BBC News Middle East 7 February 2011 Last updated at 11:20 GMT
Protests thwart Egypt authorities Attempts to return Egypt to normality after two weeks of deadly anti-government protests have suffered a number of setbacks. While banks have reopened, schools and the stock exhange remain closed, and an important government building has been prevented from opening by protesters. They are occupying Tahrir Square in Cairo, saying they will leave only when President Hosni Mubarak stands down. Some spent the night in or under army vehicles, to stop efforts to move them. On Monday, resumption of business at the stock exchange was postponed for 24 hours, as the government attempted to sell $2.5bn (£1.55bn) in short-term debt, after the cancellation of auctions last week. It is seeking to revive an economy said to be losing at least $310m a day. On Monday morning, crowds of protesters on Tahrir Square formed a human chain around the Mugamma - where people go to get official paperwork processed - to prevent it from opening as normal. The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says the protesters were in a face-off with some soldiers, but as the army has been instructed not to use force, the situation was in deadlock - symptomatic of the whole country. Opposition unhappy Talks on Sunday between the Egyptian government and opposition groups on tackling the country's political crisis failed to end the protests. Continue reading the main story Analysis image of Jon Leyne Jon Leyne BBC News, Cairo There is a stalemate and there are two kinds of pillars to this: one of President Mubarak not going anywhere, and the other of the protesters not going anywhere. There is an illusion growing that normal life is returning to Cairo. I can tell you it's not very normal. Yes, shops and banks are reopening to a limited extent, but I walked along one of the main thoroughfares, the Corniche el Nil, and outside the information ministry there are 18 pieces of heavy armour, including battle tanks. This is not a city that's going back to normal life any time soon. The government offered a series of concessions, but the opposition said they were not enough. US President Obama has said Egypt will not "go back to what it was". Opposition groups met members of the government on Sunday to discuss how to resolve the stand-off which has paralysed the country and left some 300 people dead. Vice-President Omar Suleiman hosted the talks. Six groups were represented, including a coalition of youth organisations, a group of "wise men" and the banned Muslim Brotherhood, in its first ever meeting with the government. Egyptian state TV said the participants had agreed to form a joint committee of judicial and political figures tasked with suggesting constitutional amendments. But opposition leaders said they were sceptical of the government's motives and that the measures did not go far enough. The Muslim Brotherhood said it would take part in future talks only if the government made progress on meeting its demands that Mr Mubarak resign, parliament be dissolved, emergency laws be lifted and all political prisoners released. Senior Brotherhood figure Essam el-Erian told reporters the authorities had responded to some of the demands but only in "a superficial way". Leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei - who was not at the talks but sent a representative to meet Vice-President Suleiman separately - described the process as "opaque". He said he was proposing a one-year transitional period where Egypt would be run by a three-member presidential council as it prepared for elections. President Mubarak has so far refused to resign, saying that to do so would cause chaos. He has instead said he will not stand for re-election in September. Grenade attack But US President Barack Obama has insisted that an "orderly transition" must begin immediately. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he said: "The Egyptian people want freedom, they want free and fair elections, they want a representative government, and so what we've said is, you have to start a transition now." He added that the US could not dictate to Mr Mubarak what he should do, but that it could advise him "the time is now for you to start making a change in that country". Later on Sunday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to caution Egypt against a rush to replace its leader of 30 years. "As I understand the constitution, if the president were to resign, he would be succeeded by the speaker of the house, and presidential elections would have to be held in 60 days," she said. "Now the Egyptians are going to have to grapple with the reality of what they must do." Mrs Clinton also praised Mr Mubarak for the compromises he had already put in place, including his pledge that neither he nor his son, Gamal, would run for office in the next elections. It was widely believed that Gamal Mubarak was being groomed to take over the leadership from his father. "They have to be viewed as an important set of steps that he has taken," the AFP news agency quoted Mrs Clinton as saying. Meanwhile, one Egyptian security officer was injured when four rocket-propelled grenades were fired at a security forces barracks in Rafah on the Gaza Strip border, officials said. It was not immediately clear who was behind Monday morning's attack, which Egyptian state television blamed on "extremist groups aiming to undermine security". ------------------------------------ Post message: prole...@egroups.com Subscribe : proletar-subscr...@egroups.com Unsubscribe : proletar-unsubscr...@egroups.com List owner : proletar-ow...@egroups.com Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! 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