First Tunisia, now Egypt and Jordan. The Arab world seems to be going through a really tumultuous moment as a wave of public protests have broken out in those countries against the respective rulers. Egypt has taken the protests, in which 26 have died so far, so seriously that it actually "shut down" the Internet, something that has never been done before.

Egypt's PM Hosni Mubarak, the very person who the protesters want to see step down, also dismissed his Cabinet and defended his security forces' heavyhanded reaction. Mubarak is an elected ruler but under his 30-year rule, he has clamped down on media and opposition parties, tortured dissidents, and generally engineered Egypt's supposed democratic system to ensure his continual reign. Yet he has also overseen a tenuous kind of peace with Israel and has steered Egypt into the US geopolitical camp, so it's not surprising that the US leadership, specifically Vice-President Joe Biden came out and backed him.