Biggest crowd yet in Egypt's protests

In my column"Price of oppression is now being counted"in the Malta Independent on Sunday,I wrote "Mubarak is hoping that the demonstrators will finally tire and exhaustion will drive them back home and submission. However, it seems the demonstrators have only one goal - to see Mubarak out - and are prepared to sit it out until it happens".

And it looks like that is what is occurring. According to reports, yesterday saw the biggest anti-government protest yet and it was made up of Egyptians from all walks of life.

So far the revolt has been directed only against the Mubarak's regime. The bad news is that now Al Qaeda is putting its oar in and trying to exploit a situation where the West keeps pussyfooting around.

Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote in the Washington Post "America unfurls the flag of democracy and human rights rhetorically, but we ally ourselves with "stability" - that is, all too often, with dictatorship...The country would do better were it far less engaged in strengthening militaries and far more involved in supporting democratic governance, civil society and economic development."

The US has now called on the Egyptian government to lift its 30-year-old state of emergency immediately and are having to acknowledge that Vice-President Omar Suleiman may not be presenting a solution.

The White House described as "particularly unhelpful" his comments that the country was not ready for democracy. Anyway the Egyptians do not trust him. He has been the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services (EGIS) since 1993.

The US vice-president Biden, who has been phoning his Egyptian opposite number on an almost daily basis, may be calling on the Egyptian government for a clear policy of no reprisals and for the interior ministry to be restrained immediately and stop arresting and beating journalists and activists, but how can the Egyptian people trust Omar Suleiman?

"How can Suleiman guarantee there'll be no more violence around the election after all the attacks we've seen on young people?"One young Egyptian queuing to get into Tahrir Square, told the BBC.