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American Morning
Cairo in Complete Lockdown; Day of Anger in Cairo; A Look at Ford's Comeback; Missing Nerve Gas Shuts Base; Egypt's "Day of Anger
Aired January 28, 2011 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And hello to you all on this Friday, January 28, 2011. Welcome to this AMERICAN MORNING. I'm T.J. Homes.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kate Bolduan. Kiran chetry is off this morning. A big story that we're following, everybody.
First breaking news, Egypt, a nation on the brink. Today may be the biggest day of anti-government protest that we've seen yet, and it is happening right now. Thousands of people are already pouring into the streets of some cities. Most internet service and cell phones are out, and it has already turned deadly. At least six people have been killed, so far, this week.
I want to show you some video, and really quick warning. This is disturbing. So, I want to give you the heads up. It shows a man being shot. He's on the left of your screen. You could see him he's picking up a rock and walking several steps, and then, he's shot by security services.
HOLMES: All right, we do, however, want to start now with this story that we're covering from all over. Our Mohammed Jamjoom is at the international desk of our world headquarters in Atlanta. Our Ed Henry is live for us at the White House. Our Frederik Pleitgen, however, is live for us in Cairo. Frederik, good morning to you once again. This was supposed to be the day of anger today. What are we seeing so far?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, T.J., we're already seeing some of these demonstrations have already started. I can show you, you can see these from our office from a live position. If you look over back down this way on that bridge there are some people who are amassing. They have Egyptian flags.
If you look to the front you see security forces also amassing here right on our street, one van there with riot police. They also have tear gas with them, which apparently they have been using. And also I want to share with you just a couple of minutes ago, our own Ben Wedeman who has been out on streets and just came back, you were trying to cover these protests and were roughed up a little bit.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We were more than roughed up, Fred. We were right in the middle of a clash between protesters and policemen. Policemen are the uniformed policemen and these plain-clothes policemen, in Arabic they call them "thugs," and what happened is we were between the protesters and police underneath an overpass.
And we hid behind the column and were shooting the events from there when a group of these plain-clothes policemen converged upon us and tried to basically grab the cam from a Mary Rogers our camerawoman and cracked the view finder off. And after a tussle with these guys because some of them are pretty big, they took the camera way.
And I argued with them endlessly on the officers on the scene to give us back the camera to show Egypt does have freedom of press as they so often like to say, but they would have none of it.
Our experience is not unique. I just spoke with somebody from German television and they had their camera smashed this morning. So it seems like the crackdown isn't just on the protesters it's on the media as well.
PLEITGEN: So you've been seeing also that these clashes have already started. Was there already tussling going on in the streets where you were?
WEDEMAN: Where we originally were, there's prayers as usual on Friday, noon prayers, but there were fewer people were out than usual. When the prayers got out we started hearing from down the street chanting. We went to cover that.
And there were some rock throwing. They shot tear gas and whatnot. Then we went to another location which is where we had the camera taken. So it does appear that from various directions people, protesters, are trying to get to Tahrir Square. But the police -- we know the ministry of the interior said no tolerance for demonstrations today. We're seeing it in reality.
PLEITGEN: You've been here for such a long time. Is this more heavy handed than you've seen in the past? Is this something you think is unique?
WEDEMAN: It's not unique. The Egyptian police, particularly these plain clothed policemen, are brutal. In 2005 we covered a demonstration where I saw a woman dragged by her hair and then sexually molested by these people. Most Egyptians don't call them police, they call them "thugs."
PLEITGEN: You're under the impression they don't only have the orders to stop these protests at all costs, they also have the orders to stop this from getting out to international audiences, because otherwise they wouldn't attack you?
WEDEMAN: They have clearly been given the green light from somebody in the Egyptian government to make coverage as difficult as possible. In addition to the violence that they are so liberally using, there's no cell phone service, there's no Internet, you can't send an SMS. It's a total crackdown.
PLEITGEN: Thanks, Ben. For the moment, T.J., as you can see, things already kicking off in the Egyptian capital. It's still quite early so we do expect there will be more to come as the day goes on and as more and more protesters try to get to that venue.
HOLMES: Frederik, great stuff there with Ben. I have to ask you, though, how much more difficult is about it to become for us here at CNN and other journalists around the world to tell this story? Because we had understood they are is hurting down internet service, shutting down be text message capabilities because they are trying to limit people's ability to organize there and communicate. What you are saying and what Ben is reporting seems to be another new and concerted effort to not get this story out of the country now.
