With the proclamation of Mursi as the new Egyptian President, it seems that the revolution of the Egyptian Arab Spring has triumphed. For now it seems that everything is good. In fact, Mursi has promised to be the president for all Egyptians without an exception. His claims appear to be serious: a woman and a Christian man will be the vice-presidents of the newly formed government, something that was unthinkable few months ago. However, we will have to wait to see if this will become a real fact.

Even though not all Egyptians agree with the elections that have taken place in their country, Egypt is the quintessential example of the triumph of the revolution this Arab spring. There has also been some progress in countries like Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, where the authoritarian Presidents, Ben Ali’s, Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh fell respectively. On the other side of the coin, are countries such as Syria and Morocco that are still fighting to overthrow the established system, and have to fight against the silence that surrounds these revolutions.

An example of the revolutions that have recently started is the case of Northern Sudan, which has more press now that Egypt has achieved their first goal. It seems that what started off being a small movement, has crystallized into a bigger mobilization.

According to www.sudaneseonline.com, the trigger has been the cuts that the Sudanese government has executed after the former South Sudan achieved their independence. After this, the Sudanese Government has suspended the gasoline subsidies, taxes have increased and thousands of civil servants have been fired.

Therefore, the Sudanese have gone out to the streets to protest, under the slogan of “We want the regime out.” They are demanding the resignation of the National Congress Party, Al-Bashir’s party, to be replaced by a transitional government that should represent all geographical regions of Sudan.

In the meantime, the police remain loyal to Al-Bashir, and he has ordered all his forces to stop the anti-government protests. Therefore, police have responded with attacks and detentions, and three newspapers have been shut down. It seems that the Internet will be a blackout sooner or later. In the meantime, Saata Ahmed al Hajj, General Secretary of the Sudanese Commission for the Defense of Freedoms and Rights, has been arrested.

But the Sudanese case is not an easy one, since there are other open fronts, which actually are more important. First off, there is the genocide in the western zone of Darfur that has been plaguing them for the last two decades. Sudan president, Omar Al-Bashir, who has been in power for more than two decades, has been giving help to the Janjaweed, the Arab militians that are perpetrating these terrible acts, and the citizens from the other parts of Sudan are finally complaining about it with demonstrations.

Secondly, the armed conflict between Sudan and the new Republic of South Sudan for oil control is at risk of turning into an open war. In 2005, these two sides of the country signed a peace agreement that ended a civil war for 22 years, dividing the country into two: the south, where two thirds of oil reserves are, and the north, which is developed. Both sides agreed to split revenues from oil production by half, but not one of them are complying with what they agreed.

Will we have a new success story like this in Egypt? Time will tell, but we must not forget these more important issues in Sudan.

Image Courtesy of  Oxfam International

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According to the press office of the Egyptian Government Former President Hosni Mubarak, 84, is only confirmed to not be dead and that he is in a coma. One of Mubarak’s attorneys, Fareed El Deeb, told CNN, “he has been in a coma for hours now. He has had water on the lungs for 10 days now and his blood pressure is down today, which obstructed his breathing and forced doctors to put him on a respirator. He was given medicine intravenously to relieve the brain clot, and electric shocks were used to revive him but there was no substantial response. He is not dead as reported.”

Mubarak has been reportedly transported from the prison where he is being held to Maadi military hospital where he is on life support and clinically dead. Mubarak was jailed for life for his role in the killings of hundreds of protesters in February 2011.

CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen commented that “clinically dead is not a phrase that is commonly used, but when it is used, what it usually means is that someone is brain dead…in the United States, we would call this person dead because they have no brain activity.”

However, many are doubtful of these allegations. A senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Fouad Ajami, stated, “there’s a great Arab expression I like and it asks the following question: When you’re told that someone is dead, you say, ‘Is he dead and buried, or just dead?’ I think we are in the middle of this kind of situation.”

With tensions high in Egypt with the outcome of the presidential elections being announced today, some believe that this is a stunt by the government to distract from the problems with the elections. Sayed Ahmed, a protester, stated, “I don’t care about Mubarak. These are games played by the intelligence services.”

Recently many protesters have gathered in Tahrir Square to protest the way the elections are being run and recent problems in the government. The government is currently being run by the Egyptian military which ousted the recently elected Parliament after the Constitutional Court ruled that the elections were illegal. According to a statement issued by former US President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Center, they are “deeply troubled by the undemocratic turn that Egypt has taken.”

The Constitutional Court also ruled that candidate Ahmed Shafiq, former prime minister under Mubarak, could run and contest the elections even though a law was passed forbidding members of the former regime from running for office. According to “The Australian” the protesters of Arab Spring feel as though they are being marginalized.

Another lawyer of Mubarak’s claimed Wednesday, June 20 that the stories of Mubarak’s coma are exaggerated. Youssri Abdel Razeq says that Mubarak fell in the prison shower and developed a blood clot that has been removed. According to the “New York Times” Mubarak’s lawyers are trying to get him released from prison on medical grounds.

Image Courtesy of  Vasily Smirnov / Shutterstock.com

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