(Democracy Now! 0730 PST, February 1, 2011) On the first-week anniversary of the unprecedented popular uprising in Egypt, over two million people descend on Tahrir Square in Cairo, defying the military curfew, to demand regime change in the country. The Egyptian Army has declared it will not use force and has recognized the "legitimate grievances" of the people.

By telephone, Democracy Now! interviews Sharif Kouddous, its senior news producer who is reporting live from Tahrir Square. "I am standing in an ocean of people ... They are demanding with one voice for the President Mubarak to Step Down," he says.

Click here for important background information on the unrest in Egypt.

Watch Al Jazeera English's live broadcast stream, online now.

(Democracy Now! 1330 PST, January 31, 2011) Democracy Now! Senior Producer Sharif Kouddous has arrived in Cairo and is reporting events on the ground by phone. Egyptians called for a general strike today and are organizing millions to take the streets Tuesday. "This is a popular uprising across all segments of society," Kouddous says. "People are so fed up with Mubarak, it's hard to describe. They cursed him, they want him to step down. They will not leave the streets of Cairo, the streets of Egypt, until he does."

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Click here for important background information on the unrest in Egypt. 

Watch Al Jazeera English's live broadcast stream, online now.

(Democracy Now! 1000 PST, January 31, 2011) The United States has given billion dollars of military aid to Egypt over the past decades. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Electric have provided tanks, missiles, engines and more to the Hosni Mubarak regime. Following the massive popular uprising, U.S. foreign aid continues to flow to Egypt, although the Obama administration has placed the program under review. Amy Goodman speaks with William Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, and Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab Politics at Georgetown University.

The debate over health care reform in the United States has now turned into more of a battle, replete with guns and anger. The divisive rancor that had seemingly disappeared following Obama's election amid calls for national unity has resurfaced at contentious town halls on the health care issue, fueled in part, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, by "conflict-driven cable news." Linguistics professor and author George Lakoff, featured previously on Link in the special "There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America," takes the Democrats to task in this video for failing to sell a national health care plan to the American public. (Video courtesy of our partners at FORA.tv!) Instead, according to Lakoff, conservatives are successfully framing the debate with phrases like "death panels" and "government takeover," while Democrats refuse to risk touting the real and tragic failures of insurance company-based health care in the United States. (For an interesting look at the ill effects of the American health care system on ordinary folk, check out Andrew Sullivan's blog series at the Atlantic Monthly, "The Views From Your Sickbeds," and another article in the September 2009 edition of the Atlantic, "How American Health Care Killed My Father" by David Goldhill.)

Yesterday, Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! also looked at the health care debate, interviewing Chad Terhune, a senior writer at BusinessWeek covering health care issues. Terhune's article, "The Health Insurers Have Already Won," looks at the real potential winners in health reform -- the health insurance industry. He writes, "The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable." (Watch the complete interview below, and read more at DemocracyNow.org.) And what do you think -- is a better health care system on the horizon for the U.S.? Or will insurance companies be the only winners in this battle?

U.S. President Barack Obama visited Russia in early July to much media fanfare in the West, but was anything really accomplished? In a carefully choreographed diplomatic dance, Obama met first with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and allocated only a breakfast with Prime Minister (and de facto Russian leader?) Vladimir Putin. Clearly Obama hoped, in the Bushian turn of phrase, to "see into the soul" of Medvedev and lure him away from the omnipresent Putin-Sputnik.

But during the visit, the Russian leaders both seemed steadfast in their attempts to slip out of America's crumbling unipolar dominance of world affairs and maintain their own sphere of influence over the former Soviet Union. And although there were some agreements made between the U.S. and Russia on cuts in nuclear arms, at least one prominent supporter of nuclear disarmament, journalist Jonathan Schell, told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman that he found the nuclear agreement between Obama and Medvedev to be "disappointing".

On a lighter note, somehow the trim President Obama was able to mostly resist the temptation of this fantastic Saint Basil's Cathedral cake, featured in this Russia Today report: 

Cake aside, the diplomatic ballet continued earlier this week, as Vice President Joe Biden paid a requisite visit to NATO hopefuls and Russian archenemies Ukraine and Georgia. While Russians merely yawned in the face of Obama's star power, Biden was greeted with adoring crowds in Georgia's capital of Tbilisi, as he drove by "George W. Bush Street" (the former president was always a popular figure in Georgia, due to his support of Georgian independence from their domineering Russian neighbors).

In Ukraine, Biden affirmed U.S. support of Russia's near abroad, rejecting Russia's "sphere of influence" in the region. But it remains to be seen if Washington can back up these words of support with true action. With Russia's civil society and politics drifting back to the authoritarian, stifling dissent from human rights activists, journalists, and competing politicians, the U.S. has some tough decisions to make in dealing with the Russian bear.