Originally by Socrates:

Alaa Abd El-Fatah was arrested today together with around ten more activists during a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with sixty activists who were arrested over the past two weeks in a non-violent sit in as well who were held in custody for two weeks under investigation for "crimes" that if anything would raise only mockery including: humiliating the president, possession of "publishing equipment"(graffiti spray) and blocking traffic. The first group of …

Just after I blogged about the common egyptian bulbul. I found a couple infront of the window and managed to take photos of them. The photos are a little bit shaky (because of the dim light) but they are ok. Notice the one staring at me. Actually it is a mirrored glass so it is probably staring at its own reflections. Now I need a better camera.

I never thought that there is such a large variety of birds living in Cairo. Check this photo collection by namq on flickr. Or you could check his blog Notice the tags, they have the scientific name of each bird along side the English name. Never knew that a Bulbul is called so in both English and Arabic. Not only that but there is a large family of Bulbuls living in Africa and Asia.

UPDATE …

She was one of the top ten students in the whole country in secondary education. She asked the minister for a night job to help support her family of two parents and 7 brothers and sisters.

One day, she stopped sleeping. She became more fun and daring. Other nights she sat alone in the dark and sobbed for no reason thinking life was not worth it. One day she went to her balcony and flashed …

More photos and a story later.

Dear Blog,

Sometimes I stare in front of your 'Submit story' page for hours. I write something very personal in it. A story that will expose my weaknesses and imperfections. A feeling that is naive or childish. Or just plain foolishness I have done. It is important to me to confess and to let it all out. But I never click submit. I delete it and do something else. I think we are not good …

Alaa sent a number of SMSs from the sit in. Since he couldn't set up his blog to do the same due to Vodaphone putting restrictions on international SMS. These SMS appeared as published posts on the front page of this blog.

I removed the posts from the front page, but they are still accessible.

Some messages got truncated.

Sit in over we marched to syndicates security harased us tried to grab my camera setling in lawyers syndicate

wraping up took down the huge flag and the green thingy that is supposed to represent judges sash security cars gathering one broke we helped push it