Mubarak Being Investigated For Selling Cheap Gas To Israel For Years



Mubarak Faces Corruption Probe Of Years Of Selling Gas To Israel At Sub-Market Rates

Business Insider- Gus Lubin

March 4, 2011 – 9:19 AM

Hosni Mubarak and his former oil minister are being investigated for exporting artificially cheap gas to Israel and six European countries, according to Al Masr Al Youm.

Egypt’s new authorities say these deals cost the country $170 million over the past five years. Chief prosecutor Magid Mahmud claims deals with Israel cost as much as $500 million, according to DEBKA.

Israel signed a 15-year contract worth 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2005, following up the big contract signed in 1979 after the Camp David Accords.

Gas exports from Egypt to Israel were supposed to resume this weekend, after being shut down since the pipeline was sabotaged in early February. That probably won’t happen now. This represents a big worry for Israel, which relies on Egypt for nearly all of its gas supply.

SOURCE

Read Full Post »

Obama: ‘The People Of Egypt Have Spoken’- FULL TEXT

Obama welcomes Egypt transition

By BEN FELLER
AP White House Correspondent

Feb 11, 3:35 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday welcomed the peaceful transition of power in Egypt with the resignation of longtime President Hosni Mubarak. “The people of Egypt have spoken. Their voices have been heard. And Egypt will never be the same,” he declared.

In brief remarks in the Grand Foyer of the White House, the president noted that it was “not the end of Egypt’s transition, it’s a beginning.” He said that many important questions remain to be resolved and difficult times lie ahead.

“I’m confident the people of Egypt can find the answers,” Obama said. He spoke hours after Mubarak stepped aside, turning authority over to the military. It was a turnaround from the night before, when the Egyptian leader defiantly refused to give up his title.

Said Obama: “Egyptians have inspired us, and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained by violence.”

MORE HERE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama: The people of Egypt have spoken

FP- Posted By Josh Rogin Friday, February 11, 2011 – 4:15 PM

Here is the full text of President Obama‘s Friday remarks on the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak:

>>>FULL TEXT HERE<<<

Read Full Post »

Mubarak Has Stepped Down- Power Given To Military

Mubarak Steps Down, Ceding Power to Military

New York Times- By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, ANTHONY SHADID and ALAN COWELL

Published: February 11, 2011

CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt turned over all power to the military, and left the Egyptian capital for his resort home in Sharm el-Sheik, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced on state television on Friday.

The announcement, delivered during evening prayers in Cairo, set off a frenzy of celebration, with protesters shouting “Egypt is free!”

MORE HERE

Read Full Post »

Mubarak Stays- Transfers Power To VP

Egypt unrest: Mubarak’s speech leaves nation, world wondering who’s in charge

CNN-  February 10th, 2011   06:08 PM ET

The latest developments, as confirmed by CNN, on the uprising in Egypt. Throngs of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Egypt’s major cities to demand an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule, prompting the government to deploy the military to deal with civil unrest for the first time in a generation. Check out our full coverage and the latest tweets from CNN correspondents on the ground.

[Update 1:08 a.m. in Cairo, 6:08 p.m. ET] Tweet from opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei: Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now.

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, ElBaradei said it’s unclear whose side the Army is on. As for Suleiman taking control of the presidency?
“Suleiman, Mubarak ‘are twins’ – neither is acceptable to the people.”

[Update 1:00 a.m. in Cairo, 6:00 p.m. ET] Parliamentary speaker Ahmed Fathi Srour tells Nile TV that President Hosni Mubarak’s move puts the authority for the day-to-day running of the government in Vice President Omar Suleiman’s hands. That would include oversight of the police, the Interior Ministry and other key agencies, control of economic policy and running any negotiations with the opposition. Srour echoed Mubarak’s statement in adding that the constitution specifically prohibits the president from delegating other key powers to the vice president. As a result, power to dismiss parliament or dismiss the government and the power to ask for amendments to the constitution remain in Mubarak’s hands, not Suleiman’s.

MORE HERE

Read Full Post »

Mubarak Stepping Down- VP To Take Over?

Mubarak To Resign? Egypt’s President Will Reportedly Hand Over Power

AP via HuffPost

First Posted: 02/10/11 10:40 AM Updated: 02/10/11 11:31 AM

CAIRO (AP) – Egypt’s military announced on national television that it has stepped in to “safeguard the country” on Thursday and assured protesters that President Hosni Mubarak will meet their demands in the strongest indication yet that Egypt’s longtime leader has lost power. In Washington, the CIA chief said there was a “strong likelihood” Mubarak will step down Thursday.

The dramatic announcement showed that the military was taking control after 17 days of protests demanding Mubarak’s immediate ouster spiraled out of control.

