joy there is a very little line between freedom and chaos. >> mubarak took office in '81. and since then has been re-elected four times and expected to seek a sixth term. he's 82 years old and some reports his health is deteriorating. many analysts say his son is the heir apparent.

president obama called him and said to honor his pledge to establish a better democracy. he said the people must uphold universal rights. >> suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. what's needed are concrete rights that expand the rights of egyptian people. a political path that toledo a f -- leads to a greater rights and freedom for the egyptian people. >> they have close links to the egyptian military. they look at the streets across egypt and how they are stirring

concern in military circles. >> armored vehicles through streets. top military officials were huddled in, of all places, the pentagon. >> it would be hard to ignore the fact this was going on, and it wasn't ignored. >> the high ranking officers cut short meetings with pentagon officials to rush back to egypt, but not before they urged them to handle protesters peacefully. >> it's key to exercise restraint, both on our part and the part of the egyptian military. >> the u.s. has leverage with its ally. every other year, up to 10,000 american troops train with rejipgs soldier egyptian soldiers, the largest in the region. they give $1 billion.

it is outfitted with m-1 tanks and surveillance equipment. the last thing they want is it in the hands of a country hostile to the united states. >> but it is said it's not because the weapons are so sophisticated or will harm the u.s., but because it's symbolic. >> it will be another major american ally armed to the teeth suddenly overthrown by a population he repressed for so long and the united states ignored. >> it seems unlikely now. protesters who fought cheered the egyptian army. the brotherhood is not controlling those protests, but iran's islamic resolution started as a revolt. >> revolutions are unpredictable

events. and the people who gwyiven them aren't always the ones who end them. >> there are troops in egyptian and a plan to evacuate the embassy. military officials say it is not at that level yet. >> we are getting great footage from our i-reporters in egypt. we are not identifying them for their obvious safety. a poster was apparently trying to be torn down. these are great photos take fren a hotel room. if you are in egypt and able to send e-mail, the address is cnn.com. but do not put yourself in danger.

i-report.cnn.com. you can send in your images. but don't take any risks taking those pictures. that's ireport.cnn.com. this graph shows traffic across a large number of service providers thursday. it was heavy until about 5:30 p.m. then plummets. internet monitoring websites say someone pulled the plug. facebook and twitter have been organizing a leader list movement. despite government attempts to block, it is reported young people across egypt have made the most of the digital age. >> pictures that speak 1,000 words. the unrest in egypt targets the

30-year tenure of mubarak, tenured by a group that has come of age. >> you have an entire generation that was born under the mubarak rule and they want them out. >> while the percentage of egyptians engaging is small compared to the united states, like young american, young egyptians making the most use of it. before they took to the streets they took to twitter and facebook, to organize, mobilize, share their anger with each other and the world. but at points during the height of the unrest, those tools went dark with the reports of the egyptian government cracking down on twitter and face book and cutting off internet access. >> we believe that the people of egypt have a right to freedom of

ex-prep presidenti expression and freedom of speech and that includes the internet. >>. >> the demonstrations you are seeing now in this example of online activism going back into the real world. >> cnn, washington. >> stay tuned for the latest developments. marketplace middle east begins right now. >> islamic raw jeegime taking pn

egypt. how concerned should the united states be about that, even though the muslim brotherhood hasn't been at the fore front to this although we are hearing in the last 24 hours they are getting involved in the demonstration. >> this is a group that in a free and fair election in egypt which hasn't happened for a long time, would probably get about one-third of the vote. this is also a group that isn't a bunch of raving lunatic. the muslim brotherhood is made up of professional men who are, and women, who are, they are certainly fundamentalists about their beliefs in islam. but the group itself, a long time ago rejected violence. it came when it was first born.

it was against the british and had a terrorist wing which has receded into history. this is a group that will play some role in egypt in the future and they could well play a quite constructive role. >> why did this happen now? is it the possibilities that opened up after tunesia? >> i think it shamed them. they have the idea they are the center of the world. so many things began in egypt. the egyptians have always believed in the centrality of egypt to the muslim world. they look at this country on the consciousness, tunesia.

i love the thfact that both menn their 70s and 80s with jet black hair. something wrong with a ruler wondering if he should die their hair. as they have looked at what happened in tunesia, the spark in all resolutions. maybe had the man not set himself on fire, tunesia would not have happened. they were em boldened by what happened in tunesia. the material was there. what you really needed was the spark. >> we will have more with everyone. stay with us. we are covering the story all throughout the hour. the live chat is up you and running. up next, the implication of

washington's key arab nation in turmoil. we are hearing what president obama said publicly and privately and other things being said around the world. >> and gays and lesbians in the military seems to be on the fast track. we will have more on what was said. [ male announcer ] one look can turn the everyday into romantic.

