Links 10 December 2010

Yesterday I linked to the blog Kim Jong Il Looking At Things and suggested a Middle Eastern version is necessary. And lo, reader Evan sends me Laugh In With Hosni. I am contributing the pic on the right - not sure when it was taken, perhaps during a fateful military parade in 1981? 

And special extra Mubarak pics gallery after the jump.

• Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | The EU and human rights in Egypt
  I'm confused - is Marc Franco's the EU Ambassador to Egypt, or an ambassador for Egypt?
• Fighting in Yemen: A hidden war | The Economist
  Depressing dispatch from Houthi country in Yemen, an under-reported war.
• Mediterranean cities: Winds of cosmopolitanism | The Economist
  Review of book about Beirut, Alexandria and Izmir and Med. cosmopolitanism.
• New Contender Emerges in Egypt - WSJ.com
  WSJ looks at the possibility that Ahmed Shafiq is the next president of Egypt.
• The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: He is fed up: An Arab fixer leaves his job and writes about his own experiences
  Angry fixer on useless journo - more common that you might think.
• US embassy cables: Mubarak: Egypt's president-for-life | World news | guardian.co.uk
  Tough but fair: Mubarak self-image, as seen by US Embassy.

On that last link — one of the interesting things about the cable — an introduction to Mubarak for Obama — is that is says little about Mubarak's health, even though around that time many believed the Egyptian president had a small stroke. This is all it has say:

Mubarak is 81 years old and in reasonably good health; his most notable problem is a hearing deficit in his left ear.

I think that Obama got the message.