don't stray showers continue in egypt opposition movements have begun to unite under a very good be egyptians know well. the former international atomic energy agency chief is well known internationally but his low profile of home after being abroad said yes means there's scepticism filled with a mind to take the place of president hosni mubarak's if there's an old. where's the money that ukraine's prime minister who does a search for the kids told officials after citizens know she's not been seen in public since. the danish court has acquitted of free speech activist who was charged with a racist critical comments made about islam nas had a god that domestic violence occurs in many ways dominated by islamic culture more

than all the insisted his name is one taking the next step. as a tall man story as egypt is gripped by and to government approach has the examines what the rest could mean for the world economy that's how our washington studios next here on alt. we've got. the biggest issues good voice seems to face with the news makers. welcome the loner show where you'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey working we live out of washington d.c. now today we'll continue our coverage of unrest in egypt policy will bring us a report from the ground and also down professor adrian pie to discuss the

country's political future and part of the u.s. will play in all that and let's expand this conversation to find out the economic impact of egypt's protests business insider's gregory white will shed light on all the items the expected to be hit hard like food and worst of all gas prices next we'll discuss the dying newspaper industry as people turn to the internet for the latest updates in the news world but good old fashioned newspaper is well kind of becoming extinct so as newspaper companies start to put their material online the million dollar question is will people pay for it was a question that catherine p. taylor then will tell you about an annual retreat hosted by the koch brothers in california now even though this gathering has gone unnoticed by people in the past this year angry progressives showed up to say that they want these powerful businessmen to stop furthering their political agenda with money david dayton from firedoglake was at the protest at home join me to discuss what it was that he saw and last week

a former army veteran drove from california to michigan where the trunk full of explosives what the attendant of blowing up one of the biggest mosques in the u.s. where was all the media attention could be the threat of domestic terrorism just isn't catchy enough to make it on air if the perpetrator is a muslim professor christopher chambers will join me at the end of the show to discuss that. now let's move on to our top story. a story dominating headlines is egypt there have been mixed reports about the protests and riots depending on the source but one thing is for sure the unrest in the country is only growing artie's policy leer is in cairo and she has an up close and personal report about how objections really feel about their government. first he sent in his army then he reshuffled the government next came if force. people's voices here are louder but they're being drowned out by if sixteen's a mic twenty one is flying overhead mubarak is not going down without

a feisty. sankyo mr obama this is your friend is that barack this is your friend and the american involvement reminiscent of earlier revolutions in eastern europe. no question about it what happened in georgia with the orange revolution or rather the rose revolution and join ukraine with the orange revolution two thousand and three two thousand and four was part of a long term strategy orchestrated by the pentagon the state department and various us financed n.g.o.s like freedom house and national endowment for democracy and like those early revolutions people mobilized around a common goal abdel nur came all the way from us wanted to get rid of a dictator it's right to beat us with the police he feel it's right to beat us was army failed the russians after middle bus is an engineer qualified and jobless but he says he can't find work because of corruption we can't find jobs he paid two one

is inside the company sixty thousand bones so you can walk is a company and as a result europe beckons most the people who want to go to italy want to go to greece want to go to england so people in egypt want to leave this country because they are very frustrated and they are looking for a better life for a better future and for europe that means mass immigration and the problems that come with it may cause shared lives abroad but got caught up in the violence on a trip back home i don't think that there's something there's enough momentum at the moment that people just continue to just go out and protest until something is done i think people are just fed up the casualties keep climbing young faces victims of an aging regime. mohammed elsie by was with his cousin when he was shot did he took a bullet in his head. the last words he said before he

die that here was. may god protect for ever but whether they're protecting will be worth with out president mubarak is still unclear nighttime in cairo brings with it the fear of lawlessness the fear of armed gangs that are literally controlling the highways walking the streets and trying to break into people's homes and as we've seen in previous nights people will be for me what can be called a neighborhood watch groups using kitchen knives and sticks and anything that they can get their hands on to protect their property. that was our tease paul asli are reporting from cairo now six states after nationwide protests began and it's still hard to forecast exactly what egypt's political future will look like the best guess is that hosni mubarak is out and what seems like a last ditch effort to rehab his image the egyptian president announced his new cabinet today full of many of his old and powerful friends now protesters have

