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Egyptians ready for tomorrow

Though Egypt has had its Internet services shut down for nearly a week Egyptians are still finding ingenious ways to get their message out. The video above of a young woman in Tahrir Square was shot today, where 250,000 gathered in anticipation of tomorrow's Million March and general strike.

And Google has added this new speak-to-tweet service today. A young woman in Cairo left this message.

"I just wanted to let the world know that we have been disconnected from our last point of communications from the internet. And there is strong word going around that we will again be disconnected from mobile phone calls.

Um, so I wanted to let everyone know in case you don't get any feedback from what's happening tomorrow, and I didn't want anyone to worry about us.

They did this before; the only difference is the last time they did this, I was completely freaked out. I was too scared that they are going to shoot us all and nobody would know about it.

This time, I'm not scared at all. I feel as if, like, I want to ask them 'bring it on!' We are excited. We are happy. We are going to be in Tahrir Square tomorrow. We are going to be huge and we are going to do our march and do our protest and Mubarak is going out. Be with us. Bye bye."

(via KPSP) Google announced the product in its blog on Monday, saying they are just trying to help the "people on the ground."

"We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time," the blog stated. "Our thoughts are with everyone there."

The numbers that people can call to get their word out are:
+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855

To check out all the voicemails as they come in, visit twitter.com/speak2tweet.



"Muslim, Christian, we are all Egyptian!"

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Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous is in Egypt now and shares his thoughts on what he's seen there, the transformation of a country he once knew. You can follow his tweets @sharifkouddous.

Transcript via Democracy Now!.

AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, you landed in your home city of Cairo just a few days ago, but it was not the same country you grew up in. Describe your feelings and what you have found, but start at the airport.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, I’ve traveled to Egypt countless times from the United States after I moved there for college and then work, and when my plane from JFK touched down in Cairo International Airport on Saturday, the day after the massive protest where the protesters beat back the Interior Ministry, police and state security forces, I did land in a different country than the one I had known my entire life. Egypt has been reborn. This is not the Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt anymore. And no matter what happens next, it will never be again.

This is a unprecedented popular uprising, the likes of which myself and many others never thought they would see under President Mubarak. They are taking to the streets, men and women, rich and poor, all segments of society. They are defying the curfew for the past few days, packing into Tahrir Square. And their mood is celebratory, and it’s victorious. They are sure. They are sure that they will not leave until Mubarak does. And they are chanting in the streets every day.

They talk about what has taken place over the past week with such pride in what they have done. Tomorrow marks a week from the January 25th National Police Day, when the first protest began, and culminated on Friday. Friday was essentially a battle between the Interior Ministry and the people, and the people won. They talk about how they came up on the bridges leading to Tahrir, faced off with hundreds and hundreds of riot police from the Interior Ministry, from the state security forces, and were met with violence. They talk with how they walked with their hands up in the air, showing that they were coming peacefully, chanting, "Salmiya! Salmiya!" which means "Peacefully." And they were beat down. They were tear-gassed over and over again.

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