The situation in Cairo is changing daily. When Max posted it seemed as though Tahrir Square was emptying out and Mubarak’s wait-it-out strategy was sapping the will of the protesters.

After nearly two weeks of turmoil, it looks like Tahrir Square is starting to empty out. The Egyptian Revolution – if we can call it that – seems to be entering its inevitable second phase, the power political phase, where elites sit down at a negotiating table and wield the old images of the angry masses as bargaining chips during administrative transition.

Indeed, the origins of the uprising itself lie in the use of social networking sites by antigovernment activists several months ago, after the death of Khaled Said, an Egyptian man killed by police officers after he discovered them using drugs. Support for his cause--that of fighting back in the face of government corruption--has widely been cited as the spark that helped ignite future activism.

Authoritarian regimes across the Middle East are atremble as popular revolution threatens to engulf a second country in the space of two months. Following the fall of the Ben Ali government in Tunisia, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have converged on major cities such as Cairo and Alexandria to protest a longstanding list of political and economic grievances that include an entrenched police state, one-party rule, endemic unemployment, and rising food inflation.

In the Silicon Valley town of Los Gatos, California, many residents work in the headquarters of high-tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Facebook. The town boasts a median family income of $150,000 and is known for its upscale housing developments, which even now sell for $1 million a piece on average. The town is also a hotspot for marijuana-related violence.

One of the most difficult elements of coping with terrorist attacks is managing the emotions that it elicits from victims. It is a simple enough argument to state that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be unbearable to the American people, but such an attack is inevitable-if not from abroad, then from the new crop of "home-grown" extremists materializing everywhere from Portland, Oregon, to Fort Hood, Texas. The future of terrorist attacks in the U.S. is not going to be on the scale of Sept. 11.

It is difficult to doubt today that China will ascend the power hierarchy and rise as a global superpower within the next century. News headlines constantly remind us of China's remarkable economic growth and increasing political clout. Particularly as the power of the United States appears to be waning, speculation of a Chinese 21st century runs rampant. Boasting a GDP growth rate of 9.6 percent and surpassing Japan as the world's second largest economy, China has unequivocally become an influential global power.

In July 2010, the monsoon rains began in Pakistan. Most people within Pakistan took the rains as a matter of course, ducking inside and waiting it out. But this time the rains did not stop. The waters crept over the banks of the Indus River, submerging farms and homes, destroying the livelihood of thousands. 1.2 million homes have either been damaged or destroyed; today 4 million Pakistanis are homeless; and 8 million remain dependent on aid, but as the effects of the flood gradually unfold, those numbers will almost inevitably rise.

Okinawa is ambiguous. It is an idyllic, subtropical vacation spot in the eyes of most Japanese as well as the site of the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, the largest land-sea-air battle of World War II.

In recent years, China’s green technology sector has seen a huge upsurge in productivity—and the thanks go largely to the Chinese government. Through generous government subsidies, China’s green technology sector has become the most productive and competitive in the world.