Anti-government protests that were relatively small were talked up as bringing out hundreds of thousands of people into Tahrir Square.
The struggle underway to influence and control the course of events in Egypt reflects Cairo’s importance not only for the Muslim East but also global politics. The most populous country in the region, Egypt sits at the crossroads of two continents.
For his May 18 speech on the Muslim East, US President Barack Obama gave his latest performance in the production titled (Steadily Weakening) Empire Strikes Back. His flowery words have long since lost their perfume and his grammatically complex sentences, such a heady delight after the linguistically-challenged Bush, now seem to fall as flat as an out-of-tune piano.
The Egyptian Military High Council apologised on February 26 about attacking civilians in Tahrir Square on Friday night. The protesters were demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.
Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators are camped in Tahrir Square in Cairo, refusing to leave despite attempts by the illegitimate regime of Hosni Mubarak and the Egyptian military to force them out.