One protester killed in Cairo shooting: Al Arabiya TV

Reuters, CAIRO: One protester was killed in Cairo on Thursday when
supporters loyal to President Hosni Mubarak opened fire at
anti-government demonstrators demanding Mubarak to step down, Al
Arabiya TV quoted a doctor at the scene.

Yemeni president signals he won't stay beyond 2013

Reuters, SANAA: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, eyeing protests
that threaten to topple Egypt's long-serving president, indicated on
Wednesday he would leave office when his term ends in 2013, after
three decades in power.

Saleh, an important U.S. ally against al Qaeda, pledged not to hand
the reins of government on to his son and appealed to the opposition
to call off protests as a big rally loomed.

"I present these concessions in the interest of the country. The
interests of the country come before our personal interests," Saleh
told parliament and members of the military.

"No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock," he said,
referring to ruling party proposals on term limits seen as designed to
enable him to run again.

The move was Saleh's boldest gambit yet to stave off anti-government
turmoil spreading in the Arab world as he tried to avert a showdown
with the opposition which might risk drawing people on to the streets
in the poverty-stricken state.

He spoke a day before a planned rally by the opposition, dubbed a "Day
of Rage" and seen as a barometer of the size and strength of the
Yemeni people's will to follow Egyptians and Tunisians in demanding a
change of government.

"I call on the opposition to freeze all planned protests, rallies and
sit-ins," Saleh said. "I call on the opposition after this initiative
to come and form a national unity government in spite of the ruling
party majority. We will not allow chaos. We will not allow
destruction."

About 5,000 government supporters held a rally in a sports stadium in
a suburb of the capital Sanaa on Wednesday, some carrying signs that
read "No to sabotage, yes to security and stability" and "Yes to
unity, no to separatism."

Yemen, at risk of becoming a failed state, is trying to fight a
resurgent al Qaeda wing, quell southern separatism, cement peace with
Shi'ite rebels in the north, all in the face of crushing poverty. One
third of Yemenis face chronic hunger.

"I think it is very significant," Dubai-based security analyst
Theodore Karasik said of the move. "What they are doing in Yemen is
trying to not have what happened in Egypt."

"I don't know if it will be enough to satisfy people. It may try to
heal some of the cleavages between for example the southern
secessionist movement and Sanaa, but is it going to be enough for
everyone?"

RALLY TO GO ON

The United States relies heavily on Saleh to help combat al Qaeda's
regional Yemen-based arm which also targets neighboring Saudi Arabia,
the world's biggest oil exporter.

President Barack Obama telephoned Saleh to express support for his
initiative, the state news agency Saba said. "You have handled the
situation well, and I look forward to working with you in a good
partnership between the two countries," it quoted Obama as saying.

Yemen's biggest opposition party welcomed the initiative but said
Thursday's rally in Sanaa would still go ahead. The rally's size and
mood will offer the first glimpse of popular reaction to Saleh's
concessions.

"We consider this initiative positive and we await the next concrete
steps. As for our plan for a rally tomorrow, the plan stands and it
will be organized and orderly," said Mohammed al-Saadi, undersecretary
of the Islamist party Islah (reform).

"This is a peaceful struggle through which the people can make their
voices heard and express their aspirations."

Saleh had already offered lesser concessions on presidential term
limits and pledged to raise civil servants' and military salaries by
around $47 a month, no small move in a country where about 40 percent
of the population lives on less than $2 a day.

However, the pledges on Wednesday went much further.

Saleh promised to delay parliamentary elections due in April to
conduct reforms to persuade the opposition the vote will be fair. The
delay was not expected to more than several months.

He pledged to re-open voter registration after opposition complaints
that around 1.5 million had been unable to sign up, and renewed an
offer for a unity cabinet with the opposition.

Saleh also promised direct election of provincial and local governors,
which would give Yemenis more say over local affairs, and put on hold
all proposed constitutional changes, including on presidential term
limits, pending talks with the opposition.

Relief as Australia mops up from giant cyclone

Reuters, INNISFAIL, Australia: Australians voiced relief and surprise
after one of the world's most powerful cyclones spared the nation's
northeast coast from expected devastation on Thursday, with no
reported deaths despite winds tearing off roofs and toppling trees.

Cyclone Yasi, roughly the size of Italy and packing winds of up to
around 300 km per hour (186 miles per hour), threatened Australia with
its second major natural disaster in as many months this week but
ended up missing heavily populated areas.

"It's amazing no-one was killed. The wind was howling like a banshee,"
said farmer Nathan Fisher, speaking out the window of his
four-wheel-drive vehicle as he returned to his property from a shelter
in the small town of Innisfail.

Australia, a vast continent with less than three people for every
square km, is one of the few countries where a storm as large and
terrifying as Yasi -- with a diameter of up to around 500 km (310
miles) -- could simply miss major cities.

Even as Yasi began its 1,000 km (620 mile) inland march into the
outback on Thursday, weakening all the time, tracking forecasts showed
it was likely to hit only a handful of small towns in a region home to
around 400,000 people.

The lack of any major damage or substantial casualties was also
attributed to several days of cyclone preparation, early evacuations,
laws that ensure newer homes and buildings are strong enough to
survive a cyclone, and less than expected sea flooding as the cyclone
missed the peak tides.

The cyclone came ashore around midnight along hundreds of km of coast
in Queensland state and then drove inland, bringing heavy rains to
mining areas struggling to recover from recent devastating floods.

