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Title: Egypt protesters call for 'million man march' (Tuesday)
Source:
breitbart.com
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/article.ph ... b76abaef8cc.6f1&show_article=1
Published: Jan 31, 2011
Author: AFP
Post Date: 2011-01-31 10:44:30 by Hondo68
Keywords: not mandate ElBaradei, Obama an orderly transition, neighbourhood vigilante groups
Views: 646
Comments: 1
A sea of protesters have flooded Cairo on Monday for a seventh day of demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak's regime and called for a rolling general strike until the veteran leader stands down. Protest organisers said Tuesday would see a "march of a million" in the Egyptian capital after a week of revolt in which at least 125 people have been killed, upping the stakes in their bid to topple Mubarak's creaking regime. Tens of thousands of protesters carpeted Cairo's Tahrir square, the epicentre for those calling for an end to the corruption, deprivation and police oppression indelibly associated with Mubarak's 30-year rule. "We will stay in the square, until the coward leaves," the crowd chanted. The army has positioned tanks around the area and was checking identity papers but letting protesters in. Civilian popular committee members were also checking papers to make sure no plain-clothes police get in. "We are looking for police trouble makers, they want to come in and break our unity," said a popular committee member who asked not to be named. Nearby, soldiers scrubbed furiously at their tanks in a bid to wash off some of the anti-Mubarak graffiti they have been covered in over the last three days, as officers looked on. Eid Mohammed, one of the protesters and organisers, told AFP: "It was decided overnight that there will be a million man march on Tuesday. We have also decided to begin an open-ended general strike." The strike was first called by workers at a factory in the canal city of Suez late on Sunday. Faced with the biggest protests of his presidency, an increasingly embattled Mubarak appointed his first ever vice president and a new prime minister in a desperate attempt to hold on to power. Egypt ordered riot police back onto the streets nationwide two days after they virtually disappeared as the army was deployed to deal with the revolt, but few were visible on Monday morning. Inhabitants spat at a solitary police car driving through a Cairo residential neighbourhood, an AFP correspondent reported. Many Cairo men are exhausted, taking part in neighbourhood vigilante groups protecting their homes from looters by night and protesting during the day. Mubarak, who sacked his cabinet on Friday, tasked his new prime minister on Sunday to ram through democratic reforms. His instructions to Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq were read out on state television late on Sunday but had no discernible effect on protesters bunkered down for the night in Tahrir square vowing not to leave until he steps down. Mubarak also said the new prime minister's priority was creating new jobs and instructed the new cabinet, whose members have not yet been named, to end corruption and restore trust in the country's economy. The announcement created little excitement among the more than 1,000 people encamped Monday at Tahrir square, the protest epicentre, some sleeping but many more marching and chanting Top dissident Mohamed ElBaradei late Sunday told a sea of angry protesters in the square that they were beginning a new era. The Nobel laureate, who was mandated by Egyptian opposition groups including the banned Muslim Brotherhood to negotiate with Mubarak's regime, hailed "a new Egypt in which every Egyptian lives in freedom and dignity." "We are on the right path, our strength is in our numbers," ElBaradei said in his first address on Tahrir square. "I ask you to be patient, change is coming." "We will sacrifice our soul and our blood for the nation," the angry crowd shouted. "The people want to topple the president." A coalition of four opposition parties announced late Sunday that they would not mandate ElBaradei to negotiate with the regime. The coalition, includes the liberal Wafd party and Ghad parties, and the left-leaning Ghad and Nasserist parties, who all carry little weight in the political arena. The protests against Mubarak's three-decade rule have shaken Egypt and left at least 125 people dead as the veteran leader clings to power. A curfew slapped on Cairo, Alexandria and Suez on Friday was further extended on Sunday from 3:00 pm to 8:00 am, state television said, leaving citizens only seven hours a day to take to the street. Mubarak has struggled to placate a nation angry at his autocratic rule with token gestures such as sacking the government. Several foreign governments said they would evacuate their nationals, while the United States authorised the departure of embassy families. Mubarak on Sunday met with army brass seen as holding the key to his future as warplanes roared low over the downtown Cairo protest in an apparent show of force. State television said he visited central military command where he met his newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief. Mubarak, a former air force chief, appeared to be bolstering his army support as he faces down the revolt. He has appointed General Murad Mowafi, former north Sinai governor, as his new spy chief to replace Suleiman, state-owned press said on Monday. Washington, a key ally of Egypt, called on Mubarak to do more to defuse the crisis, with President Barack Obama voicing support for "an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people." With fears of insecurity rising, thousands of convicts have broken out of prisons across Egypt after they overwhelmed guards or after prison personnel fled their posts. Troops set up checkpoints on roads to riot-hit prisons, stopping and searching cars for prisoners on the run. Many petrol stations are running out of fuel, motorists said, and many bank cash machines have either been looted or no longer work. The turmoil in Egypt is affecting the world economy, with oil prices rising to within a whisker of $100 a barrel Monday on fears that the flow of oil through the Suez Canal on its way to the West could be affected, analysts said. Rating agency Moody's said Monday it had downgraded Egypt's debt rating by one notch to "Ba2", and changed the troubled country's outlook to negative from stable.
Poster Comment: hObama wants "an orderly transition" to the muslim brotherhoods ElBaradei, a US sock-puppet.
An Egyptian demonstrator sits on top of a set of traffic lights in Tahrir Square. A sea of protesters have flooded Cairo on Monday for a seventh day of demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak's regime and calling for a rolling general strike until the veteran leader stands down.
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
The Muslim Brotherhood had zero to do with the uprising and were just taken by surprise just as the govt was. I would not be surprised if the CIA is in fact helping their old Cold War allies in the Muslim Brotherhood (back in the jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan days) to organize these new protests to provide the excuse for Mubarak to strike down the demonstrations.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
hObama wants "an orderly transition" to the muslim brotherhoods ElBaradei, a US sock-puppet. (1 image)
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