoing across the region, Egyptians face a more sobering task: How to translate the momentum that brought down a regime into meaningful democratic reform.

The unprecedented popular uprising that drove now-former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power after nearly 30 years succeeded in large part because it became a grass-roots movement that could not be contained, negotiated with, or controlled through a few leaders.

But now, there is no clear leadership to tell the protesters milling around Tahrir Square – the epicenter of the 18-day uprising – whether to go home or to stay, keeping pressure on the military as its supreme council decides the country's next steps.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

Some Egyptians, filled with a new sense of freedom and pride in their country, have begun cleaning up Tahrir, which served as a home base for hundreds of thousands of Egyptians pressing for a new democratic order. Some of the protesters-turned-volunteers wore signs that said, "Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're building Egypt."

Just how they'll do that remains uncertain.

Unified by a cause, not a leaderUntil now, the leaderless nature of the uprising has been its strength, allowing the cautious Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood to make common cause with socialists, Coptic Christians, and middle-class youths who know they want a freer Egypt but are uncertain of what ideology should drive them there.

Over nearly three weeks of protests, Egyptians of every stripe coalesced at Tahrir Square with a single unifying demand: Mubarak must go, now.

"They keep saying they don't have a single leader, and that's true," said Ahmed Baher Mansour earlier this week, as he demonstrated with others in the square. "Nobody has asked us to come [for anything] except for our freedom and our dignity."

They organized themselves into teams to guard the barricades and search for weapons among people joining the crowd. They set up field hospitals and water distribution stations. A group of volunteer engineers even poured cement for public toilets.

And on Friday, Feb. 11, in a display of steadfast, focused anger after Mr. Mubarak defiantly insisted that he would not step down, they busted out of the democracy ghetto of Tahrir Square.

Thousands marched near the presidential residence, previously a sacrosanct no-go zone, and tens of thousands converged on the radio and television building – the nerve center for state propaganda – leaving regime mouthpieces trapped and frightened inside.

In the face of such a display, Mubarak was forced to resign – less than 24 hours after adamantly refusing to do so.

The moment Vice President Omar Suleiman finished his brief announcement that Mubarak had resigned, Cairo erupted. People poured out of their homes, cars began honking wildly, and chants of "It's done! The people brought down the regime!" broke out in Tahrir Square, in front of the state radio and television building, and among protesters at Mubarak's official residence.

"It's like a dream," said Mohamed Aidarus, a mechanical engineer camped outside the presidential palace. "Whatever happens, we've shown that we can make our voice heard and that no government can do whatever they want to us again."

pagebreak

Leadership issue more pressing now

Now the matter of leadership becomes much more pressing. In the weeks and months ahead, prominent forces in Egyptian society – from the military to ruling party members to prominent businessmen – will seek to massage events in their favor.

For the moment, the Supreme Military Council of senior generals has taken charge, with Mr. Suleiman likely to play a key role in managing the transition to a post-Mubar­ak era.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's long-suppressed – and best organized – opposition group, will certainly have a voice. Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency who has become a prominent advocate for democratic reform, will be seeking one, too.

Divided on regime change

The protesters themselves have been split over what comes next – whether Mubarak's stepping down is sufficient or whether full regime change is required. As the Monitor went to press, it was too early to tell whether the coming weeks would yield real democratic reform.

The regime so far appears to have been trying to split the masses with a relentless state propaganda campaign warning of chaos and foreign infiltrators, with Suleiman reaching out to the millions of Egyptians who want a return to normalcy.

"Mubarak and much of the regime have thrived on dividing people, stirring up trouble between Christians and Muslims, making us distrust ourselves, for years," said Maria Hus­­sein, a Tahrir Square demonstrator speaking before Mu­barak resigned. "The whole system needs to be overturned or the revolution won't really succeed."

On one side are Tahrir warriors, with bandaged heads from battles with government thugs, who will settle for nothing short of regime change; on the other are those who are more eager to go back to work than to overhaul the political system they've lived under for decades.

"Yes, we want Mubarak to go, but we also want to work," said Islam Suweis, who runs a small grocery store in central Cairo. "We could all be in danger if this carries on."

Mustafa Kamel al-Sayed, a Cairo University political science professor, speaking shortly before Mubarak resigned, agreed the situation was fraught: "There are already some divisions among the demonstrators. Some are saying, 'Let us give the promise of reform a chance and trust the armed forces, who say they will guarantee reform.' Others are saying, 'No trust is left.' If the process of reform doesn't proceed positively and quickly, this could become very dangerous."

pagebreak

Many of the traditional opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood, have been generally ambivalent about unfolding events, leading to a lack of trust from the street-level protesters. Whether they will be able to win them over will be a test.

