EGYPT’S military deployed on the streets of Cairo to enforce a night-time curfew as the sun set yesterday on a day of rioting and chaos that amounted to the biggest challenge ever to authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year regime.

TUNISIA’S interim leadership promised a “complete break with the past” and freed political prisoners yesterday in efforts to appease street protesters who want a total purge of the old guard from a unity government.

Riot police fired tear gas at angry protesters today as Tunisia’s prime minister defended including some of the deeply unpopular old regime in a new unity government.