Violence escalates in Cairo square
Five people killed and many wounded as Mubarak loyalists attack pro-democracy protesters in Tahrir Square on Thursday
Last Modified: 03 Feb 2011 04:36 GMT
Violent clashes between pro and anti Mubarak demonstrators began on Wednesday
Bursts of heavy gunfire aimed at anti-government demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir [Liberation] Square, left at least five people dead and several more wounded, according to reports from the Egyptian capital on Thursday.
Sustained bursts of automatic weapons fire and powerful single shots began at around around 4am local time (2.00GMT) and was ongoing more than an hour.
Pro-democracy protest organiser, Mustafa el-Naggar, who's in Tahrir Square, said the gunfire came from at least three locations in the distance. He said the Egyptian military entered the square with tank squads to try to keep some order, but did not intervene.
An Al Jazeera online producer in Tahrir Square witnessed doctors attending to two gunshot victims, one who was shot in the head. "There was a puddle of blood on the concrete beneath the man ... but he still had a pulse and might survive," our producer said.
The gunfire marks an escalation of tensions, which began on Wednesday when supporters of embattled president Hosni Mubarak charged into Tahrir Square - some on horses and some on camels - clashing with pro-democracy demonstrators gathered there.
Protesters from both sides fought pitched battles in Tahrir Square, the epicentre of ongoing demonstrations against Hosni Mubarak, which entered their tenth day on Thursday.
Pro-Mubarak supporters also threw Molotov cocktails and homemade bombs at opposition protesters, who erected makeshift barricades around the square. Our online producer there visited an ad hoc 'prison' where protesters had already captured around six pro-Mubarak supporters.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, condemned the "shocking" bloody clashes that rocked Cairo, in a call to Vice President Omar Suleiman.
"The secretary urged that the government of Egypt hold accountable those who were responsible for violent acts," the state department said in a statement.
Fresh standoff
An Al Jazeera correspondent, reporting from just outside the square late on Wednesday, said dozens of pro-Mubarak supporters had erected barricades on either side of a road, trapping the pro-democracy supporters. They were gathering stones, breaking streetlights and using balaclavas to cover their faces, apparently in preparation for a fresh standoff with the pro-democracy crowd.
Our correspondent said local residents thought the men preparing for the standoff were police officers but the claim could not be independently confirmed.
Just hours earlier, an Al Jazeera online producer reporting from near Tahrir Square said: "Someone - a few people actually - were dropping homemade bombs into the square from the buildings surrounding it."
The Reuters news agency reported quoting officials that three people were killed in Wednesday's violence. It also quoted a doctor at the scene as saying that more than 1,500 had been injured.
Army standing by
Witnesses said the military allowed thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters, armed with sticks and knives, to enter the square on Wednesday. Opposition groups said Mubarak had sent in "thugs" to suppress anti-government protests.
Though initially put on the back-foot by the sudden attack, determined pro-democracy protesters looked to be winning the battle against the assailants.
The worst of the fighting was just outside the world famous Egyptian Museum, which was targeted by looters last week.
Scare tactics
Many of the pro-Mubarak supporters who gathered on Wednesday raised slogans like "Thirty Years of Stability, Nine Days of Anarchy".
Al Jazeera's Jane Dutton, in Cairo, said that security guards have also been seen amongst the pro-Mubarak supporters, and it may be a precursor to the feared riot police arriving on the scene.
Fighting took place around army tanks deployed around the square, with stones bouncing off the armoured vehicles.
Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent opposition figure, accused Mubarak of resorting to scare tactics.
"I'm extremely concerned, I mean this is yet another symptom, or another indication, of a criminal regime using criminal acts," ElBaradei said.
"My fear is that it will turn into a bloodbath," he added, calling the pro-Mubarak supporters a "bunch of thugs". ElBaradei has also urged the army to intervene.
"I ask the army to intervene to protect Egyptian lives," he told Al Jazeera, adding he said it should intervene "today" and not remain neutral.
Determined protesters
Despite the clashes, pro-democracy protesters seeking Mubarak's immediate resignation said they would not give up until Mubarak steps down.
Mohammed el-Belgaty, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told Al Jazeera the "peaceful demonstrations in Tahrir Square have been turned into chaos".
"The speech delivered by President Mubarak was very provocative as he used very sentimental words.
"Mubarak is asking the people to choose between him or chaos."
Ahead of Wednesday's clashes, supporters of the president staged a number of rallies around Cairo, saying Mubarak represented stability amid growing insecurity, and calling those who want his departure "traitors."
"Yes to Mubarak, to protect stability," read one banner in a crowd of 500 gathered near state television headquarters, about 1km from Tahrir Square.
A witness said organisers were paying people $17, to take part in the pro-Mubarak rally, a claim that could not be confirmed.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Opposition blames government for Cairo violence
In Egypt, opponents of President Hosni Mubarak are blaming the government for Wednesday's violent clashes in central Cairo.
