Live blog Feb 9 - Egypt protests

Live coverage

(All times are local in Egypt, GMT+2)

10:44pm There's a candlelight vigil going on at Tahrir Square tonight, in memory of those who have been killed in the 16 days of protest.

(AFP)

10:07pm Here is, as Stephen Colbert would put it, your moment of zen ... it appears that the Muslim Brotherhood and the White House are in sync.

Here's what Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman, said about the Egyptian government response to the protests (from the AP):

The government has not taken the necessary steps that the people of Egypt need to see. That's why more and more people come out to register their grievances.

Gibbs also criticized the steps taken by Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, Egyptian vice president, who is tasked with coming up with a transition plan.

The process for his transition does not appear to be in line with the people of Egypt. We believe that more has to be done.

And here's what Issam Elarian, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, told Al Jazeera:

It's a strange situation - the Egyptian people are asking for real democracy, and the vice president says that people are not ready for democracy. Egyptian people need a civil, democratic state.

9:45pm Twitpiced image from NadiaE (featuring Mubarak's expirey date):

9:41pm More from Aboul Ghiet's interview with PBS (specifically, on when the Egyptian foreign minister read that Joe Biden, the US vice president, is calling for the lifting of emergency law in Egypt):

When I read it this morning I was really amazed because because right now, as we speak, we have 17,000 prisoners loose in the streets out of jails that have been destroyed. How can you ask me to sort of disband that emergency law while I'm in difficulty?

9:03pm It looks like Ahmed Aboul Ghiet, Egypt's foreign minister, has been making the media rounds.

He told al-Arabiya network on Wednesday that the Egyptian army could step in to protect "protect the country from an attempt by some adventurers to take power."

And in an interview with American public broadcaster PBS, the Aboul Ghiet said that he was "infuriated" by the US's initial response to the unrest in the country, and that he found the Obama administration's advice on political transition "not at all" helpful.

8:39pm Citing medics as sources, theAFP news agency now reports that at least five have been killed in Wadi al-Jadid after police fired live rounds into a crowd of proteststers.

8:07pm Protesters continue to surround the parliament building in Cairo, while soldiers guard the building, which, at the moment, holds no cabinet members. A protester told Al Jazeera's Jackie Rowland that occupying the area around parliament was another phase of the uprising. Tahrir Square, he said, was already occupied, and protesters would only leave by one of two means: If the government listened to what their demands and dissolved or by "bloodbath".

(Reuters)

7:18pm The situation seems to have heated up in Ismailiya, where protesters stormed a government building and set fire to the governor's car. AFP reports that the protesters, angry that their requests for better housing had been ignored, came from a "nearby slum" where they'd lived in "makeshift huts for 15 years." Police, notes the agency, have "largely disappeared" from the town since the protests started more than two weeks ago.

6:47pm There are reports of continuing crackdowns in Wadi al-Jadid.

Attributing the information to Egyptian security officials, Reuters reports that several protesters suffered gunshot wounds and one was killed when 3,000 protesters took to the streets.

AFP news agency reportes three dead and 100 are wounded in the clashes that have been going on for two days. The protesters, said the report, retaliated:

The furious mob responded by burning seven official buildings, including two police stations and a police barracks, a court house and the local headquarters of President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party.

Iran's PressTV, meanwhile, reoirts that three protesters have been killed and hundreds have been wounded.

6:07pm Al Jazeera's Shirine Tadros, reporting from Cairo, said that the members of the labour unions - some of them from independent, non-state unions - have joined the protesters, calling for Mubrak to step down;

URL du live: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/02/08/live-blog-feb-9-egypt-protests