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總統滾下台 埃及示威3死 【06:05】 

〔中央社〕受到突尼西亞人民抗爭鼓舞，成千上萬埃及民眾今天走上街頭，要求總統穆巴拉克（Hosni Mubarak）下台，並表示他們無法再忍受與貪污和壓迫同義的政權。3人在警民衝突中喪生。

在開羅市中心的塔里爾（Tahrir）廣場，數以千計示威者同聲高呼：「人民希望罷黜這個政權」。

受到突尼西亞民眾本月起而推翻總統班阿里（ZineEl Abidine Ben Ali）所鼓舞，數以萬計示威者走上埃及各地街頭，和龐大警力對抗。

分析家說，這是1977年這個阿拉伯世界人口最多國家因糧食補貼引發暴動以來，規模最龐大和最重要的示威。

安全和醫療官員表示，在埃及各地今天舉行的罷黜示威中，兩名示威者和1名警察在衝突中喪生。

醫療官員告訴法新社，警員和示威群眾在港口城市蘇伊士（Suez）衝突，兩名示威者喪生。

安全官員說，1名警察在埃及廣場的衝突中受傷不治。
在包括埃及和蘇伊士在內的幾個城市，警察向示威群眾發射催淚瓦斯和水柱，示威者則以瓶子和石塊丟擲警察。
儘管當局在開羅市中心部署2至3萬警方，數以千計示威者仍遊行至塔里爾廣場。
1名揮舞埃及國旗，加入示威行列的母親高聲說：「穆巴拉克，滾下台，你不公不正，你讓我們挨餓，在警察局對我們刑求，你是美國的代理人。」

在她的身後，其他示威者要求「麵包、自由與尊嚴」。

示威群眾主要是年輕人，他們透過臉書（Facebook）和推特（Twitter）等社交網站以及手機簡訊動員。

不過推特服務今天中斷，據信是出於當局阻撓。

美國今天呼籲埃及各方避免暴力。
美國國務卿希拉蕊．柯林頓（Hillary Clinton）也表示，美國相信埃及總統穆巴拉克的政府穩定，並正設法滿足埃及人民的願望。穆巴拉克已當權30年。
希拉蕊在記者會回答問題時表示：「我們支持所有人民的表達與集會基本權利，並呼籲各方節制和避免暴力。」
她說：「我們的評估是埃及政府穩定，並正設法回應埃及人民的正當需求與利益。」

Twitter証實網站在埃及遭封鎖

鉅亨網新聞中心　(來源：北美新浪)　2011-01-26 11:45:05

新浪科技訊 北京時間1月26日上午消息，微型博客網站Twitter周二証實，網站已經在埃及遭到封鎖。

今年是埃及總統穆巴拉克(Hosni Mubarak)執政30周年，許\多民眾組織了抗議活動。

Twitter表示：“我們相信信息與觀點的開放交流有利於社會，能協助政府更好地與民眾相連。”

此前有報導稱，埃及政府已經封鎖Twitter，網站和移動網站都無法使用，但目前埃及網民還可以使用第三方客戶端登錄發微博信息。（卯紓）

PLO urged Israel and Egypt to do more to prevent Gaza smuggling

Leaked documents underline hostility of PLO towards Hamas – but show Palestinian leadership willing to negotiate in long run

Tuesday 25 January 2011 20.00 GMT

Hamas security forces standing guard in Gaza in December. The documents show the PA willing to negotiate with Hamas 'in order to avoid the loss of Gaza and the break-up of the territories'. Photograph: Ali Ali/EPA

Ian Black and Seumas Milne

The Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership complained to the US envoy George Mitchell in 2009 that not enough was being done to seal off tunnels breaking the siege of the Gaza Strip and urged that more be done by Israel and Egypt to prevent the smuggling of goods and weapons into the territory, leaked documents reveal.

The papers underline the profound hostility of the PLO towards its Islamist rival, which grew after the Hamas takeover of the strip in June 2007 effectively split the occupied Palestinian territories into two separate zones and show PA leaders resisting giving Hamas any role in controlling crossing points into the Gaza Strip.

The PA demanded at once that the "international community not legitimise the actions of Hamas" but also made clear that in the long run "there must be some sort of dialogue and reconciliation with Hamas in order to avoid the loss of Gaza and the break-up of the territories".

But in September 2009 Saeb Erekat, the PLO's chief negotiator, told Mitchell that the tunnels dug under the border were still functioning despite huge expenditure and extensive counter-measures on the Egyptian side.

