Activists in Yemen, Jordan, Algeria and even Albania  took to the streets this weekend demanding democratic reforms in their countries.  

Some expressed explicit support for the Tunisian people, calling for similar uprisings in their own countries. Others were more reserved. Jordanians directed their anger at the prime minister rather than trying to oust the royal family.

The popular demonstrations drew comparisons to the Tunisian protest movement that has captivated the world. But opinions remain divided on whether these events constitute a real threat to the ruling powers in those countries.

"The regime will always look strong until the day it collapses," Nadim Shehadi, from the London-based think tank Chatham House, told Babylon & Beyond. "It cannot look weak, because the minute it looks weak it is dead already."

The depressed fruit seller in Tunisia who set himself on fire and touched off protests that toppled former President Zine el Abidine ben Ali has inspired copycats in recent days in Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania.

On Monday, a 50-year-old man frustrated by tough economic times set himself on fire outside the Egyptian parliament. Abdou Abdul Monem, a father of four who owns a stand near Ismailia, Egypt, for selling fast food, was said to have grown desperate after a dispute with local authorities over receiving his monthly coupons for subsidized bread.

Abdul Monem traveled to the capital and stood outside parliament shouting anti-government slogans before dousing himself with fuel and setting himself on fire. A nearby taxi driver intervened with a fire extinguisher. Egyptian Health Minister Hatem El Gabali said Abdul Monem suffered first-degree burns on 15% of his body and should be discharged from a hospital within 48 hours.

The self-immolation comes a day after four similar incidents were reported in Algeria, where protests against high prices for food and commodities have been going on for the last two weeks. Algerian media reported that the men were angry and depressed.

In Mauritania, Foreign Ministry official Abdou Ould Sidi said that police rushed a man to hospital in Nouakchott on Monday. Yacoub Ould Dahoud, 43, drove to a capital building before torching himself in his car to voice his resentment toward Mauritania's government.

The self-immolation in December of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia is cited as the starting point that spurred nationwide anger and dismay over Ben Ali's authoritarian rule. After weeks of violent protests that led to the shooting of scores of demonstrators, Ben Ali fled the country.

-- Amro Hassan in Cairo

Photo: Abdou Abdul Monem, the Egyptian man who set himself ablaze, lies on the ground after the fire is extinguished, Jan. 17, 2011. Credit: Reuters

At least two people were reportedly killed and 420 injured in several days of rioting across Algeria sparked by dramatic hikes in food prices as well as persistent unemployment.

One was a young man who was shot dead when "he tried to intrude into a police station" in the town of Ain Lahdjel, 150 miles south of the capital of Algiers, and another died in a hospital in the city of Bousmaïl; "the conditions of his death remain unclear," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila told the official Algerian Press Service on Saturday.

The minister, speaking to state radio, said 320 of those injured were among the security forces and fewer than a hundred were protesters.

Algeria is now considered America's closest ally in the fight against Al Qaeda in North Africa, an unlikely partnership that emerged following years of strained relations, leaked US diplomatic cables obtained by Babylon & Beyond show.

The documents show extensive intelligence, security and, increasingly, economic cooperation between the two states, despite Algeria's violent history, oppressive government and ongoing tensions over its placement on the American Transportation Security Administration's enhanced screening watch list in January 2010.

A detailed timeline of "major anti-terrorism successes" of 2008 including the killing or capture of at least 19 militant figures, several major illegal weapons cache discoveries and a thwarted assassination attempt on then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she visited Algeria in September of that year.

"It is worth remembering that no country is more important than Algeria in the fight against Al Qaeda in the Sahel and Maghreb," the American ambassador to Algiers, David D. Pearce, wrote in a Jan. 6, 2010, cable.

New developments in the mysterious death and alleged rape of a 15-year-old Algerian-French girl in Saudi Arabia's holiest city are unlikely to quell outrage among Algerians who are already suspicious of police handling of the case.

In an odd piece published Sunday, the Saudi English-language newspaper Arab News quoted a forensic report concluding that Sara Khatib was not raped before she fell to her death from the 16th floor of her hotel in Mecca where she was staying with her family while performing the Umrah pilgrimage.

Arab News went on to quote an unnamed source quoting the girl's stepfather as saying Khatib went up to the roof of the hotel unattended with a Yemeni worker, which was "her mistake and she got her punishment."

Khatib's body was found early last Wednesday on the roof of a neighboring hotel, and early press reports suggested Khatib was either raped and then pushed or jumped to escape being raped. Four expatriates of Yemeni and Bangladeshi origin are reportedly being questioned in connection with her death.

This year, 32 countries are competing in the most widely viewed sporting event in the world. 

But only one -- Algeria -- is from the Arab world, and in 80 years of World Cup tournaments, only one Middle Eastern country -- Turkey -- has made it to the quarterfinals.

The Middle East is wild about soccer. So why don't more of their national teams make it to the big time?

Some say governments of the region don't contribute enough to the sport.

“In Italy, every kilometer there is another soccer field,” said Davit Manoyan, a player for the Armenian national team. “Here, we have maybe 10 fields in the whole country. It’s a big problem.”

Yet others say facilities don't matter: 

“Football is a lifestyle, it’s a culture,” said Gabriel Meghruni, a former player for the Argentine club, River Plate.

“It doesn’t matter if you have a field or not," he said. "You build a field to play, in the schools, squares, parks, wherever you have enough space and something to kick – that’s all you need. Imagine,  I used to play in the street with a cork. In South America, it is that way: first family, then football. If you don’t play, others discriminate against you. It’s serious.”

The threatening letters and phone calls at night trickled in at a steady pace. They had become a part of everyday life for Randa, an Algerian transsexual and one of the pioneers in the Arab world's gay and transsexual activist movement.