Who could play a key role

Suleiman, representing at least a part of the military establishment, is likely to remain a key player.

With vast economic resources at its disposal, the military's commitment to an end to one-party rule and an end to the military's monopoly on the presidency is unclear. It, too, and its various factions, will be influential.

Here are some others who could play a role in the transition, but weren't directly involved in organizing the protests:

•The Muslim Brotherhood has been falling over itself in declaring its support for democracy while insisting it won't run a candidate for president. The Brothers are distrusted by many secular Egyptians and showed more signs of willingness to compromise than other reformers.

•Mr. ElBaradei is the most internationally known of the opposition politicians in Egypt right now. But he's spent most of the past decade living overseas and has no real political organization on the ground. A recent poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that just 3 percent of Egyptians support ElBaradei for president (a post he says he is not seeking).

•Egyptians like billionaire Naguib Sawiris, with much to lose, would like to see Egyptian politics open up as a political safety valve, but are seeking a smooth, managed transition.

• And finally, there are the people on the streets, a vast majority of them under 30, meaning they've never known any leader but Mubarak.

Their fury at him and Suleiman is palpable. At least 300 protesters have been killed by Egyptian security forces under their command, and thousands more have been rounded up by the military police and the Mukhabarat, the feared secret police.

"The military police took me, blindfolded me, and handed me to what I think were the Mukhabarat," says Ahmed Bader, displaying cigarette burns on his arms from what he said was three days of detention and interrogation. "We're just asking for our rights.... There's no giving in now."

Transition to post-Mubarak era

Could the youths on the streets demand more than Mubarak's departure? They might.

President Obama and reformers like El­Bara­dei had been hoping for a managed transition in Egypt, fearful that a precipitous Mubarak departure could lead to chaos and a full military takeover.

But after Mubarak and Suleiman publicly dug in their heels Feb. 10, the writing was on the wall – with redoubled public demonstrations.

The military stepped in for the sake of the country the next day, deciding that the president himself was the source of instability.

The military's role in tipping events shows that it hasn't all been people power. The friendly attitude of soldiers in front of the TV building on Friday – they even allowed demonstrators to climb up on their tanks to shake hands and pose for snapshots – made the siege of the government symbol much easier.

Many in Egypt trust that the military will play a caretaker role and ensure a democratic transition. Everyone will soon find out if that trust is well placed.

Egypt's revolution looks as if it's at the end of the beginning, to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill. What comes next will depend on whether the demonstrators can continue to rally masses to their side and whether men like Suleiman resort to force to avoid being swept away.

•Monitor photographer Ann Hermes and Max Strasser contributed reporting from Cairo.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

View the original article here

Swiss freeze possible Mubarak assets (Reuters)

ZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland has frozen assets possibly belonging to Hosni Mubarak, who stepped down as president of Egypt Friday after 30 years of rule, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said.
"I can confirm that Switzerland has frozen possible assets of the former Egyptian president with immediate effect," spokesman Lars Knuchel said, declining to specify how much money was involved.
In recent years, Switzerland has worked hard to improve its image as a haven for ill-gotten assets and has also frozen assets belonging to Tunisia's former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali as well as those of Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo.
(Reporting by Catherine Bosley and Oliver Hirt; editing by David Stamp)
View the original article here

Egypt's Last Pharaoh? The Rise and Fall of Hosni Mubarak (Time.com)

