What is happening in Middle East now as protests continue in Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran and Libya

Yemeni President Ali Saleh

The protests in the Middle East are spreading like a wild fire threatening to engulf the whole region, check that, the whole world. After the success of Egypt protests, every capital from the Gulf of Eden to the Atlantic Coast is seeing at least some level of protests. I have put together a “what is going on where” brief to give you a quick snapshot of how this historical event is unfolding. If you haven’t already, read the previous two briefs (here and here) by this blog because this one tries not to repeat those points.

Egypt: Did Mubarak's camel cavalry just charged the protesters?

As of a few minutes ago, it seems that a few men, riding on horses and camels(!) just charged the protesters on Tahrir Square, the focal point of ongoing Egypt Protests. Little is clear as of now, but reportedly about a hundred men and women have been injured in the ensuing stampede. If you are not doing it already, get the live update from Al Jazeera Live feed.

Until today, the protests, which are now involving millions of people, have been largely peaceful, to the extent that the protesters even organized a football match yesterday. But all that changed today when thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters (read: paid goons) started clashing with the protesters. As of now, the causalities are undetermined. Seems like the regime is getting desperate.

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Vodafone suspends service in Egypt in an attempt to shutdown the protests

World’s largest mobile telecom service crumbles in front of a regime that seems to have no support from its own people or government machinery, despite the fact that Vodafone Egypt accounts for about 0.4% of the Vodafone's worldwide revenue. Why so fast, is all we ask?

As the Egypt Protests enter their fourth day (if you don’t know about it, first read this), Vodafone Egypt announced its intention to comply with Egyptian authorities who demanded its suspension of service. Along with the two other internet providers, Vodafone’s suspension of service has virtually cutoff the country from the rest of the world. According to BBC technology correspondent Mark Gregory, "[V]irtually the entire internet infrastructure of an electronically sophisticated nation has been switched off… This is believed to be the first time a government has engineered an almost complete shutdown of electronic communications to deal with political dissent.” 

Protests in Egypt: Military will be the key for Mubarak’s survival

While the Egyptian protests enter third day, many are expecting country’s 29-year-old dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak to fall. However, it will finally be Military’s decision to let regime fall or not.

Within a month, another Arab country has come under widespread political unrest following the Tunisian model of popular protests. While half-hearted attempts of protests against the corrupt and oppressive Egyptian regime had been going on since the successful Tunisian Revolution earlier this month, massive showdown began on 25 January, when the protesters organized themselves on Facebook.