yeah i think i think modern islamists in north africa in tunisia libya and in egypt could very well. lead the transition. and there have been there have there have been statements by another party in tunisia and the muslim brotherhood in egypt that they are committed to democracy committed to present of democracy and personal freedoms. so i think think i. like i miss them it's driven democracy it's not really a snowboard and could have been had it's something that could very much work all right we have to leave it there egyptian journalist are some of the thanks for your insights. the head of the arab league observers mission in syria has described the situation in the rest of city of homs as being a reassuring so far the flashpoint city was a monetarist first stop to investigate the government's response to the anti regime on arrest the arrival was met by a massive demonstration with tens of thousands demanding international protection but there are some doubts that the mission can bring positive results the final report will be a pretty much preordained conclusion that there will be

from tunisia libya syria and also in egypt these groups are being seen. with regard to most. what is the economy and society we were struck when he was. ordered. marcos your thoughts on the program are coming international relations professor joining us on the line tonight from turkey and. still to come this hour a champion or traitor at the wiki leaks military hearing bradley manning appears in court for the first time accuse the siphoning sensitive data please support his rally behind the singled out soldier we got the latest on that story for making headlines this week and in the american courts everyone and its supreme leader a judge have given support for al qaeda as nine eleven attack got the details amount to. almost two decades of talks finally came to fruition by the end of the week with russia being accepted into the ranks of the world trade organization being a member should be free of business opportunities and positively impact on prices but there are also those who could find the competition a bit too tough as well as riff an ocean of found out for us. with all

it's "the protester," a symbol of those who challenge the autocratic regimes in tunisia, libya, and the wall street movement here at home. but was that just a gamic to avoid honoring a human being? i spoke with "time" managing editor, rick stengel from new york. welcome. >> nice to be here with you. >> now some of the criticism this cover selection comes from the right, the conservative site newsbusters saying ""time" is so tlabl it could not consider the tea party protest as a person of the year entry," but that's not true with occupy wall street. your response? >> actually, in kurt anderson's fantastic cover story about the protester, he cites the tea party as an antecedent of what we saw around the world this year. and in fact, the -- you know, one of the things about the protest movement is that it's politically ecumenical. there are people on the left and right. and it's not particularly ideological in one way or another. so i just don't think that's a particularly fair criticism. >> now i understand the arab spring and the courageous people we saw protesting in countries like tuni

as well as other arabs and wonder what is the role of the arab margaret union in the events in libya tunisia and in the neighboring arab and mediterranean countries. and that's the hope of all the people of the magreb both the people. and their governments however the changes we've seen are on satisfactory one of the causes of that partially it may be down to poor condition between political and economic activities for example algeria had a centralised economy for twenty years the state monopolized economy and industrial production while a neighboring morocco was open and liberal maybe that's why everything was well coordinated in harmonious there the same concerns our relations with. as for the political regime we know that they were different at that time but we have seen changes including recent ones the arab spring there is started coming closer together united by the idea of a republican government we hope that that repression or in economic systems will stimulate development and constant forward movement that's what we've all been dreaming about the dream has become a necessity and we

back to market irvine i mean you know if you go back to egypt and look at what happened in tunisia and in libya also to i mean you could decapitation the regime some ways more peaceful than others and we can talk about nato as adventures in the in the region and maybe another time but i mean where do we go from here because two thousand and eleven obviously is a watershed year for the region you can get rid of a dictator but can you change the system ok maybe tunisia is a little bit of optimism right there but if things are coming to a head now in egypt if the election cycle and all that are we going to see the fulfillment of a lot of the hopes that you. occur when mubarak actually fell because like i said you can take the snake's head off but what about the rest of the body will just rot at the expense of everyone else. that's the question i mean i just got back from another trip to egypt and spent about ten days most of the time in tahrir square and also in other places around egypt and i can tell you it's a lot easier to decapitate the snake than to actually kill it you know the system is in

big uprising in tunisia, egypt, libya, people are interested in that.re also seeing on the other spectrum, huge interest in steve jobs' death. >> was it difficult to do this year because there have been so many? i mean this has been a year and a news cycle where it seems like, you know, it's not just one after the other, but a lot of dovetailing of big, big stories that took place, all at once this year and it was up to you and your team to kind of, at least, highlight the 20 and allow people to select from there? >> yeah. i mean it was, obviously, a difficult task to narrow it down. you have so much. i mean looking at the economy, globally, looking at the economy in the u.s. and the unemployment, how that's led to, you know, the occupy movement, which is another story we're seeing huge traction with. a lot of big news and what we're hoping is people will tell us what is the most important this year for them. >> how will they do that? go to the dotcom site and then what? >> what you're going to do, log on and see the list of the 20 stories. you will be

. >> it was a revolutionary year across the arab world from tunisia to libya. people in the region fought for freedom and a democratic future, and the world watched in amazement. three governments have fallen during the arab sprain revolution so far, including in egypt. a group of young rappers took part in protests to topple president mubarak. are proud to have been part of their country's historic change. -- during the era of spring -- during the arab spring. >> this song has become a hit among many egyptians. edgy performed in tahrir square before mubarak was ousted. >> i was hardly afraid during the protests. when someone went down, there were 30 who stepped up and took his place while 30 others help the fallen -- helped the fallen. i believe we saw the spirit of egypt that we want in the future. >> they never would do demonstrations before the revolution. they were students. their music was not political. they felt powerless against the mubarak regime. that would change once the protests on tahrir square started. >> when i come back here, i see everyone is

