Egypt unrest enters third day, ElBaradei to return

Police fought protesters in two cities in eastern Egypt on Thursday as prominent reform campaigner Mohamed ElBaradei headed back to the country to join demonstrators trying to oust long-ruling President Hosni Mubarak.

Police fired rubber bullets, water cannon and tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators in the eastern city of Suez on a third day of protests calling for an end to Mubarak's 30-year rule, a witness said.

Across the eastern city of Ismailia, hundreds of protesters clashed with police, who dispersed the crowds with tear gas.

ElBaradei told Reuters before he left Vienna for Egypt to join in demonstrations that it was time for Mubarak to step aside.

"He has served the country for 30 years and it is about time for him to retire," ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), said.

"Tomorrow is going to be, I think, a major demonstration all over Egypt and I will be there with them."

ElBaradei's arrival could spur protesters who have no figurehead, although many activists resent his absences in recent months.

Egyptians torched a police post in Suez early on Thursday in response to the killing of three demonstrators earlier in the week, a Reuters witness said. Police fled the post before the protesters burned it using petrol bombs.

On Wednesday evening, people in Suez had set a government building and another police post on fire and tried to burn down a local office of Egypt's ruling party.

The fires were all put out before they engulfed the buildings but dozens more protesters gathered in front of the partially burned police post later on Thursday morning.

A Twitter entry called for a march at 3pm local time (1300 GMT) on Thursday in Giza, an area of Cairo. In recent days, people have burned tyres and hurled stones at police in the city centre.

The anti-government protests, unprecedented during Mubarak's rule of a state that is a key US ally, have seen police fire rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators throwing rocks and petrol bombs.

One policeman was killed in Cairo in the clashes, which erupted on Tuesday, inspired by a popular revolt in Tunisia. Thousands of protesters also took to the streets in Yemen on Thursday to demand a change of government there.

Protesters in all three countries complain about surging prices, a lack of jobs, and authoritarian rule that has relied on heavy-handed security to keep dissenting voices quiet.

Al-Arabiya television said on Thursday that Egypt's general prosecutor had charged 40 protesters with trying to "overthrow the regime".

A page on Facebook announcing Friday's protest gained 55,000 supporters in less than 24 hours.

"Egypt's Muslims and Christians will go out to fight against corruption, unemployment and oppression and absence of freedom," wrote an activist on Facebook, which, alongside sites like Twitter, has been a key tool to rally people onto the streets.

Egypt's stock exchange halted trading on Thursday morning after the benchmark index slid more than 6% for a second day. The prices of two London-listed stocks focused on Egypt also tumbled.

The Egyptian pound has fallen to its lowest level in six-years against the US dollar.

Interior minister Habib al-Adli, whose resignation is being demanded by the protesters, has dismissed the demonstrations.

"Egypt's system is not marginal or frail. We are a big state, with an administration with popular support. The millions will decide the future of this nation, not demonstrations even if numbered in the thousands," he told Kuwait's al-Rai newspaper, according to the newspaper's website.

"Our country is stable and not shaken by such actions."

Witnesses say demonstrators have been dragged away, beaten and shoved into police vans. The interior ministry said on Wednesday that 500 had been arrested. An independent coalition of lawyers said at least 1,200 were detained.

ElBaradei launched a campaign for change last year, raising hopes his international stature could galvanise the opposition. But many activists have since complained that he should have spent more time on the street than abroad.

He said many Egyptians would no longer tolerate Mubarak's government even for a transitional period, and dismissed as "obviously bogus" the suggestion that authoritarian Arab leaders like Mubarak were the only bulwark against Islamic extremism.

"If we are talking about Egypt, there is a whole rainbow variety of people who are secular, liberal, market oriented, and if you give them a chance they will organise to elect a government that is modern and moderate," he said.

Web activists seem to have acted largely independently of more organised opposition movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, widely seen as having Egypt's biggest grassroots network with its social and charity projects.

"Participation has no religious direction, it is an Egyptian movement," wrote an activist about Friday's planned protest.

Washington, which views Mubarak as a vital ally and a bulwark of West Asian peace, has called for calm and, increasingly, urged Egypt to make reforms to meet the protesters' demands.

"We believe strongly that the Egyptian government has an important opportunity at this moment in time to implement political, economic and social reforms to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people," US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.

An Islamist insurgency challenged Mubarak in the 1990s and was crushed by his vast security apparatus. But this is the first time since taking office in 1981 that he has faced such widespread protests from Egypt's large, youthful population.

"The people want the regime to fall," protesters chanted.

Egypt's population is about 80 million, two-thirds of them under 30. That age group accounts for 90% of the jobless. About 40% live on less than $2 a day, and a third are illiterate.

A presidential election is due in September. Egyptians assume that the 82-year-old Mubarak plans either to remain in control or hand power to his son Gamal, 47. Father and son both deny that Gamal is being groomed for the job.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad in Cairo and Alexander Dziadosz in Suez)