While delivering a nationally televised speech in parliament last week, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak broke out in a sweat, coughed, staggered and slumped over as his security detail rushed forward to help him. Senior Egyptian sources confirmed to TIME that Mubarak's collapse, as the government maintains, came during a bout of flu.
But as has happened after two attempts on his life, in 1995 and 1999, the incident raised concerns about Egypt's political stability in the event of his death. Mubarak, evidently wary of creating a rival to power, has never named a Vice President. And because flaunting aspirations for...
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