PLEITGEN: Absolutely that seems to be the case. From Ben's experience, his camera getting taken way, and we're also monitoring social media here in Egypt and heard from other camera crews they had similar experiences, that they had their tapes taken away, that they've had their camera equipment taken away or broken, things of that nature.
Of course we're also hearing more about how they are trying to censor the Internet, how Internet services have been shut down. There's one small Internet provider that's used for Egyptian banking services that's still up and protesters on Twitter are trying to urge people who have account with that little service provider to open those accounts so other people can access it.
So it appears as though people have seen this coming this crackdown on communications, and are trying to get around it, because, after all, this is how this whole protest has been organized through these social media, through Facebook, through Twitter. So it clearly seems that that is what the Egyptian government is tar gets and trying to crack down on.
HOLMES: Frederik Pleitgen, we appreciate you and our Ben Wedeman as well after what he's clearly gone through out there, like he was saying, being roughed up now by police. You guys be safe. Certainly stand by for us Frederik. We're going to continue to check in with you as often as we can.
BOLDUAN: You heard them laying it out so clearly about just how much of a communication crackdown is going on there. Internet access cut off. Cell phone service disabled. It's all part of an Egypt that is clearly erupting this morning, leaving social media even that as the key to communication.
Right now Mohammed Jamjoom is monitoring that part of the story for us this morning. He's joining me live from the CNN international desk in Atlanta. Mohammed what are your seeing by way of social media right now?
MOHAMMED JAMJOOM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kate, the story right now is there really is so little getting out from social media in Egypt whereas in the past few days social media had been used as an integral part of getting people out in the streets. As of last night it was virtually completely shut down. You heard Ben Wedeman and Fred Pleitgen talk about this, about the fact there's a complete crackdown going on and it underscores the situation and how the Egyptian authorities are trying to get people to stop using social media to get the word out.
Let me show you what we've seen. Here's a Facebook page from one of the main groups that's been calling on supporters of this movement to get out in the streets and to be protesting today. As of yesterday thousands of people were accepting the invitation to go and protest by the hour. As of last night 85,733 people said they were attending. We have no way of knowing if all these people are in Egypt. Nonetheless, people were joining up.
But the last post on this Web site which is coming from Egypt was Wednesday. Let me take to you a twitter page by a twitter user in Cairo. This person said "All Internet is being cut in here. This may be the last tweet." That was about 15 hours ago. Nothing more from him since then. A lot of the other Twitter users in Cairo the same kind of thing.
Let me take you to twitter trend out of Cairo, Egypt. These are topics trending out of Cairo. We see there are words like "Cairo," we see "Mubarak," we see "dictator." And a lot of people who have been able to use social media or Twitter in the last several hours only through alternate ways.
One way is through android phones. There's an app that can be downloaded. A lot of people have been relaying this information, sites in Arabic explaining how to get an app on an android phone so they can tweet.
So there is a really movement out there for people to get around the system, to get around the block, but right now it's very difficult for people in Egypt to do so.
BOLDUAN: What makes this so amazing when you talk about a total communication crackdown is that this is a country relatively speaking known to have open media, a relatively free press. We've also seen social media, Mohammed, in protests recently, national protests in other countries being key, but also these crackdowns coming very quickly as well. Do you see this being similar to other protests you've covered in recent times?
JAMJOOM: We've seen similar things going on in Tunisia, we're seeing it now in Egypt and in Yemen. Social media wasn't utilized in Tunisia and the uprising that happened there as it was in Egypt. And social media isn't as much of a factor to get people to demonstrate against the regime in Yemen.
Nonetheless, it is being used and it's being used in countries like Saudi Arabia where it wasn't being used before. People in the Middle East are really spreading the word about these uprisings through social media in a way it has not been done before.
BOLDUAN: Mohammed, thanks so much.
HOLMES: We now want to turn to some brand new video we're getting out of Cairo. This is coming to us from Reuters. I'm seeing it for the first time just like you, so we'll look at it here together. But you're starting to see people gather in the streets. We were talking about this earlier.
We just lost that signal. We'll try to get that back up for you. But here's some more tape.
But this is this day of prayers, prayers get out, Friday prayers around, they go around noon time. People were expecting to go out into the streets after the Friday prayers. This is older video here now. This is an example of what we've been seeing for the past several days.