"Early reports have given us all a great sense of relief," Queensland
Premier Anna Bligh told reporters, adding the cyclone emergency was
still unfolding.

Click image to see photos of the cyclone aftermath

AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

"Some people in this region will be going back to their communities,
going back to their neighborhoods, and facing scenes of considerable
devastation."

Yasi was rated a maximum-strength category five storm, on a par with
Hurricane Katrina, which wrecked New Orleans in 2005, killing 1,500
people and causing $81 billion in damage.

It was downgraded to a category-two storm as it moved inland but its
core remained very destructive, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The biggest impact could be on the economy. Sugarcane crops had been
damaged, with initial estimates suggesting around 15 percent of the
national sugar crop could be lost. The industry estimated that one
area, accounting for about a third of the crop, had suffered up to 50
percent losses

Australia is the world's third largest raw sugar exporter.

Some coal mines remained shut after the cyclone passed, although
others were starting to resume operations. Queensland accounts for 90
percent of Australia's steelmaking coal exports.

TOURIST AREAS HIT, TREES SNAPPED

The eye of the cyclone crossed the coast near the tourist town of
Mission Beach, where devastating Cyclone Larry struck in 2006, and
damaged areas around Tully and Cardwell, where many older homes, built
before tougher building codes were applied, suffered severe damage.

Authorities said initial reports suggested only about 100 houses had
suffered major damage. There were no initial reports of serious
injuries.

Hills around Tully were covered in snapped trees and scoured almost
clean of vegetation by the force of the wind. The main road into Tully
was flooded and several houses had roofs torn off, with crumpled tin
lying in flooded fields.

At Innisfail, Bill Biscow stood in flood waters and cleaned up roofing
shredded by the storm. "It was scary, but the damage is not as bad as
last time when the place got flattened. Cyclone Larry probably blew
away the oldest buildings."

In the coastal hamlet of Cowley Beach, steel roofs were torn from
houses and twisted around power poles.

"I've been in the area for a long time and I've seen many of these,
but this one is the biggest I've ever seen," said 84-year-old Robert
Hurst, cleaning up his still-intact house.

Another resident, Maria Cook, returned from an emergency shelter to
check on her home on the outskirts of Innisfail.

"I'm going to have to use a chainsaw to cut past trees and to get back
inside my house," she said.

A weather bureau spokesman said a storm surge of two meters (six feet)
above normal tides had inundated one stretch of coast but the surges
were not as severe as authorities had feared.

The cyclone had cut electricity to around 200,000 homes, but main
links to the power grid remained intact.

Queensland has had a cruel summer, with floods sweeping across it and
other eastern states in recent months, killing 35 people and causing
damage estimated at $10 billion or more.

$1=0.9888 Australian dollar)

(Additional reporting by Amy Pyett and Bruce Hextall in SYDNEY)

(Writing by Ed Davies and James Grubel; Editing by Dean Yates)

Mubarak backers open fire at protesters: witnesses

Reuters, CAIRO: Supporters of President Hosni Mubarak opened fire on
Thursday on protesters camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square, wounding
at least seven, witnesses said.

Al Arabiya television quoted a doctor at the scene as saying one
protester was killed when a barrage of gunfire rang out across the
square at around 0400 am (9 p.m. EST Wednesday). Another witness said
as many as 15 people had been wounded.

"People are too tired to be terrified," al Jazeera television quoted a
33-year-old woman in the square as saying.

But she said protesters who launched an unprecedented challenge to
Mubarak's 30-year-rule last week would not give up. "We cannot go back
at this point."

Mubarak promised on Tuesday to surrender power in September, angering
protesters who want him to quit immediately and prompting the United
States to say change "must begin now."

A day later, the army told reformists to go home and Mubarak backers,
throwing petrol bombs, wielding sticks and charging on camels and
horses, attacked protesters in Tahrir Square in what many saw as a
government-backed attempted crackdown.

Anti-Mubarak demonstrators hurled stones back and said the attackers
were police in plainclothes. The Interior Ministry denied the
accusation, and the government rejected international calls to end
violence and begin the transfer of power.

This apparent rebuff along with the spike in violence -- after days of
relatively calm demonstrations -- complicated U.S. calculations for an
orderly transition of power in Egypt.

In pointed comments, a senior U.S. official said it was clear that
"somebody loyal to Mubarak has unleashed these guys to try to
intimidate the protesters."

By nightfall on Wednesday, the protesters were still holding their
ground in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the hub for protests over
oppression and economic hardship now into their 10th day.

Skirmishes continued well into the night and there was sporadic
gunfire, with blazes caused by firebombs.

After a brief period of calm, a barrage of gunfire could be heard
ringing out across the square.

"They fired at us many petrol bombs from above the bridge in the
northern end of Tahrir Square," said one witness.

At least 145 people have been killed so far and there have been
protests across the country. United Nations human rights chief Navi
Pillay said up to 300 people may have died.

STOP THE BLOODSHED

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman earlier urged the 2,000
demonstrators in Tahrir Square to leave and observe a curfew to
restore calm. He said the start of dialogue with the reformists and
opposition depended on an end to street protests.

But protesters barricaded the square against pro-Mubarak supporters
trying to penetrate the makeshift cordon.

"This place will turn into a slaughterhouse very soon if the army does
not intervene," Ahmed Maher, who saw pro-Mubarak supporters with
swords and knives, told Reuters.

Officials said three people were killed in Wednesday's violence and a
doctor at the scene said over 1,500 were injured.

