More than a quarter-million people flooded into the heart of Cairo yesterday, filling the city’s main square in by far the largest demonstration in a week of unceasing demands for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave after nearly 30 years in power.
Mubarak should step down by Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, who is emerging as a leader of anti-regime protests, told al-Arabiya satellite channel yesterday.
“What I have heard [from protesters] is that they want this to end, if not today, then by Friday maximum,” ElBaradei said. “I hope President Mubarak goes before this and leaves the country after 30 years of rule ... I don’t think he wants to see more blood.”
Photo: EPA
Asked about Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman’s offer for dialogue with the opposition, ElBaradei said he supports “a national comprehensive dialogue” but not before “the departure of President Mubarak.”
He also called for a safe exit for Mubarak, adding: “We’re going to turn the page, we can pardon the past.”
As he spoke, protesters continued to stream into Tahrir Square (Liberation Square), among them people defying a government transportation shutdown. The peaceful crowd was jammed in shoulder to shoulder — schoolteachers, farmers, unemployed university graduates, women in conservative headscarves and women in high heels, men in suits and working-class men in scuffed shoes.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters also marched in Alexandria, with more protests reported in Suez, the southern province of Assiut, the city of Mansoura north of Cairo, and Luxor.
The military promised on state TV on Monday night that it would not fire on protesters, a sign that army support for Mubarak may be unraveling.
“This is the end for him. It’s time,” said Musab Galal, a 23-year-old unemployed university graduate who came by minibus with his friends from city of Menoufiya.
The protesters were more organized than on previous days. Volunteers wearing tags reading “the People’s Security” circulated through the crowds, saying they were watching for government infiltrators who might try to instigate violence.
Authorities shut down all roads and public transportation to Cairo, security officials said. Train services nationwide were suspended for a second day and all bus services between cities were halted. All roads in and out of the flashpoint cities of Alexandria, Suez, Mansoura and Fayoum were also closed.
The official death toll from days of protest stood at 97, with thousands injured, but in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said up to 300 people may have been killed and she called for calm during yesterday’s protests.
“Casualties have been mounting on a daily basis, with unconfirmed reports suggesting as many as 300 people may have been killed so far, more than 3,000 injured and hundreds arrested,” Pillay said yesterday in a statement.
Her spokesman Rupert Colville said the unconfirmed toll came from NGOs.
JORDAN
Meanwhile, King Abdullah II of Jordan yesterday sacked the government after weeks of protests, but his choice to head the government failed to satisfy the powerful Islamist opposition’s demands for reform.
The king named Maruf Bakhit to replace Prime Minister Samir Rifai, with orders to carry out “true political reforms,” the palace said.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to make advanced 3-nanometer chips in Japan, stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing roadmap in the country in a triumph for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s technology ambitions. TSMC is to adopt cutting-edge technology for its second wafer fab in Kumamoto, company chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. That is an upgrade from an original blueprint to produce 7-nanometer chips by late next year, people familiar with the matter said. TSMC began mass production at its first plant in Japan’s Kumamoto in late 2024. Its second fab, which is still under construction, was originally focused on
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS