President Hosni Mubarak

"Mission Accomplished" read the hauntingly familiar phrase from Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim on Thursday when the first word came that President Hosni Mubarak might step down. Ghonim delivered the words by Twitter, unlike George W. Bush, who had them printed on a banner. But in both cases, they were premature. As Richard Haass, a former top State Department official who now heads the private Council on Foreign Relations, said in a conference call with reporters last week, if Egypt's revolution were a baseball game, this would only be the third inning.

An Egyptian court granted an appeal by former President Hosni Mubarak and ordered a new trial into the killings of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising, a move certain to inflame the political unrest that has upset the country's democratic transition. The ruling was a victory for the ailing Mubarak and his Interior minister, Habib Adli, who also won his appeal. Both men, who had been sentenced to life in prison, face other criminal charges and are likely to remain in detention until a new trial in the deaths by security forces of more than 800 protesters.

In the ancient seaside city of Alexandria, more than 100,000 people took to the streets Tuesday in protest, so many that there was no place large enough in Egypt's second-largest city to accommodate the crowds. So they gathered in different areas, from the Ibrahim Mosque to Masr Square, and eventually formed a mile-long procession that wound its way through the city like a victory parade. Young men draped Egyptian flags over their shoulders. Old women clapped and waved from balconies.

CAIRO - Former President Hosni Mubarak was granted a new murder trial by an Egyptian appeals court Sunday, a ruling that threatens fresh political turmoil as the country braces for parliamentary elections amid widening economic hardship. The decision overturned life sentences for Mubarak and his interior minister, Habib Adli, for complicity in the deaths of more than 850 protesters during the 2011 uprising. Both men face other criminal investigations and are expected to remain in detention until the new trial.

In a narrow-street slum of Egypt's capital, a man went campaigning. He drew a crowd, as a worthy campaigner might. Unfortunately it is illegal for a candidate to draw a crowd here, and the man was arrested. In a tony neighborhood of Alexandria, nine men filled a car with 50,000 campaign leaflets. Security police, however, deemed those materials anti-government, and the men were arrested.

Not everyone in Egypt wants President Hosni Mubarak to go. While those with revolutionary fervor gathered Tuesday by the tens of thousands a mile down the Nile at Tahrir Square, a small but vociferous band of Egyptians more easily counted by the hundreds marched up and down a two-block stretch of the corniche hours before Mubarak announced that he would not seek re-election. "Hosni Mubarak is our father. We are the Egyptian people," Ahmed Ismail, 33, a teacher and wrestling team captain, screamed into the face of a reporter who was surrounded, pulled and poked at by two dozen citizens eager to have their views heard.

His anger hides in the mask of a smile. President Hosni Mubarak does not tolerate dissension. He is inclined to crush it rather than compromise. Those born since his rule began in 1981 have lived entirely under emergency law, among the spookily omnipresent security forces that can pluck a soul from the street and vanish in an instant. The bloodshed between Mubarak's supporters and anti-government demonstrators Wednesday in Tahrir Square was not a spontaneous act of political passion but an orchestrated mission, opposition leaders say, by thugs hired by the ruling party to put fear into those clamoring for change.

Amid an accelerating breakdown of law and order across Egypt's capital, anti-government protesters have set the stage for a potentially explosive new confrontation by declaring that Friday, the main prayer day of the Muslim week, is the deadline for the embattled president to step aside. The crowd in Tahrir Square at dawn Friday was small but defiant. The sound of Koranic chants and nationalistic songs mingled with the morning calls of birds ? a tranquil atmosphere likely to be shattered as organizers of the anti-government protests called on Egyptians to rally after prayers Friday.

A week after the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, Tahrir Square once again teemed with thousands of Egyptians on Friday, this time celebrating a Day of Victory; their chants and signs reflecting a renewed sense of patriotism and a new social order demanding accountability for ousted leaders. The gathering was also a mass remembrance of fallen protesters, images of whom were on display everywhere: large banners hanging from traffic lights, placards, paper hats and cards worn around necks.

CAIRO — Egyptians gathered in living rooms and cafes Thursday night to mark another first in their troubled political odyssey toward a new democracy: a televised presidential debate that was as captivating as it was surreal. The two leading candidates, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and Islamist favorite Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, clashed in an exchange that would have been fiction during the 30-year rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The spectacle was a rare moment in a region enthralled by Arab uprisings but largely dominated by autocrats and political uncertainty.

CAIRO -- Tens of thousands of Egyptians gathered in the capital and other major cities across the nation Tuesday demanding that Islamist President Mohamed Morsi rescind a self-issued constitutional decree that gives him sweeping powers. Egyptians marched with families and friends across Cairo to converge in Tahrir Square, chanting the "people demand the fall of the regime," the same slogan that crowds yelled last year in opposition to longtime President Hosni Mubarak. One young woman held a sign that read in Arabic: "Oh Morsi, after the throne, there will be the prison cell ... Just ask Mubarak.

