The International Network for Rights and Development has claimed that Israeli logistical support has been sent to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak to help his regime confront demonstrations demanding that he steps down as head of state. According to reports by the non-governmental organisation, three Israeli planes landed at Cairo's Mina International Airport on Saturday carrying hazardous equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds. In the statement circulated by the International Network, it was disclosed that Egyptian security forces received the complete cargoes on three Israeli planes which were, it is claimed, carrying an abundant supply of internationally proscribed gas to disperse unwanted crowds. If the reports are accurate, this suggests that the Egyptian regime is preparing for the worse in defence of its position, despite the country sinking into chaos.

On Sunday 30 January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israeli government ministers in a public statement saying: "Our efforts aim at the continued maintenance of stability and security in the region...[H/T Desertpeace]

Paul Craig Roberts: Things Have To Change In Order To Remain The Same - By “stability” Netanyahu means the unimpeded ability of Israel to continue oppressing the Palestinians and stealing their country. Mubarak has been for three decades the well-paid enforcer for the US and Israel, sealing off Gaza from the outside world and preventing aid flows across the Egyptian border. Mubarak and his family have become multi-billionaires, thanks to the American taxpayer, and the US government, both Republicans and Democrats, do not want to lose their heavy investment in Mubarak.

Al Jazeera: Live Stream

CAIRO, EGYPT - Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has announced in a televised address that he will not run for re-election but refused to step down from office - the central demand of millions of protesters who have demonstrated across Egypt over the past week. His announcement follows a week of protests, in which millions of people have taken to the streets in Cairo and elsewhere. Mubarak seemed largely unfazed by the protests during his recorded address, which aired at 11pm local time on Tuesday.

Shortly after his speech, clashes broke out between pro-Mubarak and anti-government protesters in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Al Jazeera's correspondent reported. Rock-throwing youths at the city's Mahatit Masr Square scattered as automatic gunfire rang out and a tank advanced towards them before halting and then withdrawing. There was no sign of any casualties. Mubarak's words were unlikely to carry much weight with the protesters at Cairo's Tahrir, or Liberation, Square: they resumed their "Leave, Mubarak!" chant shortly after his speech, and added a few new slogans, like "we won't leave tomorrow, we won't leave Thursday ..."

Mubarak mentioned the protests at the beginning of his speech, and said that "the young people" have the right to peaceful demonstrations. But his tone quickly turned accusatory, saying the protesters had been "taken advantage of" by people trying to "undermine the government". Until now officials had indicated Mubarak, 82, was likely to run for a sixth six-year term of office. But in his address on Tuesday, Mubarak said he never intended to run for re-election.

MSNBC: Major Clashes Erupt Amid Cairo Protests

Jason Ditz: Mubarak: I’ll Leave in Sept; Egyptians: No, Get Out Now As [...] analysts praised it as an historic moment and President Obama telephoned Mubarak to let him know that the US now supports the notion of him stepping down, in September, [...] millions, on the streets of every major Egyptian city, [...] were far less impressed with the notion that their long-standing torturer-in-chief would have another seven months in office, seven months to kill and persecute his way into comfortable retirement.

Al Jazeera: Live Stream
Grant Lawrence: Recently Released WikiLeaks: US Ignored Mubarak's Terror and Torture in Egypt
Antiwar: Torture and Terror: Litany of Abuses Fueled Protesters’ Fury
Stephen Soldz: The torture career of Egypt’s new Vice President
Justin Raimondo: Egypt: Battle of the Narratives

In researching this, STRATFOR discovered that the Egyptian government has some 350,000 metric tons of storage capacity in port silos, 250,000 metric tons at inland silos, another 400,000 metric tons in open storage scattered around the country, and some 500,000 metric tons in various forms of private storage. Egypt is attempting to build out this storage and has so far constructed another 14 silo facilities with about 30,000 metric tons each. If we combine all of this capacity and assume they are all completely full, it only totals 1.9 mmt, or less than 40 days of demand.

