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Egyptian President Mubarak to Step Down in September
FOX News
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says he will not run for a new term in office
in September elections and will work during the rest of his term for a "peaceful
transfer of power" in a new attempt to defuse massive protests demanding his
immediate ouster.
In a speech aired on state TV Tuesday night, Mubarak said, "In all sincerity,
regardless of the current circumstances, I never intended to be a candidate for
another term." He says he will work during "the final months of my current term"
to carry out the "necessary steps for the peaceful transfer of power."
President Obama asked Mubarak Tuesday not to seek re-election in September,
effectively ending his 30-year reign, a source tells FOX News.
Al-Jazeera is reporting that the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv is making
preparations to welcome him into exile.
Egyptian military police have installed a barbed wire fence around Mubarak's
presidential palace in response to protesters marching there Wednesday,
according to Al-Jazeera.
This comes as more than a quarter-million people flooded Cairo's main square in
a stunning and jubilant array of young and old, urban poor and middle class
professionals, mounting by far the largest protest yet in a week of unrelenting
demands for Mubarak to leave after nearly 30 years in power.
The crowds -- determined but peaceful -- filled Tahrir, or Liberation, Square
and spilled into nearby streets...They sang nationalist songs, danced, beat
drums and chanted the anti-Mubarak slogan "Leave! Leave! Leave!" as military
helicopters buzzed overhead. Organizers said the aim was to intensify marches to
get the president out of power by Friday, and similar demonstrations erupted in
at least five other cities around Egypt.
Soldiers at checkpoints set up at the entrances of the square did nothing to
stop the crowds from entering...
Mubarak, 82, is the second Arab leader pushed from office by a popular uprising
in the history of the modern Middle East, following the ouster last month of
Tunisia's president.
The movement to drive Mubarak out has been built on the work of online activists
and fueled by deep frustration with an autocratic regime blamed for ignoring the
needs of the poor and allowing corruption and official abuse to run rampant...
The chairman of the powerful U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. John
Kerry, gave public voice to what senior U.S. officials have said only privately
in recent days: that Mubarak should "step aside gracefully to make way for a new
political structure."
The U.S. ambassador in Cairo, Margaret Scobey, spoke by telephone Tuesday with
prominent democracy advocate Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, the embassy
said. ElBaradei has taken a key role with other opposition groups in formulating
the movement's demands for Mubarak to step down and allow a transitional
government paving the way for free elections. There was no immediate word on
what Scobey and ElBaradei discussed.
The United States, meanwhile, ordered non-essential U.S. government personnel
and their families to leave Egypt in an indication of the deepening concern over
the situation.
Editor's Note: Mr. ElBaradei's intentions should be questioned in the
boldest of ways. As Chairman of the IAEA, he was unable to find any semblance of
a nuclear weapons program in Iraq prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein, yet the
Iraqi Survey Group and those executing the Duelfer Report, found locations and
materials laying in wait to re-assemble -- on a fast track -- the clandestine
nuclear weapons program that the world knew Hussein had. In Iran, Mr. ElBaradei
was consistently wrong on the timetable for that country's nuclear weapons
program and their timetable for acquiring the technology to enrich uranium,
always insisting that their capabilities were long into the future. Now, the
Muslim Brotherhood is supporting Mr. ElBaradei in his quest for power in Egypt.
Does anyone else smell that smell? Would it surprise anyone if it turned out
that Mr. ElBaradei was Muslim Brotherhood and that he championed their goals all
along? |
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