Egypt chaos continus toll touches 150

Egypt was in the grip of increasing lawlessness as gangs of armed men helped free thousands of prisoners and looters rampaged malls, banks and jewellery stores as many armymen doffed uniforms to join the uprising against Prez Mubarak's 30-year rule that has claimed at least 150 lives in six days.An embattled Mubarak, 82, visited the military headquarters and held hectic parleys with top commanders, a day after he showed first signs of handing over power by naming intelligence chief and his close confidant Omar Suleiman as Vice President.

Qatar-based Al-Jazeera channel put the death toll at 150 and said that 4,000 people had been injured since the unprecedented mass protests against Mubarak's autocratic regime began on Tuesday, while some other reports said over 100 had been killed.
For the first time, a large number of judges also joined the mass protests threatening to destabilise the world's most populous Arab State.

Taking advantage of the fluid situation, armed gangs fired at guards in four prisons, including in Alexandria and Aswan, and helped thousands of inmates to flee.
An estimated 5,000 inmates broke free from a jail in El Fayoum, south of Cairo, killing a senior police officer, media reports said.Mobs stormed into upmarket malls, bank, jewellery and electronic stores beside government buildings and looted TV sets, furniture, electronic items and gold ornaments, defying curfew in the capital.Looting and arson continued through the night as security personnel disappeared from the trouble spots.In a desperate bid to quell the riots, Mubarak ordered more troops and armoured vehicles into the streets of Cairo.


A special Air India aircraft is flying over 300 Indians to Mumbai, Indian Ambassador R Swaminathan said.Indian Embassy in Cairo has made elaborate arrangements to airlift Indian nationals in Egypt in the wake of violent agitation against the Hosni Mubarak regime. Talking to AIR Dubai Correspondent, Ambassador of India to Egypt Mr. R. Swaminathan said that the process of airlifting the Indian nationals has already begun.The Air India regional manager told AIR that another 123 TATA employees will also leave by the same flight. He said, another flight will leave Cairo tomorrow at 11 AM for Mumbai.Indian Embassy has set up 24 hours hotline to assist Indians for help.They will reach Mumbai tomorrow morning, he said.Indian mission is making arrangements for those wishing to return home.
Pro-democracy advocate Mohamed ElBaradei, who returned to Egypt from Vienna on Thursday, asked Mubarak to step down, saying his response to the mass protests was "disappointing".The Nobel laureate and former chief of the UN nuclear watchdog, who was put under house arrest soon after joining the protests, said the nation will collapse if Mubarak stays.In a telephonic interview to Al-Jazeera, he asked Mubarak to set a framework for transition of power and said it is the only way to end the unrest that has rocked Egypt.



Thousands of protesters defied curfew for the second night in Cairo, including in the central Tahrir (Liberation) Square area.They also tried to storm the Interior Ministry office in central Cairo and torched a police station in the Giza neighborhood of the city.Some looters managed to get into Cairo's museum of antiquities and damaged some of the exhibits.Thieves also broke into the Arab International Bank and several cafes and eateries.To protect their property from looters, residents of the city set up committees armed with guns, clubs and knives.


As Mubarak refused to quit, influential Arab cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi accused him of having turned "blind, deaf and dumb" and asked him to step down."President Mubarak ... I advise you to depart from Egypt. There is no other solution to this problem but for Mubarak to go," Qaradawi said.The widely respected Sunni Muslim cleric asked Mubarak to quit for the good of the country, as his ouster was the only solution to Egypt's crisis.Meanwhile, the official MENA news agency said that Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arabic satellite channel, has been banned in Egypt now.However, the channel was still reporting on the events from Egypt when the announcement was made.

Egypt's outgoing information minister Anas al-Fikki has "ordered the closure of all activities by Al Jazeera in the Arab republic of Egypt, and the annulment of its licences, as well as withdrawing the press cards to all its employees as of (today)," MENA said.The unrest in Egypt also affected stock markets across the Middle East, which kept on tumbling.Cairo stock exchange remained closed today despite Sunday being a full trading day in the Middle East because of the turmoil in the city.

In Washington, US President Barack Obama held key talks with his national security team to assess the situation in Egypt.He called for restraint in Egypt and favoured "concrete steps" aimed at advancing political reforms in the Arab State."He reiterated our focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint; supporting universal rights; and supporting concrete steps that advance political reform within Egypt," the White House said in a statement after the meeting.The US President was updated on the current situation in Egypt during the meeting with his national security aides that lasted for about an hour.Earlier, UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who was in Davos for World Economic Forum, warned Egypt's government that "freedom of expression should be fully respected" while dealing with the protests