What is this all about? These people many of them middle class, many young, many educated are hitting the streets and demanding something more in their lives, better economic situation, demanding no police brutality, demanding no corruption in their government, many things that they say have plagued their country for years and they want more.
This is a key ally of the U.S. in the Arab world, and it is right now on the brink many will tell you.
Can we switch back to the new video, guys, that we're seeing? This is the new video. Riot police are out right now. Riot police are out and people are hitting the streets. We'll continue to keep a close eye as we get the brand new video and show you what's an evolving situation there in Cairo and around Egypt.
We're hearing from President Obama for the first time. We hadn't heard from him for a couple of days since these protests started. He's pressing Egypt and the President Hosni Mubarak to listen to the people and possibly make some critical reforms. Obama is still saying that there needs to be peaceful solution here. Take a listen.
We don't have that sound bite for you. I do want to go to the White House here at least now. Forgive me, Ed, we thought we had the president keyed up. We'll get that out a little later.
Ed, you'll remember this. Cairo, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was there, and she made a speech talking about sometimes we sacrifice democracy in the name of stability and we don't end up getting either one of them. It seems like we are right back in that same kind of spot here.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And what's interesting as well is I remember going to Cairo with President Obama in 2009. That was the location he chose to give his dramatic speech to the Muslim world, trying to reset relations, and he didn't pick Cairo on accident, because President Hosni Mubarak is and has been a key ally and someone that has helped the U.S., for example, deal with, you know, rallying support for our efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
So critical as well in trying to get Mideast peace that President Obama made sure that President Mubarak flew here to Washington just a few months ago in September to try and bring the Palestinians and Israelis together. And for that reason it's been a delicate balance what former Secretary Rice was talking about in terms of trying to push Egypt along towards more democracy while also keeping stability there. And so it's always been a tricky balance.
But what we're seeing is that during the president's speech in Cairo in 2009 he was gentle towards President Mubarak in terms of pushing for democracy. Now we seem to see administration officials as this plays out being a little bit tougher, take a listen to Vice President Biden last night on PBS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Violence isn't appropriate. And people have a right to protest. And so we think that, I hope Mubarak, President Mubarak is going to respond to some legitimate concerns being raised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: What he and other officials say respond and make sure there's no violence against the protesters. And to be clear U.S. officials are saying protesters have to protest peacefully and they can't be using violence as well.
But interesting as well vice president and other top officials saying look President Mubarak has to respond to all of this with some reforms, economic, political reforms, the kind of reforms that have not happened during his 30 year reign. That's a shift from the U.S. being a little bit tougher. We have to watch this very closely.
HOLMES: That was important for you to say flight, a 30 year reign. Some might point to this as being a little more democratic. He was the only presidential candidate put up in all those elections and people going out voting yes no.
In the last election there were other candidates who were allowed to be a part. That was a first. Now is President Obama -- you talk about this delicate dance. Do they come out and say they fully support President Mubarak?
HENRY: And that's a very important question. They are not directly saying we fully support President Mubarak. Robert Gibbs a couple of days ago was asked by reporters on Air Force One twice, do you still back President Mubarak, and he kept saying Egypt is a key ally and using that just in general.
And I think it clearly shows this administration is watching what's playing out very carefully and not jumping right behind President Mubarak necessarily. They are being very cautious there.
That's a shift from what we saw in the first two years of the administration when there was other protests like this in Iran, for example, where the U.S. didn't really get behind the protesters and face ad lot of criticism, the president did, for not looking like they were not pushing the protests along. Here now they are squarely getting behind the protesters and saying look they have to able to peacefully protest, sending that message to the Egyptian government. It's very, very interesting, T.J.
HOLMES: Yes, very delicate dance for there the White House.
Ed, we appreciate you. We'll check in again.
HENRY: Good seeing you.
BOLDUAN: We'll continue to monitor that situation in Egypt throughout the hour. You want to stay with us because it's developing as we speak. But we're also still monitoring other stories this morning, one you probably don't want to miss.
A suitcase full of cocaine and porn stars reportedly another day and a half in the life of actor Charlie Sheen. Now, he's in the hospital but his reps are saying that's not why. Alina Cho will have all of that. Some interesting details coming up you don't want to miss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Seventeen minutes past the hour. We continue to follow this breaking situation happening in Egypt. Supposed to be called a day of anger. People hitting the streets demanding better from their government and some even demanding that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt go.
