Protesters demanding President Hosni Mubarak's ouster packed Cairo's central square in huge numbers Friday, waving Egyptian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering, appearing undaunted and determined after their camp withstood two days of street battles with regime supporters trying to dislodge them.

Thousands more flowed over bridges across the Nile into Tahrir Square, a sign that they were not intimidated after fending off everything thrown at the protesters by pro-Mubarak attackers — stones, firebombs, fighters on horses and camels and automatic gunfire. The protesters passed through a series of beefed-up checkpoints by the military and the protesters themselves guarding the square.

A Lebanese-German man who says he was snatched by the CIA in Macedonia and tortured at a secret prison after being mistaken for a terrorism suspect, will begin a legal battle against Macedonia Friday to demand official recognition of his ordeal.

Khaled el-Masri is seeking €50,000 ($69,000) in compensation — and an apology — from the government in Macedonia, where he says he was abducted while on a trip in 2003. His action follows failed attempts to have his case heard in court in the United States and Germany.

Australia marshaled 4,000 troops and sent a supply ship with tons of food to its cyclone-stricken northeast coast Friday, as awe-struck residents in wrecked towns confronted debris that included boats tossed into neighbors' yards.

Authorities confirmed the first death from the storm that slammed into the coast early Thursday and said a search was under way for two missing people.

A 48-year-old Afghan prisoner at Guantanamo Bay collapsed and died, apparently from natural causes, after exercising inside the jail, the U.S. military said Thursday.

Awal Gul fell in the shower Tuesday night after working out on an elliptical machine in Camp 6, a communal section of the Guantanamo reserved for well-behaved prisoners, said military spokesman Army Col. Scott Malcom. The prisoner was taken to the base hospital, where he later died.

Nearly 3 million lives have been saved by HIV/AIDS treatment but scare resources are being misspent and stigma is still keeping the most vulnerable from seeking help, according to a new book by researchers commissioned by the U.N.

The failings are particularly worrying at a time when worldwide recession and donor fatigue are hurting spending on AIDS, the researchers say.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told U.S. diplomats in 2009 that neighboring Iran and Syria were providing weapons to insurgent groups within Iraq, a leaked document showed Thursday.

Maliki's comments to then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad Christopher Hill came in the midst of a year-long diplomatic row with Damascus that prompted both Iraq and Syria to withdraw their respective ambassadors, while U.S. officials have long alleged that Iran backs militia groups operating inside Iraq.

Israel's prime minister has said Iran wants to take advantage of the chaos in Egypt to create "another Gaza" there and warned that Islamic parties have already taken over power by democratic means in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza.

Speaking before the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu said he expects any new government in Egypt to honor its three-decade-long peace agreement with Israel.

Publication has been moved up for a book by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace laureate and Egyptian opposition leader.

ElBaradei's "The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times," will come out April 26, not in June, as originally scheduled.

Yemen's president has told parliament he will not seek another term in office or hand power to his son — an apparent reaction to protests in his own country that have been inspired by Tunisia's revolt and the turmoil in Egypt.

The U.S.-allied Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for nearly 32 years, spoke Wednesday to lawmakers in both houses of the assembly.

Syrians are organizing campaigns on Facebook and Twitter that call for a "day of rage" in Damascus this week, taking inspiration from Egypt and Tunisia in using social networking sites to rally their followers for sweeping political reforms.

Like Egypt and Tunisia, Syria suffers from corruption, poverty and unemployment. All three nations have seen subsidy cuts on staples like bread and oil. Syria's authoritarian president has resisted calls for political freedoms and jailed critics of his regime.