Anti-Mubarak protesters who had occupied a main square were confronted by the president's supporters on Wednesday. The 2 sides threw stones and petrol bombs at each other. Egypt's health ministry says at least 3 people have been killed and more than 600 wounded.
The chaos continued until dawn, with frequent gunfire.
At least 2 more people were reportedly killed and many others wounded in the shootouts.
Local media reports say the president's supporters arrived in groups carrying sticks and other weapons, and that some had police ID cards.
Key opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei suggested government involvement in the latest clashes, saying that the demonstrators have proof of attacks by the police.
But a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry has strongly denied the allegation.
On Wednesday, Vice President Omar Suleiman said the start of dialogue with the opposition depends on an end to street protests.
But protesters demanding Mubarak's immediate resignation are set to hold more demonstrations on Friday.
Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:02:00 +0900(JST)
Mubarak camp hits back on the street
By Andrew England in Cairo
February 2 2011 23:35
Financial Times
As two women screamed at each other on a bridge that spans the River Nile and leads into Tahrir Square – focal point for the nine days of protests against Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president – others tried to intervene and calm the dispute.
But even as the women walked away from each other, insults were repeatedly hurled. Azza Tawfiq had seen a banner reading “Mubarak, we are with you” in the other woman’s car and she was infuriated.
“They [the regime] were shooting the people,” she said, in reference to the police using live fire against protesters on Friday. “And she’s pretending to be a Muslim.”
Such arguments were the first hint of the trouble that was to come as Mr Mubarak’s supporters and those protesting against the regime fought pitched battles on Wednesday, a day after the president had announced that he would not stand at the next election and promised to amend the constitution.
What began as verbal abuse when thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters took to the streets around Tahrir Square descended into bloody clashes after stones were hurled between the two groups. Men mounted on horses and camels later charged the anti-Mubarak protesters.
The army, the only security force in the square since Friday, appeared to do little to intervene. Sporadic gunfire echoed across the square but state television reported that the army had denied it was soldiers who had opened fire. Heba Mourayef, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, questioned how people were able to enter the square with knives and other weapons when it was supposedly secured by the army.
She said: “I saw one man riding a camel at high speed, beating people right and left with a stick, polo-style. I don’t understand how someone can bring a camel in without the military noticing.”
A military spokesman had appeared on state television on Wednesday to ask the anti-Mubarak protesters to go home, so that life in Egypt could return to normal. Banks, businesses and the stock market have been closed for days. Most people have been unable to work, instead staying in their districts to guard against looters in the absence of police. Reports of food shortages have begun to emerge.
Anti-Mubarak demonstrators accused the regime of paying public sector workers to rally in support of the president. There were allegations that police in plain clothes were among those responsible for the violence but the interior ministry denied the charge.
“Mubarak orders government workers to go on to the streets [to support him]. That guy is pathetic,” Ms Tawfiq said.
Among the president’s supporters, people vented their anger at Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who has emerged as a leading figure in the fragmented opposition, and complained of foreign intervention. Others said the concessions Mr Mubarak had made in the past week were sufficient.
“The change has already happened; what the president said is enough, more than enough,” said Mukhtar Taher, one of the president’s supporters.
“He has spoken of constitutional amendments and he’s appointed a vice-president who is a respected man and trusted by the people.”
But the anti-Mubarak protesters insisted that even though the president had pledged to step down at the next election, they could not trust him. A passing woman said: “He will make civil war here because of his interests.”
That may be the worst-case scenario, but the clashes will add to the climate of chaos, fear and suspicion that has swept across Cairo. It could also test Egyptians’ patience with the protests as the crisis escalates.
FEBRUARY 2, 2011, 3:16 P.M. ET.
OIL FUTURES: Crude Nearly Flat As Egypt Worries Linger
By Jerry A. DiColo
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Crude futures settled nearly flat Wednesday as traders weighed rising U.S. fuel supplies against growing violence in Egypt, where unrest could threaten vital oil supply routes.
Light, sweet crude for March delivery settled 9 cents, or 0.1%, higher at $90.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange traded 68 cents higher at $102.42 a barrel.
Protests calling for the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak turned increasingly violent Wednesday as Mubarak supporters clashed with antigovernment demonstrators. Mubarak said he would step down after elections later this year, ending his 29-year rule in the country, but protesters continued to demand his immediate removal.
The weeklong protests, which have sent oil prices up by more than 6% since Friday, haven't caused disruptions to key oil routes through the Suez Canal or Sumed pipeline. But fears that unrest could spread to Egypt's oil-rich neighbors have kept futures markets on edge, with Brent crude, the benchmark for Europe and Asia, hitting a fresh two-year high of $102.43 a barrel.
"It has less to do about supply and demand on a weekly basis," said Rich Ilczyszyn, a broker with Lind-Waldock in Chicago. "The geopolitical problems are going to continue, and nobody is going to want to sell this market short."