We have correspondents all over the country including in Cairo, as well as Alexandria, Egypt. And that is where our Nic Robertson is.
Nic, hello to you, once again joining us on the line. We're expecting these things to grow, these protests throughout the day. Is that what you're seeing?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Several thousands of people, perhaps as many as 10,000 now young men, older men on the streets in confrontations with the police. Tear gas is being fired. It's incredible here.
We're just been right at the front lines with the police and the crowd. There are older men in the crowds who are telling the younger men who are throwing rocks don't throw rocks, keep it peaceful. They're talking to the policemen. The policemen are not firing their tear gas. The policemen are not throwing rocks back. The situation calms down. The policemen pulls back. And the one we're seeing emerging here is a consensus between these crowds and the police that they don't want violence. Older men within the crowd, they view to keep it calm, sort of being dominant and this is allowing the police not to get hurt and not to retaliate. But what's happening is they're falling back. The crowds are ruling the day on the streets here at the moment.
BOLDUAN: Nic, I think as we're looking at these pictures, you know, talking about kind of the developments that are going on right before your eyes in Alexandria, I think it's important to remind our viewers what's behind these protests. You have so much experience in this region. What's behind these protests? What are they protesting about?
ROBERTSON: The people are very frustrated and the rise of the demonstrations go on. They're frustrated at their economy. They're frustrated with their president who they hold responsible. He's been in power for 30 years. They say their life has gotten worse. Their economic outlook has gotten worse. They want a change. And they don't see that the democratic system that appears to be in place here is working. They cannot elect the leader of their choosing. And that's why we're seeing this frustration flash out on the streets. Of course, what we have learned from the past couple of weeks is (INAUDIBLE) the result (INAUDIBLE) from the president there was that people power can work and it's involving them.
They got a taste of it Monday. They continued -- they got a taste of it, rather, Tuesday. It continued Wednesday. And there have been calls for the sort of national outpouring today, Friday after prayers. And it's exactly what we're witnessing here. And the regime they want it changed. Some will tell you here on the streets they want Hosni Mubarak out.
HOLMES: All right. OK. Our Nic Robertson on the line for us.
Nic, we'll continue to check in with you throughout the morning.
And to our viewers, we are never going to go too far away from this breaking news story as these protests continue throughout the day on a third day now and expected to grow throughout the day. We have several correspondents on the ground who are reporting live for us. One of our correspondents reporting that he and his crew have been roughed up by police trying to keep them from doing their job and getting the story out. So many developments. We'll continue to update you.
BOLDUAN: Really, it feels like it's ramping up.
HOLMES: It really is.
BOLDUAN: Yes, absolutely. Stay with us for that.
But also ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, she continues to make remarkable progress after suffering that brain injury that many people do not survive in the Tucson shooting. We'll have an update for you after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: Welcome back, everybody. It is 24 minutes after the hour. "Minding Your Business" this morning, a milestone in the battle between old and new.
Amazon announcing for the first time it's selling more ebooks than paperback books. In fact this year, for every 100 paperback books sold, Amazon sells 115 Kindle books. That is amazing. Amazon also says it now sells three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books.
HOLMES: Well, some of you folks want to go to the Super Bowl. Let's play together. Let's pull our resources. Me and 22 of you out there. Let's all go. We got a deal here on 23 tickets. 40 yard line. Owners Club suite. Food, drinks, four parking spots. We're good to go. We just need to pull our money together --
BOLDUAN: Yes.
HOLMES: -- to come up with $288,000.
BOLDUAN: Mark Zuckerberg, are you available?
HOLMES: Of course he's available. That comes out to about $12,500 per ticket.
BOLDUAN: I don't think we can pull that off.
HOLMES: We're not going to make it.
BOLDUAN: Not this year. And GM's new electric car, the Chevy Volt, will be available in all 50 states by the end the year. Until then, you will only be able to buy the car in a handful of states including California, Washington, D.C., New York and Texas.
HOLMES: Well, some of the country's automakers, they were in just dire shape for a while as we know. And you got bailouts, government intervention, but it seems like, Stephanie Elam, some of them are doing a little better.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: On the road again.
(CROSSTALK)
We're talking mainly, though, about Ford. And this is quite the comeback kid. If you take a look at what they've been doing over the last 10 years, it has been a rough go Ford. They've been about turning around, getting on their feet. And they're the only company of the big three U.S. automakers that didn't take a government bailout. And that's one thing that some people say got them some support from American consumers. So let's take a look at what's going on.
