Harrowing Account Of Being Detained In Cairo; Meet The Bloggers; The Language Of Love

Robert Tait in the Central Newsroom at RFE/RL headquarters in Prague, shortly after his return from Egypt

Grant Podelco
In this week's episode, Ron Synovitz talks with our Southwest Asia correspondent Robert Tait about his harrowing ordeal in Cairo last week.

Tait and a colleague from Radio Free Iraq, Abdelilah Nuaimi, had just arrived in the Egyptian capital when they were detained by police at a roadblock on their way to Tahrir Square. What happened to Tait and Nuaimi while in the custody of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service amounted to torture.

Staying on the same topic, our chief Washington editor, Christian Caryl, discusses the comparisons being made betweeen the events in Egypt and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Caryl is writing a book about 1979 and how the remarkable events of that year continue to define the world.

In our new "Meet The Bloggers" segment, producer Pavel Butorin gets Brian Whitmore into the studio to talk about his "Power Vertical" blog, a must-read for obsessive Kremlin watchers.

And just in time for Valentine's Day, we discover that Aslan Doukaev, the director of our North Caucasus Service, speaks the language of love.

This week's host is Grant Podelco.

Listen to or download the latest episode below or subscribe to "The Blender" on iTunes. For previous episodes of "The Blender," you can also click here.

RFE/RL's The Blender -- Episode 5

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RFE/RL's The Blender -- 2/11/11 (Episode 5)