I read in india also there are big manifestations against corruption going on. I wish this worldwide momentum is used for good changes, even though unfortunately there seems to be a lot of violence on the way too.

If you consider how violent the regimes of egypt and tunisia where, what we've seen is still relatively peacefull.

Sometimes people say that corruption is just part of a local culture and that we in the west are too much looking at it through western eyes. But i think that's bullshit. Corruption eats a civilasation from the inside out. Once the line of corruption is crossed, you're basically back in the jungle where only the strongest and mercyless animals survive succesfully.

If you can bribe a policeman when it's just about speeding or parking tickets, you can also hire them to commit murders or to look the other way when you commit a murder yourself.

Any tips on how to do this?

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable"
-JFK

I'm no italian, sorry.

Its The Year of The Metal Rabbit im Sure things will calm down its a calm year its gonna be the best of the best and the worst of the worst.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea of old hosni to 'win' the elections with 99.9999% of the votes .

But no matter how you look at it, this is a major event. This is big.

The west should not be so stupid to keep supporting the old regime. If this revolution would fail, things WILL get ugly: this is a country where opposition leaders end up in prison. For all those people on the street there is no way back. If this peacull revolution fails, the frustration as a result of it will be a major catalist for islamic fundamentalism and terror.

Western leaders should all do a little contemplating on the meaning of the word 'karma'.

I think the events in Egypt will result in a reappraisal of the Palestine/Israel conflict; even a secular government should it arise in Egypt will not accept the present state of affairs there and I think the West is going to seriously reconsider its blind unquestioning support for Israel.

The 'best' outcome for the West would be an army coup with a relatively compliant head of state, one which doesnt exercise its vast muscle (ie limiting access to the Suez canal) and makes no firm efforts to alter the balance of power between the Islamic world and Israel.The US does have significant leverage here, in terms of its vast aid that it gives Egypt.

Methinks Israel should be very unsettled at these events.If Mubarak falls, as is appearing likely now albeit unclear over what time period, then I think there will be major hassle in Jordan.In the medium term Iran too will benefit from all of these events.

Yes, iran has already urged the egyptian government to 'listen to the people' while israel has outed it's 'deep concerns'. If hypocrisy wasnt't such a sad thing it would almost be funny.

If you look at it from a historical perspective. The ebb and flow of the Ummah (sharia based lands) an Islamic Egypt is inevitable. Saudi could be next. Lebanon has been embroiled in this for years. look at what Thomas Jefferson said the Continental Congress when he was first secretary of state after meeting with Barbary leader. Charles Martel at the Battle of tours The Ottomans etc etc. In the Israeli/Palestinian conflict it seems to me both sides are guilty and obfuscating truth is name of the game. Sure we could blame the US but this problem is more of an eternal conflict IMO. The whole world situation is ridiculous and the handful of media outlets are so busy with the story du jour to polarize the citizenry into partisan debate that the truth is lost or cleverly hidden.
The ancient Hopi call this the 5th incarnation of man, maybe we reach this point every 20,000 years and a hard reboot takes place. If you look at a graph of world population increase for the past 400 years and population explosion after the industrial revolution. At this point food water shortages are happening and some are even calling the events in Egypt and Tunisia food revolts. The Tunisian riots were sparked by a fruit vendor self immolating. Inflation and speculation of grain are driving prices up coupled with harsh Russian winters crushing exports.
I am a pretty upbeat funny guy in real life; sorry to seem so grim but maybe this is all part of the plan we have a hard reboot and install OS man v.1.6

I agree that the west is not the source of all the nasty stuff in the middle-east and northern-african region.
But all that we have contributed to the region, sometimes even with the best intentions, has been disastrous.

I saw some white house official on TV yesterday, talking about 'all the improvements in the region we have made so far' and how this could all be endangered by the revolt.

What improvements, if i may ask? The whole thing called peace proces is a carousel that goes round and round. The palestine papers have clearly shown that everybody is talking over the exact same plans over and over for decades. You don't make improvements if you're only going in circles. Actually, things have only gotten worse because of the circular pattern of the whole thing.

We should stop thinking that we know what's best for the region and secondly, we should act according to our own morals like the belief in human rights and democracy.
In the end we are harming ourselves as well as others. I find it strange that western leaders fail to see this.