Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

It's this kind of arrogance, coupled with the brutality, the crimes against humanity visited on so many innocents that makes people hate the US. It shouldn't be this way, but the fault clearly lies with y'all.

You say this like a normal American, ie. "It's a god-given mandate that we are entitled to stick our noses anywhere we please and when we say jump, everyone must ask, "How high?".

Egypt cracks down on foreign journalists
Harriet Sherwood in Alexandria, Sam Jones and agencies
The Guardian, Friday 4 February 2011

Members of international media and human rights groups arrested, attacked and beaten in intimidation campaign


Foreign journalists and Egyptian anti-goverment protesters take cover during clashes Egyptian anti-goverment protesters and foreign journalists take cover during clashes with pro-Mubarak demonstrators in Cairo. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

Dozens of foreign journalists were arrested, attacked and beaten yesterday as the Egyptian government and its supporters embarked on what the US state department called a concerted campaign to intimidate the international media.

Human rights workers also fell victim to crowd violence, while police raided the offices of two groups in Cairo, the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights, and arrested observers. Amnesty International said one of its staff was detained at the law centre, with a Human Rights Watch colleague.

A group of reporters from Daily News Egypt, an independent, English-language paper, were among those targeted. They were set upon by a group of passers-by in Dokki, west of the Nile, that quickly swelled into a 50-strong crowd after they ventured out of their offices to investigate a story about rising petrol prices.

"It was terrifying," said Amira Ahmed, the publication's business editor. "They were chanting: 'We've found the foreigners, don't let them go,' and calling us traitors and spies. When I pointed out to them that I was Egyptian, they responded: 'Your Egypt isn't the same as ours.'"

Like many who were caught up in similar incidents today, Ahmed said the most chilling part of the encounter was the mob mentality that took hold. "We had one French journalist with us who we managed to put in a taxi and get to safety. But the people who were showing up had no idea why we were the targets. They just took up the cry of 'foreigners' and 'journalists' and joined in. There was no leader we could appeal to for reason."

Ahmed and her companions agreed to be handed over to the army to avoid provoking any more violence. On the way, they were followed by men on motorbikes and one youth who clung to the trunk of their cab. The army took custody of them and released them without harm. "I've never felt unsafe in Egypt before. I always felt that if anything ever happened to me on the street here, other Egyptians would come in to protect me," said Ahmed.

"But today was different and it was horrible. There was no logic to any of it; people are divided and people are raging, and they're casting out for targets to direct that rage against."

The Egyptian interior ministry arrested more than 20 foreign journalists in Cairo, including the Washington Post's bureau chief and a photographer. Al-Jazeera said three of its journalists were detained.

In Egypt's second city, Alexandria, locals said Egypt's national television channel had warned viewers to beware of Israeli agents masquerading as journalists and seeking to damage the country's image and national interest.

On the streets, it was impossible to interview protesters without a crowd gathering, shouting accusations and jabbing fingers. One western TV crew was threatened in a residential area away from the scene of protests, with angry residents beating the roof of their car and refusing to allow the team to enter an apartment building. Egyptians acting as fixers to western journalists were also accused of being Zionists.

A hotel in central Alexandria being used as a base by reporters has been threatened at least twice in the past week by angry protesters. Journalists were warned against filming or taking photographs from hotel balconies of protests below.

The antipathy to the media appeared to extend to both opponents and supporters of the regime.

The US state department spokesman PJ Crowley wrote on Twitter: "There is a campaign to intimidate international journalists in Cairo and interfere with their reporting. We condemn such actions."

A little later, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs described the "systematic targeting" of journalists in Egypt as unacceptable, and called for those detained to be freed.

The leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain said in a joint statement that the "attacks against journalists are completely unacceptable". ...<cont>

America has had its Mideast moments, not the least when Obama took office in 2009, pledging a new era in U.S. relations with the Muslim world. But the administration's failure to sustain a viable Israeli-Palestinian peace process or to persuade Israel to stop building settlements on land claimed by Palestinians has bitterly disappointed those who had hoped Obama would bring change, said Rami Khouri, director of the Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
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That Egyptians are now at the head of the region's long-suppressed demand for democratization comes in spite of, not because of, the United States, Khouri said.

"Nobody's listening to America anymore," he said. "It's become irrelevant."

That Mulbarak is responsible for what's happening to the media people reveals he's a tyrant

"Nobody's listening to America anymore,"

The Obama administration is working on a plan in which the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, would stand down immediately in spite of claims yesterday he was intent on clinging on to power until the elections in the autumn.

The White House, the state department and the Pentagon have been involved in discussions that include an option in which Mubarak would given way to a transitional government headed by the Egyptian vice-president, Omar Suleiman. Such a plan has the backing of the Egyptian military, the New York Times reported.

Some officials said there was not yet any indication that either Mr. Suleiman or the Egyptian military was willing to abandon Mr. Mubarak.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday. ...

Egypt's vice-president has said protesters calling for the departure of Hosni Mubarak, the president, are not "part of the Egyptian culture", saying "we all respect Mubarak as father and leader".

Omar Suleiman made the comments during an interview with state television on Thursday, in which he also said recent violence in Cairo, the capital, could have been the result of a "conspiracy".

"We will look into [the violence], into the fact it was a conspiracy," he said.

At least 13 people have been killed in clashes in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, central Cairo, as violence continues between pro-government groups and pro-democracy protesters.

Suleiman called on the protesters to end their 10-day demonstration, saying the government had now met their demands for reform, adding that the call for Mubarak to step down would be a "call for chaos".

"End your sit-in. Your demands have been answered," said Omar Suleiman.

This is probably largely to do with our media being very hands off with global events. I'm glad they are in the fray so that the US can see and hear what is happening.