Gen. Hassan al-Roueini, military commander for the Cairo area, told thousands of protesters in central Tahrir Square, “All your demands will be met today.” Some in the crowd held up their hands in V-for-victory signs, shouting “the people want the end of the regime” and “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” a victory cry used by secular and religious people alike.

The military’s supreme council was meeting Thursday, without the commander in chief Mubarak, and announced on state TV its “support of the legitimate demands of the people.” A spokesman read a statement that the council was in permanent session to explore “what measures and arrangements could be made to safeguard the nation, its achievements and the ambitions of its great people.”
The statement was labeled “communique number 1,” a phrasing that suggests a military coup.

MORE HERE

Read Full Post »

Breaking: Egypt Ruling Party Leadership Resigns

Egypt Ruling Party Leadership Resigns; Obama Backs Gradual Transition

AP/The Huffington Post Posted: 02/ 5/11 11:39 AM

CAIRO – State TV says the top leadership body of Egypt’s ruling party, including the president’s son Gamal Mubarak and the party secretary-general Safwat el-Sharif, resigned Saturday in a new gesture apparently aimed at convincing anti-government protesters that the regime is serious about reform.

Protesters have shrugged off other concessions by the regime in the past 12 days of unprecedented street demonstrations, saying they will settle for nothing less than the immediate ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s ruler for nearly 30 years.

State TV said the ruling party’s six-member Steering Committee of the General Secretariat stepped down and was replaced. The council was the party’s highest decision-making body, and el-Sharif and other outgoing members were some of the most powerful — and to many Egyptians, unpopular — political figures in the regime.

El-Sharif was replaced by Hossam Badrawi, a party figure who had been sidelined within its ranks in recent years because of his sharp criticisms of some policies.

MORE HERE

Read Full Post »

President Obama Prays For Peace In The Middle East

President Prays for Peace in the Mideast

The Caucus – The Politics and Government blog of The New York Times
By- HELENE C. COOPER
February 3, 2011, 12:06 pm

WASHINGTON — President Obama, in wide-ranging remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, said Thursday that he was praying for the violence in the Middle East to end, and separately called on the country to move beyond polarizing debate to remember that few people are right all of the time.

Mr. Obama told an audience of lawmakers, religious leaders and heads of state (from Equatorial Guinea and Macedonia) that in the middle of strife, it is important to “go back to the Scriptures to remind ourselves that none of us have the answer.”

Mr. Obama spoke for around 15 minutes about his upbringing, which he said was not religious. His father, he recounted, was a “nonbeliever,” and he said his mom, “whose parents were Baptists and Methodists, grew up with a certain skepticism.”

“She only took me to church at Easter and Christmas … sometimes,” Mr. Obama said.

Still, Mr. Obama said his mother “nagged me consistently about the homespun values of her Kansas upbringing,” and credited her with helping him to “understand the equal worth of all men and all women.”

MORE HERE

Read Full Post »

2 Million Gather In Tahrir Square.. ElBaradei To Mubarak: Leave Egypt By Friday

Egypt News Today: Protesters Prepare For ‘March Of A Million People’

The Huffington Post/AP First Posted: 02/ 1/11 12:29 AM Updated: 02/ 1/11 05:50 AM

CAIRO – Tens of thousands of people flooded into the heart of Cairo Tuesday, filling the city’s main square as a call for a million protesters was answered by the largest demonstration in a week of unceasing demands for President Hosni Mubarak to leave after nearly 30 years in power.

Rivers of protesters arrived in Tahrir, or Liberation, Square at checkpoints guarded by protesters and the army, which promised Monday night that it would not fire on protesters.

The announcement was a sign that army support for Mubarak may be unraveling as momentum builds for an extraordinary eruption of discontent and demands for democracy in the United States’ most important Arab ally.

“We are not going anywhere until Mubarak leaves,” said Mohammed Abdullah, a 27-year-old aviation engineer.

Mubarak, 82, would be the second Arab leader pushed from office by a popular uprising in the history of the modern Middle East.

Soviet-era and newer U.S.-made Abrams tanks stood at the roads leading into Tahrir Square, a plaza overlooked by the headquarters of the Arab League, the campus of the American University in Cairo, the famed Egyptian Museum and the Mugammma, an enormous winged building housing dozens of departments of the country’s notoriously corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy.

Working-class men in scuffed shoes and worn cloth pants stood alongside women in full-face veils who chanted, “The people want to bring down the regime!”

For days, army tanks and troops have surrounded the square, keeping the protests confined but doing nothing to stop people from joining. The guns of many of the tanks pointed out from the square.

Military spokesman Ismail Etman said the military “has not and will not use force against the public” and underlined that “the freedom of peaceful expression is guaranteed for everyone.”
He added the caveats that protesters should not commit “any act that destabilizes security of the country” or damage property.