Still, the U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, remained subdued compared to Brent amid signals that the U.S. continues to be well supplied. U.S. crude inventories rose by 2.6 million barrels last week, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Energy Wednesday, in line with analysts' estimates. Stockpiles at Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for Nymex-traded futures, rose to the highest level on record at 38.3 million barrels, up 20% from last year.
The increasing storage in Cushing is keeping Nymex futures at a sharp discount to Brent crude. After trading at a record premium near $12 last week, the price difference, or spread, was again above $11 Wednesday.
"We're still building Cushing stocks, and that's a process that could take a while (to draw down)," said Jim Ritterbusch, head of oil-trading adviser Ritterbusch and Associates.
"But there is just too much else going on in the world," for the market to react to the Energy Department numbers, he said.
Gasoline futures turned lower after the government report showed stockpiles rose by 6.2 million barrels, due in part to reduced travel resulting from winter weather striking large parts of the U.S. in January.
"The winter storms are piling up," said oil analyst Phil Flynn of PFG Best. "Right now the margins are still decent, so refiners are going to keep producing gasoline. But with what we've seen in the Midwest, demand is going to be horrible. We'll probably see additional builds over the next few weeks."
Front-month March reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, settled down 2.09 cents at $2.4985 a gallon.
The cold weather gripping the U.S., particularly the Northeast, helped buoy heating oil, however. Heating oil futures for March delivery settled 2.37 cents higher at $2.7807 a gallon.
Stocks of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, fell by 1.6 million barrels, a larger-than-anticipated drop.
Geopolitics is final piece in risk jigsaw
By Gillian Tett in London
February 2 2011 18:40
During the past four years, global investors have undergone a brutal refresher course on the different types of risk the 21st century financial world used to ignore.
First, in 2007, bankers rediscovered the concept of “credit risk”, when subprime mortgages turned sour. Then, in 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, market players became reacquainted with “liquidity risk” and “counterparty risk” – or the problems that institutions face when they cannot fund themselves, and cannot trust each other.
After that, investors were faced with “sovereign risk”, as it became clear last year that bonds issued by western governments were not always a safe bet, even in the eurozone.
Now, says Robert Jenkins, chief executive of Combinatorics Capital, a hedge fund in New York, investors face the “last piece of this puzzle: geopolitical risk”.
More specifically, as the turbulence gathers pace in Egypt, markets are now remembering that political conflict and change can sometimes erupt in a brutally unexpected manner.
“Welcome to the last and final lesson of this review course [on risk],” says Mr Jenkins.
It is certainly a wake-up call for many investors and banks. In the past few years, a sense of complacency had crept into how markets priced geopolitical risk, particularly in the emerging world. That was partly because there has been a fevered dash into emerging market assets in the past two years.
As a result, the risk of default attached to many emerging market sovereign bonds, as measured by the credit default swaps market, was lower in places such as Brazil or Turkey than peripheral eurozone countries.
Indeed, before the CDS prices on Egyptian bonds recently doubled to about 340 basis points (before the market effectively froze altogether), some market metrics were suggesting that Egypt was a better place to invest than, say, Portugal.
But the other, more subtle issue is that the scale and complexity of the western financial crisis has left many asset managers and bankers too distracted to contemplate more esoteric geopolitical trends.
“To be honest, I don’t think we have really invested as much as we could in our geopolitical research recently,” one senior banker admitted in Davos last week, quipping that, “it has been hard enough to figure out things such as CDOs”.
As a result, the events in Egypt took most western investors by surprise. So much so, in fact, that the head of one of the world’s largest hedge funds dubs the Cairo turmoil “the Arab world’s flash crash” – a reference to the sudden, shocking fall that occurred in the US stock market in May 2010, when some algorithmic trading programmes malfunctioned. It is not a perfect metaphor.
The US flash crash lasted only a day. The events in Egypt could play out for many weeks. But the Egyptian turmoil – like the US market flash crash – has appeared to erupt out of the blue, owing to processes that were profoundly opaque to most outsiders (although in Egypt – as with the flash crash – insiders had long warned about potential trouble). Both events have revealed the dangers of “contagion”. What spooked the markets during the flash crash of May 2010 was the realisation that no one quite understood complex interconnections in modern finance.
The upheaval in Egypt raises questions about how many other political dominoes might fall across the Arab world. For the moment, many investors still appear willing to bet that “containment” will predominate. Although the Egyptian stock market fell about 14 per cent when the turmoil first erupted, western markets have rallied this week.
But the one thing that is clear is that risk analysts are now rethinking the way they look at the world, and experts in geopolitical risk are seeing a flurry of demand.
This new-found interest in geopolitical risk does not merely revolve around the Arab world. As one risk consultant observed in Davos last week, investors are rethinking core assumptions about seemingly “stable” western democracies, where the recent financial crisis has created some horrendous long-term fiscal challenges. “Everyone is looking at the ‘what if?’ scenario now,” he observes. This risk refresher course may not quite be over.
