Month: January 2011

by Chris Bodenner

A series of tweets from CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman:

Cairo calmer: there is no gov't, no authority, no police. Soldiers and Republican Guards at Foreign Ministry, State TV. No protest because nobody to protest against

Saw ruling party headquarters in flames, police huddling in barracks as protesters tried to pursue them. Hearing parliament burning.

Saw boys with massive seal of the republic looted from State TV. If this isn't the end, it certainly looks and smells like it.

One man said he graduated from college 4 years ago, hasn't worked a day since. Has been in streets since Tuesday protesting.

Teenager showed me teargas canister "Made in USA."Saw the same thing in Tunisia. Time to reconsider U.S. exports?

(Hat tip: Robert Mackey)

by Chris Bodenner

Scott Lucas narrates it:

As the NDP's headquarters burn, there were fears that the Egyptian National Museum, which houses some of the world's most ancient artifacts from the old Egyptian civilization and a beautiful collection of ancient whales fossils, would catch on fire too. There were earlier reports – albeit unconfirmed – that some people were looting the museum.

Now Al Jazeera is reporting that young protesters have formed a human chain around the museum to protect it against looting. It seems for now that this treasure trove of human ingenuity and the natural world's wonders is in no immediate danger.  

The arts blog Hyperallergic is tracking the story.

by Patrick Appel

Bernstein provides a "general news-followers guide to any kind of fast-breaking story, especially those taking place in foreign nations":

I have no position on the best choices for President Obama and Secretary Clinton, but media-watchers should remember that there's usually a media bias here in favor of action. Action may or may not be appropriate; it's worth remembering that during the most successful mass outbreak of democracy ever, in 1989, President George H.W. Bush was criticized for being overly cautious in his public statements. Again, I don't have any suggestion of what's best to do, but remember that sometimes doing as little as possible (especially publicly) can be an effective strategy.

by Chris Bodenner

Goldblog urges Obama to do the pushing:

A government that uses rubber bullets and tear gas against its own people — who want nothing more than a change of leadership after 30 years of one-man rule — has no future. President Obama would be standing for American values if he encouraged Hosni Mubarak to leave office now. Mubarak (and his son, it is almost needless to say) have no credibility, and the U.S. will have no credibility if it doesn't support the aspirations of these frustrated protesters.

Will the Muslim Brotherhood follow in the wake of Mubarak's downfall? Not necessarily. But the U.S. will make that possibility less remote if it doesn't stand with the people now.

The latest from the White House:

Robert Gibbs's White House briefing has wrapped up after an hour. The most noteworthy points to come out:

• Gibbs pointedly refused to take up an offer to say the administration stood by Mubarak

• Gibbs also repeated that the "people of Egypt" would decide events – suggesting that the White House has cut the Mubarak regime loose, calling their grievances "legitimate"

• The White House confirmed that it was prepared to withhold aid from Egypt's government.

But the tone of the administration suggests the White House has been left stranded by the swift pace of events on the ground.

by Patrick Appel

A snowy tilt-shift to mark the snowstorm hitting the East Coast:

Whistler Blackcomb XXS from Whistler Blackcomb on Vimeo.

by Conor Friedersdorf

Let's see if we can find the flaw in her reasoning:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Mexico, has reiterated her support for President Felipe Calderon's fight against drugs gangs. Mrs Clinton said there was "no alternative" to confronting the cartels, despite rising violence that left more than 15,000 dead last year.

How about disempowering the drug gangs. Of course, legalization would carry the risk that at least 15,000 more Mexicans per year would have an opportunity to take drugs that they just aren't given under the current plan.

by Chris Bodenner

(Hat tip: TDW)

by Zoe Pollock

Robyn Creswell runs through the protest's causes. Among them:

A more local cause for resentment is the parliamentary election conducted in Egypt in early December. Candidates of the ruling National Democratic Party won 93 percent of the seats in the national assembly, up from 75 percent in 2005, in an election that was baldly rigged even by Egyptian standards. (Here you can watch poll workers in Bilbays, a town in the Eastern Delta, calmly filling out a few dozen ballots.) The scheduled presidential election of 2011 is not expected to be any more fair or transparent. “If Mubarak is still alive,” writes US Ambassador Margaret Scobey in one of the WikiLeaks cables, “it is likely he will run again, and, inevitably, win.”

by Patrick Appel

Ellen Knickmeyer emphasizes their role in the protests:

Some political scientists warn of the dark side of the "youth bulge." A study by Population Action International asserted that 80 percent of the world's conflicts between 1970 and 1999 started in countries where 60 percent of the population was under 30. (Of course, other factors — such as the Cold War — also played a role.)

Political scientists and development economists like Tarik Yousef, founding dean of the Dubai School of Government, saw the Middle East and North African youth bulge coming for years. They urged Arab leaders to harness the skilled, eager, and educated labor force flooding on to the market.

The youth bulge could have been "a precondition for problems, or a precondition for prosperity," Yousef said by phone on Jan. 27, from Dubai. 

(Photo: An Egyptian woman shouts as she demonstrates outside the Lawyers' Sydicate in Cairo on January 27, 2011, demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, 82-years-old, who has held on to power for more than three decades. By Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)

by Patrick Appel

Alex Massie zooms out:

The Telegraph editorialises that "The West needs to be on its guard that, by supporting the cause of Arab democracy, it does not unwittingly unleash the forces of radical Islam." Well, yes. So does the Telegraph believe that, in the long-term, Arab democracy is impossible? Does it actually think that the west has been supporting democracy in the Arab world? (Apart from a brief, but even then ambivalent, flurry when Condi Rice was Secretary of State.) Or is it still too risky? If so, then for how much longer must it, and the people, be suppressed?

In the end this caution, perfectly reasonable as it is, risks empowering the very forces it is most afraid of. … Sons of bitches remain sons of bitches even when they're notionally your sons of bitches. In the end there's a limit to how long you can support or tolerate them. Eventually the clock runs out on realpolitik. We may not be at that moment yet (there've been false dawns before) but some day we'll reach it. God knows what the consequences will be and some of them are likely to be pretty grim. But that's what happens when you're working with crooked timber.