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the police continue to fire massive amounts of tear gas. it's like kir row cairo. every part of town has seen violence. >> the uprising crackdown is being beamed around the world. the u.s. is in a tough position while having backed mubarak. >> the people of egypt have rights that are universal. that includes the right to peaceful assembly and

association, the right to free speech and the ability to determine their own destiny. these are human rights and the united states will stand up for them everywhere. >> that's president obama. john king is with us. over the last 24 hours there has been an evolution in the administration's handling of the situation. were they caught off-guard? >> they were caught off-guard. the vice president said he would consider hosni mubarek a dictator. >> how could he have said that? >> there are elections in egypt. they are a sham. they don't like to use the word dictator. they have criticized him in the past. they have been tough with him. he hasn't listened to them and

hasn't listened to the bush administration either. they were told in frequent conversations with the ambassador in egypt. look, president mubarak is going to tell you this is isolated. it is not. they are going to tell you it is radical islamists. it is not. it's everywhere. >> this is what they are saying to the white house? >> they are saying if they are telling you this is not a big deal, it is not, it is a big deal. would they like president mubarak to extend this in smooth transition. no. but most people think we have r50e6 reached the tipping point. >> president mubarak was grooming his son to take over.

president obama and mubarak spoke today. >> there is always something say when do you play the president card. after mubarak's speech, the administration you must speak out and open a conversation with the demonstrators. he said he would not, he would fire the government. the president said nothing about his willingness to talk to them. we are told the president of the united states called him and was exasperated. some are saying president obama's remarks were not tough enough. he said i need to see concrete steps. he said if they don't see those in the next 24 hours, they have a huge question whether mubarak can survive. >> how is president mubarak's statement received in the white house? >> they were highly disappointed

with it, because they wanted tangible proof he was willing to begin a dialogue and they see no evidence of that. they see a president in egypt who thinks he can put this giene back into the bottle. they made clear if they don't see more outreach, more democratic reform with the protesters immediately, they will consider sanctions. it is the usa that keeps the military up and running and that is key to the demonstrators. how will the army react. will they stay true to president mubarak. so the threat of cutting off aid has to send a signal to the egyptian government. >> thanks. i want to bring back the panel. robin, what do you make of the

white house, how they have handled this thus far. they have support this had guy 30 years, given him billions of dollars, how do you think they are handling it? >> i think we have seen a turning point, not only in the turnout in cairo and suez, but the white house. this is the toughest language. president obama put the regime on notice, that they could not ignore the grievance of people, that it had to reopen expression, deal with opposition parties and could not use violence. this was the main tool and has been for decades predating president mubarak. this was an important juncture in u.s. foreign policy as well. this will have rim p rippling

repercussions. this will send a strong message to the arab world. this is not just the end of the mubarak dynasty, but herald a lot where other governments jordan, others, will have to respond to their people. >> you were seeing demonstrations in yemen. >> they are an alogous to yemen people running out of water, two wars going on. >> these are pictures from yemen showing demonstrations. >> the difference twebetween ye and egypt, yemen, there are

parties in yemen which the president has allowed to grow up. by arab standards it is somewhat more democratic than other regimes. admittedly a rather low bar. >> you also have a heavy al qaeda presence, al qaeda presence going on in several areas of the country. >> there are secessionist movements in the south part of the country, a miniwar in the north. al qaeda has inserted itself into a number of tribes. the tribes settle their disputes not with small weapons, but large weaponry. this is the poorest country in arabia. lof

lots of things could go wrong, but the good thing is those demonstrations have been peaceful. >> you hear president obama suggesting to mubarak to change things. administrations have been telling him that for 30 years. why have they not done it? is it because they are so mired in -- >> he knows how to run it. he has done it throughout five presidencies. this dictatorship, we should remember this is the second time that the obama administration has been caught in a hurricane and couldn't put itself on the right side of thing. don't forget what happened in 2009. in egypt, in 2009 obama came in.

