When the democratic revolt in Tunisia successfully ousted the old regime, the world reacted with amazement. Democracy from below in the Arab world? After the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year-old regime in Egypt, the heartland of the Middle East, amazement has turned into certainty.

In a park in the middle of Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, sits Hosni Mubarak. The bronze statue, erected in 2007, stands against a hokey-looking backdrop of diminutive pyramids, but the subject’s face still bears “the wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command” that Shelley once ascribed to another fallen pharaoh.

On Sunday, Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi, the second eldest son of Muammar al-Qaddafi, went on Libyan state television and delivered a rambling, paranoia-soaked fifteen minute speech. Responding to the pro-democracy uprisings in his country Saifblamed the rebellion on foreign forces, mass media, drug addicts, thugs who've escaped from prison, and confused young people.

A ferry carrying Americans out of violence-plagued Libya left Tripoli on Friday after nearly three days of delay, a State Department spokesman has confirmed. The M/V Maria Delores, carrying 300 evacuees, more than half of them U.S. citizens, left the Libyan capital at 1:37 p.m. local time, said spokesman Philip J. Crowley.

An evacuation flight chartered by the government of Canada made it into Tripoli, the Libyan capital, on Friday morning, but after its crew was unable to find any Canadians at the chaotic airport, the airplane left empty.

A broad coalition of interests from oil companies, defense manufacturers and well-connected lobbying firms to neoconservative scholars and Harvard Business School professors has worked in recent years to advance a rapprochement with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and take advantage of business opportunities in the country.

The United States Thursday called on the UN Human Rights Council to dump Libya and consulted key allies on imposing sanctions, accelerating the international drive to halt Moamer Kadhafi's brutal protest crackdown.

As unlikely protests swept across Egypt on January 25, an administrator from the Facebook page that was helping to drive the uprisings emailed a top official of the social network, asking for help.