Reacting to the tumult in Egypt, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
said that, "If any of the violence is instigated by the government it
should stop immediately."

Opposition figurehead Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace laureate,
called on the army to intervene to stop the violence.

Urging protesters to clear the streets, the armed forces told them
their demands had been heard. But many were determined to occupy the
square until Mubarak quits.

Khalil, a man in his 60s holding a stick, blamed Mubarak supporters
and undercover security men for the clashes. "We will not leave," he
told Reuters. "Everybody stay put," he added.

"I'm inspired by today's events, however bloody and violent they are,
and I will stay with my brothers and sisters in Tahrir until I either
die or Mubarak leaves the country," said medical student Shaaban
Metwalli, 22, as night closed in.

An opposition coalition, which includes the Islamist Muslim
Brotherhood, said it would only negotiate with Suleiman, a former
intelligence chief appointed by Mubarak at the weekend, once the
president stepped down.

The crisis has alarmed the United States and other Western governments
who have regarded Mubarak as a bulwark of stability in a volatile
region, and has raised the prospect of unrest spreading to other
authoritarian Arab states.

President Barack Obama telephoned the 82-year-old Mubarak on Tuesday
to urge him to move faster on political transition.

"The message that the president delivered clearly to President Mubarak
was that the time for change has come," Gibbs said, adding: "Now means
now." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a call to Suleiman,
underlined that U.S. position.

But Mubarak dug in his heels on Wednesday. A Foreign Ministry
statement rejected U.S. and European calls for the transition to start
immediately, saying they aimed to "incite the internal situation" in
Egypt.

"This appears to be a clear rebuff to the Obama administration and to
the international community's efforts to try to help manage a peaceful
transition from Mubarak to a new, democratic Egypt," said Robert
Danin, a former senior U.S. official now at the Council on Foreign
Relations think tank.

ARMY ROLE CRUCIAL

The administration supplies the Egyptian army annually with about $1.3
billion in aid. But international backing for Mubarak, a stalwart of
the West's Middle East policy, a key player in the Middle East peace
process and defense against militant Islam, crumbled as he tried to
ride out the crisis.

France, Germany and Britain also urged a speedy transition.

Some of the few words of encouragement for him have come from oil
giant Saudi Arabia, a country seen by some analysts as vulnerable to a
similar outbreak of discontent.

Israel, which signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, is also
watching the situation in its western neighbor nervously.

At the weekend, Mubarak reshuffled his cabinet and promised reform but
that was not enough for the pro-democracy movement.

One million people took to the streets of Egyptian cities on Tuesday.
Many protesters spoke of a new push on Friday to rally at Cairo's
presidential palace to dislodge Mubarak.

Oil prices fell back from 28-month highs, but North Sea Brent crude
was still more than $101 a barrel because of worries that unrest in
Egypt could kindle yet more political upheaval across the Middle East
and North Africa.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond, Patrick Werr, Dina Zayed,
Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Alexander Dziadosz, Yasmine Saleh, and
Alison Williams in Cairo; Writing by Myra MacDonald; editing by Samia
Nakhoul)

Journalists attacked, detained in Egypt

AP, NEW YORK: In multiple incidents, journalists covering Egypt's
unrest were pummeled, hit with pepper spray, shouted at and threatened
by loyalists to President Hosni Mubarak as the scene at
anti-government demonstrations suddenly turned ugly.

"For the first time in the last few days, we can feel what
dictatorship really means," said Lara Logan of CBS News, who said she
was effectively trapped in an Alexandria hotel.

When a CBS camera crew attempted to take pictures of violence between
pro- and anti-government crowds, they were marched back to their hotel
at gunpoint, Logan said. The CBS journalists were only allowed to
leave without cameras, and were watched wherever they went. Mubarak's
opponents were becoming afraid to talk to journalists, she said.

Several reporters told similar stories of what the Committee to
Protect Journalists described as a series of deliberate attacks. The
New York-based CPJ called on the Egyptian military to provide
protection for reporters.

Veteran international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, now working
for ABC News, said she witnessed Mubarak supporters arriving at
Cairo's Tahrir Square in what appeared to be coordinated fashion in
the early afternoon and sensed the mood changing.

"The thing about this is you can smell it," she said. "I just wondered
what this was going to bode for the day."

She soon found out. She was trying to interview a Mubarak supporter
when she was surrounded by several young men shouting that "we hate
Americans" and "go to hell."

When it was clear the situation wouldn't improve, Amanpour and her ABC
colleagues got in a car to leave. The car was surrounded by men
banging on the sides and windows, and a rock was thrown through the
windshield, shattering glass on the occupants. They escaped without
injury.

Blaming the press when things are going bad is a "time-honored and sad
tradition," she said.

CNN's Anderson Cooper said he, a producer and camera operator were set
upon by people who began punching them and trying to break their
camera. Another CNN reporter, Hala Gorani, said she was shoved against
a fence when demonstrators rode in on horses and camels, and feared
she was going to get trampled.

"This is incredibly fast-moving," Cooper said. "I've been in mobs
before and I've been in riots, but I've never had it turn so quickly."

A journalist for Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television suffered a
concussion, said media watchdog International Press Institute, citing
Randa Abul-Azm, the station's bureau chief in Cairo.

The attacks appeared to reflect a pro-government view that many media
outlets are sympathetic to protesters who want Mubarak to quit now
rather than complete his term. On Tuesday night, Mubarak pledged not
to run in elections later this year, and the army urged people to
cease demonstrating.

