Mubarak’s Youngest Victims  

Cairo’s street kids were duped into resisting the revolution, then shot by police in the chaos that ensued

Robert Fisk: Cairo’s 50,000 street children were abused by this regime

The cops shot 16-year-old Mariam in the back on 28 January, a live round fired from the roof of the Saida Zeinab police station in the slums of Cairo’s old city at the height of the government violence aimed at quelling the revolution, a pot shot of contempt by Mubarak’s forces for the homeless street children of Egypt.

She had gone to the police with up to a hundred other beggar boys and girls to demand the release of her friend, 16-year-old Ismail Yassin, who had already been dragged inside the station. Some of the kids outside were only nine years old. Maybe that’s why the first policeman on the roof fired warning bullets into the air.

KIDS THESE DAYS

A 22-year-old Kanazawa University student who called the cops and claimed he’d been stabbed later admitted he had knifed himself in a failed suicide attempt because he didn’t have enough credits to graduate.

A couple of 10-year-old girls-Miu Hirano and Mima Ito-broke table-tennis prodigy Ai Fukuhara’s record as the youngest players to win a singles match at the national championships. Ai-chan was 11 when she won two matches at the 1999 ping-pong nationals.

At the other end of the age spectrum, 40-year-old tennis player Kimiko Date-Krumm was reduced to tears after blowing a 4-1 lead in the third set of her match against 21-year-old Pole Agnieszka Radwanska at the Australian Open.

A nasty monkey named Lucky, who bit more than 100 folks in Shizuoka last fall, escaped house arrest at a park in Mishima, causing officials to warn local residents to stay inside and keep their doors locked. The rampaging primate was caught a day after ditching his cage.

In an awesomely named place called Bungo-Ono in Oita Prefecture, the local government is planning to let wolves loose in an effort “to control wild animals that destroy agricultural crops.” Can’t wait for the reaction when a wolf chows down on a local farmer instead.

Five middle-aged men in Tohoku filed a fraud suit against three international marriage brokers in a Sendai court, claiming they got unexpected home visits from South Korean women accompanied by the brokers, who convinced the lonely dudes to let the women “homestay” with them for a week or so.

Stupid, Defiant and Bitter Till The Very End

In Mubarak’s final hours, defiance surprises U.S. and threatens to unleash chaos

After a week of crossed signals and strained conversations, the Obama administration finally had good news: Late Wednesday, CIA and Pentagon officials learned of the Egyptian military’s plan to relieve President Hosni Mubarak of his primary powers immediately and end the unrest that had convulsed the country for more than two weeks.  

The scheme would unfold Thursday, with the only uncertainty being Mubarak’s fate. “There were two scenarios: He would either leave office, or he would transfer power,” said a U.S. government official who was briefed on the plan. “These were not speculative scenarios. There was solid information” and a carefully crafted script.

Ego So Big Reality Doesn’t Count  

The fury of a people whose hopes were raised and then dashed

As Mubarak clings on… What now for Egypt?

To the horrorof Egyptians and the world, President Hosni Mubarak – haggard and apparently disoriented – appeared on state television last night to refuse every demand of his opponents by staying in power for at least another five months. The Egyptian army, which had already initiated a virtual coup d’état, was nonplussed by the President’s speech which had been widely advertised – by both his friends and his enemies – as a farewell address after 30 years of dictatorship. The vast crowds in Tahrir Square were almost insane with anger and resentment.

Keeping Him Silent  

Chen Guangcheng describes being held at home and watched around the clock since his release from prison five months ago

Secret video shows house arrest Chinese lawyer

A Chinese grassroots lawyer says he and his family have been held in their home and watched around the clock since his release from prison five months ago, in a secretly filmed video smuggled out of their village.

Chen Guangcheng is one of the country’s best known activists, a self-taught legal advocate who fought on behalf of women who had suffered forced abortions and sterilisations.

Rights groups have expressed grave concern for him and his family and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, raised his case in a speech shortly before the Chinese president Hu Jintao’s visit to the US last month.  

I Am President For Life And Forever  

Can Egypt’s revolution stay the distance?

After thirty unbroken years as President of Egypt, it had seemed as if Hosni Mubarak’s charmed career was finally coming to an end.

But yesterday, Cairo’s famous traffic jams were back. Businesses, shops, and banks were open across the capital. Barack Obama spoke of the “progress” the Egyptian government was making towards reform. And though still in tens of thousands, the numbers at Tahrir Square were probably down on the previous day.

Meanwhile, Mr Mubarak, the great survivor, was using all the guile that has kept him in power for so long to produce a series of sweeteners – including a 15 per cent pay rise for state employees – to widen his public support.  

For Some Reason They Don’t Trust Or Believe You  

Egyptian government offers concessions as street protests continue

The Egyptian government yesterday began to offer possible political concessions in an effort to control the crisis still engulfing the country, as tens of thousands of determined protesters rallied for a 13th day to demand the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

The new promises of political reform were treated with caution by the opposition groups as they held the first of a series of meetings – including the first between the hitherto outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and the regime – to discuss their demands with Mr Mubarak’s deputy, Omar Suleiman.

There’s The Door Don’t Let Hit You On The Way Out  

Protesters in Tahrir Square are right to be sceptical despite the apparent shake-up in Egypt’s ruling party

Robert Fisk: Mubarak is going. He is on the cusp of final departure

The old man is going. The resignation last night of the leadership of the ruling Egyptian National Democratic Party – including Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal – will not appease those who want to claw the President down. But they will get their blood. The whole vast edifice of power which the NDP represented in Egypt is now a mere shell, a propaganda poster with nothing behind it.

The sight of Mubarak’s delusory new Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq telling Egyptians yesterday that things were “returning to normal” was enough to prove to the protesters in Tahrir Square – 12 days into their mass demand for the exile of the man who has ruled the country for 30 years – that the regime was made of cardboard.

HERE & THERE

The Sanyo Hotel in Yamaguchi, which was a favorite of “Japanese royals and high-ranking government officials,” is being torn down. Among the foreign luminaries to have stayed at the century-old inn were Babe Ruth and Helen Keller.

It was reported that a salon in Nagoya is offering a vitamin-rich intravenous drip to salarymen “as a quick way to get rid of work-induced fatigue.”

A company in Kobe has perfected a method of transforming old clothes into a wood-like substance it calls Rifmo. According to the company president, “You can saw and hammer a nail into it just like ordinary wood.”

Sony and Victor announced that they had developed the world’s first “full high-definition digital video cameras capable of taking 3-D moving images.”

The Square That Is The Center Of Their Universe  

CAIRO, Egypt – Dozens of Egyptian women spilled out of a mosque in the Dokki neighborhood Friday, only their eyes visible from black veils that flapped in the breeze.

Marching in formation, they set off for downtown Cairo, where they hoped to join hundreds of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square who were calling for the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

When pro-Mubarak youths jeered at them from a balcony overhead, the women raised their voices louder. “Go home!” the youths yelled at the women, who replied by chanting, “He’s leaving! We’re not leaving!”