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BBC MUNDO RADIO
Google Inc on Tuesday began a public search for an executive missing in Cairo, where the Internet company has offered tools to help Egyptians communicate amid chaotic protests.
Google, which launched a way for Twitter users to communicate without Internet access, said on Tuesday that Wael Ghonim, head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, has not been seen since late Thursday in central Cairo.
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"The safety of our employees is very important to Google, so if anyone has any information please call the following UK number: +44 20 7031 3008," Google said in a statement.
At least 140 people have died since demonstrations against the 30-year rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak began last Tuesday, most in clashes between protesters and police.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters Ghonim is based in Dubai and was in Cairo for "personal reasons."
Twitter messages last week from an account with the user name Wael Ghonim criticized the Egyptian government and showed solidarity with protesters rallying against Mubarak.
"Sleeping on the streets of Cairo, trying to feel the pain of millions of my fellow Egyptians," read a January 25 tweet.
"The Egyptian government started to take really stupid actions that will result in nothing but encouraging more people to protest," read another on January 26.
Google said it could not confirm the Twitter account belonged to Ghonim. The last tweet from the account was on January 27.
The Egyptian government has cut off Internet access in an attempt to restrict communications among protesters.
To work around the Internet communications restrictions, Google launched a special service for Egypt to allow people to dial a telephone number and leave a voice mail which would then be sent on Twitter and could be heard on telephones.
"Like many people we've been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground," read a post on Google's official corporate blog on Monday announcing the so-called speak-to-tweet service.
Google has temporarily closed its office in Cairo to ensure the general safety of its employees, the person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
President Hosni Mubarak said in a speech on Tuesday he will not seek reelection in September, but it was far from clear that would satisfy the hundreds of thousands of protesters who had gathered across Egypt to call on him step down now.
On Monday, the Egyptian army said it would not take action against demonstrators.
Malaysia to evacuate 11,000 students from Egypt
Malaysia Sun
Wednesday 2nd February, 2011
(Source: asia.news.yahoo.com)
Prime Minister Najib Razak says a cargo ship currently used by the navy to protect Malaysian vessels from Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden will arrive at a port south of Cairo this weekend to take about 500 students.
Najib said the other students will be flown out on planes belonging to the Southeast Asian country's air force, Malaysia Airlines and AirAsia.
He said in a statement issued through the Bernama national news agency Tuesday that some of the students will be taken to Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries.
Google Voice2Tweet Beats Egypt Internet Blackout
A million people crowd Freedom Square in Cairo demanding a new government. Mubarek cut off the internet, but Google invented a workaround.
Google has responded to Hosni Mubarek’s cutting off all Egyptian internet, Facebook, Twitter and mobile services by inventing a way for Tweets to be sent by leaving a voice message at special phone numbers.
“Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground,” Google product manager Abdel-Karim Mardini and SayNow co-founder Ujjwal Singh said in a blog post.
“Over the weekend [January 29-30] we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service — the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection,” they said.
On January 25 Google acquired startup SayNow, which is a system of social online voice platforms already used by 15 million people. They married the voice platforms with Twitter, and cobbled it all into a Voice2Tweet work-around of the online blackout.
SmallworldNews has organised teams of English/Arabic translators from around the globe to help make it easier for the speak2tweet users. Go to Egypt.alive.in if you want to read Tweet texts or volunteer to translate.
“We were so impressed and excited with the technology and the number of calls coming in that we wanted to help bring the voice of the Egyptians to even more people,” they said.
The speak2tweet system only requires making a regular phone call, which you can still do in Egypt. The user dials one of three special numbers, and then leaves the Tweet as a voice mail message. The software converts it into text, appends a special “hashtag” of #egypt, and sends it out.
The hashtag allows people to search for particular topics.
The phone numbers for the voice mail are +16504194196; +390662207294 or +97316199855.
The message can be heard at the same numbers or at the twitter.com/speak2tweet website.
“We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time,” said Singh and Mardini. “Our thoughts are with everyone there.”
More Al Jazeera Egypt coverage on satellite TV
While some of my colleagues have been ranting about not being able to see Al Jazeera in the U.S., I have been writing the last couple of days about where viewers can see it: Channel 375 on DirecTV. Read that here.
In fact, Al Jazeera has been there since 2008, which is one of the reasons I got DirecTV in the first place: To see LinkTV and the program "Mosaic" that nightly brings viewers newscasts from around the world -- newscasts Americans otherwise wouldn't see. I have it found LinkTV invaluable in helping me see what what was happening globally in TV news.
Tonight, comes this word that DirecTV is now offering up to 12 hours a day of Al Jazeera during the Egyptian tumult. I hope some of my colleagues who are ranting about Al Jazeera not being shown in the U.S. will take a second to check it out. Here's a link to video of me talking about the visual differences between Al Jazeera and most U.S. TV coverage of Egypt.
Sun video: Z on TV analyzes coverage out of Egypt
Here's a Baltimore Sun video of me talking about network and cable coverage of the tumult in Egypt. Producer Leeann Adams provides some excellent images to illustrate the difference between Al Jazeera video and most of what you see on American TV.
Please take a look, and let me know what you think.
In response to the political uprising currently sweeping Egypt and the Middle East, Link TV, acclaimed for award-winning coverage of current events in the region, announced today that it is broadcasting critical reports from Al Jazeera English for up to 12 hours each day, and is producing special editions of its Peabody Award-winning original news report Mosaic: World News from the Middle East.
Al Jazeera English has been harshly criticized by the Egyptian government for its coverage of the protests, and CNN reported this week that Egyptian authorities banned Al Jazeera’s journalists from the country, closing their offices, and revoking their credentials. Reuters has also reported that at least five Al Jazeera English journalists were arrested and detained in Egypt after the network was told to shut down operations in the country. Link TV, currently the largest national U.S. broadcaster airing Al Jazeera English, is available on DIRECTV channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410 and many local cable outlets.
Abdallah Edwan, Producer of Mosaic, states, “Al Jazeera and other middle eastern broadcasters are following the whole region, including the reaction of Israelis and Palestinians to the tumult in Egypt. Despite being banned, having their credentials revoked and even being arrested, Al Jazeera journalists have embedded themselves with protestors and continue to provide round-the-clock coverage, from undisclosed locations, from the front lines of the protests where they are closest to areas where Egyptian armed forces are interacting with the people.”
The most recent episode of Mosaic, fully streamable here www.linktv.org/mosaic, features a report from Iran’s state-run Al-Alam TV called “Yesterday Iran, Today Egypt,” comparing the overthrows, one completed and one underway, of seated authoritarian governments. Yesterday, Mosaic featured a segment from Israel’s IBA TV with an interview with Israeli journalist Yoni Ben Menachem, airing Israeli fears of the U.S. administration’s abandonment of the Mubarak regime, and suggesting that Syria may also be susceptible to popular uprising. Mosaic features selections from daily television news programs produced by more than 30 national broadcasters throughout the Middle East. The news reports are presented unedited and, when necessary, translated into English by Mosaic’s Arabic-speaking staffers.
In 2008, Link TV was the first national channel to regularly air an Al Jazeera English program with the premiere of the acclaimed documentary series Witness. Link TV went on to broadcast the nightly World News from Al Jazeera English in June of 2009, marking yet again its commitment to giving American viewers first-hand access to original programming from around the world, allowing them to form their own opinions about global issues.
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