In Wednesday's fighting, security forces did not intervene as
thousands of people hurled stones and firebombs at each other for
hours in and around the capital's Tahrir Square.

Fox Business Channel's Ashley Webster reported that security officials
burst into a room where he and a camera operator were observing the
demonstration from a balcony. They forced the camera inside the room.
He called the situation "very unnerving" and said via Twitter that he
was trying to lay low.

CBS newsman Mark Strassman said he and a camera operator were attacked
as they attempted to get close to the rock-throwing and take pictures.
The camera operator, who he would not name, was punched repeatedly and
hit in the face with Mace.

"As soon as one started, it was like blood in the water," he said. The
two men were caught up in a crowd they soon learned were anti-Mubarak
demonstrators who were trying to whisk them to safety. The
demonstrators told them to get away for safety's sake, and they
complied.

"It's a significant news story but at the same time you have to
protect yourself," he said. "You're not doing anybody any good if you
end up in a hospital or worse."

Strassman said that he and his colleague were vulnerable because they
were clearly identifiable as Westerners. Al-Jazeera, the Arab news
network that has been the most consistent target of the Mubarak
regime's wrath, escaped trouble on Wednesday.

Al Jazeera kept its camera crews away from the square and instead
relied on reporters of Arab descent who had flip cameras and tried to
do their work by blending in with the crowd, said Al Anstey, the
network's managing director.

"It's a very, very challenging situation," Anstey said. "But it's
history in the making."

There were reported assaults on journalists for the BBC, Danish TV2
News and Swiss television. Two Associated Press correspondents were
also roughed up.

"We strongly condemn these attacks and urge all parties to refrain
from violence against journalists, local or foreign, who are simply
trying to cover these demonstrations and clashes for the benefit of
the public," Anthony Mills, press freedom manager for Vienna-based
International Press Institute, said in a statement.

"We are particularly concerned at suggestions that the attacks may
have been linked to the security services," he said.

Government spokesman Magdy Rady said the assertion of state
involvement in street clashes and attacks on reporters was a
"fiction," and that the government welcomed objective coverage.

"It would help our purpose to have it as transparent as possible. We
need your help," Rady said in an interview with The Associated Press.
However, he said some media were not impartial and were "taking sides
against Egypt."

The website of Belgium's Le Soir newspaper said Belgian reporter Serge
Dumont, whose real name is Maurice Sarfatti, was beaten Wednesday
while covering a pro-Mubarak demonstration and taken away by
unidentified people dressed as civilians. The paper said Sarfatti had
been able to call the paper to tell them he had been taken to a
military post.

"They are saying I'm going to be taken to see security services. They
accuse me of being a spy," the paper's website quoted him as saying.

A reporter for Turkey's Fox TV, his Egyptian cameraman and their
driver were abducted by men with knives while filming protests
Wednesday, but Egyptian police later rescued them, said Anatolia, a
Turkish news agency.

There was no information on why the crew was held or circumstances
surrounding their release.

A correspondent and a cameraman working for Russia's Zvezda television
channel were detained by men in plainclothes and held overnight
Tuesday, Anastasiya Popova of Vesti state television and radio said on
air from Cairo.

"All of their equipment, cameras and all cassettes, were taken from
them, they were taken to a house and blindfolded," Popova said. They
were questioned, she said, "but today they took them to the outskirts
of town and let them go without any explanation."

Reporter Jean-Francois Lepine of Canada's CBC all-French RDI network
said that he and a cameraman were surrounded by a mob that began
hitting them, until they were rescued by the Egyptian army.

"Without them, we probably would have been beaten to death," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Angela Doland in Paris, Lynn Berry in Moscow,
Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Mark Lavie in Jerusalem
contributed to this report.

Stores close early as Haiti awaits vote results

AP, PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Banks and stores closed early and people
rushed to get home in the capital Wednesday as Haitians feared unrest
with the expected announcement of final results from the disputed
presidential election.

The provisional electoral commission was scheduled to announce which
two of the three front-running candidates from the November ballot
would get spots in a March runoff.

Preliminary results showing government-backed candidate Jude Celestin
edging out popular singer Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly set off often
violent protests in December. Those figures were released late in the
evening in a failed effort to head off unrest.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Port-au-Prince
on Sunday to meet with all three candidates and reaffirm in person to
President Rene Preval that Washington backed an Organization of
American States report recommending that Celestin be dropped from the
race.

But on Tuesday rumors spread through the capital that the report would
be rejected, either by putting Celestin in the next round or canceling
the election altogether.

Annulling the election outright could also ruin the advantage of
first-place candidate Mirlande Manigat, a conservative former first
lady whose supporters have protested violently in her favor, mainly in
the countryside.

"Haiti awaits the final presidential results with trepidation," Radio
Kiskeya said on its website. Radio Metropole said, "Nobody knows what
will happen during these next few hours, which may be crucial for the
future of the country."

The U.S. Embassy issued an alert for U.S. citizens warning of the
"potential for elections-related violence throughout Haiti for the
duration of the elections period."

The Nov. 28 first round included widespread disorganization, violence,
intimidation, fraud and a call on election day from nearly every
candidate — including Martelly and Manigat — to cancel the vote while
it was going on.

An OAS team recommended that recalculating the results based on
estimates of fraud would create a Manigat-Martelly faceoff in the
runoff.