CAIRO - The revolutionaries chanted in frustrated knots beneath lifeless flags Friday in Tahrir Square, trying to revive the spirit of a movement that once brought down an autocrat but now has been cleverly outmaneuvered by a powerful military. The day after a constitutional court dissolved the nation's first freely elected parliament, Egyptians braced for a presidential election and the prospect that the rebellion that toppled Hosni Mubarak belonged more to history books than today's headlines.

When two finalists emerged from the first round of Egypt's presidential election - the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and a former prime minister under President Hosni Mubarak - it seemed that the country was on its way to fulfilling at least one of the promises of last year's uprising: a popularly elected head of state. They were not the candidates we would have selected, perhaps, but they offered a clear choice for voters nevertheless. The importance of the election, which will culminate in a runoff on June 16 and 17, should not be obscured by controversy over the verdict in the trial of Mubarak and several associates.

CAIRO - The life sentence imposed on toppled President Hosni Mubarak for complicity in the deaths of hundreds of protesters marks an unprecedented milestone in Egypt's path toward democracy yet serves as a reminder of the political limitations challenging rebellions that have swept the Arab world. Mubarak epitomized the calculating autocrat, and Saturday's verdict reverberated across a region that has seldom seen the strong so precipitously tumble in popular revolt. But behind the image of the disgraced leader propped up on a stretcher in the defendants' cage remains a nation not fully free of his grasp.

It's too early to say that Egypt's presidential election has redeemed the promise of last year's popular uprising against the country's authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak. A definitive verdict will depend on how the eventual winner chooses to govern (and on whether the military will allow him to govern). But the election, which began last week and is likely to continue in a runoff next month, was a powerful and poignant exercise in democracy. Despite reports of irregularities at some polling places, more than 20 million Egyptians participated in a competitive election featuring candidates from across the political spectrum, including more and less doctrinaire Islamists and figures from the Mubarak era. Some popular candidates, including Khairat Shater, the first choice of the Muslim Brotherhood, were unfortunately barred from the ballot by an election commission, but the roster remained a diverse one. Although official results won't be announced until Tuesday, the Brotherhood, which already dominates the new Egyptian parliament, has predicted that its candidate, Mohamed Morsi, will compete in a runoff next month against Ahmed Shafik, a former commander in the Egyptian air force who served briefly as prime minister in the waning days of the Mubarak regime.

CAIRO — Egyptians gathered in living rooms and cafes Thursday night to mark another first in their troubled political odyssey toward a new democracy: a televised presidential debate that was as captivating as it was surreal. The two leading candidates, former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and Islamist favorite Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, clashed in an exchange that would have been fiction during the 30-year rule of deposed President Hosni Mubarak. The spectacle was a rare moment in a region enthralled by Arab uprisings but largely dominated by autocrats and political uncertainty.

A new Egyptian government investigation into the nearly-three-week revolution that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February paints a sinister portrait of a desperate police state relying on snipers, thugs and other forces that led to the deaths of at least 846 people. The lead judge on the fact-finding commission said Tuesday that Mubarak was at least indirectly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of protesters at the hands of police officers and Interior Ministry agents.

Within minutes, the buoyant mood inside Tahrir Square turned into a fight for survival ? and for Egypt's future. Like two medieval armies, screaming, enraged mobs ? both hoisting Egyptian flags and professing love of country ? clashed violently Wednesday with rocks, sticks and Molotov cocktails. Soldiers stood by passively as the pitched battle between supporters of President Hosni Mubarak and those seeking his immediate ouster threatened one of the nation's most treasured sites, the Egyptian Museum.

CAIRO - The decorum of diplomacy has devolved into embarrassing headlines and testy one-liners in the increasingly strained relations between Egypt and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Egypt's Sinai peninsula had become a "kind of Wild West" overrun by militants, terrorists and arms smugglers. Over the weekend, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had suggested massing more Israeli troops along the border with Egypt. That drew a bit of mafia parlance from Egypt's military ruler, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi: "Our borders, especially the northeast ones, are inflamed.

Like savvy boxers with knockout punches, Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, and the Muslim Brotherhood have circled each other warily since the Arab Spring toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. But after the SCAF-appointed election commission's banning last week of 10 candidates for the May presidential elections, including the Brotherhood's nominee, Khairat Shater, the phase of circumspection may be ending. Egyptians could be in for rougher times. The SCAF abandoned Mubarak only after it realized that Egyptian protesters would not succumb to intimidation and force.