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CAIRO — Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is to step down tonight, two sources have told NBC News, losing his 30-year grip on power after 17 days of dramatic mass uprisings across the nation. NBC's Richard Engel reported that a high-ranking source inside the president's office said the newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, would take over. This was confirmed by a second source. Egypt's military announced on national television it had stepped in to secure the country and promised protesters calling for Mubarak's ouster that all their demands would soon be met.

Update: Army will “act” if protesters reject Suleiman Question mark in the headline because Egypt’s information minister insists it’s not a done deal. As I write this, though, Mubarak’s preparing to speak on state TV (which has gradually turned against him) and Fox News is citing a senior Egyptian official as saying he’s ready to quit.Gird your loins. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is to step down tonight, two sources told NBC News, amid widespread protests against his 30-year rule that have gripped the country.Following an all-day meeting of the country’s supreme military council, the army said all the protesters’...

From Stratfor, citing BBC Arabic. EGYPT: MUBARAK HAS ALREADY LEFT COUNTRY - REPORT Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has reportedly already left the country, and his speech scheduled for the night of Feb. 10 has been pre-recorded, BBC Arabic reported. Some reports indicate Mubarak will speak within two hours, while other unconfirmed reports say he left the country as early as yesterday.

Mubarak Speaks

Just listening to Mubarrak - He's staying, not bowing to foreign pressure( Adios Hillary)

"I have laid down a clear vision on how to resolve the crisis"--

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has announced he is will not stand down until elections have been held. In a televised address, the president said he refused to be the subject of foreign pressure. He said those responsible for violence will be punished. He promised to scrap emergency laws as soon as the situation in Egypt is stable. Rumours spread earlier this evening that the resignation of the president was possibly imminent after Egypt's military announced earlier it was taking measures to preserve the nation and aspirations of the people. The Higher Army Council held an ongoing meeting without President Mubarak...

His comments confounded reports he was preparing to stand down immediately. He said he would ignore "diktats from abroad". President Mubarak said he would delegate some powers to Vice-President Omar Suleiman. Egypt's military earlier said it was standing ready to "protect the nation". "I express a commitment to carry on and protect the constitution and the people and transfer power to whomever is elected next September in free and transparent elections," Mr Mubarak said. Ahead of Mr Mubarak's announcement, thousands of Egyptians had again gathered in central Cairo to call for him to step down. Doctors, bus drivers, lawyers and...

So our CIA told President Obama that Hosni Mubarak would resign today. From Rush Limbaugh: Obama went to Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, and said: “I just want to say that we are following today’s events in Egypt very closely. We’ll have more to say as this plays out. But what is absolutely clear is that we are witnessing history unfold. The moment of transformation is taking place because the people of Egypt are calling for change. “They’ve turned out in extraordinary numbers representing all ages and all walks of life. But it’s young people who’ve been at...

Obama has been putting pressure on Mubarak since last week to stand down straight away. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA The Obama administration was embarrassingly wrongfooted when the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak confounded expectations by refusing to leave office. Mubarak's speech came just hours after Barack Obama and the director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, appeared to give credence to the rumours that the Egyptian president was heading for the exit. Obama has been putting pressure on Mubarak since last week to stand down straight away, but Mubarak, in a televised address tonight, said he would not bow to international pressure,...

President Obama watched Hosni Mubarak's speech to Egyptians from the conference room on Air Force One, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tells the pool. Obama is now headed to the White House for a meeting with his national security team, moments after Mubarak said he wouldn't step down but that he had given some powers to his vice president.

Mubarak-backers fire back at U.S.By YASMINE SALEH AND PATRICK WERR REUTERS Updated 8 hours ago CAIRO -- The government of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hit back on Wednesday at what it called U.S. attempts to "impose" American will on a loyal Middle East ally, saying rapid reforms would be too risky. But as pro-democracy protesters consolidated a new encampment around Cairo's parliament building, the White House again said that Egyptian ministers must do more to meet the demands of demonstrators, who want an immediate end to Mubarak's 30 years of one-man rule and sweeping legislative changes. **SNIP** "When you...

“The Supreme Military Council met with Mubarak and as I have said time and time again it is NOT going to pan out the way Obama wants it. There was false rumors stating Mubarak was going to resign, it’s not true, the truth is Mubarak is very ill, his health has been stressed and the Army is fed up. (They leaked the false report to the media to see who they carried the message to in the mob’s hierarchy. They are going to declare Martial Law, it’s going to get ugly. The Supreme Military council during a meeting yesterday stated...

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's address "a sadistic tease" and predicted that demonstrations could turn violent. "He just lit the final fuse," Ackerman said in an interview on MSNBC TV. "And now I think the situation is going to verge on the explosive over the next 24 hours."

Although Saudi King Abdullah warned Barack Obama not to push Mubarak over the edge, according to reports by the Times of London, CIA director Leon Panetta believed the Egyptian president would step down.Just a few minutes ago, the New York Times reported that Mubarak refused to step down. Not only did the speech prove U.S. estimates wrong, it casts doubt over whether their game plan was ever working at all. Even as Mr. Mubarak spoke, angry chants were shouted from huge crowds in Cairo who had anticipated his resignation but were instead confronted with a plea from the president...

U.S. sources closely involved in the government's handling of the Egyptian crisis told NBC News that they were "taken by surprise" by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement and that it appears "Mubarak is going nowhere." The officials told NBCs Jim Miklaszewski that they were especially concerned about Mubarak's apparent declaration that he would "federalize the streets." They said, however, that their reaction was based on an initial translation of Mubarak's remarks. "We have assurances, both private and public that the military would not fire on the people," one of the officials stressed.

On Sunday night, after a weekend of wrangling, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) filed for cloture on the New START treaty, setting up a crucial Tuesday vote on whether to end debate. A final vote could come on Thursday. As Josh Rogin observes, keep an eye on Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) as the clock ticks...

Looking at BHO from another angle shows the real man. He was conceived out of wedlock while his mother was in college. His childhood consisted of a father who abandoned him as an infant -- unwanted -- and he was raised by another man in another country through many of his formative childhood years. He didn't look like his Indonesian adopted father or his white mother in an Asian culture. As he grows up, he is introduced to marijuana and cocaine. The people he hangs around with are avowed communists and radicals --strange, hateful people and the ideologues on whom...

I dread when leftist talk show host Bill Maher has celebrities, musicians and actors on his Real Time panels. They’re always such dead weight, totally unable to say anything intelligent or have any grasp of the issues. And politically they almost always argue from their position in Chomskyland. It’s just pure, endlessly pathetic radical chic. That’s what I was expecting when I saw that Ashton Kutcher, star of “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and the celebrity prank show “Punk’d,” would be joining General Anthony Zinni and conservative columnist Ross Douthat for Maher’s chatfest. And I was stunned when those low expectations...

CNN and the MSM just keep on getting punked (punk'd) by people 'interrupting' their newscasts. Could this be backlash on the MSM? Three more incidents just this week!