This week the Congressional Black Caucus issued a statement breaking
with the State Department and calling on "the United States and the
international community to uphold the ideals of fairness and support a
new Haiti election process that is free and fair."

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday night that
officials in Washington were awaiting the results.

"We certainly reiterate our strong desire that the results reflect the
will of the Haitian people and then enable Haiti to move on with the
follow-on elections that they've already announced for next month," he
said.

Preval's five-year term is scheduled to end Monday under the
constitution. An emergency law passed by members of his former party
in an expiring Senate would allow him to remain in office for up to
three more months, in part because his 2006 inauguration was delayed.

If Preval steps down as scheduled, the Haitian constitution says the
highest-ranking member of Haiti's supreme court would take over the
country pending an election to be held no less than 45 days and no
more than 90 days later. The court's presidency is currently vacant.

The situation is further complicated by the recent return of ousted
dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier after 25 years of exile and discussions
surrounding a potential return by exiled President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, whose party was not allowed to participate in the election.

China restricts reports on Egypt protests

AP, BEIJING: The protests in Egypt are about free elections and
overthrowing a longtime dictator? Not according to China's state
media, which is painting them as the kind of chaos that comes with
Western-style democracy.

The recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia are no doubt giving pause to
many authoritarian regimes around the world, but nowhere else appears
to be as determined to control the message as China.

Chinese censors have blocked the ability to search the term "Egypt" on
microblogging sites, and user comments that draw parallels to China
have been deleted from Internet forums. The People's Daily, the
flagship newspaper of the Communist Party, carried only a short report
Thursday saying Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would not stand for
re-election.

While there is little chance the protests could spark demonstrations
in China, the extent to which the long-ruling Communist Party is
censoring the story underscores how wary it is of any potential source
of unrest that might threaten its hold on power.

"Of course, the government doesn't want to see more comments on (the
protests), because stability is what they want," said Zhan Jian, a
professor with the Media Department at the China Youth University for
Political Sciences.

Elsewhere, authoritarian leaders from Madagascar to Iran have put
their own spin on the Egyptian and Tunisian protests to justify their
staying in power.

In some countries, including Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea and North
Korea, the media strategy seems to be to ignore the protests, with
little or no coverage. Others have used the media to reinforce their
message.

State-controlled television in the Ivory Coast has shown looting in
Tunisia, explaining that is the cost of the country's leader stepping
down. The unstated context: the Ivorian president is refusing to leave
office two months after losing an election.

In Zimbabwe, media loyal to longtime President Robert Mugabe have
portrayed the protests as anti-imperialist, an uprising against
Egypt's leader because he is close to the U.S. "This is exactly what
happens when sovereign governments sup with the devil," the state-run
Daily Mail said.

But Zimbabweans can still cluster around TVs in sports clubs and bars,
which have been switched from the usual sports programs to blanket
coverage of the protests on Al-Jazeera and other satellite news
channels.

Not so in China, where CNN and BBC are not widely available, and many
are getting only the government version of events.

Those accounts have focused on the chaos and ignored protester
complaints about autocracy and corruption, both sensitive topics in
China. The reports have also highlighted the government's dispatching
several chartered planes to rescue hundreds of stranded Chinese.

Online, searching for the term "Egypt" on microblogging sites, which
draw millions of users, brings up the message: "According to relevant
laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei gave the government's routine
denial of online censorship Tuesday, saying: "China's Internet is
open."

But Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China, and sensitive topics
are regularly scrubbed from websites by the country's extensive
Internet monitoring system, known as the Great Firewall.

China's attempts to restrict debate and sanitize reports echo its
handling of earlier mass protests, said Jeremy Goldkorn, who runs
Danwei.org, a website that tracks the media and Internet in China.

"It's almost the same reaction as when there were the color
revolutions in Eastern Europe," he said. "The aim of it is to
discourage people from making parallels with China and ... from seeing
this as part of a global people power movement."

An editorial in the Global Times, a state-run newspaper, said such
uprisings won't bring true democracy.

"As a general concept, democracy has been accepted by most people. But
when it comes to political systems, the Western model is only one of a
few options. It takes time and effort to apply democracy to different
countries, and to do so without the turmoil of revolution," the paper
said Sunday.

Two days later, the same publication took a swipe at the United States
for backing authoritarian governments in order to uphold its interests
in the Middle East, saying that "contradicts their so-called
democratic politics."

China's message to its own people is clear, Goldkorn said.

"The Chinese government's take is that chaos is harmful for a
developing country: 'Look what happens when people go in the
streets,'" he said. "The Global Times frames everything as 'This is
the danger of Western-style democracy.'"

___

Associated Press writers Lova Soarabary in Antananarivo, Madagascar;
Rukmini Callimachi in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; and Angus Shaw in Harare,
Zimbabwe, contributed to this report.

SKorean crew recount beatings by Somali pirates

AP, SEOUL, South Korea: South Korean sailors held captive by Somali
pirates for a week said they were frequently beaten and their lives
were repeatedly threatened before South Korean commandos rescued them,
a news report said Wednesday.

Such abuse — and even torture — is being systematically perpetrated by
Somali pirates on their hostages, according to the top commander of
the European Union Naval Force.

Seven South Korean sailors from the cargo ship hijacked in the Arabian
Sea on Jan. 15 returned home Wednesday. The crew have been largely
kept away from the media while investigators interview them, but a few
recounted their ordeal to the Yonhap news agency.

One sailor said he lost several teeth when a captor beat him.

