Six In The Morning

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.

The Hate That Is Glenn Beck
Leftwing academic speaks out amid hate campaign led by Fox News host Glenn Beck
Frances Fox Piven defies death threats after taunts by anchorman Glenn Beck
Frances Fox Piven is not going into hiding. Not yet.

The 78-year-old leftwing academic is the latest hate figure for Fox News host Glenn Beck and his legion of fans. While she has decided to shrug off the inevitable death threats that have followed, she is well aware of the problem. "I don't know if I am scared, but I am worried," she told the Observer as she sat in a bar on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

"At the start I thought it was funny, but now I know that is dangerous... their paranoia works better when they can imagine a devil. Now that devil is me."

I'll Name The Top Spy Vice President Oh Yea

Our writer joins protesters atop a Cairo tank as the army shows signs of backing the people against Mubarak's regime
Robert Fisk: Egypt: Death throes of a dictatorship
The Egyptian tanks, the delirious protesters sitting atop them, the flags, the 40,000 protesters weeping and crying and cheering in Freedom Square and praying around them, the Muslim Brotherhood official sitting amid the tank passengers. Should this be compared to the liberation of Bucharest? Climbing on to an American-made battle tank myself, I could only remember those wonderful films of the liberation of Paris. A few hundred metres away, Hosni Mubarak's black-uniformed security police were still firing at demonstrators near the interior ministry. It was a wild, historical victory celebration, Mubarak's own tanks freeing his capital from his own dictatorship.

This Is How I Roll
Hou Yifan, the 16-year-old chess prodigy, tells Peter Foster about training, travelling - and Oliver Twist.
World's youngest ever women's chess champion: 'I'm just a normal teenager'
There is nothing in the slightest bit ordinary about the achievements of Hou Yifan, the Chinese chess prodigy who stunned the world just before Christmas by becoming the youngest ever women's world chess champion at the age of just 16.
And yet, in appearance at least, it is a quintessentially ordinary Chinese teenager that shuffles in through the door at the Chinese Chess Association in Beijing, feet clad in Nike trainers, colourful scarf draped around her neck and a trendy purple beret holding back neatly bobbed hair.

Diamonds Are Very Good for Him


Mugabe being helped by diamond industry

The Kimberley Process s (KP) industry watchdog moved earlier this month to legalise sales from the Chiadzwa fields in eastern Zimbabwe, which are controlled by the military and have been described by Zimbabwean finance minister Tendai Biti as "the biggest find of alluvial diamonds in the history of mankind".

Diamond sales from Chiadzwa could dwarf the impact of European and American sanctions and set the stage for Mugabe (86) to strengthen his military, rebuild his power base and even stage elections this year.

Diamond sales from Chiadzwa could dwarf the impact of European and American sanctions and set the stage for Mugabe (86) to strengthen his military, rebuild his power base and even stage elections this year.

No Outrage Here So Don't Ask
But the Palestine papers published by Al Jazeera have further dented Abbas's already low credibility, calling into question his ability to negotiate a lasting peace deal.
Why Palestine papers didn't spark outrage against Abbas's government
Ramallah, West Bank
With the winds of anti-government sentiment spreading across the Middle East, Al Jazeera's leak of the Palestine papers this week threatened to undermine the increasingly weak Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.
The news channel's exposé of far-reaching Palestinian peace concessions to Israel on Jerusalem, refugees, and borders failed to spark outward public outrage, spurring relief among President Abbas' aides. But the muted response of everyone from shopkeepers and businessmen in the West Bank belies a deeper erosion of support for Mr. Abbas, who has staked his career on negotiating peace with Israel.