Robert Grenier - a 27-year veteran of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, and Director of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center from 2004 to 2006 - writes today:

Events in the Middle East have slipped away from us. Having long since opted in favour of political stability over the risks and uncertainties of democracy, having told ourselves that the people of the region are not ready to shoulder the burdens of freedom, having stressed that the necessary underpinnings of self-government go well beyond mere elections, suddenly the US has nothing it can credibly say as people take to the streets to try to seize control of their collective destiny.

Paul Craig Roberts: Things Have To Change In Order To Remain The Same Mubarak has been for three decades the well-paid enforcer for the US and Israel, sealing off Gaza from the outside world and preventing aid flows across the Egyptian border. Mubarak and his family have become multi-billionaires, thanks to the American taxpayer, and the US government, both Republicans and Democrats, do not want to lose their heavy investment in Mubarak.

Stephen Soldz: Israeli government opposes Egyptian democracy
Stephen Soldz: The torture career of Egypt’s new Vice President
Moral Low Ground: Wikileaks Release: Obama Complicity in Egyptian Torture, Rape & Murder

Right now there is a gigantic mountain of unsold homes in the United States. It is estimated that banks and financial institutions will repossess at least a million more homes this year and this will make the supply of unsold properties even worse. At the same time, millions of American families have been scared out of the market by this recent crisis and millions of others cannot qualify for a home loan any longer. That means that the demand for unsold homes is at extremely low levels.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continued Systematic Attacks against Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

● IOF killed a Palestinian at a military checkpoint near the northern West Bank town of Jenin.
● A Palestinian civilian was killed and another two ones were wounded by the explosion of a projectile left by IOF in the Gaza Strip.
● Two Palestinian civilians were wounded by IOF and a third one was wounded by the Israeli police in the West Bank.
● IOF continued to target Palestinian workers, farmers and fishermen in border areas in the Gaza Strip.
● IOF continued to use force against peaceful protests in the West Bank.
● IOF conducted 37 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and 3 limited ones into the Gaza Strip.
● Israel has continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and has isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world.
● Israel has continued to take measures aimed at creating a Jewish demographic majority in Jerusalem.
● IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.

“The US and Zionist regime (Israel) are concerned with [worried about] the establishment of real democracy in the region. This is while regional nations do not want imposed governments led by arrogant powers,” IRNA quoted Larijani as saying on Tuesday. “Regional nations are awakened and will not be deceived any more…Officials of the Zionist regime cannot deceive people by their words,” he added. The Majlis speaker further pointed out that US officials were bewildered by developments in the region and in Egypt as they adopted different stance during recent days. Larijani noted that the awakening of regional nations has been affected by the historic uprising in Iran led by the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, against the monarchic rule in the country and the global arrogance.

1 hr 36 mins ago: CAIRO (AFP) – Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was digging in his heels on Wednesday after defying a week of massive protests calling for his immediate ouster and saying instead he would not run for re-election in September. The veteran president's announcement on television late on Tuesday drew angry jeers from demonstrators who again defied a curfew to spend the night in the capital's Tahrir Square -- epicentre of protests that on Wednesday raged into a ninth straight day. Despite years of ambiguity over whether he would seek a sixth term and his refusal until this week to even name a vice president, the 82-year-old Mubarak insisted he had never intended to stay in office beyond this year.

PressTV: Mubarak: I will not leave Egypt
EuroNews: Protesters reject Mubarak’s long goodbye
EuroNews: Clashes erupt in a tense Egypt

9/11 gang flew out of London 02 Feb 2011 The FBI is hunting three Qatari men who flew out of London to New York on a BA flight three weeks before the 9/11 atrocities. According to Wikileaks, the men are believed to have carried out surveillance on the World Trade Center. The leaked documents show the suspects flew out of New York to Washington on the eve of the attacks [where they likely picked up their paychecks].

