hello, everyone. i'm fredricka whitfield along with johnman, you've been holding down the fort. >> trying to. there's a lot going on. >> a lot going on. incredible images coming out of egypt, significant movement as well, it's involving thousands, of course millions, right there within the country and the world is watching what's transpiring. >> and everyone's waiting to see what hosni mubarak is going to do. we've been watching the protests unfold for five days now, but now the government is moving. less than 24 hours ago, mubarak spoke for the first time and now he's gotten the resignation of his cab kninet and started to appoint their replacements. he's done one thing bigger than that, egypt has never had a vice president, it has one now. the man who has long headed hosni mubarak's intelligence service, a man many people say once saved hosni mubarak's life. state run television is reporting the civil aviation

minister who just resigned, he was in the air force for decades just like hosni mubarak, a man with a past in the military, a past in the air force, he has been asked to serve as prime minister and appoint a new government. >> even though right now it is nighttime there, there's a curfew in effect, protesters clearly are still in the streets, even though these images are from daylight you've seen from earlier today. also in the streets, the army, as you see, the presence right there, dozens of people also being reported killed so far in all that's transpired over the last five days. many protesters say they want president mubarak to leave. he reached out to them last night. let's take a listen. >> translator: as the president of this country and with all the power the constitution gave me, i assure you that i am working for the people and giving freedoms of opinion as long as you are respecting the law. there is a very little line

between freedom and chaos. >> a fine line between freedom and chaos, hosni mubarak clearly implying he is that line, but events arehanging fast and we've got it all covered for you. we have correspondents on the ground in cairo and alexandria and monitoring places like jerusalem and washington. the social media as well, they've been crucial in all of this. stay with us all day as we watch and analyze event as they unfold. >> our many correspondents there, ivan watson, he's also joining us. i understand, ivan, you've been at a hospital earlier and now you're joining us from a hotel in cairo. what are you able to report from those two vantage points? >> reporter: well, we know that a curfew was supposed to be imposed but there are still thousands of people in this, what's known as liberation square, tahrir square, where the protests and the demonstrations have really been gathered throughout the day. now, many of the people i spoke

with they said i'm not going to pay attention to that curfew right now, i'm going to stay out here until hosni mubarak leaves this country. and yet you can see the crowds are diminishing, people are starting to head home. now, the scenes taking place in the square over my shoulder were of real elation, people practically dancing in the streets, jumping on top of army tanks, photographing themselves with army soldiers. but periodically and just now perhaps, i believe we heard another gun shot, there have been these spurts of gunfire coming from this direction, and we believe and of that is coming from the interior ministry where a number of people that i met today said they had been wounded when they tried to approach that building and then had to be rushed out for treatment. they claim that there were snipers on the rooftops of that building and one doctor that i spoke to today said that he had treated at least 60 people in

the makeshift first-aid clinic that had been established on the doorstep of a mosque just a few blocks from the scenes of festive, celebration in tahrir square. randi? >> and, ivan, actually, this is fredricka talking to you, but you mentioned the snipers. is it believed the snipers work with the police force there or with the military, the army? because we know that the public sentiment of those two factions are very different. >> reporter: that's right. and here most of the accusations are against the interior ministry which would run the police force and you have this sharp division where there's a great deal of hate dred for the police force and interior ministry, yet people embracing the army. people saying every egyptian family has at least one soldier in it. the army is the egyptian people. now, one man i spoke with today,

he's actually a television anchorman, very agitated, said we don't see any police presence whatsoever in the streets right now, ever since the police were basically overcome in street battles yesterday in the city. and now there are concerns about anarchy. there have been cases of looting. i drove through one neighborhood this morning where a number of shops had been looted, some torched as well, and serious concerns from some egyptians now that nobody's going to maintain law and order and that you can have the wealthier classes here falling victim to the hordes of impoverished people in the city, some out in the streets right now. >> may i ask you a little more on that, when you talk about the wealthy class possibly falling victim, it had also been reported that among those who have helped spawn this movement, this spirit of protest had been mostly young people, but at the

same time there have been lots of examples of people of the middle class, wealthier residents as well, young and old, who are coming together in this movement. have you seen great evidence of that? >> reporter: yeah, it's really an eclectic mix of people. it's people from the impoverished underclasses here, workers, peoplele scraping to get by, earning just enough money to feed themselves during the day, and then educated people who speak languages and they're all side by side in this. and it's a boisterous, boisterous demonstration of people power, i've got to say. when you're in the middle of it, you're getting hip checked and shoulder checked left and right and people are just terribly excited. again, angry, angry at hosni mubarak and the regime that has been in place here, but giddy with the excitement of being able to say that they hate this government.

