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>> and now "bbc world news." >> clashes in cairo's main square continue into the night. hundreds have been injured and at least three were killed in a day of violence. outrageous and deplorable, the community decries the violence. as one of the biggest cyclone's hits queensland, there is unprecedented devastation.

the fight for the future as egypt has become a pitched battle on the street. violent clashes are still going on in cairo. it is between the supporters for president mubarak and the demonstrators. many hundreds are injured. in the united states, the white house spokesman says that the country's political transition should begin immediately. jeremy has been following the day's explosive the events in cairo. >> it is dark, dangerous, and a violent been talk here square tonight -- and violet in ta krir square tonight. from the morning, the atmosphere was different. the president's men appeared. the first time i had seen them in any numbers in a week here.

the ruling party is a very organized force and it is clear. they're determined to get as many people onto the street to the -- to support the president appeared >> it did not feel spontaneous. many were bused in and many of the packers looked professionally made. lacards of the p look professionally made. >> we choose our leader. he is our leader. he is our leader. our leader. >> as the supporters for the president moved closer to liberation square, it cut escalated. they lined up on the edge of the square, trading insults with the opponents of the regime who

seized it last friday. the demonstrators stretched way back there. it seems to me that they have more people out there than they have been here. the tension is rising in quite a threatening way. and then president's supporters broke through chanting that he will not leave. at first, the protesters fell back as fast as they could. some were not fast enough. but they collected themselves in counterattack and bodies of stones went both ways. most of the afternoon, the clashes ebbed and flowed across egypt's capital. they have warned to be out again

in the morning. camels and horses and joined the battle on the president's side. soldiers pulled out some casualties, but did not intervene. >> i am telling the army to stand in front of their responsibilities. >> will barack go to hell! -- lebaron, go to hell! -- mubarak, go to hell! >> this is the eighth responsibility of hosni mubarak. he is killing his people. >> is trying to reassert his authority over the center of his capital city. it is a terrible humiliation to have a demonstration like this going on for so many days.

dozens of casualties on the anti-government side have been taken to an improvised dressing station. it overflowed from the mosque that it was based in and into the street. >> he is a kid, 17 years. >> he says that many of the wounds were caused by nuys as well as stones. the violence has overwhelmed the them all. the president's -- the protestors thought that the president's rapid departure was a done deal pierre >> what does he want -- a done deal. >> what does he want? he promised he would go peaceful. he will destroy the whole nation before he goes. >> the regime has entrenched itself in power since the

1950's. it will not go quietly. >> muhamed al their diet is rising as egypt's opposition leader. -- muhammed elbaradei has risen as egypt's opposition leader. >> from a legal point of view is a criminal act, to allow the pro-government protesters to clash with demonstrators who have been demonstrating peacefully over the previous week. and my opinion, it is the criminal behavior of a criminal regime and it raises doubts of the legitimacy of mubarak's statements. i say this is understood to to the situation that everything in the country is paralyzed. but i think we should trust this question to president mubarak

himself, not the egyptian people or the opposition. why put egypt in this situation? why does not he -- what does he not step down? will the country be stable again in the next seven months? >> the question on the lips of everyone in egypt is whether or not president mubarak should go now or in september as he has pledged to do. his supporters seem determined and some of them, members of the secret police, are on display. >> this is the other side of cairo. the large villas and expensive apartment blocks. this is where egypt's ruling elite live. i have come here to meet one of

president mubarak's closest allies. anyone who thinks that he is going to step aside should listen to what this man says. >> he is a commander. he is a military commander. military commander. if he abandons the forces, they are shot dead. this is a battle. >> a battle in which, after a week of silence, egypt's ruling elite suddenly appears to have found its voice. out on the street, i immediately confronted by a group of locals for an angry message for the outside world. and u.k., area of weight to such people who are not educated. if you give these people the lead, then egypt is lost.

this is a real question is this your end? to lose egypt? >> within minutes of meeting our interview, our car is pulled over by the police. these are the first police we have seen in cairo in days. they are angry and suspicious to see foreign journalists in this part of cairo. we talk our way out and head home. as we approach the presidential palace, a group of men in another car start screaming at us to pull over. the man in red is the one who forced this off the road. at this point, we are handed over to the secret police, handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken to an interrogation cell. after three hours in a police cell, we were eventually released onto a cairo backstreet. but what we saw here on wednesday was the authorities' attitude and it is heartening, both for protesters and to us, the foreign media. egypt's ruling elite is fighting back.