"Pirates trampled and beat me whenever I talked with my captain," Kim
Du-chan was quoted as saying by Yonhap. "I lost my four front teeth
after being hit by the elbow of one pirate."

The pirates frequently beat the captain and other senior crew while
shouting "kill," another sailor Choi Jin-kyung said.

Yonhap said it obtained the comments while the sailors were outside of
an investigation room at a local coast guard office at the
southeastern city of Busan.

Coast guard spokesman Eum Jin-kyung confirmed the sailors were being
questioned about their treatment but said he couldn't confirm the
reported beating.

The published report came a day after Maj. Gen. Buster Howes told The
Associated Press that Somali pirates have begun systematically using
hostages as human shields and torturing them.

Howes said that pirates have recently tied hostages upside down and
dragged them in the sea, locked them in freezers, beaten them and used
plastic ties around their genitals.

During last month's raid, South Korean commandos killed eight pirates
and captured five. None of the crew members was injured in the raid
except for the captain, who was shot in the stomach by a pirate. The
captain, who was brought to South Korea for treatment last week, was
regaining consciousness, a hospital official said. He asked not to be
identified as he was not authorized to speak to media. The rest of
crew — two Indonesians and 11 Myanmar citizens — are staying in Oman.

The five captured pirates were brought to South Korea on Sunday on
charges they hijacked the ship, requested a ransom and attempted to
kill the captain. If convicted, the pirates could face up to life
imprisonment.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia — which includes one of the world's
busiest shipping lanes — has flourished since the Horn of Africa
nation's government collapsed in 1991.

Australian coastal towns wind- and wave-battered

AP, TULLY, Australia: The most powerful storm in a century ripped
across Australia's northeast coast early Thursday, blasting apart
houses, laying waste to banana crops and leaving boats lying in the
streets of wind- and wave-swept towns.

Authorities said they were surprised to learn at daybreak that no one
had been reported killed, but cautioned that bad news could eventually
emerge from communities still cut off after the overnight storm, which
left several thousand people homeless.

Emergency services fanned out as to assess the damage across a
disaster zone stretching more than 190 miles (300 kilometers) in
Queensland state, using chain saws to cut through trees and other
debris blocking roads.

Cyclone Yasi was moving inland and losing power Thursday. But
drenching rains were still falling, adding woes to a state where
Australia's worst flooding in decades has killed 35 people since late
November.

Hundreds of thousands of people spent the night huddled in evacuation
centers or bunkered in their homes as the cyclone hit, packing howling
winds gusting to 186 mph (300 kph) and causing tidal surges that
swamped coastal areas.

"Nothing's been spared. The devastation is phenomenal, like nothing
I've ever experienced," David Brook, the manager of a resort at
Mission Beach, where the core of the storm hit the coast around
midnight, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"Vegetation has been reduced to sticks," said Sgt. Dan Gallagher, a
Mission Beach police officer.

At Tully, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) inland along the storm's
path, the main street was littered with twisted pieces of metal that
were once house roofs and jagged shards of glass from shattered
shopfront windows. Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said one in
three houses in the town of 3,500 people either were demolished by the
storm or had the roof ripped off.

Click image to see photos of the cyclone aftermath

AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

Tully and Mission Beach were among a handful of towns in a relatively
narrow band that bore the brunt of Yasi's fury as it stormed ashore.

Further south, emergency workers had cut their way into the coastal
community of Cardwell on Thursday morning and found older houses
wrecked and boats pushed up into the town, she said. The entire
community was believed to have evacuated before the storm.

The main coastal highway was a slalom course of downed trees and power
lines, surrounded by scenes of devastation: Roofs peeled back from
houses, fields of sugar cane and banana shredded and flattened,
once-green expanses stripped to brown soil.

Tidal floodwaters periodically cut the highway Thursday, temporarily
stranding convoys of people trying to return home to see what was
left.

Barbara Kendall sat in her car next to her meowing cats Loly, Blossom,
Spingle and Junior. Kendall and her husband David spent a sleepless
night in a basement parking garage in Innisfail after being evacuated
from their coastal home at Kurrimine Beach.

"It was really terrifying, but we were safe," she said. "It's a
terrifying sound. It's really hard to describe. All I could hear was
the screeching of the wind."

The trunk of her car was filled with her most essential items:
photographs, heirlooms and precious jewelry.

Electricity supplies were cut to more than 180,000 houses in the
region — a major fruit and sugarcane-growing area and also considered
a tourist gateway to the Great Barrier Reef — and police warned people
to stay inside until the danger from fallen power lines and other
problems was past.

As the day wore on, authorities allowed more than 10,000 people to
leave the 20 evacuation centers where they stayed overnight.

"I'm very relieved this morning, but I do stress these are very early
reports," Bligh said of the information that no one had been killed
overnight. "It's a long way to go before I say we've dodged any
bullets."

Ahead of the storm, Bligh and other officials said the storm was more
powerful than any that had struck the coast since 1918, and warned the
country to expect widespread and destruction and likely deaths.

Amid the chaos, a bit of happy news: a baby girl was born at a Cairns
evacuation center just before dawn with the help of a British midwife
on holiday, councilor Linda Cooper said.

The largest towns in the path of the cyclone, including Cairns and
Townsville, were spared the worst of the fierce winds. Trees were
knocked down, but few buildings were damaged, authorities said. But
Townsville was suffering widespread flooding.