and it's a very strange combination of emotions that you have there on the street behind me in this tahrir square right now, which is very appropriately called in the translation, liberation square. >> ivan watson, thanks so much from cairo. of course we'll be checking back with you. >> he talks about the strange combination. we've been hearing a happy kind of chaos, in other places, bloody conflict. that's still -- >> contradictions. >> exactly. our long time cairo bureau chief ben wedeman joins us now. where have you been and what have you seen? >> reporter: i've been sort of going around to the south southern parts of cairo. and what i see is a fairly disturbing situation. i went to police stations that their arsenals are stolen and then the police stations were ransacked. the police in cairo effectively are no longer on the ground, but they have not been replaced by the army. of course, you've seen lots of

pictures from the army in tahrir square, on the street behind me, but they're largely absent in many of the neighborhoods in cairo. i've seen people are setting up barricades, handing out sticks and kitchen knifes to the men and teenagers in the neighborhoods because people are worried about looters, about anarchy, they're worried about prisoners escaping, and just creating havoc in the street. and by and large the army is enjoying the sort of lovefest in tahrir square. but people, we're getting phone calls from all over cairo, panicked people, saying that there are criminals in the street, that, for instance in the neighborhood across the river, a very sort of up scale neighborhood, all the shops in the main street there have been ransacked and looted. there are no protests going on there. cars are on fire. tires are burning in the street. much of the media is focusing on

this demonstration in tahrir square, but i can tell you, probably most cairo residents are more worried about their homes, their property, and their loved ones. >> ben, egypt has one of the largest militaries in the world, half a million men strong. it is a police state, and even though the police fully have been pushed back, you have to wonder why the police, such as they are, why the military is letting that kind of chaos, that kind of danger overtake the capital of the country. >> reporter: well, if you speak to many of the people on the street, their worry is that this is president mubarak's strategy. put the army out in a limited fashion, send the police to their barracks, let sort of the darker forces in society come to the surface, scare the hell out of the people so that they will beg president mubarak to re-establish order.

that seems to be the impression of many egyptians. and it must be pointed out, the army has no training in restoring civil order. they're an army. they're an army that's trained to fight the enemies of egypt, not he egyptian people. the soldiers i can tell you, they don't know what to do. they're out in their tanks, they're enjoying all the back slaps, the hugs, the kisses and the photographs people are making of them, but they're not really on sure ground when it comes to establishing law and order in the capital. jonathan? >> wow. cnn's long-time cairo bureau chief, ben wedeman, thankscontr alexandria where the day began peacefully, but things have now taken a very severe turn.

nic robertson is there. you've heard gun shots there and there were signs of tear gas and other indicators of real problems there in alexandria. >> reporter: the problems that are emerging are very much like ben describes in cairo. here the army only present in very small numbers in the center of the city and a very weak position, not prepared to take on the crowds, not willing to even stand up and stop them when they climb on their trucks, when they climb on trucks to celebrate. we have heard gun shots, we've seen just below the balcony here, someone being pulled off by a small mob. a lot of the people have gone off the streets now, but there are still small nods of men walking around the city not observing the curfew. if you look at the group of men, one of them will be holding or two of them will be holding sticks in their hands and there is that real anxiety here as

well about a lack of police force, police stations destroyed, no police force in evidence. and as you go around the city, neighborhood watches are being set up by residents who are boarding up the windows of their shops in some cases, because they're very afraid of this, the looting going on in other parts of country as well. we saw looting going on last night. and without the police to enforce security and law and order, people are at a loss. i talked to a man by one of the army tanks, one of the armied personnel carriers and i said, what do you want from the army? and it was exactly that, to protect the people and keep the people safe. not able to deliver that at the moment, and that is likely going to also fuel some frustration, equally division over the next step the people should try to take here as well. fred? >> so similar to the sentiment

we heard from ben in cairo, people are most concerned about their personal properties, their businesses, they want those things protected. but alexandria and cairo are very different cities. can you kind of spell out the similarities and differences between these two big cities in egypt? >> reporter: alexandria is a city that's had a reputation for the police and the interior ministry to be particularly brutal against the people in terms of picking people up for questioning, in terms of torture, the allegations have been even killing last summer, there was a very well-known case here where a young man was picked up on the streets by the police and he didn't handle the situation well with the police, they beat him up and killed him. this city has that reputation for brutality. and i think that's one of the reasons why we've seen such a brutal reaction against the police here, and that's the

