Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 13, Week 2, Day 5.

With no large scale outbreaks of violence following yesterday's funerals today things seem much calmer across Egypt. In Cairo supporters of the revolution have left Tahrir Square largely deserted as they try and get on with the business of rebuilding their country. The Muslim Brotherhood continue to occupy a protest camp in Nasr city and are staging a sit-in protest at the Republican Guard HQ. However they are not making any attempts to storm any building or attack either the military or civilians.

The UK is rather unhelpfully trying apply pressure on the Egyptian military with the announcement that 7 players from the league 1 football team "Crewe Alexandra" have been arrested on allegations of sexual assault. The idea being to get the Egyptian military frantically searching of an UK 'Crew Members' who may have been sexually assaulted in Alexandria. Incidentally the full horror of the violence that took place in Alexandria on Friday (5/7/13) is slowly beginning to emerge. The worst video I've seen so far shows a group of Islamists chase three teenage revolutionaries onto the roof of a tower block before catching them and throwing them off - presumably to their deaths.

However the only violent incident I've heard about since Friday/Saturday has been the attack on a natural gas pipeline to Jordan outside El-Arish in the Sinai. This has completely shutdown the supply of natural gas from Egypt to Jordan and seems to be the work of Islamist terrorists keen to send a message to both Egypt and Jordan. The message to Egypt seems to simply be that the Islamists will try to cut off a big source of the nations revenue unless Morsi is restored. The message to Jordan is that the Islamists will cut off the supply of natural gas to Jordan unless it comes down on the side of Morsi. To me this strikes as desperation on the part of the Islamists. They know they don't have the support of the Egyptian people so instead they're resorting to intimidation and other bully-boy tactics to get what they want.

A further sign of the Islamist's desperation is the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist al-Nour Party's attempts to block the appointment of Mohamed ElBaradei as interim Prime Minister. Although neither the Brotherhood nor al-Nour have stated publicly their reason for objecting to ElBaradei's appointment both have in the past accused him of being a CIA agent. This is of course nonsense and "CIA Spy!" is the insult the Islamist always throw at people they don't like. The real reason the Islamists object to ElBaradei is that they know he has popular support and that he is more intelligent than them. That makes him the man most likely to be able to return Egypt to democratic civilian rule and the prosperity that will bring. The Islamists instead intend to delay the process as much as possible in order to drag Egypt down further so they can blame the ensuing chaos on the military for ousting Morsi.

15:20 on 8/7/13.

Edited at around 23:15 on 8/7/13 to add:

Obviously with negotiations of the appointment of Mohamed ElBaradei as Egypt's interim Prime Minister still continuing both parties have been out on the streets in Cairo. The revolutionaries massed in Tahrir Square while a maximum of 10,000 Morsi supporters gathered in Nasr city before marching again on the HQ of the Republican Guard. At no point did they attempt to breach the perimeter fence or otherwise attack the building. Therefore there have been no reports of any injuries or deaths. Rather predictably though the Muslim Brotherhood demonstration was proceeded by a Salafist attack on a military checkpoint in which 1 soldier was killed.

In the meantime though there have been frantic international discussions about Morsi's downfall. The crash of a Asiana Boeing 777 at San Francisco airport on Saturday (6/7/13) has not been part of this. However the crash of an oil train in Quebec, Canada on approximately the same date most certainly was;

The narrative of a runaway train is the plot from the 2010 film "Unstoppable." The call-sign of the runaway train in the film is "777" meaning that the film has become something of a byword for Rihanna's touring activities. Rihanna's current "Diamonds" tour is obviously the US trying to lay itself prostrate at the feet of the Gulf Monarchies. The oil element of the story is of course the reason why the US is trying to lay itself prostrate at the feet of the Gulf Monarchies. The comparison with the the Arizona wildfire is clearly a reference to global warming. Therefore the whole story is the Canadians gently nudging their US neighbours in the ribs and suggesting that maybe they might want to try supporting the Egyptian people this time round.

In the meantime US politics is spilt as to whether it will support the Egyptian people or the people who've been killing all those soldiers in the Sinai. Therefore while I appreciate that the anti-US chants in Tahrir Square are more than justified I fear they may be taken out of context.

Also while I've been waiting to get close enough to a PC to write this up Teresa Heinz-Kerry (as in the ketchup, baked beans etc) - the wife of current US Secretary of State John Kerry has been admitted to hospital via ambulance. She is said to be in a critical condition. Although the 74 year old Heinz-Kerry underwent cancer surgery in 2009 I'm inclined to guess that this most recent admission is either a heart attack, a stroke or an elaborate excuse for John Kerry to find himself unavailable over the coming days.