[Satellite-radar composite of Midwest storm, showing classic comma shape and huge swath of heavy precipitation.] NASA is calling the storm exploding over in the Midwest "one of the largest winter storms since the 1950s." On Monday, we talked about what all of the ice and snow the storm might bring. Now it's well underway. Here are some Twitter reports aggregated from a variety of sources, illustrating the power, severity and danger of this historic winter storm: CNNweather: The 13.2" measured in Tulsa breaks the 1-day record, and breaks the record for most snow during the month of February, all in 1 day. Radar from Chicago shows intense area of 2" to 3" per hour snowfall rates about 45 minutes south of Chicago metro area. More than 1 million people from the Midwest to Northeast could be without power due to ice downing tree limbs and powerlines. Ice Storm Warning issued for Indianapolis. Roads will become impassable due to icing. Widespread, long-duration power outages are likely. Wind chills as low as -36 at Boise City, OK. [T]his is the lowest wind chill recorded by the Oklahoma mesonet! First ever "hard freeze" warning issued by the DFW [Dallas] National Weather Service.

Finnish health officials say they have found an increased risk of narcolepsy among four to 19-year-olds who were given vaccines against swine flu. The National Narcolepsy Task Force says a preliminary study indicates that children vaccinated with Pandemrix "contributed to the observed increase in incidence of narcolepsy" compared to those who were not vaccinated in the same age group. The study published by Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare today said that "the most likely explanation is that the increase in narcolepsy is by joint effect of the vaccine and some other factor".

BAGHDAD — Security forces linked to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are operating a "secret detention site" and elite teams are torturing detainees at a separate facility, Human Rights Watch charged on Tuesday. The New York-based watchdog's claims come a week after the Los Angeles Times reported some detainees at a prison in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone had been abused and held without charge for up to two years, charges Baghdad denies. HRW said that in late November, Iraqi authorities moved nearly 300 detainees to a secret site within a military base known as Camp Justice in the Kadhimiyah neighborhood of north Baghdad, citing interviews it had conducted and classified government documents it obtained.

"The hurried transfers took place just days before an international inspection team was to examine conditions at the detainees' previous location at Camp Honor in the Green Zone," [HRW said in a statement.] "The Iraqi government should immediately close the facilities or regularize their position and make them open for inspections and visits," [it added].

[Google Translate:] Almost a week has passed since the project launched and dozens of businesses have been asking to receive a certificate attesting that they do not hire Arabs. Netanya pizzeria owner: I'm not a racist, I like more Jews. Fifty businesses in Jerusalem have been approached to organize "" Lehava "- preventing assimilation in the Holy Land, to get a certificate that they do not hire Arabs, he said Benzi Agopstein, coordinator of the organization's activities, Walla! News. He said that the documents are printed these days organization will begin distribution this week. the applicants were restaurants, falafel stands, pizzerias, containers and more. The organization intends to test all of the applicants to make sure that they really do not hire Arabs.

Human Rights Watch confirmed several cases of undercover police loyal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime committing acts of violence and looting in an attempt to stoke fear of instability as demonstrations grew stronger Tuesday against the autocratic leader.

Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director at Human Rights Watch, said hospitals confirmed that they received several wounded looters shot by the army carrying police identification cards. They also found several cases of looters and vandals in Cairo and Alexandria with police identification cards. He added that it was "unexplainable" that thousands of prisoners escaped from prisons over the weekend.

More than a million protesters flooded into central Cairo on Tuesday, turning the Egyptian capital's Tahrir, or Liberation, Square into a sea of humanity as massive protests against Hosni Mubarak swept across Middle East's most populous nation. Packed shoulder to shoulder in and around the famed square, the mass of people held aloft posters denouncing the Egyptian president, and chanted slogans "Go Mubarak Go" and "Leave! Leave! Leave!"

Similar demonstrations calling on Mubarak to step down were also witnessed across other cities, including Sinai, Alexandria, Suez, Mansoura, Damnhour, Arish, Tanta and El-Mahalla el-Kubra. Tens of thousands marched in Alexandria while the number of those protesting in Sinai was estimated to be around 250,000. Tuesday's protests were by far the biggest since street demonstrations broke out against Mubarak's rule last week.

Al Jazeera/You Tube: Two million people have showed up in Cairo and hundreds of thousands of protesters are marching in other cities -Video

Interview with anti-government protester at Tahir Square for documentary Zero Silence. www.zerosilence.org