They're expected to report today that they had an operating profit for 2010 of $8 billion. Look at where they were in 2005. That is slim profit there, and then it just got nasty. And you got the red there, a loss of $14.6 billion in 2008. And now you see they're making that trend back into the green, looking a lot better. U.S. auto sales for Ford up in 2010 by 19.5 percent. The industry grew by 11 percent. So that's really good.
But let's take a look at what they've done to get back to this position here. And when you look at this, it's really about cutting costs. It's also about getting rid of brands that were underperforming like the Mercury. That's now gone. They're also working on revitalizing the Lincoln brand. They got rid of some plants and they increased their sales. That's what they've been working on.
They're saying they're no longer about turnaround. Now they're focused on growth. They still have some challenges ahead. No doubt about it. And this summer, the UAW, the union there will be looking to make some contract renegotiations and that could be interesting. Because now after all these years of cutbacks, all these years of them giving up some of the things that they were deserving, they're now going to be looking to get some of it back now that the company is looking so much healthier.
BOLDUAN: Those contract negotiations, was it last year '09? They were really contentious.
ELAM: I think that was '09.
BOLDUAN: Oh, my gosh.
ELAM: And they've been contentious for years.
BOLDUAN: Right.
ELAM: Because the losses were so bad. But now, it's looking better and they're like, where's our slice.
BOLDUAN: Exactly. We gave in.
ELAM: But overall this is good. Because this is business, there's more people being employed and it's good for places like Detroit which had been lambasted with high unemployment rate. So this is what we want to see from the U.S. automakers.
HOLMES: Great news.
BOLDUAN: Good news for Detroit. I'd like to hear that.
HOLMES: Great news.
ELAM: But now, of course, we're expecting them to report if they come in with something under $8 billion that will be a problem.
HOLMES: Appreciate it. Thanks so much, Stephanie.
BOLDUAN: Thanks so much.
The story we've been following throughout the morning, the big story we've been following, Cairo in a state of lockdown right now. Internet access, cell phone service completely interrupted by the Egyptian government. We'll show you how social media has become the key to communications during this very tense time.
HOLMES: Also, folks still dealing with the weather. Still trying to dig out. A lot of snow still piled up. More is on the way but not this much, right, Rob? We'll check in with him in just a few minutes.
It's 28 minutes past the hour. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: Good morning, everybody. And welcome back on this Friday, January 28, 2011.
Live look right now at Central Park this morning. We're expecting another inch of snow today. Not too bad relatively speaking as the city continues to dig out from yesterday and probably from the Christmas, New Year's snow as well.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: (INAUDIBLE)
BOLDUAN: Good morning, everybody. I'm Kate Bolduan. Kiran Chetry is off today.
HOLMES: And hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. Glad you can be here with us on this AMERICAN MORNING, bottom of the hour.
We need to give an update on a couple of stories we're keeping a close eye on, especially on what's happening in Egypt right now. A breaking news situation.
Today is what some people are calling a day of anger. This is supposed to a huge day of street protests. People are coming out in the streets to protest their government being corrupt, they say. They're also even calling for the president, Hosni Mubarak, to step down.
This is supposed to rev up throughout today. It is early afternoon in Egypt right now.
We have our correspondents on the ground. The main Internet service has been shut down there. The communication has been interrupted by the government there as well, and even one of our own reporters has been roughed up by police there.
So many breaking developments. We'll continue to update you here throughout the morning.
BOLDUAN: Other stories we're watching this morning.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela being discharged from a Johannesburg hospital. Government officials say the 92-year- old Mandela was admitted Wednesday with an acute respiratory infection. They say Mandela is doing well and there's no reason to panic about his health. So, some good news there.
HOLMES: And on to the health of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. That recovery continues now. She has started a full rehab regiment. She's going to be in this, people will tell you, for certainly months and months. Don't know how long.
But her prognosis has been so good from all of the doctors who have treated her since she was shot in the head in Tucson. She's going have more than a dozen doctors, nurses and therapists working with her -- each working on different part of her recovery.
BOLDUAN: And 25 years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off and never came home. Seven astronauts died in that Challenger explosion. They'll be remembered this morning in a ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
And CNN's John Zarrella is there and he joins us live this morning.
John, its hard to believe it's been 25 years since that national tragedy.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. It really is. You know, I remember 25 years ago standing down by the countdown clock watching Challenger lifting off, reporting for CNN on the launch and really was a day that, you know, none of us that were here will ever forget.
