Update.
Since the military made the "glorious" choice to protect the Interior Ministry (also
known as Torture Ministry or "The Dungeon") instead of the museum, the latter is now a
target of opportunity for criminals, mostly police thugs that found themselves unemployed on
Saturday morning, their headquarters torched, and not safe to walk the streets lest their victims
recognized them.
The Army is sometimes supposed to still "protect" the museum, but their
presence is at best intermittent, and there are strong rumors it's mostly to help
themselves.
No details yet, but it seems the King Tut collection is hardest hit. Fossils
are probably not interesting but large specimens are possibly affected by
thrashing of cabinets and furniture, and small specimens kept in boxes would of
course be looked at and discarded if they didn't glitter and shine.
Looters tend to smash display cases with apparently valuable content, appraise
the artfacts (sometimes breaking them in the process) and either pocket them or
discard them, for the next looter to trample to the dust.
Some info (mostly in German), video and pictures:
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/11887573/
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/11886437/
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"It seems to me that Hosni Mubarak is living in an alternative unicverse"
(via http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/)
With some friends I have tried to get connectivity with Egypt and we have been
having it with fair consistency The general situation, as far as I can make it
out:
The biggest problem facing Egypt now (apart from the political/military standoff) is the
fact that Mubaraks last orders, before he went into his hideout, was to order his thugs
to release the violent criminals and then themselves disperse and go on a rampage.
Looters that are being arrested (the Army actually does a mostly good job processing the
criminals caught by the "citizens' vigilantes" which have formed to protect
neighborhoods) tend to be either the ultra-poor, criminals set free by the regime, or
(and this is the case very often) carry government-issue items, police weapons and ID
marks.
It has transpired to people in Egypt that the Western media is generally doing
an crap job (mostly not being on ground when it blew up and reluctant to insert
more than a basic team; this unfortunate coincidence may be worthy to point out
if locals are angry - ignorance of the West not malice). Stil. Egypt has ceased
being a safe country for foreigners as of now.
Know anyone still stuck there? Do not travel alone. If hassled by vigilantes and hitting language
barrier "Tahrir?" ("Liberation") should determine factional allegiance
(presumably, 80-95% seem to be in favor so its, generally a safe guess).
Regards,
Eike