The Native Iowan

CAIRO — Protesters demanding the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak appeared on Wednesday to have recaptured the initiative in their battle with his government, demonstrating a new ability to mobilize thousands to take over streets of the capital beyond their headquarters at Tahrir Square and to call workers out on strike.

The pressure on Mr. Mubarak intensified as the largest crowd of protesters in two weeks flooded Cairo’s streets on Tuesday and the United States delivered its most specific demands yet, urging swift steps toward democracy. Some of the protesters had been inspired by an emotional interview with an online political organizer on Egypt’s most popular talk show.

At dawn on Wednesday, hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators remained camped out at the Parliament building, several hundred yards from Tahrir Square, where they had marched for the first time on Tuesday. There were reports of thousands demonstrating in several other cities around the country.

Violent clashes between opponents and supporters of President Mubarak led to more than 70 injuries in recent days, the state-owned newspaper Al Ahram reported. Egyptian government officials said on Wednesday that the protests had spread to the previously quiet, southern region of Upper Egypt, with thousands protesting Tuesday in the city of Wadi El Jedid. One person died and 61 were injured, including seven from gunfire by the authorities, the officials said.

State news organizations reported widespread labor unrest in Cairo and elsewhere. In the most potentially significant action, about 6,000 workers at five service companies owned by the Suez Canal Authority — a major component of the Egyptian economy — began a sit-in on Tuesday night.

More than 2,000 textile workers and others in Suez demonstrated as well, Al Ahram reported, while in Luxor thousands hurt by the collapse of the tourist industry marched to demand government benefits. There was no immediate independent corroboration of the reports. Al Ahram’s coverage was a departure from its usual practice of avoiding reporting that might embarrass the government.

At one factory in the textile town of Mahalla, more than 1,500 workers walked out and blocked roads, continuing a long-running dispute with the owner. And more than 2,000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical company in the city of Quesna went on strike while some 5,000 unemployed youth stormed a government building in Aswan, demanding the dismissal of the governor.

In Cairo, sanitation workers demonstrated around their headquarters in Dokki. And more than a hundred journalists gathered in the lobby of Al Ahram itself, denouncing corruption, calling for more press freedom and demanding benefits for two colleagues killed in the Tahrir Square protests.

“Revolution everywhere in Egypt, revolution in Ahram,” they chanted, according to Al Ahram. “No to injustice.”

On Tuesday, in a war of attrition with protesters for public opinion, Egyptian officials sought once more to declare the revolt a thing of the past.

Vice President Omar Suleiman, who is leading an American-endorsed “orderly transition” toward elections in September, said Mr. Mubarak had appointed a committee of judges and legal scholars to propose constitutional amendments.

The committee put Egypt “on the path of peaceful and orderly transition of power,” Mr. Suleiman said on state television.

All the members, however, are considered Mubarak loyalists: many senior judges who owe their prominent positions to Mr. Mubarak, two legal scholars who were members of his cabinet and two others who have already expressed support for gradual change that would leave Mr. Mubarak in office.