it was paradox cal. the message was about change. but it was about bush's freedom was annulled. >> he stopped him coming to the white house. >> bush circled saudi arabia and egypt and gave up at the end. the final two years saw reconciliation. >> why not make an effort to meet the needs of your people. why not, if there is an earthquake, have services to feed them as opposed to the muslim brotherhood. >> this is a soldier, man of barracks. i once described him as a cop on the banks of the nile. he knows that life is about order and he fears the mob and

mess, fierce tears the lawyers rights. he took away the rights. >> you are saying he has been using -- >> that's the boogie man. using the autocrats on the one side. we can't order life outside egypt. bush couldn't. it's between them to order in this dance between the autocrats and the bureaucrats. >> for those concerned about islamic fundamentalists taking ov over, how big a chance is that? >> we see a movement emerging with a body, but no head. it is not ideological. it has no affiliation with the

ideologies, whether naserrism or fundamentalists of today. it is new, doesn't have a lead tower guide it. i think the politicians out there may be transition figures, but i'm not sure they will be the ones defining egypt in the future. >> robin, were you surprised by this? >> i have been writing about this for a long time. this is the last block of countries in the world that has held out against the democratic forces of the last 30 years. i think it was destined to go there. it was a matter of what spark. the confluence of elements, be it the education of the majority of the people, technology to circumvent state control, be it al jazeera or the twitter and face book technology, the demographics being a young population. so all of these things came

together with the right spark, the right mood and international community. this is the 21st century. >> they can't stop here. this isn't why this revolt erupted, so they can arrive at the moment where mubarak says i heard your demand, i'm willing to reform and give you a new lackey government. >> thanks to you all. how did this chaos in egypt begin. it's hard to believe it has deteriorated or ex-mroetploded h as it has in a few days. [ male announcer ] how can rice production in india, affect wheat output in the u.s., the shipping industry in norway, and the rubber industry, in south america?

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it has been amazing. the roller coaster volatility of what's going on. extreme anger to extreme happiness. flipping on a dime. that's what we are seeing this evening. >> some of the remarkable reporting from nick robertson. this has been building since tuesday. face book and twitter has been a key place for protest until the government pulled the plug. this is what the traffic looked like. you can see the volume dropping

off to a trickle at 5:30 p.m. eastern time yesterday. president obama criticized president mubarak for restricting internet access. >> with cell phones working now? can people tweet? what is the situation with social media? >> completely blacked out. no internet whatsoever. cell phones still don't work. it appears that this policy of utter blackout continues. >> nick robertson for you, is that the same situation? i heard you may have access to the ipt nnternet in alexandria. we are having a problem with nick nic's audio. >> reporter: the only thing work something my blackberry. i can send e-mails with my blackberry, but can't send text

messages and use it to make calls, which is bizarre. i am tweeting off my account. that's the way we are getting around it. >> in terms of the next couple hours, what are you expecting in the next three to four hours? >> reporter: once the curfew is lifteded, even though not a lot of people are respecting it, we are going to have to see whether people are going to go back into the streets and start protesting the fact that mubarak is still the president and doesn't seem to be expressing any willingness to step down. normally the demonstrations start afternoon at 3:00, 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon, so probably the next three or four hours will be relatively quiet, a quiet that will probably be greeted with some happiness by

cairo residents and myself. >> you ran into some trouble in the streets today. what happened? >> reporter: we were caught in a demonstration, demonstrators on one hand and a large group of police, plain clothes, and those are the ones you have to watch out for, and the uniformed police. they saw us hiding behind the concrete pillar and grabbed the camera of mary rogers. all three of us tried to wrestle with these guys, and these guys are rough individuals. in fact tommy edmonds was right in the face of one of them and he said the guy looked like he was on drugs, the eyes were all weird. one of those plain clothesmen cracked the view finder, and yanked it away and pulled it

off. we were going to go back to the o office, but i was so angry because we had incredible pictures. an ordinary family of four, mother, father, children who had sat down on the pavement, sort of an ad hoc sit-in chanting against the mubarak regime. the plains clothed policemen went after them with billyclubs, and when we lost those i was so angry i took my anger out on the commander of the police and had to be dragged away. >> you did this in arabic, in case some of our viewers don't know, you are fluent in arabic. you spent so much time in egypt over the years, why hasn't the mubarak government met the needs of its people?

