I too am sceptical about the impact of modern media on this street campaign and am less certain about its impact on the governing elite / army. Someone I am sure can attest to the penetration of new media in Tunisia; how many people have mobile phones, use the web, use Twitter etc?

Link to BBC comment on media:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12180954

Nor should we overlook the original catalyst, the student trader who burnt himself and that the President visited his bedside before he died. When he did that all Tunisians knew what the student had done. Was the visit a mistake I do not know.

Newsreel in crisis situations is a snapshot and as I posted before it was the age groups involved that indicated to me a mass movement had appeared. Yesterday I noted pictures of women and not one wearing a head scarf.

What will be the impact of Tunisia? An Arab writes:http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensec...s-from-tunisia

Under 'Why the Jasmine Revolution won't bloom' a press comment, with a superb joke, after the link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ont-bloom.html

Some joked that Mr Ben Ali, whose plane into exile was refused permission to land in a repentant France before heading east to Saudi Arabia, dropped in first on Mr Mubarak’s seaside home in Sharm el Sheikh. “Come to stay?” Mr Mubarak asks. “No, come to pick you up,” replies Mr Ben Ali.