Cairo clashes rage on

CAIRO – Thousands of protesters battling to keep control of Cairo’s Tahrir Square stuck to their demands that President Hosni Mubarak quit and the new premier said he was prepared to go and meet them.

Ahmed Shafiq said he had spoken by telephone with several youth activists overnight and was ‘ready to go to Tahrir Square to talk to the protesters,’ state news agency Mena reported.But a coalition of young activists rejected what was a break with the regime’s previous insistence that it would not talk with the opposition until protesters went home, and said they would not talk with Shafiq.Running battles in Tahrir Square, the focal point of the anti-Mubarak protests, continued through the night, with the health ministry saying five people had been killed and 836 hurt since Wednesday afternoon.At least 305 people have died since the unrest broke out on January 25 and close to 4 000 injured.Early yesterday, around 50 soldiers moved in to the square to create a buffer zone between the two camps, but pro-regime militants later broke through the lines to hurl stones, correspondents at the scene said.In a renewed effort to separate the sides, army tanks pushed pro-Mubarak supporters away from the demonstration.Mid-afternoon, intense gunfire could be heard from the square, an AFP reporter said.The two sides had fought battles with stones and Molotov cocktails through the night, with many of the square’s paving slabs torn up and broken into fist-sized projectiles.With tensions remaining high, 30 regime supporters reappeared on the 6 October Bridge, which crosses the Nile and opens into Tahrir Square. They were raining rocks and Molotov cocktails on protesters below, the AFP correspondent said.One Mubarak supporter in a red jumper looking down at the protesting crowd repeatedly drew a finger across his throat.Undaunted by the suspected bid by Mubarak’s regime to intimidate them, tens of thousands of protesters say they will go ahead with plans for a massive demonstration today, their designated ‘departure day’ for the 82-year-old president.As the protests entered their 10th straight day, the opposition National Association for Change rejected any talks with Mubarak’s regime before the veteran leader goes, spokesman Mohammed Abul Ghar told AFP.The coalition includes leading dissident and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, members of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, the Kefaya (Change) movement and other political parties.Meanwhile, at a makeshift clinic in another square next to Tahrir, Dr Mohammed Ismail said gunmen killed at least four anti-Mubarak protesters during the night, with the shots allegedly fired by plain-clothes police loyal to the creaking regime.The United States condemned the violence against ‘peaceful protesters,’ and UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the attacks on demonstrators were ‘unacceptable.’US President Barack Obama has called for the transition from Mubarak’s rule to begin immediately after the veteran president announced late on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election in September after naming named a vice president.On the economic front, a whopping 49 billion dollars has been wiped off the value of shares on Arab stock markets since the protests in Egypt began, Kuwaiti asset managers KAMCO said in a report.The US State Department issued a stark travel warning for citizens in Egypt, urging those who want to leave to ‘immediately’ to head for the airport, adding that any delay was ‘not advisable.’As the situation in Egypt deteriorated, up to 600 employees of United Nations agencies and their families were to be airlifted to Cyprus yesterday, with only essential staff staying in place, a UN spokesman said.Several foreign journalists have also became the target of violent attacks, a media watchdog and news organisations said, apparently on charges of fuelling the uprising with their coverage. – Nampa-AFP