i've heard stories if there is a disaster, it's often the muslim brotherhood giving out loaves of bread rather than the government. why have they consistently failed to fulfill the needs of the people? >> reporter: some from likened it to fpharonic times. the impression you get is the top elite, which must be a fraction of 1%, lives in another world, a world of wealth and luxury and comfort that ordinary people can only dream of and people at the top have no idea what the rest of society lives like. we understand that mubarak is surrounded by advisers who

oftentimes tells him everything is fine and good. it's said that president mubarak and his son don't even know that cairo has a traffic problem because when they drive through the city, the police have cleared the cars off, so they are living in another world. and the masses are on another universe for them. anderson? >> that is not the case over the last several days. they seem to have been brought back to this world. we will have more from nic robertson and ben, but first some of the other stories. >> in a memo today, defense secretary gates says a repeal will be implemented by the end of this year, if not sooner. gates says he wants the report on the desk friday with reports on how the military will be

trained for the change. john wheeler, official word is he died from blunt force trauma after being assaulted, although it is not known by whom. his body was found in a landfill on new year's eve. and nelson mandela was released today. the 92-year-old was treated for a respiratory infection. >> we wish him well. still ahead, some of the most dramatic moments in a pivotal day in egypt. [instrumental music]

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it really has been an ex-extraordinary day in egypt. it's rare that you can say you're watching history unfold. but that's what all of us have been watching. over the last 24 hours we have watched anger erupt into fury on the streets. it's unclear how many have been killed and hurt or arrested and in jails. the world is watching this revolt unfold on television and twitter. we wanted to show you some of them. we want to warn you, some of the images are disturbing. you will even see someone being shot. but this is what's happening in egypt.

it was build as a day of wrath, anger, directed at the government and the autocratic leader of egypt, hosni mubarek. demonstrators saying he and his regime need to go. in the streets of cairo, water cannons being used against demonstrations, tear gas enveloping many neighborhoods in cairo. there are also protests in alexandria, sue yez. >> one of the five star hotels down the streets -- sorry, this tear gas is getting to us -- they are confiscating the cameras of tourists. of course for a country that depends so much on tourism, for

this heavy-handed tactic to be used against the people who are a major source of income for this country is a worrying development, to say the least. a group of these plainclothes police men converged on us and grabbed the camera from mary rogers, our camerawoman, and cracked the viewfinder off. after quite a tussle with these guys, because some of them are pretty big, they took the camera away. the protesters here say they are worried that live rounds of ammunition, that shots may be fired at them. this gentleman here saying that there is tear gas being fired. they fired inside the mosque is

what this man is telling us here right now. >> you're about to see a disturbing image of that violence. a protester shot down in the middle of the street. now it appears that man was unarmed, except for the rock he picked up just before that bullet's impact. witnesses and the security source say he was killed. >> reporter: the police slowly pulled back because it just seems impossible to stop all the people from throwing the rockets. the police almost seeming as they're on the same side as the

crowd. >>. >> reporter: the army has come out into the streets. this is an armored personnel carrier full of army soldiers just up there. this is the first time we've seen that the army has become involved. the army has stayed out of any civil disturbances since 1985. >> a police vehicle behind me. they tried to drive into their ranks and pay parentally it got stopped and now they're trying to topple the police vehicle. this is an amazing scene. >> you can see people screaming "good is great." >>. >> this is an incredible scene. this is history in the making on live tell jigs. >> amazing editing job on that.

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time for this week's cnn hero. a man promoting peace between palestinians. five days a week. they take sick palestinians into israel so they can get medical care. take a look.

this is a big difference between here and one minute away. we transport sick palestinians from occupied territories to the israel hospitals. if they take a tax i, it will cost a lot of money. this caused me to do something, not for revenge, but to work for reconciliation and peace. right now we are about 200 volunteers and transport from palestinian site at least five

days a week. it's an exciting moment when you see improvement. it fills me with a lot of happiness. the price of the conflict is a lot more than the price of making peace. regardless of political or religious, we are all just human beings. >> you volunteer someone who is making a difference in your community and go to cnn.com. we will be right back. ♪ picking a free detergent is. switch to tide free & gentle in the white and blue bottle. no other free detergent is milder on skin and unlike the leading free detergent, it removes more residue from dirt, food, and stains. so nothing spoils this tights enthusiast's enthusiasm. ♪

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