Jacob Lippincott is on the ground in Cairo. Here’s his latest update:

Violent street fights are tearing apart the downtown area, the capital’s economic and cultural nerve center. Secular activists, football hooligans, and grubby street children fight police on the Nile Corniche, an open promenade that runs along the famous river. Meanwhile, gangs of thugs prey on peaceful activists, local businesses, and passers-by in the city’s shadowed side streets.

Women are being viciously targeted. Over the last week, there have been more than a dozen brazen gang rapes and sexual assaults in and around Tahrir Square. In one particularly harrowing case, a gang of youths took turns raping a 19-year-old woman, mutilated her vagina with a knife, and left her naked on the street. She is reportedly still in critical condition in a Cairo hospital, suffering from internal injuries.

I personally witnessed one of these assaults in Tahrir. Some tried to help the woman, while others joined in the assault. There were masses of people pushing past each other to get away, and I, along with everyone around me, was pressed against a wall, unable to help, flee, or move.

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(Source: theweek.com)

Cartoon of the day: Solving Egypt’s future 
TOM TOLES © 2012 Universal Press Syndicate

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PHOTO: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustaf

September 14th marks day four of anti-U.S. protests sweeping across the Arab world. The escalating violence, stoked by an online movie trailer mocking Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, has left four dead in Libya, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. More deaths have been reported in Yemen. Indonesian and Afghani officials are working to keep a lid on protests in their countries by blocking the YouTube video fueling demonstrators’ anger.

How far will the protests go, and where will they lead?

(Source: theweek.com)

“The Egyptians who vented their rage during Mrs. Clinton’s visit, appear to have been inspired by fears that the Obama administration harbors a secret, pro-Islamist agenda,” says Robert Mackey at The New York Times.

A day after Clinton met with the country’s new president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, angry crowds chanted “Monica, Monica” as Clinton’s motorcade passed. In an attempt to downplay the hostile reception, one State Department official cautioned that it’s “easy to over-read a small group of pretty energetic protesters” in a country of 90 million people. 

Hillary Clinton’s rough reception in Egypt: What it means

(Source: theweek.com)

Spoke too soon.

More bad opinions through the ages here.

Fair elections for Egypt? Egypt wrapped up two days of voting Thursday in what’s being hailed as the country’s first legitimate presidential election ever. 

The counting continued on Friday, but partial results suggest that Mohammed Mursi, the candidate of the once-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, has earned a spot in a June run-off. The battle for the second slot remains tight, with a darkhorse leftist candidate, Hamdeen Sabahi, neck-and-neck with Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander and holdover from the Hosni Mubarak era. 

Was the balloting as fair as Egyptian leaders promised it would be?

(Source: theweek.com)

More than a year into their revolution, Egyptian voters are going to the polls, and for the first time in recent memory, they don’t know the winner ahead of time. The election, which will continue on Thursday, pits secularists against Islamists, and revolutionaries against old regime figures. Here, some critical questions about the election, and what the result will mean:

Will Egypt going Islamist? The Associated Press writes:

A victory by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate Mohammed Morsi will likely mean a greater emphasis on religion in government. The group, which already dominates parliament, says it won’t mimic Saudi Arabia and force women to wear veils or implement harsh punishments like amputations. But it says it does want to implement a more moderate version of Islamic law, which liberals fear will mean limitations on many rights.

More key questions on Egypt’s historic presidential election

A protester chants in Cairo’s Tahrir Square: Egyptians are back on the streets, and they vow to stay there until the ruling military council enacts democratic reforms. How did the country’s revolution go from success to stalemate in just four months? Photo: REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih

The newest issue, which hit shelves and doorsteps on Friday.

We begin this week by talking about oil prices. The impacts of the Arab uprisings are echoing far beyond the Middle East and North Africa — at the gas pump and in heating bills, for starters. Will the fragile economic recovering survive the revolts? Here’s what the talk show hosts had to say about it this weekend.

The sexual assault of Lara Logan: What’s the fallout for female journalists?

In the aftermath of the disturbing attack on the CBS correspondent in Egypt, media organizations face tough questions about the safety of female reporters. What does the attack augur for female reporters in the field?

• The media will protect its reporters better: We can only hope this awful news will lead to a “broader push by the Fourth Estate to protect correspondents against assault,” says Mac McClelland at Mother Jones. Already, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said it will add a section on sexual assault to its safety handbook. “It’s about damn time,” too. Already, “too many journalists have suffered similar horrors.”

• And we’ll be more open about the dangers they face: Many female reporters face sexual harassment and worse in their line of work, says Laila Lalami at The Nation. But they “rarely report it for fear of losing assignments.” For Logan to come forward about her assault breaks this “powerful taboo” once and for all.

More here

Did Anderson Cooper take sides on Egypt?

Anderson Cooper is under attack again — not from Egyptian thugs, but from his colleagues in the American media. Some are angry at the CNN anchor for repeatedly telling viewers that the Egyptian administration was telling “lies” in the run-up to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak last week. The government, he said, is “lying to Egyptians and lying to the world.” In response to accusations from viewers that he had lost objectivity after being attacked on the streets of Cairo, Cooper responded: “This is about the truth.” Meanwhile, media critics have taken up the charge that Cooper “took sides” on Egypt. Some thoughts from commentators:

• Exposing lies is what journalists do: It’s a journalists’ job to “treat factually false statements as false,” says Glenn Greenwald at Salon. Cooper was simply doing his job — identifying the lies of this corrupt regime, and describing them to his viewers. Allowing Mubarak to lie freely and without recourse would have been a far more egregious example of “taking sides.” Instead, Cooper stood up for the truth.

• If only journalists told us when the U.S. government is lying: Wouldn’t it be great, says Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, if “journalists actually used the world ‘lie’ to describe when the U.S. government lies.” Not when it spins the truth — but when it “says something it knows is untrue and we can independently verify is untrue.” It’s time the media tell it like it is, no matter who is lying.

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