marquez said he was beaten by the men with billy clubs and said he was hit several times but wasn t badly injured. the volatility in bahrain creates a delicate diplomatic challenge for the white house. as we saw in egypt the u.s. has enjoyed good relations with this regime but, at the same time, cannot turn its back on a peaceful pro democracy movement appear as it walks the tight rope, nervous allies are definitely watching. senior white house correspondent ed henry joins us with a closer look. how is president obama going to deal with bahrain? we have the fifth fleet right there of the u.s. navy right there. it s a huge foundation for the u.s. military. and happening right across the street, ed, is this violence that is just out of control. reporter: how are they going to deal with it? very careful as you suggested, kyra, because of all of those reasons being strategic place, obviously, in the region, amid all of these other protests that
are playing out there. jay carney, the new white house press secretary, had his first briefing yesterday. he made clear that the u.s. is monitoring this situation very closely. but he reiterated the white house position, as we saw in egypt and some of the other situations playing out, there is not a one size fits all approach to these protests, these situations that are unfolding because each country has got its own customs and the u.s. wants to be careful not to dictate to them how to respond to these protests and, nevertheless, the u.s. is not being shy about saying you have to respect the rights of peaceful preveroteste and saying in bahrain and libya the government can t be cracking down and can t be using violence. let s remember what president obama said at his news conference at the white house on tuesday. he said that these various governments, whether it s bahrain, whether it s libya or algeria, they have to make sure that they are embracing change and not getting caught behin
corruption in the country and fed up with autocratic leaders. take a look at what arab news is saying, a headline of unrest hits libya. libya is really important to the u.s. because of oil. the u.s. gets about 80,000 barrels of oil a day. libya and gadhafi has cooperated with the u.s. in fighting terrorism and al qaeda. the same paper talks about bahrain where demonstrators are digging in, but at 3:00 in the morning, security forces violently cleared out people. 3 people were killed and hundreds irinjured. bahrain is important because it s a bulwark against shia iran. that s some of the stories in the region that we re following, and those are some of the headlines. one of the headlines in canada, out of toronto, kyra, is about a
nasdaq lower, eight points there. there is a silver lining, though. the s&p 500 has now doubled in value since bottoming out in march of 2009. now i would be remiss if we can go to the opening bell shot and give hickory a shotout. the westminster top dog rang the opening bell today after a nice steak dinner last night and photo op on the empire state building. we didn t get the shot up! ah! i m sorry about that. reporter: we will try to bring him back. see how the stake dinner at sardy went and how he is holding up. alison, thanks. bahrain, the numbers are changing. the basic facts are the same. during the middle of the night, government forces converged on sleeping demonstrators and just let loose. at least three people are dead. possibly hundreds more are injured. yet, another regime faces growing outrage. the new york times columnist
nick kristoff joined us yesterday and we have him back on the phone joining us from the capital once again. you have been doing incredible reporting, nick. totally different story what you re talking about today. this has gotten more violent. you have seen a lot of things that are not being reported? reporter: well, the bahrain government broadcasts are simply delusional. they have been reporting that the army went into create security and that these democracy protesters had or were threatening the authorities as somebody who was out on the appe pearl roundabout which is the version of tahrir square. huge vast amounts of small children and women and authorities atakeds them in the early morning hours.