Jan. 16 late updates

• Multiple media sources now reporting that French photog is not, in fact, dead, but in critical condition
• Amazing story in Le Monde about Ben Ali's final hours. Highlights: This was definitely a military coup, as we've been suspecting since it happened. The Hairdresser got away with $60M USD in gold bullion.
• The same story from Le Monde says it was the Libyan military, and not the French, who orchestrated Ben Ali's flight. It says that he was originally inbound to France, was ordered to land in Sardinia, and then headed for Saudi Arabia.

(updates, 1935 ET)
• This is the first really intelligent analysis I've seen out of CNN, and backs up what I was saying earlier about the overhyping of this as the beginning of a 'democratic tsunami' throughout the Mideast.
• And, no sooner do I write than, than there's a report of a rash of self-immolations in Algeria.
• This is a really encouraging article from the Independent. Despite the dramatic differences between the opposition parties, it seems there's agreement to get something done, and quickly - probably by the time we wake up in the U.S. on Monday morning.
• The Post talks to a Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, who is absolutely right on one count: This is an opportunity we can't let slip through our fingers. He has an interesting statement: 'During the Bush administration, officials on the ground would be saying 'We expect this..." ': He's right. Under Bush's State Department, we would have swaggered in like MacArthur with a list of demands early in the process, and in the process lost all respect and blown the opportunity. Obviously, we need to be more vocally supportive of the changes under way. But I promise you, if we cowboy up and overplay the hand, we'll pay for it for years. THAT is one of the central lessons of Iraq.
• Financial Times has a really excellent piece on the corruption of the Trabelsi Gang.
• Zeitgeist of the Tunisian youth: There's a Facebook group promoting the prison rape of Sakhr El-Matri.