And this morning, about 9:00 a.m., is a ceremony here to honor not just the Challenger astronauts but all the astronauts who have perished along the way, Apollo I astronauts, Grissom, White and Chaffee, along with the astronauts from Columbia. That anniversary is coming up February 1st.
But, of course, today, the 28th, the seven astronauts on board Challenger when it lifted off at 11:38 a.m., 73 seconds later, you know, the vehicle exploded. The accident caused by the extreme cold weather coupled with a faulty seal in one of the giant solid rocket boosters.
The seven astronauts who perished, Scobee, Smith, McNair, Onizuka, Jarvis, Resnik, and, o course, the teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe.
Now, we went to a school in Virginia this past week and met with a very special teacher. She has a very close bond with Christa McAuliffe. She was actually in Christa's school, the same school that McAuliffe taught at, at the time McAuliffe was there. She was in the Sunday school with McAuliffe, and baby-sat McAuliffe's kids. And it was the accident that led McAuliffe upon to become a teacher herself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICAELA POND, TEACHER: I don't think we lost as much as we've gained. And I felt strongly about that. I think 25 years later, we have schools named after her and Challenger centers where kids are getting to do hands on science. These are wonderful things that wouldn't have happened if that tragedy didn't occur.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARRELLA: Christa's husband, Steven McAuliffe, issued a statement yesterday saying that he really thanked everyone for continuing the outpouring of support a quarter of a century later. Not just for Christa McAuliffe, but, of course, for all the astronauts who perished on that flight and, of course, Columbia and the Apollo I fire as well -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: John, this gives us an opportunity to talk about the future of the space program. It's been in a lot of headlines recently. You know, what is the future of the space program, especially for manned space flights?
ZARRELLA: Well, you know, the shuttle program is going to go away. There's two, maybe three flights left. And that will be the end of the shuttle program.
After that, NASA is still struggling to try to figure out what kind of a vehicle they are going to build next, a new heavy lift rocket, commercial space, we've seen that developing. So, there's going to be tremendous change in the space shuttle -- in the NASA program in the future of the U.S. space agency and the emergence of the commercial sector. So, we're going see something very different in the future -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: All right, John. I look forward to seeing you down at the Kennedy Space Center for a long time to come. Thanks, buddy.
HOLMES: All right. Thirty-six minutes past the hour.
We have been telling you about this breaking situation. We continue to get new updates from Egypt. You continue to get new pictures. And these are some of the very latest pictures.
This is out of Suez, Egypt. You see police there in riot gear out in front of many of these protesters. Again, I'm seeing this for the first time, like you are right now, but it seems a barricade has been set up there by the police force, clearly trying to keep these protesters from getting into something. We're trying to get more details of that for you.
For the most part, we are hearing these protests, yes, are passionate. For the most part, you can even call some of them angry, but not necessarily overly violent. There have been clashes and some violence we can tell you about, some protesters throwing rocks at the police. Police have been responding in kind with tear gas and other things. We know at least six people have been killed.
But again, we're bringing these pictures and we bring them as we get them. And, unfortunately, sometimes we get them on the signal. But we'll continue to bring those as we get them.
But, again, it's been a developing situation today, the one that's called a day of anger. The Internet has been shut down there. People are trying to find ways around it. But for the most part, shut down.
Cell phone service has been disrupted. People are having a tough time communicating with each other. But, still, they are making their way out into the streets today to let their voices be heard.
BOLDUAN: Following that, of course, throughout the morning.
Another story, an update on something that got a lot of attention. It's a little scary. A deadly nerve agent disappears at an Army base in Utah, forcing the facility to be shut down. How this potential disaster finally turned out.
It's 37 minutes after the hour. We'll be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Forty minutes past the hour now.
It's the day they call the "day of anger" in Egypt. Chaos really in the streets. We have been watching several days now of protests, of clashes between the people who are demanding more from their government and police who are firing tear gas at some points.
You know, six people have been killed in these clashes and right now, the Internet service has been shut down. The government has stepped in the way and kept some text messaging, something as simple as that. People can't communicate that way.
Cairo is in lockdown right now. Many people are calling for Hosni Mubarak, the president, to go. It's a nation that some say is on verge of revolution right now. And, of course, a close U.S. ally is Egypt.
