Egypt government to meet, scuffles on Tahrir Square

Egypt’s caretaker government is to meet Sunday, as a few hundred demonstrators resisted the army’s efforts to clear Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Information Minister Anas al-Fiki resigned Saturday and has been banned from leaving the country.

Reuters/Dylan Martinez

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has taken power after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, has left in place the cabinet he appointed during this month’s protests until the election of a new one.

Cairo Museum

But al-Fiki, who was highly unpopular, has quit and been ordered not to leave the country, as have sacked prime minister Ahmed Nazif and former interior minister Habib al-Adly, who is accused of torture, extortion and ordering the crackdown on the anti-Mubarak protests.

Traffic returned to Tahrir Square on Sunday but scuffles broke out between soldiers and some demonstrators camped there. While thousands have returned home, a minority wanted to stay to ensure that the military keep their promise to hand over power to civilians.

Despite the unpopularity of the police, the new military leadership has urged citizens to cooperate with police. Military council chief Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi
met Interior Minister Mahmud Wagdy Sunday to discuss getting the police back on the streets as quickly as possible, state television reported.

Workers at Egypt's largest factory have suspended a strike in support of the anti-Mubarak revolt but will continue to press for higher wages, they said Sunday.

The Misr Spinning and Weaving textile factory, which employs 24,000 people in the Nile Delta city of Al-Mahalla al-Kubra, was the scene of a historic strike in 2006 and influenced groups such as the 6 April Movement which initiated this year’s protests.

International reactions continue:

• US President Barack Obama "welcomed the historic change that has been made by the Egyptian people" and “the military’s declaration that it is committed to a democratic civilian transition”, the White House said Saturday.
• The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, accused Washington of trying to hijack the Egyptian revolution on behalf of Israel, after the military council declared Saturday that it would stand by international treaties, one of which assassinated president Anwar Sadat’s Cam David peace treaty with Israel.
• But Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad told the Washington Post that “the Egyptian people are very supportive of the Palestinian people” and would continue to be so.