By the time he finally resigned Friday, Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak had ruled Egypt longer than anyone since Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Albanian-born viceroy of the Ottoman Empire credited with bringing Egypt into the modern age. Mubarak was a son of the soil, born 82 years ago on the Nile delta, but in his three decades as its president, the Land of the Pharaohs surrendered its position as leader of the contemporary Arab world. Egypt remained by far the most populous Arab nation, but its historic power to inspire the masses was crimped, beaten and subdued along with the citizens who restored it in the space of a fortnight, simply by assembling, day after day, and chanting for him to leave.
When he did, a day late, the announcement fell to the first vice president Mubarak found the need to appoint in the last 30 years, the indefatigable spymaster Omar Suleiman, a figure who would be right at home on the 1950's era black-and-white movies that flicker on the television sets in every Cairo coffee shop and kiosk, to the remembered glory of Egyptian cinema. At once terse and lugubrious, the former general delivered his walk-off line like the undertaker he likely thought he had become: "May God help everybody." (See pictures of Hosni Mubarak, the man who stayed too long.)
With that, power reverted to the Egyptian military from which Mubarak emerged, both stolid and a little dashing, 36 years ago. He had been a command hero of the 1973 war against Israel when he shed the epaulets of Air Chief Marshal to serve as vice president to Anwar Sadat. And when Sadat was assassinated by Islamist officers at a military parade, the world discovered the new president of Egypt was a square-jawed, powerfully built figure whose imposition of Emergency Rule seemed justified.
But as the years passed and self-regard accumulated, Mubarak assumed a still grander role: The Indispensable Man. It wasn't only a matter of embodying a nation, though that was the fundament of the electoral arrangement. For the first 18 years, Mubarak was returned to office not by elections - no other candidate was allowed - but by referenda that never showed him with less than 94%. Let Egyptians think what they wanted privately, more and more of what legitimacy the ra'is (Arabic for "chieftain") could claim originated beyond Egypt's borders. Mubarak upheld the 1979 treaty with Israel that Sadat had boldly signed, and which led to his death. The decision assured more than $1 billion in aid per year from Washington, but also the enmity of an Arab world that moved the Arab League headquarters out of Cairo and down the Mediterranean coast to Tunis.
In time the League moved back to Cairo, and its members more toward Egypt's position, in 2002 even putting forward its own peace plan. But in a Middle East where autocrats have remained in place thanks in no small part to Western powers seeking the kind of assurance colonial masters once sought from tribal chiefs, Mubarak was at the head of the class. He cut a dapper figure on the red carpets of the White House, where he received the welcomes of five presidents, and played the pivot in the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority, both of which fret at his departure. The strategic position Egypt long occupied on the map, Mubarak assumed in the cosmology of strongmen who Washington remonstrated quietly but counted as reliable. Perhaps Leon Panetta was only passing on what was in the air in Cairo Thursday, but it was fitting that word Mubarak's departure was imminent came from the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. (See TIME's exclusive photos of the Egypt uprising.)
Not that all of this came out of the blue. Tunisia's revolution was clearly the spark, but Egyptians have been stewing for so long, their uprising was foreshadowed by the titles of books years in the making and years in print: Egypt on the Brink; Egypt After Mubarak; Egypt: The Moment of Change; Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution. The stranglehold of Mubarak's regime gripped not only politics - putting a boot heel on the formation of any challenge to the National Democratic Party, jailing a presidential challenger on trumped up charges - but also the economy. In 30 years in power, more than two generations could study as long as they wanted, but still hope to find no meaningful work absent some connection to the regime. Such were the legions of unemployed university graduates that the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation started a program to settle them on reclaimed desert along the Nile delta. It was called the "Mubarak Project."
Oblivious is a word.
"Look," Mubarak told Charlie Rose a couple of years ago, raising an arm from the gold-gilt armchair to shake a finger. "Your concept of human rights is a merely political one. Human rights are not only political." (Comment on this story.)
The president then enumerated the areas protesters listed to reporters in Tahrir Square for 18 days. "You have social rights," he said. "You have the right to education. You have the right to health. You have the right to a job. There are many other rights, and we are doing well on these fronts." (See the celebratory images from Tahrir Square.)
"But we are not absolutely perfect," Mubarak allowed. "Nobody's perfect."
Nor are revolutions. As this one enters its celebratory phase, some observers are dismayed by the faith demonstrators have placed in Egypt's military.
"Communique No. 1, right? This is not how a revolution begins," said Tzvi Mezal, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, while awaiting Mubarak's address to the nation Thursday night. The incongruity - Friday brought Communique No. 2 from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces - was striking enough. "Everyone thinks the army is going to save the day. Mubarak is also the army."
Still it was army officers who chucked out Egypt's last monarch in 1952, peaceably escorting Farouk I to Alexandria and putting him on a boat. (The mechanics of that transition involved abdication to his infant son.) And the throngs that brought down the man Egyptians derisively called "Pharaoh" were, on Friday night, raising soldiers aloft.
See how the U.S. plans to aid democracy in Egypt.
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As Mubarak resigns, Yemenis call for a revolution of their own (The Christian Science Monitor)

