Egypt Governments on Pressure for Reforms

Egypt Governments started arranging for planes on Sunday to bring home citizens stuck in Egypt, where violent protests of the rule of President Hosni Mubarak have given way in some parts of Cairo to looting.Leaders around the world are calling for immediate economic and social reforms in Egypt as countries prepare to transport expatriates out of the area today.

On Sunday, the United States stepped up pressure on Mubarak's fledgling government, urging reforms and throwing its full support behind "peaceful protesters" demanding change.U.S.-based Delta Air Lines Inc, for instance, said on Friday it was suspending its service into Cairo indefinitely.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Janice Jacobs said on CNN television that U.S.-government sponsored flights will be leaving Cairo on Monday."We are in the process right now of arranging for some charter flights that will be going out of Cairo. Those will begin tomorrow and then they will be ongoing until we are able to get all Americans who are not able to get out via commercial airlines."They came from every corner of Astoria, Queens: Egyptian taxi drivers, Tunisian shopkeepers and Lebanese doctors, all seeking news and commiseration through the thick and fragrant haze

of hookah smoke at the Layali El Helmeya Café on Steinway Street, otherwise known as Little Egypt.But the moment President Hosni Mubarak appeared on the cafe’s television set on Friday, announcing that he was offering to replace his government ministers but refusing to cede power, their reaction was blunt and unified.

“Leave! Leave! Leave! You have no shame!” they chanted.As tens of thousands of Egyptians took to the streets of Cairo on Sunday for the sixth day of open revolt, here in Astoria, the heart of New York City’s Egyptian community, people reacted with hope tinged with visceral anger for an Egyptian president who they said had suppressed freedom for too long and an American president whom they accused of abetting him.