Egyptian blogger Ramy Raoof posted this footage on YouTube. He says it shows demonstrators in Tahrir Square on Tuesday chanting: "People demand the removal of the regime."

Large, boisterous crowds filled the square for a 15th day on Tuesday.

RELATED

Egypt protests grow again; government offers new compromises

Freed Google executive Wael Ghonim joins protests 

Full coverage of the uprising in Egypt: News, photos, video and more

-- Alexandra Zavis

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman announced Tuesday that two committees have been formed to begin work on long-sought political changes and assured protesters that they were free to speak their minds.

Suleiman provided few specifics about the government’s road map for change in a statement aired on state television, and his announcement is unlikely to appease protesters who are calling for the immediate resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.

He said one committee would propose constitutional amendments and another would monitor implementation of all the changes. Both committees will begin their work immediately, he said.

A third committee, he said, will investigate violent clashes last week between Mubarak’s supporters and anti-government demonstrators.

"The president emphasized that the youth of Egypt deserve the appreciation of their country," Suleiman said. "And he issued his instructions that prevent their pursuit or restrictions on them or denial of their freedom of opinion and expression."

The announcement came on the 15^th day of large anti-government protests. Long lines formed into the afternoon along the Qasr el Nil Bridge as protesters waited to clear military checkpoints on their way to Tahrir Square. The square itself, which maintained a festive atmosphere, was packed making it difficult to move from one side to the other.

-- Raja Abdulrahim, Bob Drogin and Timothy M. Phelps in Cairo.

He doesn't look like he's had a wink of sleep.

But the famous Egyptian actor Amr Waked is nonetheless passionate and energetic in support of his country's uprising against the 30-year-rule of President Hosni Mubarak in a video that appeared on YouTube. 

Waked once appeared in a 2007 Los Angeles Times article about filmmaking in Cairo. American moviegoers might recognize him from the 2005 Stephen Gaghan film "Syriana," which starred George Clooney.

-- Los Angeles Times

Video: Actor Amr Waked. Credit: YouTube

RELATED

Ruling party leaders resign

Mubarak must stay for now, says U.S. special envoy

Clamor for change reaches Iraq

Full coverage of Egypt uprising: News, photos, videos and more

Just one Friday ago, immediately after the afternoon call to prayer, a few thousand protestors were repelled from a mosque in Giza by rubber bullets, water hoses and clouds of tear gas.  A stone’s throw away were young mothers with babies, sweepers gathering the trash and men hawking sweet potatoes and plump tomatoes.  I saw two young men walking  arm in arm when one stopped to choose a big onion — for later, I was told, when the eyes and throat burn from tear gas.  It was a lovely Cairene street scene filled with vivid colors and more than a little irony so I whipped out my tiny Coolpix.

I filmed as a distraught man came up close to the screen and ranted about his government.  An undercover policeman built like a bookcase thwacked the man hard against the head and then turned and demanded I erase it. I did.  So much for free speech. He was actually bigger than a bookcase. Nearby a canister of white smoke unfurled its sting. A small boy ran to douse it with water. The tear gas burned and my heart raced.

The revolution had begun.

Egypt's newly appointed vice president plans to meet a group of prominent figures Saturday to discuss a proposed solution to the country's crisis in which he would assume the president's powers for an interim period, a member of the group said.

Diaa Rashwan told Reuters news agency Friday that he and others had been invited to see Vice President Omar Suleiman, an ex-intelligence chief who has the confidence of Washington, to discuss an article of the constitution allowing President Hosni Mubarak to hand powers to his deputy.

Algerian opposition activists are not impressed by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who announced on Thursday plans to lift the 19-year state of emergency "very soon" even as he used the powers granted him by the emergency law to ban protest marches in the capital.

"I don't think this government is serious about implementing democracy in Algeria," Rachid Malawi, head of the independent union of civil servants, told Reuters. 

Iran's spiritual and political leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the popular uprisings against Western-backed autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt represent an "irreversible defeat" for the United States.

