Tahrir Square

CAIRO - Egyptian Finance Minister Hazem Beblawi resigned in protest over the military-led government's crackdown on Christian Coptic protesters this week that deepened sectarian tensions and left 25 people dead and more than 300 injured. Although "there might not be direct responsibility on the government's part, the responsibility lies, ultimately, on its shoulders," the official state news agency MENA quoted Beblawi as saying. "The current circumstances are very difficult and require a new and different way of thinking and working.

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE CAIRO - The six-month-old government of Tunisia cracked down with tear gas and batons Monday on thousands of protesters who filled a central artery of the capital in defiance of a new ban on demonstrations there. The confrontation, at the site of the protests that ousted former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and kicked off the Arab Spring last year, was another manifestation of a role reversal now playing out across North Africa in the aftermath of the revolts in neighboring Egypt and Libya as well.

GREG PORTER, the Drexel University sophomore arrested last week during protests in Cairo, returned to Philadelphia this weekend. A family member standing outside Porter's Glenside, Montgomery County, home told a reporter yesterday that Porter would not be available for comment but that the family is grateful that he is home. The 19-year-old La Salle College High School graduate was met Saturday evening by his parents and other family members at Philadelphia International Airport.

CAIRO - Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf made sweeping changes to his cabinet Sunday in a move to calm nine days of protests in Tahrir Square against the nation's ruling military council and the slow pace of political reform. Sharaf promised last week to reshuffle his government and purge the Interior Ministry of police officers and top officials accused of murder in the deaths of more than 800 protesters during the crackdown on the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February.

CAIRO - With near impunity and the backing of the Islamist president, Egyptian police have been accused of firing wildly at protesters, beating them, and lashing out with deadly force in clashes across much of the country in the last week, regaining their Hosni Mubarak-era notoriety as a tool of repression. In the process, nearly 60 people have been killed and hundreds injured, and the security forces have reemerged as a significant political player after spending the two years since Mubarak's ouster on the sidelines, sulking or unwilling to fully take back the streets.

CAIRO - Tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied in Tahrir Square on Friday to denounce violence against protesters - especially outraged by images of female protesters dragged by their hair, beaten, and kicked by troops - and to demand an immediate end to military rule. The protesters held pictures of people killed in the clashes that began this month and left at least 17 protesters dead. The scene of military troops beating and dragging women on the ground - in one incident stripping a veiled protester half naked and stomping on her chest - shook many in the largely conservative country, where the military in power since 1952 is highly revered.

CAIRO - Egyptian women are growing increasingly angry and militant as they deal with one of the unintended consequences of the Arab Spring: an epidemic of sexual assault that law enforcement has failed to contain. The backlash, which includes self-defense courses for women and even threats of violent retaliation, is fueled by ultraconservative Islamists who suggest that women invite assault by attending antigovernment protests where they mix with men. At marches against sexual harassment in Cairo, women have brandished kitchen knives in the air. Stenciled drawings on building walls depict girls fighting off men with swords.

CAIRO - Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel laureate and former head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, is worried that Egypt's revolution will be hijacked by remnants of the old regime. The sharp-tongued ElBaradei became a hero when he returned to his native Egypt a year ago to galvanize opposition to Hosni Mubarak. Young Egyptians promoted him on the Internet as a presidential challenger to Mubarak or his son Gamal. But he was vilified by the regime as a traitor and foreign agent and kept off the airwaves; he was virtually forced to leave.

CAIRO - While rebellions are erupting all over the Middle East, it is the continuing Egyptian revolution that will determine which direction the Arab world takes. After spending Friday in Tahrir Square, where hundreds of thousands of Egyptians were jubilantly celebrating the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, and talking to a broad section of people involved in his downfall, I can see how Egypt's revolt might produce a democracy that delivers for the people. And if Egypt succeeds, the whole region would have a better chance.

Now the real struggle for Egypt begins. In round one of Egypt's first free elections, Islamist parties strongly outperformed the others. Two more rounds of elections will take place by mid-March, but the message of the first round couldn't be clearer. Egypt's political landscape will be dominated in the near term by parties with strong Muslim religious leanings. For all those who are concerned about this outcome, it's important to understand what this does - and doesn't - mean.