Officials said it was too early to cite a total cost of the damage,
but it was sure to add substantially to the $5.6 billion the
government says already was caused by the earlier flooding.

Queensland officials had warned people for days to stock up on bottled
water and food, and to board or tape up their windows. People in
low-lying or exposed areas were told to evacuate. Bligh credited the
preparations with saving lives.

Australia's huge, sparsely populated tropical north is battered
annually by about six cyclones — called typhoons throughout much of
Asia and hurricanes in the Western hemisphere. Building codes have
been strengthened since Cyclone Tracy devastated the city of Darwin in
1974, killing 71 in one of Australia's worst natural disasters.

Heavy gunfire rings out in Cairo protest square

AP, CAIRO: Bursts of heavy gunfire rained into Cairo's Tahrir Square
before dawn Thursday, killing at least three anti-government
demonstrators among crowds still trying to hold the site after an
assault by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak, according to a
protest organizer.

Sustained bursts of automatic weapons fire and powerful single shots
rattled into the square starting at around 4 a.m., and was continuing
more than an hour later.

Protest organizer Mustafa el-Naggar said he saw the bodies of three
dead protesters being carried toward an ambulance. He said the gunfire
came from at least three locations off in the distance and that the
Egyptian military, which has ringed the square with tank squads for
days to try to keep some order, did not intervene.

Footage from AP Television News showed two bodies being dragged from
the scene. The health minister did not answer a phone call seeking
confirmation of the deaths.

Throughout Wednesday, Mubarak supporters charged into the square on
horses and camels brandishing whips while others rained firebombs from
rooftops in what appeared to be an orchestrated assault against
protesters trying to topple Egypt's leader of 30 years. Three people
died in that earlier violence and 600 were injured.

The protesters accused Mubarak's regime of unleashing a force of paid
thugs and plainclothes police to crush their unprecedented
nine-day-old movement, a day after the 82-year-old president refused
to step down. They showed off police ID badges they said were wrested
from their attackers. Some government workers said their employers
ordered them into the streets.

Mustafa el-Fiqqi, a top official from the ruling National Democratic
Party, told The Associated Press that businessmen connected to the
ruling party were responsible for what happened.

The notion that the state may have coordinated violence against
protesters, who had kept a peaceful vigil in Tahrir Square for five
days, prompted a sharp rebuke from the Obama administration.

Click image to see photos of anti-government protests in Egypt

AP/Tara Todras-Whitehill

"If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should
stop immediately," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

The clashes marked a dangerous new phase in Egypt's upheaval: the
first significant violence between government supporters and
opponents. The crisis took a sharp turn for the worse almost
immediately after Mubarak rejected the calls for him to give up power
or leave the country, stubbornly proclaiming he would die on Egyptian
soil.

His words were a blow to the protesters. They also suggest that
authorities want to turn back the clock to the tight state control
enforced before the protests began.

Mubarak's supporters turned up on the streets Wednesday in significant
numbers for the first time. Some were hostile to journalists and
foreigners. Two Associated Press correspondents and several other
journalists were roughed up in Cairo. State TV had reported that
foreigners were caught distributing anti-Mubarak leaflets, apparently
trying to depict the movement as foreign-fueled.

After midnight, 10 hours after the clashes began, the two sides were
locked in a standoff at a street corner, with the anti-Mubarak
protesters hunkered behind a line of metal sheets hurling firebombs
back and forth with government backers on the rooftop above. The rain
of bottles of flaming gasoline set nearby cars and wreckage on the
sidewalk ablaze.

The scenes of mayhem were certain to add to the fear that is already
running high in this capital of 18 million people after a weekend of
looting and lawlessness and the escape of thousands of prisoners from
jails in the chaos.

Soldiers surrounding Tahrir Square fired occasional shots in the air
throughout the day but did not appear to otherwise intervene in the
fierce clashes and no uniformed police were seen. Most of the troops
took shelter behind or inside the armored vehicles and tanks stationed
at the entrances to the square.

"Why don't you protect us?" some protesters shouted at the soldiers,
who replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go
home.

"The army is neglectful. They let them in," said Emad Nafa, a
52-year-old among the protesters, who for days had showered the
military with affection for its neutral stance.

Some of the worst street battles raged near the Egyptian Museum at the
edge of the square. Pro-government rioters blanketed the rooftops of
nearby buildings and hurled bricks and firebombs onto the crowd below
— in the process setting a tree ablaze inside the museum grounds.
Plainclothes police at the building entrances prevented anti-Mubarak
protesters from storming up to stop them.

The two sides pummeled each other with chunks of concrete and bottles
at each of the six entrances to the sprawling plaza, where 10,000
anti-Mubarak protesters tried to fend off more than 3,000 attackers
who besieged them. Some on the pro-government side waved machetes,
while the square's defenders filled the air with a ringing battlefield
din by banging metal fences with sticks.

In one almost medieval scene, a small contingent of pro-Mubarak forces
on horseback and camels rushed into the anti-government crowds,
trampling several people and swinging whips and sticks. Protesters
dragged some riders from their mounts, throwing them to the ground and
beating their faces bloody. The horses and camels appeared to be ones
used to give tourists rides around Cairo.

Dozens of men and women pried up pieces of the pavement with bars and
ferried the piles of ammunition in canvas sheets to their allies at
the front. Others directed fighters to streets needing reinforcements.

The protesters used a subway station as a makeshift prison for the
attackers they managed to catch. They tied the hands and legs of their
prisoners and locked them inside. People grabbed one man who was
bleeding from the head, hit him with their sandals and threw him
behind a closed gate.