reason why there are police here, because the stations have been overrun. it's hard to imagine, but imagine your local police station or the main police station in the town you live, imagine that's completely burned down, it's ransacked by looters, even as policemen sitting in their houses, who's going to organize them? they'd be too afraid to go on the streets for fear of being beaten up again. so that's the picture. there's sort of criminal element here now, getting this taste of freedom that there's no one out there to stop them. and that's where a situation like what we're experiencing here becomes slightly anarchic, if you will. when the population, they've tasted freedom on the streets, freedom of expression, they've tasted the chance to stand up to the regime but there's an underelement, if you will, that has now tasted the fact that it can make profit out of the situation. and that's the worry. >> nic robertson, thanks so much, in alexandria.

this may be the ugly side of the uprising, spellbound for days, ben wedeman is saying a lot of people think this is actually the government's strategy, but we're seeing a curfew that has been imposed is being widely ignored. we heard from nic robertson and ben wedeman that there's a measure of chaos. ordinary egyptians are now doing their best to organize and defend their homes from looters. this is not politics, this is now personal safety which cuts a lot closer to many people. >> we're seeing it in these two cities which really is a microcosm of what's taking place across the country of egypt. >> the other big development we've seen, after firing his cabinet, hosni mubarak has some new names to introduce the world to, there is a new vice president. the first vice president hosni mubarak has ever named in his nearly 30 years in power. there's also a new prime minister whose job it will be to form a new cabinet. hosni mubarak reassembling a new

government and it would seem getting ready to stick around for a while. >> still in power, it's unclear whether that's what the protesters wanted. we'll take a short break and talk about how these elements play with a new government being established by mubarak and whether it makes any difference in the u.s. conversations. the relations between the u.s. and egypt. ♪ ahh-ah-ah-ahh [ announcer ] over the years, it's received thousands of accolades, but some we hold more dear than others. a five-star safety rating in each combined category... based on the latest government standards. ♪ here i am presenting the one. the 34-mile-per-gallon accord sedan. from honda.

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providing a route for terror groups like hamas to funnel weapons into the palestinian territories. the suez canal linking europe and asia, of course that includes oil, about 10% all goods shipped by water go through the suez canal. then look just to the east and you see saudi arabia and iraq and iran. they offer their own set of challenges and contributions at a time like this. >> the u.s. is carefully monitoring the crisis in egypt. today the u.s. state department tweeted that the u.s. is, quote, concerned about the potential for violence and is urging restraint on all sides. president obama is getting multiple daily briefings on the unrest in egypt. he talked to egyptian president hosni mubarak by phone yesterday after mubarak went to the general air waves and spoke to the public. this is what president obama had to say. >> we've also been clear that there must be reform.

political, social and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the egyptian people. in the absence of these reforms, grievances have built up over time. when president mubarak addressed the egyptian people tonight, he pledged a better democracy and greater economic opportunity. i just spoke to him after his speech, and i told him he has a responsibility to give meaning to those words. to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise. >> it makes for delicate balancing act for president obama as he responds to all of this. egypt is of course the world's most populace arab country and mubarak is a key american ally. the united states sends $1.3 billion a year in aid. ee yipt is one of the largest recipients on the planet for it. the country is also number four

on the u.s. list after afghanistan, pakistan and israel. a key player in the middle east peace process, helping to get cease-fire agreements, they host operation bright star. president obama chose cairo in 2009 as the site of a major speech, an outreach to the muslim world. >> so first tunisia, and then algeria threatening also yemen and now egypt. will there be a ripple effect across the entire region? >> we're already seeing some kind of resonance, but this is the concern for the obama administration. joining us from washington, cnn state department producer, elise labo labott. they wanted mubarak out but instead get a new vice

president, which they haven't seen for decades. he's a known come modty. >> working with the region and u.s. on security issues but what we're hearing right now, reaction to this appointment from the state department is it's not about personalties, it's about policies. and while they say that they know him, they've worked with him very well, they really want to see more meaningful change, meaningful reforms. it's not really about a reshuffling of the deck, if you will, but they want to see actual things that president mubarak is going to do. open up a national dialogue with the people, something on job creation. so it's a little bit of wait and see. but i think so far what president mubarak has done has been a bit of a disappointment. >> can i ask you a behind-the-scenes question to the extent you know about it, what happens at the state department on a day like this? a trusted u.s. ally, really a pillar of u.s. policy for three decades, is toppling, at least a

