Egypt

Google is struggling with governments all over the world to remove Internet censorship and the fight is going worse, said Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of the company. Schmidt noted he fears his own colleagues faced mounting danger of occasional arrest and torture.

As rebels and revolutionaries in Arabian countries such as Egypt and Tunisia used the Internet to communicate with each other and support their move, governments in many other sates focused more closely on restricting access to the worldwide web like they did with the television.

When countries like Egypt switch off Internet connectivity for their people nations like America have a lot of means to reconnect it again and the US military have a number of options to do it. The only one problem about it is: “It could be considered an act of war,” says John Arquilla, a leading military futurist.

It turns out that the US military has a number of devices, many of which are classified, to restore connectivity to repressed population whose rulers cut them off the rest of the world.

Gold prices came to a steady level after losing during the previous session on groundless reports that Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, could be stepping down soon, but gains in equities market were likely to weigh on bullion.

Spot gold eased 85 cents to $1,346.05 an ounce by 0029 GMT. Trading was volatile on Friday, when it pared losses after U.S. non-farm payrolls data for January missed expectations.

U.S. gold futures for April fell $2.2 an ounce to $1,346.8 an ounce.

Due to the events in Egypt the projected bill to allow the US President powers to shut down the Internet will unlikely have chances for adoption. The supporters and advocates of the bill wanted to protect US interests from cyber attacks while opponents claimed it would hurt free speech principles.

As is known during Egyptian protests the country president shut down the Internet so as to prevent organization efforts of anti-government protesters. Now the Internet is connected again.

God prices increased as the dollar index dropped to a 12-week low and unrest situation in Egypt added support with Asian demand for coins and bars after January's price drop also adding support.

However, the metal is expected to stay under pressure after posting its biggest one-month drop since Dec. 2009 in January as investors' appetite for risk improved, diverting interest from so-called safe havens like gold into higher-yielding assets.

In a move to help people in Egypt stay connected to other world and be heard Google has launched a special Twitter service, as the government has banned all Internet connections.

"Like many people we've been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground," read a post on Google's official corporate blog on Monday.

Gold prices lowered on Monday after its largest daily gain eight weeks were recorded on Friday. The decline came as Egyptian disturbances eased.

Gold will likely keep low levels on the heels of improving US economic data and growing investor confidence as well as a near-record decline in holdings of metal in exchange-traded funds.

Even a 2.6 percent fall in the dollar index .DXY has not lifted gold, as the traditional negative correlation between the two has reached its most positive since mid-September.

This week Egypt’s Communications Ministry announced the launch of the first domain name using Arabic characters. The ministry reports that the move was meant to boost electronic services and the number of people surfing online in the Arab region.

"Introducing Arabic domain names is a milestone in Internet history," Communications Minister Tarek Kamel said in a statement.

Skype, having over 500 million users worldwide, has questioned Egypt's intention to forbid international calls made through mobile Internet connections. The company also claims the necessity to left consumers an option.

Earlier this month Amr Badawy, National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority head, unveiled its plans to ban international calls through mobile Internet connections.

Egypt's ban follows the earlier in the month United Arab Emirates decision not to award VoIP licenses to international companies such as Skype.

 Egyptian National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) introduced an “ethics code” for mobile phones. This code of conduct contains 16 paragraphs that were designed to regulate mobile users’ behavior while they receive/make calls or send messages over their handsets.

Thus, point number 2 in the code says that a user cannot call others during the times of rest. Paragraph seven contains an advice that says the text messages should not contain inappropriate words or indecent images.

 A mobile payments services provider Luup International has entered into a partnership with Emirates International Exchange (EIE), a leading exchange house in the United Arab Emirates, to provide their customers with the option to transfer money worldwide using their mobile phones.

"The Asian remittances corridor comprises 85 percent of our current business income. With Luup, we can now pursue other corridors, especially the UAE to Egypt remittances corridor," said Santosh Tandel, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates International Exchange.

Cairo has been recognized as one of the world’s top ranking offshoring cities, ranking 7th in the latest ‘Top 50 Emerging Outsourcing Cities’ report conducted by Global Services-Tholons.

Cairo, previously the only city from the Middle East and North Africa to appear on the list, has reinforced its prominence as one the leading offshoring destinations in the world. The report cites Cairo’s multilingual workforce, business analytics and testing services as its strongest key functions.