THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Hosni Mubarak's control of Egypt's state media, a vital linchpin of his 30-year presidency, has started to slip as the country's largest-circulation newspaper declared its support for the uprising against him.Hoping to sap the momentum from street protests demanding his overthrow, the president has instructed his deputy to launch potentially protracted negotiations with secular and Islamist opposition parties. The talks continued for a second day on Monday without yielding a significant breakthrough.
But Mr Mubarak was dealt a significant setback as the state-controlled Al-Ahram [Eng.], Egypt's second oldest newspaper and one of the most famous media publications in the Middle East, abandoned its long-standing position of slavish support for the regime.
In a front-page leader, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Osama Saraya hailed the "nobility" of what he described as a "revolution" and demanded that the government embark of irreversible constitutional and legislative changes.
"The state and all its denizens, the elder generation, the politicians and all other powers on the political stage must humble themselves and rein themselves in to understand the ambitions of the young and the dreams of this nation," he wrote.
There was no call on the president to resign and while it may yet prove that Al Ahram's editorial shift may be tactical rather than genuine, opposition supporters expressed astonishment at the development. >>> Adrian Blomfield, Cairo and Adrian Michaels in Herzliya, Israel | Monday, February 07, 2011