One letter dropped in Randa's mailbox said, "We will kill you." Another one read, "You are a threat to all Muslims in Algeria." In mosques around the country, Randa's name was being circulated. Still, she refused to be intimidated and shrugged off the threats.

But one day, a friend showed up at her house in Algiers, the Algerian capital, with a worried look on his face. He had bad news. 

"One my friends took me for a ride in his car and told me, 'You have 10 days to leave the country,'" Randa, the author of a new book about her experiences, said in an interview with Babylon & Beyond. "Influential people had come to talk to him." 

She knew she had to move quickly, but she had no idea where she'd go. Getting a visa to Europe would certainly take longer than 10 days. No, they'd get her before that, Randa figured. A visa to Lebanon, however, would only take a few days. And she had friends in Beirut. 

So, Lebanon it was.

A year later, Randa, wearing a long black dress, high heels and sporting new black hair extensions, is greeting crowds of guests and reporters with a smile on her face at a signing for her memoir in the garden of a Beirut art studio.

The biography, "Memoirs of Randa the Trans," co-written with Lebanese journalist Hazem Saghyieh, was recently published in Arabic by the Dar-Al Saqi publishing house and recounts Randa's life story and struggles as a transsexual in Algeria and Beirut.

The African Cup of Nations is set to stage yet another passionate, incendiary confrontation between North Africa's fiercest soccer rivals when Egypt and Algeria clash in the semifinal round Thursday in Benguela, Angola.

Egypt is eager to erase the ghosts of November, when Algeria defeated Egypt to win a place in this summer's World Cup in South Africa. November was a bruising, tense time of riots, recriminations, battling fans and diplomatic furor that both nations hope will not erupt later this week. But that remains to be seen.

Since then, some Egyptians have been calling for a boycott of relations with their fellow Arab nation. Failing to reach the World Cup was a huge blow for millions in Egypt, who in recent years, and in the middle of financial and political frustrations, have found their pride in soccer glory.

If one Egyptian has benefited from the conflict between Egypt and Algeria following the two countries' soccer games in the World Cup qualifications, it would be President Hosni Mubarak's son Alaa, whose popularity among his countrymen has been on the rise following his dramatic statements against Algerian fans and officials.

Alongside his younger brother, Gamal, a leading member of the ruling National Democratic Party, Alaa ( a businessman with no interest in politics) was in Khartoum, Sudan, cheering for his country during Egypt's 1-0 loss to Algeria in the qualifications' playoff on Nov. 18.

Unlike Gamal, Alaa immediately made his anger public by voicing his frustrations over what he described as assaults he and other Egyptian fans endured at the hands of Algerians following the game.

In a live phone call to a television show for privately owned Dream TV one day after the match, Alaa said the Algerians he saw in Khartoum were mercenaries who practiced terror against Egyptian supporters, adding that whoever assaulted an Egyptian should be "beaten on his head."

With bruised pride and marred dignity, Egypt is going through a catharsis that has left much of the country sleepless, devastated and angry over the violence that erupted around the national team's recent soccer matches against bitter rival Algeria.  

The chaotic scenes have only come to add to Egyptians' disappointment of failing to secure a place in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. After a 2-0 late win in the two teams' first game in Cairo forced a playoff in Sudan three days later, Algeria won the Khartoum decider 1-0 on Wednesday.

The Egyptian squad, nicknamed The Pharaohs, has qualified only twice for the World Cup, the last of those came in 1990. Over the years, Egyptian fanatics have somehow grown used to seeing their team miss out on the prestigious competition, so why the unprecedented rage among millions this time around?

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has sought to calm an angry and defeated Egypt following the nation's dramatic soccer loss to Algeria, which has led to riots in the streets and a nasty international political row between the two North African nations.   

Delivering a previously scheduled speech to Parliament today, the 81-year-old president spoke publicly for the first time about the violence that erupted over the last week during two World Cup qualifying matches. Algeria's players were attacked by Egyptian fans, and Egyptian fans were threatened and assaulted by Algerian mobs. Tensions between the nations further intensified when Egypt recalled its ambassador to Algiers.

"I want to say in clear words that the dignity of Egyptians is part of the dignity of Egypt," Mubarak said without directly naming Algeria, which on Wednesday defeated Egypt 1-0 to advance to the World Cup championship in 2010. "Egypt does not tolerate those who hurt the dignity of its sons." 

While many fuming Egyptians are calling for cutting political and economic ties with Algeria, Mubarak was keen not to give any conclusive statements during his speech: "We don't want to be drawn into impulsive reactions," he said. "I am agitated too, but I restrain myself."

Anger

The president's words came less than 48 hours after the Ministry of Interior announced that 35 people, including 11 police officers, were injured in clashes when hundreds of Egyptian demonstrators attempted to break into the Algerian Embassy in Cairo on Thursday evening and early Friday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki confirmed today that Egypt recalled its ambassador to Algeria after Egyptian fans were attacked by their Algerian counterparts following the two countries' playoff match in the 2010 World Cup qualifications held in Khartoum, Sudan, on Wednesday.

The incident comes days after Algeria's ambassador to Cairo, Abdel Qader Hadjar, was summoned by the Egyptian government to explain violence against Egyptians living in Algeria in the days leading up to the crucial match, which Algeria won 1-0. Hadjar was summoned once again today, hours before a decision was issued to recall Egypt's ambassador in Algiers for "consultations."

The Foreign Ministry announced that it informed Hadjar of "Egypt's extreme displeasure with the assaults on Egyptian citizens who went to Khartoum to support the Egyptian team."

"Egypt also expressed its outrage and its denunciation after continuing reports and many appeals from Egyptian citizens residing in Algeria over the assaults and intimidation they face," the statement to Hadjar concluded.