>> the white house has condemned the violence taking place in egypt and has called on all sides to exercise restraint. earlier, i spoke with steve kingston and asked him if a consensus has been reached in washington that president mubarak should step down now and not hold on until september. >> perhaps there is a slight difference between the public and the private positions of the u.s. administration officials. publicly, they are not gone so far as to say that hosni mubarak should step down now. they say that there must be a move to a transitional period of politics in egypt, moving towards free and fair elections later in the year. that transition must start immediately, says the white house publicly. but privately, officials are

making it clear that they would like to see mr mubarak go sooner than later. it is interesting to see what the u.s. can do to bring that about. there was a tough call between barack obama and hosni mubarak. the press secretary is admitting like everybody else that officials in washington are watching open-mouthed at these momentous events that are happening around the world. >> publicly or privately, what can the americans do to supply more pressure on mubarak? >> i suppose the biggest six they have his the $1.5 billion in aid to that the u.s. gives annually to egypt. at the end of last week, the white house was implying that that aid would be reviewed and perhaps be conditional on what transpires in the days that move ahead. also, i think there are

communications taking place at various levels. we know there is military-to- military contacts between cairo and washington. they are keen to make sure the army honors its pledge not to fire on to the demonstrators. the president, himself, paid tribute to the army 24 hours ago. that is seen as the crucial dimension of the problem from washington. >> you are watching bbc news. looking into outer space, a thousand new planets are discovered in distant solar systems. dominic chain has the report. >> the smiling face of this

hard-line president casting his ballot in a an election where he apparently won with 80% of the vote and which the watching world said was seriously flawed. many people apparently agreed. in minsk, the day after the results, thousands of his opponents became involved in angry clashes with the police, so much so that around 700 people were arrested, some of whom are still in detention now. that did not stop alexander the persian gulf from another inauguration. now poland hasw pushing g-- warned that he risks being overthrown by his own people if they follow the example of tunisia and egyptian protesters. >> no one believes in the results declared is 80%. he did not know in december that he was really, now after the

events in tunisia and egypt, it is obvious. >> and the manner of his victories have provoked fury in other european capitals, too. >> what he did on december 19 and what he has continued to do since then has been without parallel doinduring recent year. it was worse than the elections in serbia in 2000. >> be that as it may, for the moment, there is no sign that the man that your calls europe's last dictator is changing the guard any time soon. >> violent clashes are still going on in cairo. at least three people have been killed.

many hundreds more are injured. a white house spokesman says that the country's political transition should begin immediately. to a british- egyptian. he has been in liberation square for much of the last few days. thank you for joining me today. tell me what you have seen in the past 24 hours. >> the last 24 hours have been pretty awful and extremely sad. this morning, -- this afternoon, rather, around 2:00 p.m., they orchestrated a group of supposedly mover at support -- supposedly pro-mubarak supporters.

they escalated the situation to violence. to cut a long story short, you do not suddenly get your protesters to put up pictures of iraq and have camels and forces entering -- of mov mubarak and have camels and horses entering. then you have laser's point out of the crowd so that the pro- member exporters -- the pro- mubarak supporters know where to throw molotov cocktails. unfortunately now, it is still

ongoing. the situation is that they have been terrorizing us all day. the wounded are -- it is impossible to count. everywhere i look, wounded are walking past me. it is a pretty awful situation. people are trying to catch their breath. some people who do not know where liberation's where is, it is huge. you can easily say that, for the last week, mubarak has tried -- it is extremely provocative what they have done today. it is huge.