little bit. what do people do? busy working the phones? busy rushing around having meetings? are sirens going off somewhere? what's it like to be at state today? >> a lot of thins going on at one once. margaret scobee is really giving the administration, via secure video conference, minute by minute updates, not only what's on the ground, how to assess what's going on, what's going on within the government, then they're trying to assess best case scenarios, worst case scenarios. yesterday there was a lot of waiting around to see what mubarak was going to say, but how can we work with him if he's really fryi itrying to institut change. and also what happen it's he falls? they don't know, because this is really unpredictable and they're really evaluating in realtime but many meetings rkz many calmcal calls, reaching out to partners in the region. as we've been talking about all

morning, egypt is really key, not only in the region, but to u.s. policy on all those issues. >> day after day of late fights and a lot of worry at the state department. thanks very much. >> and clearly what goes or how goes egypt may go the entire middle eastern region, north african region. so it's so pivotal, what transpires with egypt, who's in power, and the u.s. relations with egypt, it could have a powerful impact on the entire region and really the world. >> it is going to. well, egypt is not the only arab state straining under a revolt today. >> that's right. we know already that the bigger picture shows that there are leaders in other arab states watching very closely as he heard elise say and we'll elaborate on that later. it still kills bad breath germs for a whole-mouth clean. and it's never felt so good. new less intense listerine® zero™.

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welcome back. more rage in the streets of egypt, anti-government demonstrations are in their fifth day now. this hour protesters are defying a curfew. dozens of deaths have been reported since the demonstrations started. his cabinet resigned as he ordered, and the head of the intelligence service is now vice president. >> so let's not forget that the chaos you and i are watching right now in egypt was actually born of similar unrest in tunisia, algeria, just to name a few, and now yemen as well. so here's how far that so-called tunisian wind has blown, across north africa into the persian gulf. while we focus on egypt, andrew pierre has a wider view.

he shared that with us last week, in fact quite accurately, mr. pierre. he is a senior fellow at the u.s. institute of peace and he's with us now. so let's revisit a bit of what you said. you were rather prophetic when you said one of the most important countries to watch from this tunisian wind would be egypt. let's listen to what you had to say last weekend. >> having an impact in the streets also, very interesting, and potentially algeria. and then those three countries you've got leaders who are very anxious about what could happen to them. the two important countries to watch are in my judgment egypt, where you have 85 million people, tunisia only has 10 million people. mubarak who has been in power for decades and a great deal of underlying protest and dissent about the lack of democracy, and the other country is libya.

where gadhafi has been in power for decades also. he was a very close friend of ben ali and he's been blaming the united states for this. >> all right. so mr. pierre, you said egypt would be one that might be next. here it is. so what helped provoke this kind of outburst in the form of the protest and it getting so violently? do you believe it was a youth movement? do you believe it was social media? or is it something else? >> all the above. but very important is the general level of poverty. most of these countries, all these countries, the majority of the population lives under the world bank standard of $2 per day for what you need to live. so the majority of the populations are very poor. now, you have educated, newly-educated populations that have gone to universities, they can't get jobs. because there aren't thriving economies. there isn't free enterprise in these countries.

so there's a great deal of frustration. add on to that the fact that the regimes have been in power 20, 30 years. they're very self-serving. they benefit themselves and the street discontent is very high. in all these countries. so you have a kind of tsunami of protests and disquiet and wishing change. fundamental change. >> so when you heard, when we all heard from president mubarak yesterday, was there anything you heard in that, or was there anything that the people who were saying we want poverty to be addressed, we want jobs to be addressed, did they hear anything from the president that he, with his newly-appointed government, would be moving in that direction? >> well, he said something indicating that he would be more openminded, let's say, but the reality is everybody understands this, is he wants to restore

order. and restore the full toauthorit of his regime. that's how i interpret the appointments he made today. i think he's most concerned about shoring up the loyalty and support of the army, and i think it's a very long road to really lift these poor countries into modernity, if i can put it that way. it's not just a question of economic benefits, it's a question of human rights. it's a question of free speech. and people on the street are asking for that, demanding that also. >> is there anything in omar suleiman, this vice president, that you see or have seen in the past that he, too, would be a force to help push these things through for the general public? >> he's very shrewd and smart and tough man who's been in charge of the security services. he's totally dedicated to mubarak and keeping him in power. i think he's less oriented to the needs of the people as a whole, more oriented to the small group of egyptians who