dictators have fallen in egypt, tunisia, and libya. president obama has called on assad to step down and syria's neighbors, turkey and jordan, are also calling for an end to ahe regime. while the assad government blamed al qaeda, our independent reporting shows that opponents ed assad are not islamic terrorists. syria does not allow reporters to work freely, but recently cbs news correspondent clarissa ward slipped into the country and met the rebels. we can't show you their faces, they risked their lives to talk to us. >> reporter: late one night we were blindfolded and taken to meet members of the free syrian army, soldiers who have defected from syria's feared military. hey say because they refused to fire on protesters. they admit to carrying out attacks on government security forces. "our military operations are well organized," the leader told me, "but our main essential task is to protect civilians." today the free syrian army denied any connection to the bombings. the regime has called syria's pro-democracy activists terrorists

through the uprisings in countries like egypt syria tunisia and libya intelligence groups on the military worldwide on this technology to track anyone who expressed anti-government sentiments and in some cases those tools are responsible for their deaths at the hands of the government now while this technology is technically illegal a market for surveillance tools in the u.s. and around the world has surged since nine eleven and as a songe points out the industry is unregulated so these companies overstep any ethical boundaries on a regular basis hopefully wiki leaks latest leak of information regarding this type of surveillance equipment will force government agencies to take a stance on the issue or at least pass up to what they've been doing behind closed doors. well last night for the first time demonstrators with the occupy wall street movement targeted event for the president it was a big fundraiser for president obama in new york city supporters paid between a thousand and thirty five thousand dollars per person to attend were a few hundred of them and they say the protesters say t

tunisia and egypt got rid of their dictators without war but libya was not so lucky nato allies began a humanitarian mission with a fierce bombing campaign but critics called it a mislabeled invasion to take down gadhafi for benefits the only reason they're interested in with libya is bout the oil you hear anybody screaming and yelling about all those people last week that were killed in the ivory coast or who sudan gadhafi was brutally killed in october as the world watched the graphic video go viral thousands of civilians were killed over months of bombing and as twenty twelve neared syria found itself in a similar set up for intervention russia and china fearing a repeat of the situation in libya as civil war intensifies this is a direct. act that direct clash between the u.s. and nato on one side and russia and china on the war you know on the other side much more david was in libya protests continue in egypt libya syria and many more arab countries as the year ends. the battle to save a drowning single currency left to board rooms and banks in twenty eleven and flooded the street

with secretary clinton and i am actually optimistic about libya because it's small and have a lot of money but have no institutns whatsoever tunisia looks like france compared to libya. >> charlie: a tribal culture. >> and have yo the fighters from benghazi and they're saying go home. i don't know what's going happen. >> charlie: but real competition among competing parties on the same page about over throwing khadafi. >> one of the common threads is that everybody knew what they were against. that was clear particularly where the autocracy was against the leaders and no one knew what it was for with the exception of the muslim brotherhood. >> crlie: syria how long can asad stay in power? >> we talked to the syrian immigire be in power? >> charlie: somebody came in. >> it won't happen here. >> charlie: does that lead to the conclusion he'll be able to tough it out as long as there's intervention from outside. >> in syria what the arab league has done in getting in strong on sanctions and making him syria a p pariah it wouldn't have happened. >> charlie: bahrain remains to be seen. >> there's a change in the arab world and some pla

in egypt and tunisia and libya.his is changing the course of history. we need a president who understands the international dynamics and will stand up for the united states because these aggressors are not content to stay in their own back yard. they will be -- they see the u.s. as a foe. some commentators have said it may be the united states will one day find out what it is to be in israel's shoes in the middle east. i don't want to see that >> part of the conversation about the attack on the uss liberty. i remember that story. it was in the 1967 war. it was an intelligence gathering ship that israel took out. whether by mistake or on purpose as an act of war, is still a question. they later paid reparations for that. they said, we screwed up. >> i stand by my claim. i believe ron paul would be a very dangerous precedent for the united states because clearly, the no. 1 threat today to international security is iran gaining a nuclear weapon. it is simply untrue. all you have to do is to a google search and there's

dictators have fallen in egypt, tunisia, and libya. president obama has called on assad to step down and syria's neighbors, turkey and jordan, are also calling for an end to the regime. while the assad government blamed al qaeda, our independent reporting shows that opponents of assad are not islamic terrorists. syria does not allow reporters to work freely, but recently cbs news correspondent clarissa ward slipped into the country and met the rebels. we can't show you their faces, they risked their lives to talk to us. >> reporter: late one night we were blindfolded and taken to meet members of the free syrian army, soldiers who have defected from syria's feared military. they say because they refused to fire on protesters. they admit to carrying out attacks on government security forces. "our military operations are well organized" the leader told me. "but our main essential task is to protect civilians." today the free syrian army denied any connection to the bombing. the regime has called syria's pro-democracy activists terrorists

. >> reporter: for egypt, smaller revolutionary neighbors, tunisia and libya, the transition processsmoother path. but they, too, have not escaped an economic fallout. the dow jones nina index which measures the entire middle east in north africa has plummeted from 2010. investors have always factored that in. now they're entering completely unchartered territory with three leaders ousted and nations struggling to find their political feet. in a year of revolution and transition, the middle east has bled when the first protest began in tunisia. there's still a long path ahead to reassure and bring back the international investor. leoni lakhani for "marketplace middle east," abb. >>> at a young age, a production company help put tunisia on the entertainment map helping bring in monty python and george lucas. he sat down with the entrepreneur and asked him about the road ahead following a year of unrest. >> economic problems plus lack of political freedom was the cause of that. now they have liberty and dignity. but now whoever is going to rule, they will be expecting immediate reforms