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Egypt

Egypt's last protesters go home, cyber activists talk with army

As the last of Egypts anti-regime protesters were cleared from Cairo’s Tahrir Square Monday, online activists who organised the popular uprising said they had discussed reforms with military rulers.► Military dissolves parliament, elections in six monthsProtests in Sanaa and Manama as Tehran cracks down on opposition leader

Reuters
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This comes a day after the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces dissolved the government of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, suspended the constitution, and set a six-month timetable for national elections.

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Interview: Essam El Eriam, the Muslim Brotherhood

Daniel Finnan

The cyber activists said the military junta had vowed to rewrite the constitution within 10 days and put it to a referendum within two months.

But the cabinet that Mubarak hastily appointed on 31 January amid the wave of protests will stay on. It is headed by a former airforce commander.

In a note on a pro-democracy website that helped launch the revolt, Google executive Wael Ghonim and blogger Amr Salama said: "We met the army ... to understand their point of view and lay out our views".

Meanwhile the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic political party banned since 1954, told RFI that it's in no hurry to decide how it will engage in the political process.

"All options are open for us ... we are discussing now, on the table, the file of organising as a political party," said party spokesperson Essam El Eriam.

He described the Muslim Brotherhood as "different", but said the party represented all Egyptians, and respected the opinion of the people.

Several members of the previous government, including sacked prime minister Ahmed Nazif and interior minister Habib al-Adly, have been banned from leaving the country by authorities investigating allegations of graft.

Hundreds of members of Mubarak's police force, widely viewed as corrupt, marched on Sunday to demand that Adly, their former boss, be publicly executed in a bid to show their solidarity with the uprising.

Meanwhile a surge of industrial action is continuing across Egypt by government employees demanding higher wages and benefits. This is despite the government’s pledge to raise public sector salaries and pensions by 15 percent.

On Monday 150 tourism workers, badly hit by the revolt that paralysed the country for nearly three weeks, demonstrated by the Great Pyramids.

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