[gunfire] >> we heard gunfire. you mentioned gunfire. how much energy do think is left in the protesters that are anti? >> i mean, it is hard to tell. they clearly have a plan to try and exhaust us and certainly people are tired energy-wise. but in terms of the energy of focus for freedom and desire for social justice and political reform, that remains. they are not moving us from this square. i can tell you, even if they did manage to, the fight for noble ideals will continue.

and there has been too much blood that has been shed. i was in the demonstration. i have been here since friday. i was one of the first people in here. i saw people die in front of me. i found the guy who died in front of me on my iphone. it is a picture that people will not forget. mubarak managed to have a segment of the population yesterday -- they are afraid that this country could fall apart and who are afraid of instability. he has entirely lost their support by the actions today. this is a violent regime which has proved itself to be violent. >> we can hear much more from it -- we cannot hear much more from you. unfortunate, time is pressing.

in other news in the rest of the world, first light in northeastern australia is revealing the trail of destruction left by cyclone yasi which had winds of nearly 180 miles per hour. >> while reports are still early and sketchy for some parts, at this stage, it appears that we have not lost any lives as a result of the cyclone. indeed, i think many australians would have been glad and at heart to see the news this morning that we had a new australian life, a baby born in a evacuant center -- in an evacuation center. >> penny, thank you for joining me. you must have been terrified.

>> yes. we were not really sure what to expect. there was not much information. i guess the worst thing was that we had no power and it was pitch black outside. all we could hear was the roar of the cyclone. we heard things crashing around and hoping that we would be all right. >> have you managed to be in touch with family members, friends, in the area? what has everyone been doing? how have they been protecting themselves? >> we were quite sure where it was going to hit. we came here because we thought it would be the least affected area. but it turned out that it was worse. we evacuated some from the beach front. it turned suddenly to high tide, which would have been catastrophic. but it it did not occur. everyone i had been in touch

with his bouquet. we cannot -- been in touch with is ok. we cannot believe it. >> you have an idea of the damage to buildings and into a structure in the area? >> the area that i am in, i spoke with a couple of people and the council, there are quite a few power lines down. we do not know of any structures that really got torn apart this morning. we really expected a lot of people in the town to be flattened. but they were not. i do not know how, to be quite honest. what we heard going and roaring away last month, the wind was incredible. >> please describe to me how it sounded to hear that wind and how you felt while it was going on. >> it is very hard to describe the type of noise. it is like a distant thunder.

it is a rumble. and it is continuous. someone described it like a helicopter appeared you think is a helicopter coming in -- it is like a helicopter. you think it is a helicopter coming in or a huge freight train. but it goes on for hours. then you get a moment of stillness with still the rubble. then you have this enormous gust of wind. the sound of the wind howling -- >> i will have to stop you there. think is a much for describing what went on. we're glad you are safe. from the american space agency, nasa says that they have found as many as a thousand new plants. they were spotted by kepler satellite. >> the deeper we look, the more we find.

they are not just stars in their billions, but orbiting around them plants as well. they are new world's emerging from the dark in far greater numbers. this is what is behind the latest wave of discoveries, the campus space telescope aimed at one piece of sky -- the kepler space telescope aimed at one piece of sky. the largest batch was found in one go. this really is as good as it gets. >> of this, to us, seems like the most important time in solar plants since -- in excess solar planets -- in exosolar planets since 1995. >> the technique has found more

than 500 planet's already, with another 1235 possible and an astonishing 54 that are not too warm and not too cold. >> 3, 2, engines start. >> it was nearly three years ago when a rocket sent the kepler telescope into space. here they specialize in making photographic sense of the tiny devices. people are delighted at what they're finding. >> it is fantastic. it is something that you cannot find working in any other industry. this is the space environment where we get to see the results of our endeavors published and getting a wide community of people across the world excited about these discoveries pierre >> who knows how many more plants they will find. -- discoveries.

>> who knows how many more plants they will find. >> hello and welcome. >> see the news unfold, get the top stories from around the globe and click to play video reports. go to bbc.com/news to experience the in-depth, expert reporting of "bbc world news" online. >> funding was made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. newman's own foundation. the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. and union bank. >> union bank has put its global expertise to work for a wide range of companies, from small businesses to major

corporations. what can we do for you? >> "bbc world news" was presented by kcet, los angeles.