Via NYT — CAIRO — With a potentially violent showdown looming between Egypt’s military and the Islamist backers of President Mohamed Morsi, the country’s top generals summoned civilian political leaders to an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss a new interim government while moving tanks toward the presidential palace and restricting Mr. Morsi’s travel — new signals of an impending military takeover. A top presidential adviser said a coup already was under way.
Hashtag #Egypt; #Cairo; Twitter feeds RichardEngel: Reports military deploying at key sites and intersections, not only in #cairo . Also highway to Alexandria
Bear in mind the military in Egypt is by some accounts I;m seeing, the less extreme, more secular interest. How it would play out if they take over though is anyone’s guess.
I haven’t paid too much attention to events in Egypt.
It’s a slow motion train wreck and just to dismal to watch.
A report in the MSM yesterday said that Morsi’s approval ratings have dropped from IIRC, ca. 70% to 24%.
Somehow he managed to tick off huge numbers of people and rather quickly. Not sure what he did to accomplish that, but it looks like he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
AFAICT, Egypt might be that rare beast, a Malthusian disaster.
1. They have one water supply the Nile. And a huge population of 80 million that is growing, not too fast but not too slow either.
2. The Nile no longer reaches the sea. All the water is used before. Salt water is creeping up the Nile delta.
3. The water for the Nile comes from upstream countries. All with rising populations and uses for the water that goes into the NIle.
4. That is why they lost it over the Ethiopian dam. The Ethiopians claim it won’t effect downstream but that is dubious. It doesn’t have to but it could well do so, depending on how they operate it.
Out of water, expanding population, upstream countries demanding more of their Nile. What could go wrong here?
CNN just announced that Morsi is no longer president of Egypt as of 2 hours ago.
This was reported by Egypt’s largest newspaper.
Now we will see how much violence the Islamist brotherhood will cause.
And the military replaced him with the country’s top judge instead of a military leader, which gives their coup way more legitimacy than most.
Yep. Seems the “coup” or people’s revolution has worked and Morsi is out.
See :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23173794
For the BBC world news coverage of this among other sources.
Congratulations to the Egyptian people who protested and here’s hoping things now work out for them. I hope this marks the beginning of a more secular, more tolerant, happier and less Islamic Egypt. Kemal Attaturk’s example of a secularised, westernised and modernised Turkey seems a good course to follow -without killing any Armenians natch!
Good riddance to Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood! Well done Egyptian military! Hope the news stays positive.