I Wont Go! I’m Holding By Breathe Now I’m Stomping My Feet  

As protests build, the U.S. faces the difficult task of supporting reform while maintaining ties with an ally who has long blamed the U.S. for the theocracy in Iran and the chaos in Iraq.

Mubarak digs in against reform, as he always has

Reporting from Washington – Embattled yet unbending, President Hosni Mubarak is sending a message that he remains deeply suspicious of reform efforts in Egypt and resistant to the calls from Washington and his own populace for him to step aside.

But this is not just the face of a leader in crisis. This is the way Washington’s relationship has always been with Mubarak. Two years ago, a secret cable from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo described Mubarak as stubborn and stone-faced when pressed to make reform, and maintaining that he is the only barrier standing in the way of disaster.

Send In The Thugs Bring In The Thugs, Wait They’re Already Here  

The sky was filled with rocks. The fighting around me was so terrible we could smell the blood

Robert Fisk: Blood and fear in Cairo’s streets as Mubarak’s men crack down on protests

“President” Hosni Mubarak’scounter-revolution smashed into his opponents yesterday in a barrage of stones, cudgels, iron bars and clubs, an all-day battle in the very centre of the capital he claims to rule between tens of thousands of young men, both – and here lies the most dangerous of all weapons – brandishing in each other’s faces the banner of Egypt. It was vicious and ruthless and bloody and well planned, a final vindication of all Mubarak’s critics and a shameful indictment of the Obamas and Clintons who failed to denounce this faithful ally of America and Israel.

I Get To Be The Next President  

Exclusive intervew: Robert Fisk meets Mohamed ElBaradei, Egypt’s saviour-in-waiting

Mohamed ElBaradei: The man who would be President

Man of the moment? Of course Mohamed ElBaradei is. But man of the people, I have my doubts. He doesn’t claim to be, of course, and sitting in his garden easy chair near an impossibly blue but rather small swimming pool, he sometimes appears – even wearing his baseball hat – like a very friendly, shrewd and bespectacled mouse. He will not like that description, but this is a mouse, I suspect, with very sharp teeth.

It’s almost a delight to dissect the bigger mice who work in the White House and the State Department.

“Do you remember how on the second day, all we heard was that they were ‘monitoring the situation’. On the second day, Secretary Clinton said: ‘We assess the situation as stable’; it was funny yesterday, too, to hear Clinton say that ‘we have been urging the Egyptian Mubarak for 30 years to move on this – and he moved backward – how on earth can you still ask him to introduce democratic reform?

Dictators Only Leave Through Force They Don’t Understand Peaceful Transition    

Opposition Rallies to ElBaradei as Military Reinforces in Cairo

Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood and the secular opposition banded together Sunday around a prominent government critic to negotiate for forces seeking the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, as the army struggled to hold a capital seized by fears of chaos and buoyed by euphoria that three decades of Mr. Mubarak’s rule may be coming to an end.

The announcement that the critic, Mohamed ElBaradei, would represent a loosely unified opposition reconfigured the struggle between Mr. Mubarak’s government and a six-day-old uprising bent on driving him and his party from power.

The U.S. Loves Those Middle East Dictators  

More Egyptian protesters demand that White House condemn Mubarak

 In a dusty alleyway in downtown Cairo, Gamal Mohammed Manshawi held out a dirty plastic bag Saturday afternoon. Inside were smashed gas canisters and the casings of rubber bullets that he said Egyptian police had fired at anti-government demonstrators.

“You see,” the 50-year-old lawyer said, displaying the items. On the bottom of each were the words “Made in the USA.”

“They are attacking us with American weapons,” he yelled as men gathered around him.

In the streets of Cairo, many protesters are now openly denouncing the United States for supporting President Hosni Mubarak, saying the price has been their freedom.

A people defies its dictator, and a nation’s future is in the balance  

A brutal regime is fighting, bloodily, for its life. Robert Fisk reports from the streets of Cairo



It might be the end. It is certainly the beginning of the end. Across Egypt, tens of thousands of Arabs braved tear gas, water cannons, stun grenades and live fire yesterday to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak after more than 30 years of dictatorship.

And as Cairo lay drenched under clouds of tear gas from thousands of canisters fired into dense crowds by riot police, it looked as if his rule was nearing its finish. None of us on the streets of Cairo yesterday even knew where Mubarak – who would later appear on television to dismiss his cabinet – was. And I didn’t find anyone who cared.

Seizing a Moment, Al Jazeera Taps Arab Anger  

The protests rocking the Arab world this week have one thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next.

Al Jazeera has been widely hailed for helping enable the revolt in Tunisia with its galvanizing early reports, even as Western-aligned political factions in Lebanon and the West Bank attacked and burned the channel’s offices and vans this week, accusing it of incitement against them.

Live Blog Of Egyptian Protests Here  

They’re Number1 In Guns And The NRA Likes It That Way Number2? Yemen  

Amid gun lobby criticism, assault weapons reporting rule delayed



The White House, facing fierce criticism from the gun lobby, has delayed approval of a proposed rule that federal law enforcement officials say could help them stanch the flow of U.S. assault rifles and other high-powered weapons to Mexico’s drug cartels.

The proposed rule, announced by Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms acting director Kenneth Melson on Dec. 20,  would require U.S. firearms dealers in four southwest border states to report multiple sales of long guns, such as semi-automatic assault rifles which are frequently purchased by so-called “straw buyers” for the cartels. Melson had said he expected the proposed “emergency rule” would receive approval in early January 2011.

Next They’ll Be Charging You For The Oxygen You Breathe    

Airlines’ path for profits: Fly less, charge more

After a decade of multibillion-dollar losses, U.S. airlines appear to be on course to prosper for years to come for a simple reason: They are flying less.

By grounding planes and eliminating flights, airlines have cut costs and pushed fares higher. As the global economy rebounds, travel demand is rising and planes are as full as they’ve been in years.

Profit margins at big airlines are the highest in at least a decade, according to the government. The eight largest U.S. airlines are forecast to earn more than $5 billion this year and $5.6 billion in 2012.U.S. airlines are in the midst of reporting fourth-quarter results that should cap the industry’s first moneymaking year since 2007.

“The industry is in the best position – certainly in a decade – to post profitability,” says Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly. “The industry is much better prepared today than it was a decade ago.”

The American Tax Payer Screwed Once Again    

Mortgage Giants Leave Legal Bills to the Taxpayers

Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud. The cost was a closely guarded secret until last week, when the companies and their regulator produced an accounting at the request of Congress.

The bulk of those expenditures – $132 million – went to defend Fannie Mae and its officials in various securities suits and government investigations into accounting irregularities that occurred years before the subprime lending crisis erupted. The legal payments show no sign of abating.