A R A B I C A ???????
Your daily shot of what the Arab world is saying, hearing, sharing
By Kristen Gillespie
TWITTERING: Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour, head of the Al-Ghad party and who was imprisoned for four years after challenging Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 presidential election, fired off this tweet:
“I witnessed today, and my heart breaks over it, the most despicable crime that can be committed by any regime in the world. And yet, I also saw the greatest popular revolution in the world. God be with you, people of Egypt.”
Other Egyptian twitterers are holding their breath as all live television feeds out of Tahrir Square have been cut…and predicting the move is in preparation for large-scale attacks on protesters Friday.
GRAPHICALLY SAID: A grassroots cartoon that would have been unheard of just two weeks ago.
It reads: “Support the revolution”
ALL NEWS IS LOCAL: An unprecedented meeting of the Islamist opposition and King Abdullah II of Jordan took place on Thursday, with the king for the first time in 10 years admitting that political reform had slowed down, reported Ammon News.
The Jordanian monarch regularly speaks in his mellifluous Oxford-refined English about reform, democracy and modernization while interviewed in the West, misleading at best considering the reform process ground to a halt years ago.
A statement released by the press office of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of the political party Islamic Action Front called the meeting “candid and positive.” Apart from discussing the most pressing demand of political reform to allow for democratic parliamentary elections, the statement added that “emphasis was placed on public freedoms, and citizen security, and dignity, and to fight corruption in all its forms and to promote national unity.”
The Islamic Action Front said it would continue to protest until its demands are met.
ALL NEWS IS GLOBAL: One day after Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said he would step down at the end of his term in 2013, tens of thousands of Yemenis took part in a “day of rage” demanding that he step down immediately. The United Arab Emirates daily Emarat Al Youm reported that the protesters were met by a nearly equal number of Saleh supporters holding banners reading “No to sedition” and “no to sabotage,” among others.
*Al Jazeera English’s and Al Arabiya’s websites were down for several hours on Thursday because of the traffic overwhelming the servers. The world continues to watch Egypt ahead of a high-stakes Friday prayer day for Muslims.
photo credit: illustir