Well, Nasser Weddady is a civil rights outreach director for the American-Islamic Congress, joining me now live from Washington.
Thank you for being here. You have been monitoring things in Egypt for the past several days. You have seen steadily, you say, the amount of information coming out of there go down. How long before you're not able to get much of anything out of Egypt?
NASSER WEDDADY, AMERICAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS: Yes. Thank you. Short of pulling down the electricity, shutting down the Internet and turning off the cell phones, Mubarak is not going to let -- to deny the world the ability to know that his people wants him out. And at this rate, the have been resorting to pretty drastic measures, pulling the plug very much on most of the Internet services in Egypt. The only network that's still up as of two hours ago is a small ISP provider that they cannot shut down because they are banks and stock market is plugged into. And that's one of the effects of allowing information to trickle out because if they pull the plug on that one, their stock market and the banks are going down.
HOLMES: Nasser, give our audience an idea, though, over the past three days just how much information has dropped.
WEDDADY: The -- I mean, the traffic as we were monitoring it on Twitter, we were basically talking about traffic volume of anywhere between 26 to 35 tweets per second. Now, they dropped dramatically because the Egyptians were pulled out of the plug. And the top activists and the people that I'm talking with and who are the leaders of the online movement are completely offline. They are unplugged and the only way we can reach them by phone.
Think about it this way. If we were sitting in an American city, somebody basically went on with scissors and cut off your Internet connection. That's what the Egyptian government did.
HOLMES: The people there as well -- are they necessarily trying to get a message out to the rest of the world? Or are they trying to simply organize there within their own country and that's what Egypt is trying to stop? We even heard reports that people are literally going door-to-door, knocking on doors, saying, hey, come join us.
WEDDADY: Absolutely. Actually, they are trying to do two main things. One of them has been already achieved. And it's -- the Egyptian government is wasting time in the sense that they are trying to stop people from coming out in the streets. The organizing has been done through online tools. It's been done for the last week and a half.
The second thing that the people in Egypt are trying to do is they're going to -- they're sending a clear message. This generation right now, an entire generation that was born under Mubarak rule that's taken to the streets and they want him out.
When they started three days ago, the demands were about reform, but because of the police brutality and censorship, they shot -- we're getting unconfirmed news that 20 people were killed in the city of Suez, a high symbol of Egyptian nationalism, a place that stands in the Egyptian psyche for resistance. Police lost control over there and they shot over 20 people.
So, that's the kinds of things that changed the demand. Now, they are dead set, they want Mubarak out. And from my vantage point looking at it, there's nothing anyone in the world can do to save him. It's either today, three days later, in a year, Mubarak is history.
HOLMES: Well, we will check out that claim as well in Suez. CNN is certainly not doing their reporting, not able to confirm that just yet.
But I'll wrap on this. People often are so quick to jump on and say this is a Twitter revolution or some kind of online revolution that was sparked. Do you necessarily see that Twitter or Facebook has necessarily sparked this, no matter what? At the end of the day, you have to have an individual there willing to step out and do what they are doing in the streets.
WEDDADY: Look, we have been -- in my organization, we have been training people and interacting with the top activists in the region for six years. They have the skill and the know-how of how to leverage these things.
What happened in Tunisia was not triggered by social media. It took a man taking down to the street and burning himself. However what happened -- what is happening now in Egypt was very much fueled by social media like Facebook, Twitter, used to organize people online and then the real conceptual breakthrough that they made is that demonstrations that you're seeing right now on streets, that's an example of online activism going back into the real world. And the Egyptians and Tunisians are some of the best cyber activists in the world, although their context is different. But they are not going to go away. They're not going to give up.
HOLMES: All right. Nasser Weddady, great conversation this morning. Great perspective on what's happening there. We appreciate you taking the time with us. Enjoy the rest of your day.
WEDDADY: Thank you very much.
HOLMES: All right. Again, we're not going to go too far away from this story at any point. Breaking developments happening in Egypt right now. Handing back over to you, Kate.
KAYE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Still to come this hour, another round of snow for the northeast today. Rob will have this morning's travel forecast right after the break. You don't want to miss it. It's 45 minutes after the hour. Stay with us. Thanks for starting your morning here.
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BOLDUAN: It is just about 48 minutes after the hour. Quick check of this morning's top stories. It was a missing vile of deadly nerve gas that shut down the Dugway Proving Ground army base in Utah Wednesday night. The facility has now been reopened. The problem turned up during routine inventory check. Base officials say the chemical was never actually lost, it was just placed in the wrong container and was mislabeled.
