UPDATE: Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera reporting now that there were two bombings that killed three and injured eight. The second bombing was near Sayida Aisha, a working class Egyptian neighborhood about 15 minutes by car from the site of the first bombing. Al Jazeera is interviewing somebody now saying that it was carried out [...]

While looking for more info about today’s bombing, I saw this item:
CAIRO, April 30 (Reuters) - The cousin of an Egyptian man wanted in connection with a bombing in Cairo this month has died in police custody, police sources said on Saturday.
Mohamed Suleiman Youssef, 40, was the cousin of Ashraf Said Youssef, identified by the [...]

Shit:
CAIRO, Egypt - A bomb was thrown from a bridge in Cairo to the street below, killing an Arab man and injuring four foreigners, police said.
Remains of a body, covered with newspapers, were seen beneath the bridge a few minutes after the 3:15 p.m. (7:15 a.m. ET) explosion was heard through downtown Cairo. The blast [...]

Yesterday, along most every other journalist I know, I attended the latest Kifaya protest. Pictures I took can be found here. Another first-hand account of yesterday’s demo is from Manal & Alaa’s blog.
The protest was scheduled to be held at Egypt’s Supreme Court (Dar al-Qada’ al-Uliya) off of Ramsis street, downtown (Perhaps, a symbolic reference [...]

The third installment, as reported previously, ended anti-climatically with Mubarak saying he has not decided if he was running for a fifth six-year presidential term. Mubarak said that the people should have their voice be heard. If they want him and his experiences to serve as a guide into the next part of Egyptian history [...]

Pro-Mubarak banners have been spreading across the city for the last month at least. I have seen them in Garden City, near Abdeen Square, in Bab Sharia and in plenty of other arease. It seems like many local NDP officials are taking the initiative (oh wait they don’t do that) and putting up “Nam Mubarak” [...]

I still need to write up the summery of part three of the Mubarak Reality show, but according to these banners hanging downtown, some people are already expressing their wishes to (re?)-elect Mubarak. The banner reads “Yes…for the Man of Peace”.

I doubt this showed up this morning as a reaction to his interviews. [...]

Sigh.
Amman - A Jordanian man shot dead his divorced sister after seeing her photo on his friend’s camera-equipped cellphone in the latest “honour” killing in the kingdom, hospital officials said Monday.

Bahrain’s Ministry of Information has decreed that webmasters in the country must apply for a license number that they will have to display on their sites. This applies not only for people who are technically webmasters (i.e. operate their own servers) but also people who host abroad. Failure to do so would result in prosecution [...]

More comments tomorrow but the last question tonight in the final installment was - -
Adib: So you have not decided if you are running for another term?
Mubarak: Not Yet
_________________
That said, I have an idea of what will happen.
What do you think?

Last night’s second installment of “My Word for History” was more of the same. The good news was it was only 90 minutes (rather than 120). So there was some mercy on those of us watching. I am actually not as hacked off as others are watching the series. Naturally, parts are absurd and way [...]

Last night President Mubarak sat down with the plump `Amad al-Din Adib for the first installment of three nights of interviews. Al-Ahram boasted yesterday that Adib would ask Mubarak 199 questions over the three days.
Each night it is 2-hours and as these were produced earlier, there can be no wardrobe malfunctions. The interviews are [...]

Al-Ghad’s secretary-general Mona Makram Ebeid penned an opinion article in today’s Daily Star.
It is more of a plea that their party is a home-grown answer to political reforms, which she in her position as party S-G, sees as currently stifled under the current political regime. It presents al-Ghad as a unified and cohesive bunch. Yet, [...]

Politique arabe de la France is a blog on, er, France’s Arab world policy. In French of course. Rather wonky but useful to follow — after all, the Us is not the only Western country whose Arab world policy matters.
One item of note is an explanation of the significance of an open letter by [...]

If you read French and are interested in Morocco, take a look at Amina Talhimet’s new blog. She’s a journalist at the French left-of-center daily Liberation and already has a few interesting entries.
Yesterday she reported that Morocco voted in favor of the abolition of capital punishment at the UN Human Rights Commission, and the day [...]

As an addendum to our discussion of Thomas Friedman the other day, I highly recommend this review of his new book, The World is Flat, by Matt Taibbi. Hilarious and comes with a cool picture of the Hamster.

A long dialogue/interview with President Hosni Mubarak, estimated at 7 hours, will be broadcast on Egyptian TV on Sunday, 24 April (according to an article from Islam-Online).
Islam-Online reports that Sunday’s interview is the longest with Mubarak since 1982 when the Sinai was liberated (also he was fresh in office).
The broadcast will discuss the [...]

More coverage that depicts the National Human Rights Council report as a whitewash: the Al Ahram Hebdo has article in which human rights NGOs criticize the report, and point out that only two of its 6 chapters directly address human rights issues (and they are the shortest)–the goal seems to be to bury the bad [...]

As Ursula pointed out, a new issue of Cairo is out, and as well as her story it has a quite interesting feature by Charles on Islamic reform and the whole “Islam and democracy” debate. It covers various issues, but to me the most important one was how the Egyptian state has appropriated Islam for [...]

This week’s issue of Cairo is out and for those of who were interested in the National Human Rights Council report, there is an article I did with quotes from Bahaedding Hassan, Hafez Abu Saada and Kamal Abul Magd. (Many thanks to Josh who also gave me much useful information.) Please also check out [...]