Aden, Yemen – As jubilant protesters in Cairo celebrated the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Yemenis were calling for a revolution of their own.
In the southern port city of Yemen, protesters marched through the district of Mansoura, waving the old flag of South Arabia and chanting, "Revolution, revolution for the south."
Six countries in the Arab world where 'winds of change' are blowing
Just hours before, security forces had fired live ammunition during a protest on the same street, according to eyewitnesses. Hundreds more staged ad hoc demonstrations throughout Aden, as well as in other cities across Yemen's south.
"After Hosni Mubarak, Yemen is going to be next. I know it," said Zahra Saleh, a prominent secession activist watching the scenes in Cairo on TV in a small Aden office.
"Now our revolution has to be stronger," declared Ali Jarallah, a leader in the southern separatist movement sitting with Ms. Saleh on the low cushions of a diwan.
Divergent aims of Yemeni protestersThe Yemeni southern secessionist movement is not calling for political reforms, an end to corruption or even for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down, as the political opposition is doing in the capital of Sanaa. They are pushing for the end of what they view is northern Yemeni occupation and the restoration of an independent southern Yemeni state.
Though both derive momentum from the recent revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, the divergent aims of the Yemeni protesters represent another example of how anti-regime factions across the Arab world our shaping revolutionary energy to serve their own agendas.
“What happened in Egypt sent a blink of hope to the [southern] movement,” says Tammam Bashraheel, managing editor of Aden’s officially banned Al Ayyam newspaper.
Exiled southern movement leader and former Vice President Ali Salim Al Beidh said that events in the Arab world, and especially what is happening in Tunisia and Egypt, reflect a new stage in history that can be likened to the end of the cold war. Speaking to local press on Thursday, he compared the southern Yemeni demonstrations to Egypt, where youths have also played a central role.
“The revolution of the south is a revolution of the youth and younger generation,â€
'America supports oppressors'In Sanaa, anti-government protests have focused on pressuring the ruling party to accept political reforms and are carried out in relative peace. However in Yemen’s south, the increased number of demonstrations since Tunisia's uprising have been more violent.
“Demonstrations are allowed to happen in Sanaa without weapons, why do they use weapons on us in the south?” asks secession activist Wagdy Al Shaaby, who had just returned to Aden Friday afternoon from a protest of about 1,000 held in Zinjibar in neighboring Abyan province.
He also criticized the US for supporting its Arab allies, even when they resort to authoritarian measures in the name of stability.
“America is a democracy, but when to comes to the Arab world America supports oppressors," he says. "America protects these countries until they blow up."
Aden governor urges security, stabilityIn one Aden neighborhood, known for being a hotbed of secessionist sentiment, the old South Arabia flag is spray painted on building walls alongside posters of young man killed by security forces. Next to one Khaled Darwish poster was written a warning to the Yemeni government: "We are going to take revenge for you, Darwish."
“If there continues to be no recognition of political rights here, [separatist activity] won’t stop,” says Mr. Bashraheel.
The fractured yet popular southern separatists argue that since unification of north and south Yemen in 1990, and especially after a bloody civil war between the two sides of the country in 1994, there has been a systematic attempt to erase the identity of south Yemen.
They claim that southerners don’t have proper representation in the central government, and that the government takes resources found in southern governorates, namely oil, without investing back in the south’s infrastructure.
Yemen's government accuses separatists of harming national unity and stirring up trouble. On Thursday, Gov. Adnan Al Jafari of Aden told local press “security and stability are the responsibility of everyone.” He added, “We must learn from other countries that have lost their security and stability and use that in positive ways for our country.”
The government has also tried to link secessionists to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the regional terrorist franchise based in Yemen. AQAP, for its part, has sought to play on southerners’ grievances in order to unite the two groups against their common enemy, the Yemeni state. Separatists deny that they have any ties with AQAP, and instead blame the existence of Al Qaeda in Yemen on the Saleh regime.
A fast-closing windowBecause clashes happen far from the eyes of international observers, it difficult to assess whether the perpetual violence in Yemen’s south between security forces and armed factions comes from Al Qaeda or harak, the Arabic name for southern separatists. However, what is certain is that this violence what has worried Western governments that destabilization in this area allows AQAP to move freely.
“The deterioration of the south would lead to instability of the entire countries and will definitely provide space for Al Qaeda to function. The southern separatist movement is not allied to Al Qaeda but the absence of state control gives Al Qaeda space to exist in areas that are controlled by harak,” said independent Yemeni political analyst Abdul-Ghani Al Iryani.
“The lack of unified leadership [in the separatist movement] makes it difficult for the government to reach a deal and therefore Harak will continue until the legitimate aspiration of the people of the south are achieved and that is still within the ability of the central government to provide in the context of unity, but I see that this window is fast closing,” he said.
Six countries in the Arab world where 'winds of change' are blowing
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