HOLMES: Expect to pay more for those flights. This time, we're talking about Jet Blue after a couple of weeks ago reporting at a couple of other airlines were raising their ticket prices. Jet Blue doing the same. They're tacking on a $35 fuel charge for flights to the Caribbean. This extra money is meant to offset the rising fuel costs.
BOLDUAN: And it is, as they said, about 48 minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check of this morning's weather headlines. Everyone is hoping to hear better news from you, Rob Marciano.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, you know, news can be taken in all sorts of forms.
BOLDUAN: Very nice.
MARCIANO: It depends on who's taking it. Temps right now are certainly cold enough for freezing weather, and yesterday, briefly in the afternoon, temps got above the freezing mark so a lot of streets and roadways and sidewalks kind of melted a little bit. Refrozen this morning. So, definitely some slick spots out there. Be careful. And we have a little bit of snow on the radar. This is a very, very weak system. One of a few that's going to be rolling through the I-95 corridor. We don't expect much more. I mean, it's going to snow fairly heavily across parts of the Appalachians here and the Allegheny Plateau, but once it gets over the mountains to the I-95 corridor, we don't expect a tremendous amount of accumulation. Maybe a dusting. Maybe even an inch. If we get an inch, then we're talking about breaking an all-time snow record for a month which was setback in February of last year.
Here's system number one. System number two. Every where else fairly quiet, warming up across parts of the southwest and also warming up across parts of the Deep South which has had their own problems with wintry weather from Nashville to Memphis back through Little Rock and Atlanta. Fifty-three degrees for the high temperature today. Sixty degrees expected for the high temperature tomorrow. Sunshine in Atlanta after just snow a couple of weeks ago. One of the parts of living in the southeast. Come on back home, T.J.
(LAUGHTER)
BOLDUAN: He's trying to bring you home.
HOLMES: Yes. I appreciate that. Miss you, too, my man. Talk to you soon, Rob. Thanks, buddy.
MARCIANO: You bet.
BOLDUAN: Thanks, Rob.
In the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING, the latest, of course, from Cairo. We're monitoring that from here as well as our teams on the ground where the capital city is in lockdown right down as Egypt teeters on the brink of revolution.
HOLMES: Also, we're going to be looking a little more into a story we told you about this week. Wal-Mart now is responding to critics of the marketing of a new line of makeup for girls who aren't even teenagers yet. We'll tell you their response. It's 10 minutes to the top of the hour.
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BOLDUAN: North Carolina's criminal justice system under the microscope this morning. An audit of the states crime lab uncovered more than 200 cases where key blood test results were withheld from trials. Evidence that would have helped suspects who are wrongfully accused. Drew Griffin of CNN special investigations unit is live in Atlanta this morning with a special preview of rogue justice. This is some amazing stuff that you guys uncovered, Drew.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE UNIT CORRESPONDENT: It really is. And Kate, we're going to tell the story through the eyes of just two people. One of whom opened up to us and brought us through his life behind bars. Listen to this, watching his daughter grow up and get married, even the birth of a grandson, all of it taking place while Greg Taylor was trapped in prison knowing he was not guilty of any crime. The real outrage here is the North Carolina law enforcement officials who also knew Taylor was not guilty but did nothing to help him. We take you through the despair. Then the last hope of freedom right up to this moment, Kate, when he was told his entire conviction was a mistake, and after 17 years in prison, he was now a free man.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judge Howdy Manning, Jr. rules that Greg Taylor is innocent of the charge of first-degree murder. Charge of first-degree murder on September 26th, 1991. Gregory Taylor is dismissed.
(APPLAUSE)
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GRIFFIN: His family never doubted him, Kate. It was a great moment in his life, but how do you give him back 17 years? Greg Taylor is going to surprise you. It's a touching story of love and faith and an investigation into just how fragile our justice system in the U.S. can be -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: Just that little bit, Drew, gave me goose bumps. I can't wait to see the special and I want to promote it for you. Join Drew Sunday night, 8:00 eastern for an all new CNN presents, "Rogue Justice." You don't want to miss it. Thanks so much, Drew.
The top stories including the very latest from Cairo. The clashes and protests happening right now. We got new video that we're watching and taking live pictures here. We're going to have more on this coming up. You want to stay with us. You don't want to miss it.
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