benefit from the current situation of the past decades. >> all right. and the u.s. has had lots of dialogue with him in the past. might that -- actually, we're going to talk to you a little bit later, kind of running out of time on that. sorry, andrew pierre. i'll talk to you about that when we see you a little bit later. >> thank you. we have an extraordinary new development, after five days of upheaval, anarchy in egypt, we'll be back with that part of the story. it's easier than you think, because general mills big g line of cereals is america's number one source of whole grain at breakfast. there's whole grain in every box... ♪ ...from chex... to cheerios... to lucky charms. so you can get the whole grain you want with the taste you love. get started on the whole grain you're missing with your favorite big g cereals. make sure to look for the white check. took some foolish risks as a teenager.

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welcome back. i don't want to be flip about this, but one of the amazing thins we've seen in egypt is the land of the pharaohs is working its iphone. social media, facebook, twitter. >> powerful tools. >> absolutely. >> cnn's mohammed jamjoom is following that part of the story and even the u.s. state department, the white house have all acknowledged that social media has played a significant role in all of this. >> what are you seeing? >> reporter: yes, let me show you what we're seeing on social media, not just confined to egypt, we're seeing solidarity around the world. this is of a protest, the demonstration held outside the u.n. office of the high commissioner of human rights in geneva, switzerland just earlier today. you see freedom, social justice,

democracy on the placards here. people were yelling according to our ireporter that hosni mubarak should go to saudi arabia and be with ben ali of tunisia. let's see what's going on with twitter, a lot of the keywords really popping on twitter in cairo right now, you see looting, tahrir, curfew, still mubarak, protesters, ministry, and one of the most popular, our own correspondent ben wedeman. let me show you some of his tweets. this is from ben, came to office by cairo metro today. people talking about mubarak as president in the past tense. for most i spoke, mubarak is gone. another, saw truckload of riot police leaving cairo this morning. they looked defeated and scared. people say they should be. gun battles at interior ministry. other areas, chaos, looting, criminals on the loose. and here's one from nic robertson in alexandria.

nightfall, clouds on the streets, none seem to heed curfew and the army does not seem to enforce it. here's a graph of what typical traffic looks like on the internet. this is according to google. this is in the past week. let's show you egypt. this is what it was earlier on the week. then on thursday when the internet was shut down, virtual stoppage and since then, the line has been flat up until now. so just goes to show you, internet still not working in egypt but people trying to find a way around it, trying to tweet. jo jonathan? >> it's fascinating that while you're underscoring that the social media outlets have really been cut down, that's why we're having to rely on, you know, our reporters and other correspondents in the region who are still able to use social media to disseminate this information but it's a very odd

and rather conflicting kind of thing here, if they were able to do that, then why are members of the general public there unable to jump on social media? >> reporter: it's been very interesting trying to find out why and at what times people can tweet out or use social media or get on facebook. for the most part the general public there in egypt, the people trying to, have not been able to use the internet regularly. what we've been learning throughout the day, and again we haven't been able to confirm this through sources in egypt, but it seems mobile networks have been working intermittently. a lot of the people using social media to try to organize and get the message out have been able to use mobile net woshworksnetws been difficult to confirm that information. i can tell you one of the more interesting things happening yesterday when the int are net was blocked is that people were encouraging people in egypt to try to use applications on their mobile phones to get around the blockage. >> all right. mohammed jamjoom, thanks so much. it's a fascinating situation. >> it really is.

for a lot of people tweeting is something you do to tell a friend you're going to grab a cheeseburger, it's serious business. people get thrown into jail and beaten up in egypt for using the internet in the wrong way and they're turning to it now to try to change that. >> yeah, and try to get a better understanding of what is happening currently right now. >> well, egypt's president is still in power, but there have been some changes. >> we're hitting the streets of cairo with live updates on the changes in the government and we'll have more on that after this. ! i could go to quickenloans.com and sign all of the paper work i needed to take care of. it was nice to being able to call them whenever i needed to answer questions. quicken loans made everything super convenient and easy. so the fact that they could work with my schedule was just wonderful. that's why i love quicken loans! [ male announcer ] and you'll be glad to know j.d. power and associates ranks quicken loans "highest in customer satisfaction." to learn more call 800-quicken or visit us online at quickenloans.com.

