Letter: Biased reporting

Only a few weeks ago, probably only 5 per cent of the UK population would have been able to answer the question: "Who is Mubarak?" Now, suddenly, since wall-to-wall television coverage of protests in Cairo and Alexandria, with the commentary almost invariably anti-Mubarak, nearly everyone has become an expert.

There's no doubt about it, apparently - he was an evil dictator, grinding the faces of Egypt's poor. The other side of the coin also holds good: the protesters were all that was virtuous and, if they toppled Mubarak, all would be sunny uplands with democracy appearing like a rainbow on a distant hill. How naive can we get? The danger is that toppled dictators in the Middle East could be replaced by extremist Islamic governments such as Iran's.

Newscasters should be more careful and less biased in the way they report dangerous situations in the most volatile countries.

GEORGE K McMILLAN

Mount Tabor Avenue

Perth