Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 7:53 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran, Music and Culture Images from the Egyptian uprising, put to the song "Amazing" by Kanye West, featuring Young Jeezy:
Egypt, Kanye West, Young Jeezy 
"I'm Going with Mom & Dad. Join Us"2210 GMT: Isolating Mousavi and Karroubi. Ardeshir Amir-Arjomand, a senior advisor to Mir Hossein Mousavi, has said that the phone lines of Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have been cut.
The cutting of Karroubi's communications had been related, along with his effective house arrest, at the end of last night, but this is the first report of an attempt to cut off Mousavi.
2040 GMT: 25 Bahman. The Mothers of Mourning, known for their weekly gatherings in Laleh Park in Tehran to remember the dead and detained of the post-election conflict, have issued a statement of support for Monday's rally.
Journalist Isa Saharkhiz, detained since July 2009, has also congratulated those challening Iranian dictators.
Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 6:30 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 2050 GMT: Former President Mubarak's portrait is taken down in the Cabinet Room:
Photo: Associated Press
2035 GMT: The State Department has demanded "restraint" in the Algerian regime's handling of demonstrations.
Following the departure of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the Supreme Military Council released a statement that Cairo will be loyal to its international agreements, including the peace treaty signed with Israel in 1979.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded that the "longstanding peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has greatly contributed to both countries and is the cornerstone for peace and stability in the entire Middle East".
Protest in Oran, Algeria's 2nd-largest city
Scuffles at demonstration in Algiers
Algeria A series of posters for Monday's planned rally in support of the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings:
THE LOVE POSTERS: Government authorities have tried to restrict celebration of Valentine's Day by ordering shops not to sell anything related to the occasion --- So why not respond by combining Love and Protest?
25 Bahman 2240 GMT: Claimed video of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) from the rooftops tonight:
2225 GMT: 25 Bahman. An indication in Fars that the Minister of Interior will reject the request by Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi for a permit for Monday's rally --- Mehdi Alikhani-Sadr, deputy director of the Interior Ministry's political bureau, said, "These people are fully aware of the illegality of their demand and they know they will not receive a permit for staging a riot."
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 6:51 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
2215 GMT: A big MediaFail from The New York Times, which can only see "hundreds of people" in a demonstration in Algiers today. Somehow the newspaper misses the video showing far more than hundreds (the low estimate in other media covering events is 2000), and somehow it misses all the references to protests in other cities such as Oran and Annaba.
1830 GMT: The BBC has posted an interactive photograph of Tahrir Square in Cairo at prayer, allowing the viewer to tour everything from the Wall of Martyrs to the "KFC Clinic".
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 6:37 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
In the midst of the ecstasy that followed the news of former President Mubarak's departure from power, an Egyptian contact wrote EA, "Today celebration. Tomorrow hard work."
That may seem an unusual statement, given the magnitude of what has occurred in Egypt. For the first time in its modern history, a leader has left office because of the will of the people. The scenes of joy, relief, and hope may not be matched --- anywhere --- for a long time.
However, Mubarak was only the head of a system which had controlled Egyptian affairs for almost 60 years. The body remains.
The military is there. Its decision yesterday --- to let the protesters advance in thousands on the State TV building and on the Presidential Palace --- was instrumental in pushing the President onto the plane to Sharm al-Sheikh, only hours after he had defied them as well as the demonstrators in his speech insisting he would stay until September. Now it is formally in charge of Egypt, with a Supreme Military Council chaired by Minister of Defense Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.
At one level, the political demand is straightforward. The arrangement must lead to genuine, free, fair elections in September. Egyptians must have the opportunity to be represented by a Government which they have chosen.
But that is only one level. The body of Egypt for six decades has also been an elite which ran, and profited from, economic and social as well as political matters. Eventually this found its form in the one-party grip of the National Democratic Party. Politics and business were linked together through the NDP, supported by the military and police. Several key MPs and prominent figures have left the party during this crisis, but others remain.
So as in Tunisia, where the people eventually moved against the Rally for Constitutional Democracy, which had held power since the country's independence, the challenge for protest and change advances. Will Egypt's spirit of liberation continue against the structure that has underpinned the country for so long? Can it?
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 6:31 | Ali Yenidunya in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
The United Nations Relief Works Agency has announced that unemployment in the Gaza strip has reached 45%. Monthly earnings in Gaza decreased by almost 10%, in real terms, between the first half of 2009 and the first half of 2010. UNRWA spokesperson Chris Guinness warned that without international intervention to halt the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the crisis could deepen substantially.
As Facebook groups are calling for a 'revolution' in the Gaza Strip, Hamas's Interior Ministry Spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein told AFP late on Wednesday: "It makes no sense, this is little more than media hype. Gaza has already had a revolution --- what happened in 2007 was a real revolution against corruption."