welcome back. let's get you up to date on what's happening in egypt now. dozens of people have been killed in five days of protest. how many, we still don't know. the u.s. state department is urging egyptian president hosni mubarak to fulfill his promise to reform and not simply, quote, resufl the deck and stand pat. the former head of egypt's intelligence service is now vice president and the country's former civil aviation minister who just resigned has been appointed to form a new government. meantime, ben wedeman reports he's been through the city and is now seeing signs of anarchy in some of its further reaches away from the main capital, the main squares and main protests, ordinary egyptians are now seeing that the police have abandoned the streets of their

city. frederik pleitgen joins us now. what have you seen? >> reporter: i was in neighborhoods outside of the city center and it's really amazing. once you get into these neighborhoods you see people on every corner armed with sticks, some armed with rifles, others with pistols, and they're walking the streets. you see some of them in front of their houses banned together and they're trying to stop looters from coming in and taking away their property and possibly of course also causing harm to the people there. what we saw when we were on the streets is we saw these people again and again chase away guys who were coming by on motorcycles who they said they believe were some of the looters trying to go in and cause mayhem in the areas. we saw people with samurai swords, people on motorcycles with shotguns, the works, really, in those neighborhoods. and they tell us they're getting absolutely no help from the police force. they say the military right now isn't enough to secure the area

that we're in right now, downtown, and the outside areas in the rest of cairo. so right now in effect i wouldn't call it a breakdown of authority, but it certainly is an absence of any sort of law enforcement in that area. and this is something that i think is very, very troubling, also speaking from what i know about other places that have had troubles, is we're seeing the emergence of illegal vehicle check points, where people are trying to stop cars and it's not clear whether or not they're trying to either take the cars or rob the people in the cars but just blasted through three of these illegal check points where guys with sticks were trying to stop our vehicles. so right now it is a very, very volatile situation outside of downtown. here you have the military outside, the people are organizing, they're bracing, they're banding together, it is a very, very scary situation for a lot of people, that's what they told us. >> the egyptian military is half a million men strong, the police

are an enormous force in their own right. where are they? >> reporter: well, in many places they've simply disappeared. i talked to one of these guys who was defending his home, together with a bunch of his cousins and friends, and he said the police are scared of the people, and that's why they're gone. it appears as though in some places there is still somewhat of a police presence. certainly the places we went to, there's absolutely nothing. we saw one tank on the streets, otherwise, there's absolutely no authority in those places whatsoever. you see people walking on the streets, you see these neighborhood watches that are starting to organize on every corner. some people even taking pipes from vacuum cleaners, two-by-fours, anything they can find to fend their property. they say right now the police are the last thing that they can count on to help them. >> i don't want to speculate or invite you to speculate but ben

weedman made an amazing point, he said people were saying they thought this was an intentional policy by the regime to sow some kind of chaos so people would invite a strong government response. they basically invite the authorities back into their neighborhoods. is there any way to tell if that's true? >> reporter: i -- i have no indication that that would be true or the case. and from the people i spoke with, they certainly seem to believe that this was simply a case of police recreatreating a just not showing any presence. whether that's true is anyone's guess. it seems that's circulating around, it is very hard to tell. i mean, right now the people that i've talked to there who are sort of trying to defend their property, they were telling me, to them, at this point, it's about getting through the night. it's about making it through without getting any harm caused to themselves or their property or their families. all these people have families who are in these houses who are

absolutely terrified. we've been getting calls here in the office from people who tell us there is no more order in those areas. they're absolutely afraid for their safety at this point in time, jonathan. >> frederik pleitgen in cairo, thanks very much. >> that would be fascinating as well as diabolical strategy if that were the case, to be the one credited as the one resto restoring order. >> conspiracy theories are not unknown in that part of the world so we're careful when we approach it. >> 5600 miles away here in the united states there are a number of solidarity protests taking place as well for what's going on in egypt. more on that after this. mary! hey!

