Mubarak Refuses To Leave, But Protests Not Fading
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UPDATE 12:06 a.m. PST (10:06 a.m. in Cairo): A gas pipeline in the Sinai peninsula has been blown up in an apparent terrorist attack. The fire has been contained and no injures are reported. Reuters says the pipeline connects to Jordan. Al-Jazeera says the pipeline has cut off gas supplies to Israel. A third of Israel's gas supply comes from that line, Al Jazeera reports. Al-Jazeera sources say the motivation for the attack may have been the socio-economic strife in the Sinai, which has a high level of people living in poverty.
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(Protests on the "Day of Departure", Credit Al Jazeera via Creative Commons)
After another day of hundreds of thousands of protesters filling Cairo's Tahrir Square, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak didn't comply with the chants and pleas demanding he leave power.
Though government officials joined the protesting against the Egyptian president, Friday's so-called "Day of Departure" did not meet its goal of unseating Mubarak from office. But the hold of Mubarak's 30-year regime seems to be even more tenuous as the protests in downtown Cairo refused to let up and a heightened demand from President Obama called for him to "make the right decision."
"In light of what's happened, going back to the old ways is not going to work," Obama said in a televised news conference Friday. "Suppression is not going to work. Violence is not going to work.
"The only thing that is going to work is moving to an orderly transition process, right now."
Obama's statement seemed aimed at quashing reports Thursday that U.S. policy officials were pushing for a unity government led by Vice President Omar Suleiman.
The situation in Egypt may dominate talks at the Munich Security Conference, where Secretary of State Hilary Clinton arrived Saturday morning. The conference, not deemed an official summit, was supposed to be centered around cybersecurity and NATO-Russia relations.
Protests are scheduled to continue through the weekend, which some reports have dubbed the "Week of Resistance."