already rejected this attempt they're calling for a million man march to take place tomorrow and the military announced today that they will not stop the people but the more important question is because out then who will be a democracy in egypt could mean many things including the possibility of religious rule and it's clear that the u.s. doesn't know where to stand with principles in mind or our national interests so here to discuss with me is adrian pyne assistant professor of anthropology at american university thanks for coming back on the show and now you actually used to teach at the american university in cairo too so you definitely you know have a good feel for egypt in the political situation there so let's talk about what some of the possibilities are right now they're saying that mohamed el baradei might be this transitional a leader but how much trust are the people really have in him when the man hasn't been in the country for a long time so that the a good or bad well this is a really complicated issue because mohamed el baradei is somebody who as you

mentioned has been out of the country for forty years he has played no role in the democratic mobilizations that have been going on for years now in egypt although really there was a catalyst with the tunisian revolution that sparked a much greater uprising in addition to being absent from egyptian politics for all that time it's really unclear that mohammed it. represents something fundamentally different from mubarak yes it's probably likely that he won't be the kind of military dictatorship dictator that mubarak is but what kind of democracy does it represent if it's not somebody who is. coming from within the democratic movement in egypt there is a lot of suspicion about it. and in fact many of the groups that have spent a lot of money and and energy supporting him are groups i think we have to be suspicious of groups like freedom house which has been strongly behind mohammed. and and so there is suspicion in egypt there are

a lot of people saying who is the sky he didn't participate in the protests until after really the sort of threshold event which happened on friday when the people stood up bravely to the police in what egyptians call their chant and moment when they had people standing up to the water cannons for example so once it became clear that people really have the power that's when he stepped in and it was a lot of it looks pretty but how does that complicate the situation even more to have the muslim brotherhood say that they are also in support of all of our dining out here you know i mean they also were playing a bit of a a low key role in these protests also in the very first days we have a lot of people here in america a lot of pundits that are you know utterly afraid that if the muslim brotherhood does then take power in egypt it will be as long as rule that we will lose our ally in the region but so when they say that there are focusing or they're also putting their efforts behind el baradei that they support democracy and their religion can

take a back seat what does it really mean we should be skeptical of their actions as well yes we should be skeptical skeptical i think of just about everybody is actions in all of this and as you mentioned the muslim brotherhood like many of the opposition parties did not really jump into the fray until it became clear that the people were going to win this is a revolution that as one prominent egyptian blogger hope somehow malawi has noted does not have a leader that's one of the really exciting aspects of this revolution is that this is something that came from the ground up and at this point none of those parties not the. the muslim brotherhood or any of the others can claim credit for it and the people know this. and they initially put their weight behind mohamed el baradei but now it appears there's a split even within the muslim brotherhood about whether whether that would be the case and the reason they put their weight behind him is because mohamed el baradei had said that were he to some sort of coalition government that they would be

allowed to participate in elections frankly you know it shouldn't be a threat for a group that is religiously identified to participate in democratic elections if democracy really is what we care about democracy should mean that everybody should do we think that the muslim brotherhood really doesn't want to themselves participating they have been banned from participating essentially in egypt despite having to see representatives that are there independently but would they actually want to step up you know how much popular support do they really have in this country i have the sense that the muslim brotherhood would not be able to win elections that is you know a majority in egypt certainly they're popular and they have a certain amount of support and we can see that from the independent candidates who have won in the past although none of them won in the in the recent elections which is evidence to the degree of corruption in the election process but you know i think that the united states has played an incredibly hypocritical role viz a viz this idea of democracy you know we we feared hamas winning what we're