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in the northern egyptian city of alexandria, take a look at these images coming out right now. we've heard from our correspondents who talked about the mayhem taking place in alexandria, the tear gas as well as shots being fired or at least heard. these are some of the latest images, you can see what appear to be some of the military vehicles there that have been torched, buildings on fire and people on the rooftops. >> the last word we have that i had was in fact we don't have a date on these pictures, either it's from yesterday or today, but alexandria is a really interesting place because in this turmoil we saw just how heated the battle got and then

it all ended. the police and demonstrators were shaking hands. that was a phenomena we saw elsewhere in the country and now it's been reversed. the police and interior ministry are really letting the demonstrators have it. so alexandria has been a bit of a barometer. when they went badly, they went badly, but it's been tough to predict what happened. >> these images shot within the last 24 hours. so unclear whether that was earlier in the day there in egypt where it is approaching late day and afternoon, you know, even there at this hour. however, you know, it's interesting from the reporting, and you see there, what i guess appear to be shields perhaps from the police, very strained relationship between the general public and police and a different sentiment with the army. but then we've also seen some reports that some police officers have taken off their garb and joined the protesters. so it's very confusing. >> in some cases they've lost

their garb because we've seen police stations being torched, being burned down, but first looted. weapons have been taken from the police. that shield we saw a moment ago could have been stolen from a politician police station. alexandria has been going toward violence, away from violence, this was shot in the last 24 hours, that suggests things quieted down there and then got worse again, which is what we heard from our nic robertson. he's actually in that city which unlike cairo is on the mediterranean coast of egypt. it's not right next door, it's about a three-hour drive. it tends to have a different feel, though in the protest, that wave is sweeping the country. >> we're checking in with our correspondents who are there. we've got nic robertson, ben wedeman, frederick pleitgen found out throughout the country of egypt. while that's transpiring, here in the united states, there are a host of demonstrations taking

place in solidarity of what's taking place there in egypt. a rally is planned this hour right now here in atlanta, here's the map, next hour demonstrators will march in front of the u.n. headquarters in new york. protesters will also rally in the nation's capital outside the egyptian embassy there, and then this afternoon rallies at chicago's egyptian consulate and in peen near courthouse square in portland, oregon. so let's zero in on new york now at the united nations. a protest is scheduled to take place at the top of the hour and our susan candiotti is poised and in position there. what is transpiring right now? >> reporter: well, the rally is just now starting to get under way. someone is finally talking on a microphone right now to those who have gathered so far. we're told there are about 50,000 or so egyptian americans living in the new york metropolitan area.

so far i would say there are more than 100 people who have gathered here so far with signs that include, egypt, we hear you, mubarak must go, the regime must go, free egypt now. they've been managing to get the word out about this rally for a number of days now via social networks, including facebook, twitter, e-mail, phone calls, in order to get people to come here. and as you said, to show solidarity. they've been watching events very closely there. they are very attuned to what's going on today, for example, the naming of some new positions in government, a new vice president, for example, in egypt they said yes, they know this man. some have even called him a good man. but they're not at all pleased with any vestiges of the old government. in their view, mubarak must go, anyone associated with him must go, they prefer a provisional government and they say elections that could soon follow

thereafter. so we'll be here throughout the afternoon reporting to you about their message which is one of support as those fighting as part of that revolt throughout egypt. back to you. >> susan candiotti, thanks so much. we'll check back with you momentarily. >> so many egyptians we've been talking about are so excited about this but some people very nearby are very anxious because israel has depended on egypt as a stable partner for decades. now there's some question about that. let goes to our jerusalem bureau chief. how nervous are people there? >> well, people are watching the situation very closely, jonathan, especially the israeli government. they've made no official comments at this point, they are watching and waiting to see how this develops, but we did have tonight on israeli television one knesset member speak out, he is known to have a fairly close

relationship with the egyptian president hosni mubarak and he said on israeli television tonight he had spoken recently to president mubarak. he didn't say exactly when, but that the egyptian president had told him that this is, quote, this is no beirut, this is no tunis, which is sort of an interesting conversation for an israeli politician to be having with the egyptian president. he also said ben alizer, while he still thought hosni mubarak would retain power, he admitted the region had entered a new era, and that's really what we have here, is a lot of unknown. a lot of, you know, a lot of israeli politicians watching this, not knowing what's coming next. it is really a watch and wait and see what happens sort of environment here, jonathan. >> kevin flowers, thanks very much. we'll have much more ahead on the crisis in egypt and all that's unfolding, really the

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welcome back. of course we're keeping a close watch on the fast-moving developments surrounding the crisis in egypt. jonathan mann joining me. i'm fredricka whitfield. here are some of the new images that we're starting to see coming out of cairo as well as alexandria we saw a moment ago. >> if you've been following events in et