Revolution in the air.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Apparently initiating in Tunisia, then moving to Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Yemen, widespread discontentment has Arab masses ready to lynch their political leaders. Now Egypt's in the game.

Not sure what to expect next, but this article gives an idea of why things are as they are.

Food and failed Arab states
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak01.html

[AiA in Atlanta]

Apparently initiating in Tunisia, then moving to Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Yemen, widespread discontentment has Arab masses ready to lynch their political leaders. Now Egypt's in the game.

Not sure what to expect next, but this article gives an idea of why things are as they are.

Food and failed Arab states
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak01.html

The US government will have to pay severance pay to these Arab/North African dictators

[Super Nova]

The biggest concern for me is that the change may go down the same path as iran. The west celebrated Iran’s change in the early 1980s, hoping that they would reform to a more liberal state and the Islamic fundamentalists made a power-grab. Iran went down hill from there. If this occur’s across the Arab region then we are all in trouble.

I hope they build a secular state..... if they don't and they turn their attention to Israel... things could get a little sense ove the next 10 years and it will only end in tears.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Muslim Brotherhood involvement suggests extremism .. ulterior motives ... bad stuff in general.

Rulers to hold talks with Muslim Brotherhood
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/australian ... otherhood/

[Outlaw Yogi]

Sounds like the entire Arab region of north Africa is on the boil ATM.

'Saudi Arabia sending troops to Bahrain'
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/165320.html

[Outlaw Yogi]

A new sense of populist empowerment grips the Middle East
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 07375.html

But as populist rebellions spread across the Middle East, many old formulas of suppressing them are faltering, with protesters relentlessly defying their regimes in what amounts to a collective psychological realignment in the region.

Autocrats and monarchs across the Arab world have offered political concessions, including pledges to step down from power, to prevent chaos. But they have only emboldened the streets. They have dispatched armed mobs and security forces to injure, arrest, even kill pro-democracy activists. But the next day, their critics return in even greater numbers, clamoring for action.

[AiA in Atlanta]

WWI left European monarchies crippled at best. Life may be changing for Arab/North African strongmen in a similar way.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Apparently so ...

Cables illuminate U.S. relations with Bahrain, potential for unrest
http://wikileaks.foreignpolicy.com/post ... on_bahrain

[Outlaw Yogi]

Massacre in Bahrain
http://www.accuracy.org/release/massacre-in-bahrain/

“The young people marching were so beautiful. They were chanting together, shouting ‘neither Sunni nor Shia but Bahraini’. We have not seen this before. And this is what annoyed the government agents the most — they are always trying to divide the people. So they just went at night and massacred them, there were children there. And now the regime is spreading lies about me and other journalists who are trying to say what is happening.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Libya jets bomb arms depots
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/worl ... lots-flee/

Two Libyan air force colonels had fled to the Mediterranean island of Malta in fighter jets saying they had refused orders to bomb protesters.

Warplanes and Troops Besiege Protesters in Libyan Capital
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world ... .html?_r=1

The heavy presence of security forces in the capital late Monday was a clear signal of his determination to hold on. Two residents said planes had been landing for 10 days ferrying mercenaries from African countries into an airbase in Tripoli. They had done much of the shooting, which began Sunday night, they said. Some forces were using particularly lethal, hollow-point bullets, they said.

“The shooting is not designed to disperse the protesters,” said one resident, who wanted to be identified only as Waleed, fearing for his security. “It is meant to kill them.”

Warplanes and Militia Fire on Protesters in Libyan Capital
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/21-7

By Monday afternoon, a witness saw armed militiamen firing on protesters who were clashing with riot police. As a group of protesters and the police faced off in a neighborhood near Green Square, in the center of the capital, ten or so Toyota pickup trucks carrying more than 20 men — many of them apparently from other African countries in mismatched fatigues — arrived at the scene.

Holding small automatic weapons, they started firing in the air, and then started firing at protesters, who scattered, the witness said. “It was an obscene amount of gunfire,” said the witness. “They were strafing these people. People were running in every direction.” The police stood by and watched, the witness said, as the militiamen, still shooting, chased after the protesters.

The escalation of the conflict came after Colonel Qaddafi’s security forces had earlier in the day retreated to a few buildings in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, fires burned unchecked, and senior government officials and diplomats announced defections. The country’s second-largest city remained under the control of rebels.

Witnesses in Tripoli interviewed by telephone on Monday said protesters had converged on the capital’s central Green Square and clashed with heavily armed riot police for several hours after Mr. Qaddafi’s speech, apparently enraged by it. Young men armed themselves with chains around their knuckles, steel pipes and machetes, as well as police batons, helmets and rifles commandeered from riot squads. Security forces moved in, shooting randomly.

Gaddafi regime: We will fight to the end
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 20638.html

Security forces had earlier fired indiscriminately on mourners attending the funerals of those killed in recent days, but appeared to lose the advantage after a key military battalion defected to the side of the protesters.

In Benghazi, people described a city beset with violence and fear, claiming that mercenaries from Chad, Zimbabwe and North African countries went on a killing spree, opening fire on protesters, be they men, women or children. "There are no police in the streets any longer, it is mainly the militias and the Africans who have come in," said Hassan, a 36-year-old teacher. "Gaddafi is contracting out the killings. I saw a two-year-old boy shot. These people don't care, they are not killing anyone from their own country, they are killing our people."

What does the Arab world do when its water runs out?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... unning-out