TUNISIA
* Last night, Tunisia finally got mention on the biggest stage. Near the end of Obama's State of the Union address, he said that the United States "stands with the people of Tunisia, and all people striving for democracy." It was the clearest, and loudest, statement of support thus far from Washington - and on a day where Egyptians took to the streets in one of the largest protests in that nation in years. Boston Globe has a nice eddy on it today.
* The interim government has issued arrest warrants for Ben Ali and certain members of The Family, both in Saudi Arabia, and the Sakhr el-Matri gang in Canada. They're asking Interpol for help in apprehending them.
* AJE: The government is going to announce ANOTHER Cabinet re-shuffle today.
* Government sources say that more than 11,000 prisoners escaped from Tunisian jails in the chaos after Ben Ali's departure.
* Assistant SecState Jeff Feldman was in Tunis this week. US is offering help in recovering assets, and calling on the interim government to respond to the will of the people...
* Globe and Mail has a must-read. They confirm that Belhassen Trabelsi arrived in Montreal last week, meaning that along with Sakhr el-Matri, two of the worst of the Trabelsi gang have pretty much gotten away with it. Most interesting, in the context of the rumor we heard last week that Ben Ali himself may alight for Canada, is the fact that under Canadian refugee law, they could probably all go there, and stay damn near indefinitely as legal issues played themselves out.
* This NYT article talks about how there are still scattered protests on the streets, and still some anger about the composition of the interim government. But what I'm picking up on from my friends is not any sense of injustice in the transitional government, but a deep sense of frustration that life has not returned to even 80% normal. One friend noted that 'there's still nothing to do, no work, no school.' And work and school have changed for a lot of people; one friend's job at a media outlet disappeared because the outlet's director was a Ben Ali crony - verboten in the 'new normal.' Another institution with which we're familiar has sacked people for being too close to the old regime. It seems to this observer that the uncertainty; uncertainty about employment, about government, about the economy, about security is the biggest issue in Tunisie right now. Let's get a side of stability with this main course of freedom.
EGYPT
* Once again, one needs to voice caution in comparing Egypt's situation to Tunisia's. Tunisia is smaller, wealthier, more secular, and better educated. Plus, Tunisia's military was largely apolitical - and Ben Ali actually believed his own hype about the people loving him. Hosni Mubarak's Egypt is a completely different scene - the powerful Muslim Brotherhood waiting in the wings; poverty at a scale unheard of in Tunisia; large, uneducated masses. And Mubarak and his military? Peas in a pod.
Or at least, that's the way it looks from the outside. What's interesting for our discussion are the similarities between the Egyptian situation right now and the developments that led to Ben Ali's ouster. Consider, if you will, the following...
* Does this sound familiar? Mubarak's son beat feet for Britain last night. Kind of like Sakhr el-Matri's unexpected trip to Canada four days before Ben Ali fell in Tunisia?
* Does this sound familiar? Egyptian markets plummeting because of the unrest.
* Egyptian authorities seem to have learned at least one thing from Tunisia: Pull the plug on Twitter and Facebook, and quickly.
* Last night, Tunisia finally got mention on the biggest stage. Near the end of Obama's State of the Union address, he said that the United States "stands with the people of Tunisia, and all people striving for democracy." It was the clearest, and loudest, statement of support thus far from Washington - and on a day where Egyptians took to the streets in one of the largest protests in that nation in years. Boston Globe has a nice eddy on it today.
* The interim government has issued arrest warrants for Ben Ali and certain members of The Family, both in Saudi Arabia, and the Sakhr el-Matri gang in Canada. They're asking Interpol for help in apprehending them.
* AJE: The government is going to announce ANOTHER Cabinet re-shuffle today.
* Government sources say that more than 11,000 prisoners escaped from Tunisian jails in the chaos after Ben Ali's departure.
* Assistant SecState Jeff Feldman was in Tunis this week. US is offering help in recovering assets, and calling on the interim government to respond to the will of the people...
* Globe and Mail has a must-read. They confirm that Belhassen Trabelsi arrived in Montreal last week, meaning that along with Sakhr el-Matri, two of the worst of the Trabelsi gang have pretty much gotten away with it. Most interesting, in the context of the rumor we heard last week that Ben Ali himself may alight for Canada, is the fact that under Canadian refugee law, they could probably all go there, and stay damn near indefinitely as legal issues played themselves out.
* This NYT article talks about how there are still scattered protests on the streets, and still some anger about the composition of the interim government. But what I'm picking up on from my friends is not any sense of injustice in the transitional government, but a deep sense of frustration that life has not returned to even 80% normal. One friend noted that 'there's still nothing to do, no work, no school.' And work and school have changed for a lot of people; one friend's job at a media outlet disappeared because the outlet's director was a Ben Ali crony - verboten in the 'new normal.' Another institution with which we're familiar has sacked people for being too close to the old regime. It seems to this observer that the uncertainty; uncertainty about employment, about government, about the economy, about security is the biggest issue in Tunisie right now. Let's get a side of stability with this main course of freedom.
EGYPT
* Once again, one needs to voice caution in comparing Egypt's situation to Tunisia's. Tunisia is smaller, wealthier, more secular, and better educated. Plus, Tunisia's military was largely apolitical - and Ben Ali actually believed his own hype about the people loving him. Hosni Mubarak's Egypt is a completely different scene - the powerful Muslim Brotherhood waiting in the wings; poverty at a scale unheard of in Tunisia; large, uneducated masses. And Mubarak and his military? Peas in a pod.
Or at least, that's the way it looks from the outside. What's interesting for our discussion are the similarities between the Egyptian situation right now and the developments that led to Ben Ali's ouster. Consider, if you will, the following...
* Does this sound familiar? Mubarak's son beat feet for Britain last night. Kind of like Sakhr el-Matri's unexpected trip to Canada four days before Ben Ali fell in Tunisia?
* Does this sound familiar? Egyptian markets plummeting because of the unrest.
* Egyptian authorities seem to have learned at least one thing from Tunisia: Pull the plug on Twitter and Facebook, and quickly.
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