February 4th, 2011

Local
Egypt, Let My People Go!

Over the past week, people all over the globe have been watching closely as the situation in Egypt becomes progressively worse and none more closely than the people of Malaysia. Over 11,000 Malaysian citizens, most of whom are students studying medicine in Egypt, were, for lack of better word, trapped in Egypt and had no way of contacting their friends and family back here (no) thanks to the ban on the Internet and the limitations on foreign contact.

Thankfully, the Malaysian government has acted upon this massive problem, and has so far evacuated more than 6,800 Malaysians from Egypt to Jeddah. The operation, codenamed "Operation Pyramid", has so far been a success despite the extended curfew and other glitches. The Royal Malaysian Air Force, AirAsia and MAS have been deploying planes since the beginning of the week for the evacuation exercise.

According to Najib, the first group of Malaysians should be arriving in Kuala Lumpur from Jeddah on Monday. When asked about the total cost of evacuation, Najib reassures the parents of the formerly-stranded students that the government would be completely responsible for it.

For some reason, Najib has released a statement calling for an end to the violence and bloodshed in Egypt and stresses on the importance of democracy. How he expects this to have any impact on the impending doom that is Egypt is beyond me, but we are thankful for his relatively-swift action in evacuating our people from the crisis-stricken country.

International
Egypt.. 'Nuff said.

The whole week has been filled with news about Egypt and demonstrations and Egypt and protesters and Egypt and arson and Egypt and.. Well, you get the picture. President Hosni Mubarak seems to be adamant in refusing to budge from his position of power, and the people of Egypt are getting tired of him, more tired than they already were. In the middle of the week, we saw violent acts carried out by pro-Mubarak protesters (notice how all the pro-Mubarak protesters are men of a certain age.. Not a single woman or child in sight. Coincidence? I think not! Hired, most probably), including footage of a van plowing into a group of people who were crossing the street and even reports of Molotov cocktails being thrown into crowds of protesters in attempt to disperse the campaign.

Most recently was the demonstration held in Tahrir Square, Cairo, where a fight broke out between the anti- and the pro-Mubarak protesters, resulting the the death of five people and wounding several hundred demonstrators.