BEIRUT, May 2 (Reuters) – Osama bin Laden, slain by U.S.
forces in Pakistan on Sunday, seems curiously irrelevant in an
Arab world fired by popular revolt against oppressive leaders.

“Bin Laden is just a bad memory,” said Nadim Houry, of Human
Rights Watch, in Beirut. “The region has moved way beyond that,
with massive broad-based upheavals that are game-changers.”

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who had boasted his country was immune to the unrest lashing the Arab world’s autocrats, is now fighting for political survival.

The 45-year-old leader has tried economic carrots, political concessions and brute force to try to quell a popular upheaval that rights groups say has cost over 450 lives in six weeks.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, facing the gravest challenge of his 11 years in power, has tried repression, economic handouts and promises of reform to quell an unprecedented month-long wave of popular protests.

Yet the unrest, which rights groups say has cost more than 200 lives, including 17 on Monday, shows no sign of abating.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh is clinging to power despite daily protests demanding his departure. Implausibly, he may still believe he can survive.

Handing out funds and favours, the 69-year-old leader of the poorest Arab country has skillfully juggled complex military, tribal and political networks to stay in office for 32 years.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh is clinging to power despite daily protests demanding his departure. Implausibly, he may still believe he can survive.

Handing out funds and favors, the 69-year-old leader of the poorest Arab country has skillfully juggled complex military, tribal and political networks to stay in office for 32 years.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The astonishing popular protests against Arab autocrats that have churned the region for three months are the authentic birth pangs of a new Middle East.

Israel’s American-backed attempts to bomb Hezbollah and south Lebanon into submission in 2006 did not change the region, as Condoleezza Rice predicted it would.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule seems near collapse. His exit would spell uncertainty for his broken country and discomfiture for U.S. and Saudi friends, still backing their “ally” against al Qaeda.

The killing of more than 50 protesters in Sanaa on Sunday has turned a trickle of defections into a torrent as Yemeni diplomats, military officers, tribal leaders and politicians hasten to declare support for the anti-Saleh opposition.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Arab states that urged the imposition of a U.N.-backed no-fly zone on Libya showed little enthusiasm Friday for joining any military action there — even before Libya surprised the world by declaring a ceasefire.

The wary Arab response to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect civilians from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces reflected Arab queasiness about Western military intervention in another Muslim country.