Mubarak meets cabinet as Egypt uprising rolls on

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak huddled with his new government for the first time today, and the executive committee of his ruling party quit en masse on day 12 of the protests against his regime.

The turmoil in Cairo loomed large over a meeting in Munich, Germany of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet, where US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Middle East faced a bumpy road on the transition to democracy.

At the same time, Clinton praised the "restraint" shown by the Egyptian security forces during a mass demonstration yesterday, billed as the "day of departure" for Mubarak by protesters.

In Munich, US President Barack Obama's special envoy Frank Wisner said Mubarak should stay in office during a democratic transition.

"The president must stay in office in order to steer those changes through," Wisner, who met Mubarak this week, told the Munich Security Conference via video link. "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical.

"It's his opportunity to write his own legacy. He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country, this is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward."

At least 300 people are believed to have been killed and thousands injured since the protests began on January 25, according to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

With big crowds swelling anew in Tahrir Square, epicentre of a stubborn campaign to get Mubarak to stand down immediately, the veteran president met for the first time with the government he had sworn in five days earlier.

Present were his new prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, the ministers of petroleum, trade, finance and social solidarity, and the head of the central bank, state news agency MENA reported.

Later in the day, state television said that the executive committee of Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), which includes his son Gamal Mubarak, had resigned en masse.

"The members of the executive committee resigned from their posts," it said, adding that Hossam Badrawi -- reputed to have good relations with opposition figures -- would take over as NDP secretary general and political bureau chief.

"We view this as a positive step toward the political change that will be necessary, and look forward to additional steps," an Obama administration official said in Washington.

In northern Sinai, a pipeline sending Egyptian gas to Jordan was attacked, officials said, prompting gas supplies to Israel to be halted as well. It was unclear if the attack was linked to the anti-Mubarak movement.

A blast followed by a fire was also reported at a Coptic church in Rafah bordering the Gaza Strip, although a local official denied an explosion was the cause.

Gunfire was heard in Tahrir Square early on Saturday as several thousand protesters spent a chilly night alongside Egyptian army tanks, regarded as protection from riot police or pro-Mubarak militants.

Witnesses said warning shots were fired by soldiers on the nearby October bridge over the River Nile to prevent a clash between pro- and anti-Mubarak groups.

France on Saturday said it suspended sales of arms and riot police equipment to Egypt two weeks ago after the outbreak of the mass protests which have produced deadly clashes with police as well as between rival supporters.

In the latest reported fatality, Egyptian journalist Ahmed Mohammed Mahmud died on Friday of gunshot wounds sustained during clashes between Mubarak supporters and anti-government protesters, the state-owned Al-Ahram daily said.

Despite a return to relative calm, Egypt's stock exchange will not reopen on Monday, as previously announced, MENA reported. Banks, however, were due to resume business on Sunday.

Mubarak, 82, whose three decades as leader of the Arab world's most populous nation had gone unchallenged until now, has said he is "fed up" with his job, but prefers to stay in power until September while calm is restored.

But protesters -- inspired by the downfall of Tunisia's long-time president last month -- want Mubarak out immediately, while the European Union and the United States are stepping up pressure for a transition to begin.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which is refusing to negotiate with the government, has kept a low profile because it does not want the revolt to be seen as an Islamic revolution, a leader said in an interview to be published on Monday.

"It is an uprising of the Egyptian people," Rashad al-Bayoumi, a spokesman for the influential group, told the German weekly Der Spiegel.

George Ishaq of the opposition group Kefaya ("Enough" in Arabic), speaking on Al-Jazeera television, said on Saturday his secular group was opposed both to a religious state in a post-Mubarak Egypt and to foreign intervention.

The head of the pro-democracy group denied any rift between the uprising's secular and Islamic strands. "The opposition has demands which should be taken into account... The demands are united and we will hold on to them," he said.

Citing unnamed US and Egyptian officials, the New York Times reported that new vice president Omar Suleiman and senior Egyptian military leaders are exploring ways for Mubarak to make a graceful exit.

Rather than go immediately, they said, Mubarak's powers would be scaled back, enabling the creation of a transitional government headed by Suleiman, the former intelligence chief, to negotiate reforms with the opposition.

In Munich, Clinton warned that a transition in Egypt could "backslide into just another authoritarian regime."

"Revolutions have overthrown dictators in the name of democracy, only to see the political process hijacked by new autocrats who use violence, deception, and rigged elections to stay in power, or to advance an agenda of extremism."

But she told her Quartet partners that "the status quo is simply not sustainable... Across the region, there must be clear and real progress toward open, transparent, fair, and accountable systems."

The Quartet -- comprising Russia, the United States, the European Union and United Nations -- was meeting to explore ways of reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

In a new blow to Egypt's tourist industry, Russia's federal tourism agency Rostourism called on the 28,000 Russians now on holiday there to return home, even if most are at relatively calm Red Sea resorts.