Strikes raise pressure on Mubarak

Bus drivers and other public transport workers have gone on strike in Egypt as mass protests continued in an attempt to remove President Hosni Mubarak.

Thousands of protesters packed into Cairo’s central Tahrir Square for a 17th day, vowing not to give up until Mr Mubarak steps down despite a host of sweeping government concessions.

Organisers planned another huge protest for Friday, hoping to repeat scenes on Tuesday when about a quarter of a million people turned out and helped revitalise the movement.

Khaled Abdel-Hamid, speaking for a coalition of groups behind the protests, said they wanted Egyptians to show up at six separate rallies on main squares in Cairo from which they would all march to Tahrir Square.

Protests calling for Mr Mubarak’s removal have been spreading since Tuesday outside Tahrir Square. Strikes have also erupted in a several sectors – among railway and bus workers, state electricity staff and service technicians at the Suez Canal, in factories manufacturing textiles, steel and beverages and hospitals.

Witnesses said hundreds of doctors in white coats marched down a street from the Qasr el-Aini hospital to the square, chanting “Join us, O Egyptian”.

The labour strikes come despite a warning by Vice President Omar Suleiman that calls for civil disobedience are “very dangerous for society and we can’t put up with this at all.”

Impoverished Egyptians are heavily dependent on public transport and the strike threatened a new blow to the hard-hit economy.

Egyptians have been infuriated by newspaper reports that the Mubarak family has amassed billions, and perhaps tens of billions of dollars in wealth while, according to the World Bank, about 40 % of the country’s 80 million people live below or near the poverty line of two US dollars a day. The family’s true net worth is not known.

US-based Human Rights Watch has said about 300 people have been killed since the protests began, but it is still compiling a final toll.