Some protesters wept and prayed in the square where only a day before
they had held a joyous, peaceful rally of a quarter-million, the
largest demonstration so far.

Egyptian Health Minister Ahmed Sameh Farid said three people died and
at least 611 were injured in Tahir Square. One of those killed fell
from a bridge near the square; Farid said the man was in civilian
clothes but may have been a member of the security forces.

Farid did not say how the other two victims, both young men, were
killed. It was not clear whether they were government supporters or
anti-Mubarak demonstrators.

After years of tight state control, protesters emboldened by the
uprising in Tunisia took to the streets on Jan. 25 and mounted a
once-unimaginable series of demonstrations across this nation of 80
million. For the past few days, protesters who camped out in Tahrir
Square reveled in a new freedom — publicly expressing their hatred for
the Mubarak regime.

"After our revolution, they want to send people here to ruin it for
us," said Ahmed Abdullah, a 47-year-old lawyer in the square.

Another man shrieked through a loudspeaker: "Hosni has opened the door
for these thugs to attack us."

The pressure for demonstrators to clear the square mounted throughout
the day, beginning early when a military spokesman appeared on state
TV and asked them to disperse so life in Egypt could get back to
normal.

It was a change in attitude by the army, which for the past few days
had allowed protests to swell with no interference and even made a
statement saying they had a legitimate right to demonstrate
peacefully.

Then the regime began to rally its supporters in significant numbers
for the first time, demanding an end to the protest movement. Some
20,000 Mubarak supporters held an angry but mostly peaceful rally
across the Nile River from Tahrir, responding to calls on state TV.

They said Mubarak's concessions were enough. He has promised not to
run for re-election in September, named a new government and appointed
a vice president for the first time, widely considered his designated
successor.

They waved Egyptian flags, their faces painted with the
black-white-and-red national colors, and carried a large printed
banner with Mubarak's face as police officers surrounded the area and
directed traffic. They cheered as a military helicopter swooped
overhead.

They were bitter at the jeers hurled at Mubarak.

"I feel humiliated," said Mohammed Hussein, a 31-year-old factory
worker. "He is the symbol of our country. When he is insulted, I am
insulted."

Sayyed Ramadan, a clothing vendor said: "Eight days with no security,
safety, food or drink. I earn my living day by day. The president
didn't do anything. It is shame that we call him a dog."

Emad Fathi, 35, works as a delivery boy but since the demonstrations,
he has not gone to work.

"I came here to tell these people to leave," he said. "The mosques
were calling on people to go and support Mubarak," he said.

The anti-Mubarak movement has vowed to intensify protests to force him
out by Friday.

State TV said Vice President Omar Suleiman called "on the youth to
heed the armed forces' call and return home to restore order." From
the other side, senior anti-Mubarak figure Mohamed ElBaradei demanded
the military "intervene immediately and decisively to stop this
massacre."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with Suleiman to
condemn the violence and urge Egypt's government to hold those
responsible for it accountable, State Department spokesman P.J.
Crowley said.

Protesters had maintained a round-the-clock, peaceful vigil in Tahrir
Square since Friday night, when the military was first deployed and
police largely vanished from the streets.

After celebrating their biggest success yet in Tuesday's
demonstration, the crowd thinned out overnight. By morning a few
thousand protesters remained. Mubarak supporters began to gather at
the edges of the square a little after noon, and protesters formed a
human chain to keep them out.

In the early afternoon, around 3,000 pro-government demonstrators
broke through and surged among the protesters, according to an
Associated Press reporter at the scene.

They tore down banners denouncing the president, fistfights broke out,
and protesters grabbed Mubarak posters from the hands of the
supporters and ripped them to pieces.

From there, it escalated into outright street battles as hundreds
poured in to join each side.

The battle lines at each of the entrances surged back and forth for
hours. Each side's fighters stretched across the width of the
four-lane divided boulevard, hiding behind abandoned trucks and
holding sheets of corrugated metal as shields from the hail of stones.

At the heart of the square, young men with microphones sought to keep
up morale. "Stand fast, reinforcements are on the way," said one.
"Youth of Egypt, be brave." Groups of bearded men lined up to recite
Muslim prayers before taking their turn in the line of fire.

Bloodied young men staggered or were carried into makeshift clinics
set up in mosques and alleyways by the anti-government side.

Women and men stood ready with water, medical cotton and bandages as
each wave returned. Scores of wounded were carried to a makeshift
clinic at a mosque near the square and on other side streets, staffed
by doctors in white coats. One man with blood coming out of his eye
stumbled into a side-street clinic.

As night fell, some protesters went to get food, a sign they plan to
dig in for a long siege. Hundreds more people from the impoverished
district of Shubra showed up later as reinforcements.

Wednesday's events suggest the regime aims to put an end of the unrest
to let Mubarak shape the transition as he chooses over the next
months. Mubarak has offered negotiations with protest leaders over
democratic reforms, but they have refused any talks until he steps
down.

As if to show the public the crisis was ending, the government began
to reinstate Internet service after days of an unprecedented cutoff.
State TV announced the easing of a nighttime curfew, which now runs
from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. instead of 3 p.m. to 8 a.m.

____

AP correspondents Sarah El Deeb, Hamza Hendawi, Diaa Hadid, Lee Keath,
Michael Weissenstein and Maggie Michael contributed to this report.