The protests appeared to be better organized on Tuesday. Volunteers wearing tags reading “Security of the People” said they were watching for government infiltrators who might try to instigate violence.

“We will throw out anyone who tries to create trouble,” one announced over a loudspeaker.
Authorities shut down all roads and public transportation to Cairo, security officials said. Train services nationwide were suspended for a second day and all bus services between cities were halted.

All roads in and out of the flashpoint cities of Alexandria, Suez, Masnoura and Fayoum were also closed.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

MORE HERE

Read Full Post »

Egypt’s New Government Announced On State TV

Egypt’s New Government Announced On State TV

The Huffington Post/AP MAGGIE MICHAEL and HAMZA HENDAWI  First Posted: 01/31/11 07:57 AM Updated: 01/31/11 09:30 AM

CAIRO — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak swore in a new Cabinet on Monday, replacing one dissolved as a concession to unprecedented anti-government protests.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR LATEST UPDATES)

In the most significant change, the interior minister – who heads internal security forces – was replaced. A retired police general, Mahmoud Wagdi, was named to replace Habib el-Adly, who is widely despised by protesters for brutality shown by security forces.

Still, the new Cabinet is unlikely to satisfy the tens of thousands of protesters who have taken to the streets in cities across Egypt the past week demanding nothing short of the ouster of Mubarak and his entire regime. As news of the appointments broke, thousands massed in the protest’s epicenter, Cairo’s central Tahrir Square, broke into chants of “we want the fall of the regime.”

“We dont recognize any decisions Mubarak has taken since Jan. 25,” Mostafa el-Naggar, a supporter of prominent reform advocate Mohamed ElBaradei, referring to the first day of the protests. “This is a failed attempt – he is done with.”

Mubarak announced the dissolving of the previous government late Friday, naming his intelligence chief and close aide Omar Suleiman as vice president and former Air Force general Ahmed Shafiq as prime minister. But protesters immediately rejected the move as an attempt by Mubarak, Egypt’s authoritarian ruler of nearly 30 years, to cling to power.

The new line-up of Cabinet ministers announced on state television included stalwarts of Mubarak’s regime but purged several of the prominent businessmen who held economic posts and have engineered the country’s economic liberalization policies the past decades. Many Egyptians resented to influence of millionaire politician-moguls, who were close allies of Mubarak’s son, Gamal, long thought to be the heir apparent for the presidency.

In the new Cabinet, Mubarak retained his long-serving defense minister, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi – and gave him an additional title of deputy prime minister – and also kept Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

But for some posts, Mubarak brought in new blood by naming figures who hold widespread respect in their fields. For example, Gaber Asfour, a prominent literary figure, was named culture minister. He replaced the longest-serving Cabinet member, Farouq Hosni, who had held the post for more than 25 years. Also, Egypt’s most famous archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, was named state minister for antiquities, a new post.

State newspapers on Monday published a sternly worded letter from Mubarak to his new prime minister, Shafiq, ordering him to move swiftly to introduce political, legislative and constitutional reforms.

He also appeared to distance himself from the economic policies directed by his son Gamal, widely blamed for causing a wide gap between the rich and poor, for whom economic hardships have deepened. In the letter, Mubarak urged “new economic policies that give maximum care to an economic performance which pays heed to the suffering of the citizens, and lightening their burden.”

MORE HERE

Read Full Post »

Egypt’s President Mubarak Refuses To Step Down

Egypt Protests: LIVE Updates As Opposition Fills The Streets

AP/The Huffington Post First Posted: 01/28/11 08:13 AM Updated: 01/28/11 04:50 PM

CAIRO (AP) – The Egyptian capital Cairo was the scene of violent chaos Friday, when tens of thousands of anti-government protesters stoned and confronted police, who fired back with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons. It was a major escalation in what was already the biggest challenge to authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year-rule.

Internet and cell-phone services were disrupted across Egypt starting overnight and throughout the day as authorities used extreme measures to hamper protesters from organizing the mass rallies called after Friday prayers.

Police also fired water cannons at one of the country’s leading pro-democracy advocates, Mohamed ElBaradei, and his supporters as they joined the latest wave of protests after noon prayers. Police used batons to beat some of ElBaradei’s supporters, who surrounded him to protect him.

A soaking wet ElBaradei was trapped inside a mosque while hundreds of riot police laid siege to it, firing tear gas in the streets around so no one could leave. The tear gas canisters set several cars ablaze outside the mosque and several people fainted and suffered burns.

Large groups of protesters, in the thousands, were gathered at at least six venues in Cairo, a city of about 18 million people, and many of them were on the move marching toward major squares and across Nile bridges.

They are demanding Mubarak’s ouster and venting their rage at years of government neglect of rampant poverty, unemployment and rising food prices.

More details here.

You can follow the latest updates here

Read Full Post »