essentially democratic elections and the united states so fears the muslim muslim brotherhood perhaps winning you know that it's that it wouldn't support that but i don't think that the muslim brotherhood has a chance of winning the presidency for example it's becoming very clear that it seems like the u.s. officials don't really know where to stand on this one we've seen hillary clinton secretary of state change her stance to ation their developed brok obama waited quite a long time if you ask me to even come out and say anything so i mean we compare this to the response you know coming from israel from the israeli media we hear. israeli officials saying that they are just shocked by the betrayal coming from the u.s. towards. you know how does the u.s. figure the situation out here are we supposed to choose our interests or are we supposed to keep going by those principles of democracy which we fundamentally support little the u.s. is the u.s. is doing what it has alone which is hedging its bets the u.s. has been supporting in certain ways. along with mubarak and this is come out in

some of the wiki leaks cables not just so but various opposition candidates. and you know if we look at claims of democracy it's quite clear that funding egypt's military to the tune of one point five billion dollars a year over the course of the mubarak regime that the united states doesn't doesn't care a whit about democracy in egypt rather it supports a military dictatorship in the interests of quote unquote security in the region because mubarak has been such a friend of israel and that of course is why israel is criticizing the united states about not standing by mubarak at every turn very quickly what do you think we're going to see tomorrow they're promising a million man march already today we know that the egyptian forces stopped guarding the border in gaza and they said that hamas was infiltrating chaos really going to break out no i think what we've seen is the opposite of chaos and that's part of what's so exciting we've seen citizens taking responsibility for their own security

in the absence of the police we've seen the military come out as you mentioned earlier and say that they're going to not attack the citizens for expressing themselves democratically and we've seen a real example of cooperation and hope among the people who are rising up and demanding that they. be able to rule themselves only definite will be following the situation adrian thanks so much for joining us thank you. now as updates and information continue to trickle in from egypt the blogosphere lit up after cameras caught. pictures of tear gas used by the egyptian military that had made in the usa stamped across it twitter was on fire with comments people saying made in the usa tear gas tanks helicopters rivals and fighter planes used in egypt protests or u.s. fighter jets in the sky tanks in the streets u.s. guns and ammo in soldiers hands paid for by americans as word got out about the

tear gas canisters people were shocked they were angered and this was just about tear gas that even include the tanks the jets the guns used by the military also made by america but my question is why the shock i understand the anger but where does the shock come from egypt as one of the u.s. his closest allies in the middle east every year we provide one point three billion dollars in military aid alone to the country so i guess where that money goes to supply their weapons arsenal all the way down to sending them tear gas canisters from a company in pennsylvania and reports show that members of egypt's officer corps are educated at american war colleges so if anything the outbreak of protests just brings this deep relationship to the surface so keep all of that in mind when you watch statements coming from the obama administration. now unrest in egypt has not only political but economic ramifications as well on friday stocks experienced their biggest drop in months and while the market reaction was more promising on

monday morning there's been a consistent factor a spike in oil prices i go cultural commodities like corn and wheat are also rising so do we expect it to continue well five dollars a gallon gas prices be here sooner rather than later or could friday have been the peak of the crisis in the business insider is joining me now from our studio in new york to discuss it now gregory give me some analysis here and let's first stick with just egypt without speculation of what might happen somewhere else on friday the stock market really plummeted today was a little bit better but do you think that that was just the initial shock from the escalating situation or are we going to see this go even worse i was just mentioning there's going to be a million man march tomorrow in egypt so knows what'll happen. well it certainly was the initial shock on friday but the real story now is oil prices and everyone's worried about egypt in terms of that because of the suez canal it's a key shipping route for oil from the persian gulf to europe so with all prices

spiking it's a big worry for a lot of people not just about gasoline but also about the price of everything you know the price of oil is connected to everything and there's been worries for the past couple months that commodity prices are rising in that companies aren't able to pass them on so that means they have to fire people if they can't make enough money with the products they're selling. well what do you think the chances are of us seeing a really drastic spike in crude prices at all is it only going to depend on the situation in egypt as it unfolds or mightly put other factors into a look at you know what's happening in other countries in the area. it's not going to be just what's happening in egypt now that's going to send crude prices much higher and then in turn saying gasoline prices much higher it's going to take a spread it's going to take something else you know possibly in the actual gulf country you know saudi arabia has been the name mentioned they've been talking about these these small small protests in the streets in saudi arabia against the government or the king for his lack of infrastructure policy in the floods that

