It is ironic that a conference on democracy in the Arab world could not be held in the capital of any Arab country, and was instead held in the capital.
yet. but if there is no shortage of people who have positioned themselves to step in in case president hosni mubarak were to step down. unlike in tunisia there are several official parties opposed to the longtime president s rule. so here is just a sampling of the main ones we may know of. you may recognize this man mohamed elbaradei. he was the u.n. s atomic energy chief for 12 years and nobel peace prize winner and now he s back in egypt and heads an opposition umbrella group called the national association for change. learn mou about this may. ayman nur who leads the el ghad party. he became the second against president mubarak in the last presidential vote in 2005. he went to prison for three years after that on charges that he forged signatures to register his party. and then next take a look at this man right here.
there. you ve heard the reports from ben wedeman that the military there as a seen to restore order. joining us now, a troublesome turn, a troubling turn, i should say, that events seem to have taken. what have you seen? reporter: well, jonathan, it appears as toe there s really widespread lawlessness in large parts of the criminal. we re here in downtown where we have the military presence pretty much on every corner because of course we have these key strategic buildings, government buildings that are so important to the country. however, if you get outside of downtown and just across that bridge back there, basically, what happens is that there s absolutely no authority in place whatsoever. so we rode down the streets. there s guys with baseball bats, with pipes from vacuum cleaners, with rifles, with pistols, with samurai swords standing outside their house, trying to defend their property against what they say are gangs trying to loot. they showed us some people who