World

Giant cyclone hits Australian coast

Eye of cyclone comes ashore near tourist town

* Queensland premier says "tough 24 hours" expected

* Evacuation centres full, people turned away

* Coal mines shut

Australia, Feb 3- One of the most powerful cyclones on record slammed into Australia's coast on Thursday, threatening tourist cities with powerful winds and raising the danger of deadly storm surges.

Cyclone Yasi, packing winds of up to 300 km (186 miles) an hour near its core, come ashore along hundreds of kilometres of northeast coastline late on Wednesday.

Egypt organ harvesting racket.

An organ harvesting ring was unearthed in Egypt where ten Yemeni children had been smuggled for organ harvesting. According to the Wikileaks cable, at least 10 Yemeni children were trafficked to Egypt for organ harvesting in 2009. The children were repatriated to Yemen after Egyptian authorities discovered the trafficking ring. Many of the border crossings used by traffickers are in dangerous desert areas where trafficking victims are subjected to the risks of dehydration, starvation, and exposure. Trafficked children told Shawthab that Saudi border guards have hung children's severed heads from trees near the border as a warning to other children thinking about crossing the border illegally. In the conflict zone in northern Yemen, NGOs have collected evidence that children are forced to fight both with the government forces and with the Houthis.

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Egypt leaves internet.

Reports are emerging that Internet has gone down in Cairo and throughout Egypt, only hours before the largest planned protests yet.

According to a report from The Arabist, "Egypt has shut off the internet."

Multiple Internet Service Providers are affected according to the report, which states:

I just received a call from a friend in Cairo (I won't say who it is now because he's a prominent activist) telling me neither his DSL nor his USB internet service is working. I've just checked with two other friends in different parts of Cairo and their internet is not working either.

The news of the Internet outage came minutes after the Associated Press published a video of an Egyptian protestor being shot.

CNN reporter Ben Wedeman confirmed Internet is down in Cairo and writes, "No internet, no SMS, what is next? Mobile phones and land lines? So much for stability. #Jan25 #Egypt"

The Los Angeles Times is also reporting that BlackBerry Internet has been taken offline in Egypt.

UPDATE (7:05 p.m. ET) Reuters confirms "major network disruptions" for Egypt Internet users at this time, with reports in Cairo that there is no Internet altogether. A top state official declined to comment.

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