have gone on there but you're going to have to see a real spread there or some sort of attack on the suez canal and right now that doesn't look likely there are no armed militants operating in egypt at the moment if that changes that's a very serious problem and you could see prices spike as a result now would you say that perhaps the the situation after the financial crisis the global financial crisis is in any way you know helping to fuel some of these uprisings that we're seeing from tunisia to egypt you know some people would like to attribute it to weak but honestly how much does economic matters have to come in hand with you know protests for democracy. well there's a couple things at play here but really the inflation is leading to a lot of these protests the cost of food is rising unemployment's remaining high and that's you know that's a recipe that's been a recipe throughout history for protests and riots but the real things driving this right now are a natural weather patterns around the world you've seen gigantic floods in

australia you've seen the same thing in brazil and all of this eventually gets filtered down into food markets and then there's the x. factor in this case and that's easy money policy from the u.s. fed and the european central bank that could be driving prices higher there is no proof of that per se there is no way to really know but. the results there and the result is that prices are going higher and yes it's going to continue to contribute to political uncertainty around the world now how why we expect food prices to affect also just egypt and let's say the next six months after undergoing a revolution after so much turmoil so much uncertainty in our people they're going to be having a very hard time. absolutely you're going to see it become even worse problem in the next couple weeks particularly around the fact that airplanes are no longer flying into the country shipments are being reduced because of fear that they could be in danger so prices are going to continue to go higher it's not exactly a country that produces a lot of its own food so it's going to have

a huge impact on the population and it could actually drive this revolution faster if it continues to take more time if the if this isn't settled by the regime if they're not putting in place subsidies to deal with this problem or getting more food into the market it's going to go very quickly and six months down the line even if they have a new government this is still going to be a huge problem it's not going to be fixed very quickly at all and this of course you know shows i was just discussing some of the political ramifications for the u.s. and we have a hard time deciding between what's in our best interests and you know what goes along with our principles of fighting for democracy and here when you see democracy possibly interfering with oil prices that's quite the problem isn't it. well yes traditionally i mean that's that's a key driver for u.s. actions in the middle east is considering stability stability is code word for all prices remaining within a range that will not inspire a recession style scenario something to the us experienced in the one nine hundred

seventy s. so that's something they're certainly produce pursuing now it's something they've always pursued so that's what's maybe making the obama administration a little bit more. indecisive about the way they want to go with this definitely very very timid and confused in their responses that greg thanks so much for joining us. well still to come on tonight's show katie or me or the american to shell out money to read the news on websites in the top newspapers or plans to charge for content we would get every newspaper industry discuss that in just a moment with catherine p. taylor a social media insider from reading your posts. in some pieces but he's available in greenwich oh you're going to tell him or her to leave the club school so close hotel in the big old circus or tell us your great genius keep it. as a

a strong kempinski when you look at eclipse come on. now so it's. well it's no secret the newspapers are struggling in the internet age aside from loyal paying customers the majority of us prefer to get our news for free on our computers on our own time but could the free for all the coming to an at the new york times announced this month that sometime in february bell begin rolling out a paywall like the wall street journal and the times of london already do and we saw that release too many details but rumors are floating around out there may be a twenty dollars a month charge for a digital bundle which would allow access to the website at the i pad application

but they will also sell an internet only subscription for unlimited access to the site but of course the over arching question here is will people pay catherine p taylor social media insider for media post and being a trigger joins me to discuss it catherine thanks so much for joining us now there are a number of other publications out there that have already introduced pay walls but do you really think that the new york times is going to be the biggest test yet for this kind of a scenario where they have thirty million monthly visitors. yeah i mean certainly domestically rupert murdoch has done this with a couple of his his newspapers in the u.k. but you know with thirty million people this is a big test i mean that said in some ways it's not as big a test a few might think because it's really only going to apply to people who are spending a ton of time on that web site and the rest of us will still get a free ride and there's all sorts of other loopholes what have you so it's going to