Speaking amid heightened security during the Friday sermon at Tehran University, Khamenei went on to draw comparisons between Iran's Islamic Revolution and the recent Arab protest movements, characterizing the protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and around the region as an "Islamic awakening."

He also accused the United States of propping up corrupt leaders in the region in order to protect its own interests and those of its ally Israel.

"This is a war between two willpowers: the willpower of the people and the willpower of their enemies," he said. "The Israelis and the U.S. are more concerned about what would happen to their interests in post-Mubarak regime."

As Egyptians braced for another potential flashpoint in their campaign against President Hosni Mubarak, the country's new prime minister told state-run television that he had ordered police to refrain from disrupting a massive demonstration planned Friday.

Anti-Mubarak protesters who have occupied Cairo's central Tahrir Square since Jan. 25 have set Friday, the main Muslim day of prayer, the deadline for Mubarak's resignation. Activists demanding sweeping reform of the long-reigning autocracy have clashed with the president's supporters over the last two days and some fear another bloody confrontation looms after Friday prayers.

Self-appointed commandos stand guard at intersections all over the Cairo neighborhood of Maadi, apparently a haven for retired military from several countries.  Some defenders wear camouflage, ski masks and Kevlar vests. They wield very large guns. Civilian troops pack too, though more creatively: kitchen knives, golf clubs, 2x4s and baseball bats.

"Who knew so many people played baseball in Cairo?" says my friend Randi.

Meanwhile, she is delighted to finally take a photograph of Maadi’s old synagogue, a building usually heavily guarded and blockaded in all directions. The police are all gone now. Randi is not worried about walking around here, though, having lived with police helicopters and gang gunfire near South-Central Los Angeles in the '90s. 

I am under curfew, banished from the streets after 4 pm.

There’s still no Internet, which evokes mild withdrawal symptoms. Cellphone service is back after a day, when dusted-off landlines proved their worth.

Mona, who lives in the apartment upstairs, shows me the walking stick she’ll use to fight the thugs when they arrive. Her mother, Nourdar, laughs and warns her it could be used to hurt her. We debate security measures: plug-in night light or chandeliers ablaze? Kitchen knife or cane? Fight or surrender? The three of us end up laughing hysterically.

Mona, a lifelong Cairene, says if she doesn’t laugh she will cry. Army tanks dot the perimeter around my home of four years which is in a pretty suburb called Maadi (Santa Monica without the beach, as one expat described it).

The older man in our building, who usually struggles to get up the stairs, is walking nighttime patrols in the neighborhood. The police have deserted their posts. Gangs of escaped prisoners roam our leafy streets. One group tried to invade a villa not once but nine times. Gunfire from the vigilantes pushed them off, nine times.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sided with the Egyptian protesters against their president in a televised speech on Tuesday in which he rebuked Hosni Mubarak and urged him to take a bold step before more blood is spilled.

"I am saying this clearly: You must be the first to take a step for Egypt's peace, security and stability," Erdogan said, addressing the Egyptian president during his speech before the Turkish parliament.

He spoke as hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, demanding that Mubarak leave the government and even the country.

"In our world today, freedoms can no longer be postponed or ignored," Erdogan said. "We hope that these incidents come to an end as soon as possible, without leading to great suffering, and that the people's legitimate and sensible demands are met."

A 3 a.m. car ride from the airport to downtown Cairo during curfew is a trip between two armed camps fighting for the future of Egypt.

Outside the airport Tuesday, the road is immediately blocked by chunks of concrete, and a dozen young men wielding broom handles and a baseball bat approach. When I identify myself as a journalist from the U.S., the well-dressed men smile and say, “Welcome to Egypt,” motioning for the driver to pass with me and another passenger.

Thirty yards later it is the army that stops us, an officer and several soldiers with an armored personnel carrier as backup. When the soldiers, their bayonets fixed, see the passport of my fellow passenger, a nervous retired general in the Egyptian police, they stiffen with respect and wave us through.