Referring to a meeting with senior Israeli security official Amos Gilad, Erekat said: "I told Amos Gilad: you are Egypt's man. You know the Egyptians." In a reference to the length of the Egyptian border with Gaza, he went on: "11kms! What's going on with you and the US, the $23million [donated by the US to block the tunnels]. It's business as usual in the tunnels — the Hamas economy."

In 2008 there were also repeated warnings that Hamas could claim victory after the Gaza crossings were opened. "The opening of the crossings works both ways," the PA prime minister, Salam Fayyad, told Quartet envoy Tony Blair that March. "If Hamas is seen as having succeeded in opening them then the message will be that rockets yield results....Israel's dealing unilaterally on Gaza is only undermining the PA. I am not sure how many more blows our government can take before we are rendered completely ineffective."

Israel's policy, then as now, was to back the PA. "Our strategic view is to strengthen you and weaken Hamas," Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, told Palestinian negotiators. The PA was painfully aware of the dangers posed by the rival movement, especially when peace talks were not advancing. "We know the devastating impact of a stalemate vis a vis Hamas, Iran, relations with Israel," Erekat told a US official last January. In the same vein, he told colleagues in May 2009: "Hamas is a tool for (Israeli prime minister Binyamin) Netanyahu, he is counting on them to stay the course. And Hamas is counting on Netanyahu to stay the course. Netanyahu's only card is Palestinian division."

The papers show that PA leaders also feared that the US, specifically the CIA, and Israel were secretly planning to deal with Hamas behind their backs. Russia was criticised for sending the wrong signals, which President Mahmoud Abbas compared to a Palestinian dialogue with anti-Russian Chechen Islamist rebels.

Fighting Hamas emerges also as the central feature of the security cooperation between the two sides, with Israel repeatedly warning the PA against a Hamas takeover in the West Bank. "I know that Israel wants security and it's a major concern for her," PLO negotiator Ahmed Qureia told his Israeli counterparts in February 2008. "But sometimes I feel that you exaggerate the whole matter and other times that it's part of a policy of conspiracy and the imposition of new realities on the ground for the purpose of confiscating more land or dictating new conditions."

Egypt

Source: New York Times  Updated: Jan. 25, 2011

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html

Egypt has long been a leader of the Arab world, but faces increasingly severe internal pressures for political reform.

President Hosni Mubarak has been in office since the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat on Oct. 16, 1981. He has successfully negotiated complicated issues of regional security, solidified a relationship with Washington, maintained cool but correct ties with Israel and sharply suppressed Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.

But the country has an important Islamic opposition movement and is prey to significant domestic unrest.  In an uneasy prelude to the presidential election this year, Mr. Mubarak, 82, underwent gall bladder surgery in 2010, and it is not clear whether he will run. His son Gamal has been groomed as a successor, but many Egyptians are uncomfortable with an inherited succession. Mohamed ElBaradei, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a Nobel laureate, has publicly challenged Mr. Mubarak’s autocratic rule.

Presidential elections in Egypt are one-sided affairs. In the last election, the first in which he faced a challenger, Mr. Mubarak received about six million votes while the second-place finisher, Ayman Nour, received about 600,000.

The regime has frequently met opposition with force. Units within Egypt’s sprawling security force are granted broad powers by the government, and officers are rarely punished for abuse.

Protests Against the Government

Thousands of people calling for the end of Mr. Mubarak’s regime clashed with riot police in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on January 25, 2011. It was some of the most serious civil unrest in recent memory.

The protesters, mobilized largely on the Internet and energized by recent events in Tunisia, occupied one of the city’s most famous squares for hours, beating back attempts to dislodge them by police officers wielding tear gas and water cannons.

Security officials said several thousand people demonstrated in Alexandria, and there were also reports of large demonstrations in other cities, including Mansoura and Mahalla al-Kobra. There, a video posted on the Internet showed people tearing up a large portrait of Mr. Mubarak — an act whose boldness is hard to overstate.

There was no immediate count of arrests or injuries, but the clashes in Cairo left dozens of people bleeding in Tahrir Square, one of Cairo’s best-known settings, near the Egyptian Museum and a Ritz-Carlton Hotel under construction. Tourists gawked, and older protesters said they had never seen anything like the defiant demonstration.

At least six young Egyptians have set themselves on fire in recent weeks, in an imitation of the self-immolation that set off the Tunisian unrest. Egypt has forbidden gas stations to sell to people not in cars and placed security agents wielding fire extinguishers outside government offices.