be really big and i think other newspapers will follow it but the thing is they can't just jump in with both feet because it destroys their current revenue base so it's a really difficult problem for all skaters what if we do look specifically at you know the times of london and the experiments that they did there they lost four million on online readers because of this paywall so clearly didn't work for them so why do you think of the new york times as still taking this risk when others have failed. well i think the main thing is that they're going about it really differently and that's that they're not sort of putting the pay well as high if you will it's kind of a metaphor as some of the other publications have so you know if if they only estimate that about fifteen percent of the people currently visit the site or people who work are going to. you know qualify so to speak to pay because they come in they come off and the rest of us will still get it for free so that means that even and none of those people paid their traffic would only go down you know by

like by by fifteen percent which isn't all that much so it's not going to you know devastate that but it also shows how difficult it is that they can't just say that's it everybody has to pay and call the day because they would just lose too much so if i think they're going about it very cautiously you could argue to cautiously because they announced they were going to do this a year ago and they still haven't done it but you know you've got to take it in little bits and pieces and that's what they're doing do you think that people really care and now to pay for an entire newspaper anymore i mean these days you look at blogs we have sites that are aggregators that will just tell you all the stories they might put you know what a one paragraph with a hat catching headline that describes the whole thing as anyone even going to want to click packs past that first page anymore i mean these days we're almost you know so attuned to just getting little snippets and we're fine with that. yeah i mean that's a difficult question i mean that is the problem that everybody looking to the new york times is that i think there are really loyal new york times readers and they

will pay but that really doesn't translate to lots of other papers and even with the times you can say to yourself well you know the news some of the news that's kind of a commodity but i actually really like to read the morning dad or whatever and i will pay for that so it's it's it's difficult because i think the times has a really kind of different profile than most other newspapers out there so what works for them or doesn't work for them does it necessarily apply across the board but everybody's still going to look at them anyway and use them as an example if they are the times you know well that's the thing too is you know in today's news college here with everyone shrinking bureaus with fewer investigative reporters out there even on the blogosphere so much of what we've seen what we see written is always based first off of an article coming from the new york times or the washington post or one of these major publications but do you think that some bloggers might be more reluctant to actually link to their stories now if they think that all of their readers can't necessarily access it. you know i think there

might be a little bit of that but not as much as you might think i mean i did a post about this more than a year ago now but the thing is that if it doesn't tick off most of the readership people will probably still do it and i think actually that that kind of concern has very much come into play into the times you know wanting to make sure that it's not an entirely paid site and meaning need people to be reading them and they need to kind of be out there in the broader spear so somehow you have to find this this delicate balance between letting everything be free and letting you know and having people pay but unfortunately the web has taught us that everything should be free and so dour about it try to backtrack a bad start well what do you say would happen if all the major publications decided to institute a paywall on the exact same day then we'd have no choice but to adapt. you know

i actually don't think that would work i think that you know people would find ways around around the pay walls they always do bloggers maybe they would subscribe to get content for their blog but they could you know repurpose whole paragraphs and they could attribute it and there's nothing really wrong with that so sometimes i have sort of as a as a journalist wish that something like that would happen and that it would work but i didn't really think it well. and very quickly what role do advertisers place in this because you know the more that you make people read for subscription probably or pay for a subscription to reader material then the fewer people will sign up and the fewer people will see these ads are advertisers going to start dropping out. i you know i don't think the traffic follow up will be big enough for that to happen and there's also at least in the times case there's the whole prestige argument there are a lot of advertisers that want to be seen in those those you know pages be they digital or print but you know certainly print is taking

a big hit so i mean the advertisers will still be there and that shouldn't be too much of a problem but you know that you know the thing is that they've also had to balance that consideration because they know that you know the digital revenue may not be replacing the printed revenue but they've got to keep that revenue stream strong or all of this is a point well it definitely will be interesting to watch this experiment and fall and see how it works out for the times catherine thank you so much for joining us yes thank you very much now just ahead in our next half hour one lawmaker wants teachers and her state to save the theory of evolution is controversial to work ali her out to night school time segment the koch brothers hosted a retreat this weekend in california to discuss policy issue with the original target of some across the country but the event was met with protesters artie's among the lender reports a week and the.