2300 GMT: In Tunisia, the Ministry of Interior has announced that the former ruling party, the Constitituional Democratic Rally, is to be suspended and its offices closed.
2155 GMT: And now, to offer wisdom on the Egyptian crisis, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin:
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at 7:21 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
0540 GMT: Now see Thursday's LiveBlog: "The Battle of Tahrir Square".
0536 GMT: The pro-regime protesters and thugs have not left Cairo yet. Some of them have taken over tall buildings and are throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at democracy protesters below outside of Tahrir Square.
This has not stopped hundreds of protesters from continuing to join democracy protesters in Tahrir Square, swelling up their numbers.
Saturday, January 29, 2011 at 7:18 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
2247 GMT: A German news agency is claiming 19 private planes have departed Cairo Airport carrying Egyptian and Arab businessmen and families.
2245 GMT: Tens of thousands of protesters are still in central Cairo, with food being organised for them.
2240 GMT: A senior police officer has been kidnapped in Damietta, 200kilometres/120miles north of Cairo. Tarek Hammad is Head of Damietta Security.
2230 GMT: Escalating story tonight of at least one sniper in the Ministry of Interior picking off protesters outside the building. Witnesses are saying 10 to 15 people have been shot dead and dozens have been wounded. Dr Muhammad Hassan tells Al Jazeera that dead protestors from the area are flooding the makeshift field hospital.
2225 GMT: Al Jazeera reports the death of Major General Mohammed El-Batran, head of the Investigative Unit at Fayoum Central Jail in middle Egypt, 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Cairo. About 700 prisoners have fled.
Last night Mubarak stood almost alone. And what no one was quite saying is that his fate is not in his hands. The immediate issue now is whether the military will hold the line for him and whether the protesters will accept that.
Unless there is something more from the President --- not just some economic payouts to the people but a clear sign that he and his son Gamal will be giving up the prospect of continued power, with promises of significant reform in the political system --- the demonstrations will continue. And at that point, the question will be whether the Army sides with those demonstrations or turns its guns upon them.
Egypt, Gamal Mubarak, Hosni Mubarak Friday, January 28, 2011 at 5:47 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
So there is a 13-hour curfew imposed in Egypt, right? What that means is that people should remain at home, there shouldn't be any gatherings and police should be in-charge of the street. Instead, the police are missing and people are swarming through the capital Cairo. The situation is made worse by opportunistic looters. Several people in Egypt are reporting that shopkeepers are gathering relatives and friends to protect their businesses from looters in isolated areas of the city.
Does that make sense?
0307 GMT: And now the mother of all disclosures?
The Daily Telegraph quotes a Wikileaks diplomatic dispatch with the following story:
The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.
On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.
Read the full story on the Daily Telegraph here.
Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 6:12 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
0547 GMT: Scott Lucas will now be starting our LiveBlog updates for Friday. I will be back in 10 hours or so.
0513 GMT: A small ray of hope emerges in the form of a twitter user from inside Egypt after the massive internet blackout. Amr El Beleidy, co-founder of touringa.com, tweets from Cairo:
Until now mobinil & vodafone mobile networks working, and data connection on mobinil and noor dsl working #jan25
I have access to twitter and facebook with no problems / no proxies#Jan25
Sorry my mobinil data connection is not working, phone had shifted to wifi! Sorry about that! #Jan25 #BeginnersMistake
Saturday, December 11, 2010 at 7:31 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
There is no transition whose beginning is not the consequences --- direct or indirect --- of important divisions within the authoritarian regime itself. Those divisions, in Egypt, are only likely to grow.
For the National Democratic to make a strategic blunder at such a crucial moment in Egypt's history suggests a regime that is nervous, unsure of itself and increasingly incoherent.
The Parliamentary elections were the first such mistake. Whether there will be more ---- and whether the opposition manages to capitalise --- will determine the course Egypt takes in the coming, critical months.
The door for a challenger in 2011 to President Hosni Mubarak or, if he declines to run, his son Gamal now seems closed. The failure of the opposition parties to win seats and the withdrawal of al-Wafd from this Sunday’s second round of elections [Editor's Note: The Muslim Brotherhood has also pulled out], comes on top of only eight victories for opposition and independent candidate in the first round.
Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 11:23 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
UPDATE 1450 GMT: Jack Shenker in The Guardian of London: "[This election] was about sending a message that – whichever elements from within the existing autocracy triumph in the internecine battles to come – the transition from one pharaoh to another will take place wholly within that autocracy, with all other voices excluded."
UPDATE 1445 GMT: The Wafd Party has officially pulled out of the second round of voting.
Ahmed Sameeh, Andalus, Centre for Trade Union and Workers' Services, Egypt Elections 2010, Egyptian Alliance for Monitoring the Elections 2010, Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights, Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, Gamal Mubarak, Hafez Abu Saada, Kamal Abbas, National Democratic Party, Nehad Abu Kommsan Saturday, November 27, 2010 at 6:49 | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
Fresh protests by Egypt’s largest Christian community the Copts indicate a new phase in communal tensions that have risen steadily throughout 2010. The latest demonstrations, which have so far led to one dead and many injured, began on 24 November in the Giza area of Cairo when permission to construct a church was refused.
Church building has remained a possible flashpoint between 1981 and last week, but Coptic reactions had been muted as Pope Shenouda pursued a pragmatic policy of cooperation with the State. Now a changed environment, beyond anger at inequalities over places of worship, is emerging: this is a political rivalry which is damaging the Church-State relationship and perhaps laying the ground for further communal violence.
