Thousands of Egyptians were still singing and waving flags in Cairo's Tahrir Square Feb. 13, two days after an 18-day uprising forced president Hosni Mubarak from power. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said the military will oversee a peaceful transition to "an elected civil authority to build a free democratic state." Headed by longtime Mubarak-loyalist Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the Supreme Council issued a "Communique Number 4," read on state TV. It said Egypt would "remain committed to all its regional and international treaties," implicitly confirming the 1979 peace treaty with Israel will remain intact. A "Communique Number 5" said the military will "run the affairs of the country on a temporary basis for six months or until the end of parliamentary and presidential elections."

Some 17,000 Germans braved freezing temperatures to form a human chain around central Dresden Feb. 13, blocking some 1,000 followers of the neo-Nazi National Democratic (sic) Party (NPD) from holding a "funeral march" on the city to mark the 66th anniversary of the Allied bombardment during World War II. Under the banner of the local "Nazi-Free Dresden" organization, the anti-fascists wore white roses on their lapels (to commemorate the White Rose student resistance group of the 1940s) and encircled the city center while bells tolled from the churches. "The people of Dresden are defending their remembrance," said German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, who presided at the official commemoration of the air raids that killed an estimated 25,000. (DW-World, DPA, AFP, Feb. 13)

Tokyo is preparing to send 100 Self-Defense Force troops to Yonaguni in the Ryukyu Islands, the westernmost point in Japanese territory. The move has prompted protests from the island's residents. Yonaguni is the closest spot of inhabited land to the Senkaku Islands, also claimed by both China and Taiwan, which call them the Diaoyu Islands. (NYT, Feb. 10) Japanese talks with China over a disputed gas field in the Senkakus have broken down, and Tokyo says it suspects Beijing has started drilling in the field. Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan appealed to Beijing to return to the table and estabish "mutually beneficial strategic relations." (AFP, Jan. 20) In December, Japan overhauled its defense guidelines, laying plans to purchase five submarines, three destroyers, 12 fighters jets, 10 patrol planes and 39 helicopters. (WSJ, Feb. 12)

Japan's ongoing dispute with Russia over the Kuril Islands has been heating up since November, when Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian president to visit the contested archipelago. Medvedev's high-profile trip to Kunashir, second-largest of the four disputed islands, has sparked both a regional military build-up and a diplomatic war of words. The dispute over the islands—called the Northern Territories in Japan but seized by the Soviets in August 1945—has prevented Moscow and Tokyo from signing a treaty to officially end their World War II hostilities.

Bolivian President Evo Morales hastily left the southern mining city of Oruro on Feb. 11 after protesters angered by rising food prices and shortages jeered him and set off dynamite. Morales canceled plans to lead a march in the city commemorating an 1871 anti-colonial uprising there, and retreated back to the capital, La Paz. "The government took the decision not to respond to shameful provocations of this kind," presidential spokesman Ivan Canelas said. Protesters were especially upset about a near-doubling in the price of sugar after the government lifted subsidies. The march was led by the regional labor federation, the Departmental Workers Central (COD).

Several thousand Yemenis gathered in central Sana'a Feb. 12, calling for President Ali Abdallah Saleh to step down and follow the example of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. "After Mubarak, it's Ali's turn," chanted some of the estimated 4,000 protesters, mostly young students. Other favored chants included "Get out, Get out Ali" and "The people want the regime to fall!" Protesters briefly clashed with supporters of the ruling General People's Congress (GPC), thousands of whom occupied the city's central Tahrir Square to block anti-government demonstrators from gathering there. Many of the GPC followers were armed with clubs and knives. (Middle East Online, Feb. 12)

Up to 2,000 marched in Algiers despite a ban on demonstrations in the city Feb. 12, and briefly pushed back against police who tried to bar the march with a cordon. Police flooded the streets with troops and armored vehicles to block the march, called by the recently formed National Coordination for Change and Democracy (CNCD). "We want a second independence," leading government critics demanded in an online video. "We are the generation of rupture."

From AP, Feb. 12:

Taxi plows into crowd in San Diego
SAN DIEGO — A taxi cab driver plowed slowly into a crowd on a sidewalk in San Diego's busy Gaslamp District early Saturday, injuring more than two dozen people, police said. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the crash occurred about 2 AM in the middle of the popular restaurant and nightclub zone, close to the city's convention center.