Change is coming to Egypt: El-Baradei

CAIRO, Jan 30, 2011 ( AGENCIES): Top dissident Mohamed El-Baradei told a sea of angry protesters in Cairo on Sunday that they were beginning a new era after six days of a deadly revolt against President Hosni Mubarak.

Nobel peace laureate El-Baradei, mandated by Egyptian opposition groups including the banned Muslim Brotherhood to negotiate with Mubarak's government, hailed "a new Egypt in which every Egyptian lives in freedom and dignity."

"We are on the right path, our strength is in our numbers," El-Baradei said in his first address to the protest epicenter on Cairo's Tahrir Square. "I ask you to be patient, change is coming."

Six days of nationwide protests have shaken Egypt and left at least 125 people dead. The president has sacked the government, appointed a vice president and a new prime minister. But that has failed to quell the protests.

Parliament Speaker Fathi Surour on Sunday made another concession, saying the results of last year's fraud-tainted parliamentary elections would be revised.

Mubarak on Sunday met with army brass as warplanes in an apparent show of force flew over the downtown Cairo protest. State television said the president visited Egypt's central military command where he met with his newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, the military intelligence chief; as well as with outgoing Defense Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and Chief of Staff Sami Anan.

The National Coalition for Change, which groups several opposition movements including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, charged El-Baradei with negotiating with the government.

Gangs of armed men attacked at least four jails across Egypt before dawn Sunday, helping to free hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members and thousands of other inmates as police vanished from the streets of Cairo and other cities. Among those who escaped were members of Hamas, some of whom made it back to the Gaza Strip via smuggling tunnels.

Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera was ordered by the Information Ministry on Sunday to shut down its operations in the country, and later in the day its signal to some parts of the Middle East was cut.

The news channel said in a message on its broadcast that Egypt's satellite Nilesat had cut off its signal. That effectively took Al Jazeera off the air for some Arab viewers, but alternative signals were still available.

Microsoft Saudi Arabia was forced to cancel an Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging Course, which was to be held for MS partners Monday in Riyadh. The Kingdom is dependent on Egypt's IT resources. From Web developers to data centers to call centers, Saudi Arabia makes heavy use of Egypt's low-cost Arabic-speaking technicians, either accessed over the Internet or as contracted professionals working at local firms.

A number of foreign governments said they would evacuate their nationals, while the United States authorized the departure of embassy families.

Photo : An Egyptian Army soldier gestures to a crowd as he stands atop a tank in Cairo. (Reuters)