There is nothing so bad as a journalist in the wrong place at the wrong time. So here I was in Cairo, covering the trial of Hosni Mubarak, arriving from Lebanon – where 15 people have just died – while Bashar al-Assad pops up on my television screen yesterday to say that his army was not responsible for the massacre at Houla a week ago. And there was Assad, talking of the most serious crisis since the end of colonialism. Well, you can say that again.
And I don't feel a lot happier. Ahmed Shafik, the Mubarak loyalist, has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?
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