NEW YORK: US stocks jumped Friday within seconds of the news of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, rebounding from earlier slight losses to solid gains.

Minutes after the announcement that the Middle East strongman of three decades had stepped down, the main indexes rocketed upward, after a morning of trading trading lower on worries that rising tensions in Cairo could turn violent.

At 1630 GMT the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 29.67 (0.24 percent) to 12,261.08, while the S&P 500 index rose 5.21 points (0.40 percent) to 1,327.12.
The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite was up 8.79 points (0.35 percent) at 2,799.24.

Stock markets across the Americas also jumped on the news. Brazil's Bovespa index was up about 1.75 percent for the day while Mexico's IPC had added 0.41 percent.

"We think having the military take over was the best solution in ending the deadlock between the protesters and Mubarak," Brown Brothers Harriman said in a comment on the situation.

However, the Wall Street investment bank warned, "there are still more questions than answers with regards to Egypt's ultimate fate and so investors must be prepared for ongoing volatility."

The US equity markets meanwhile remained cautious over the White House's plan for a radical revamp of the housing mortgage industry, including winding down government-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have underpinned the housing market for 40 years.

Egypt rejoices over Mubarak’s ouster

CAIRO: Beleaguered president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak finally yielded to the relentless public protests and stepped down as the head of state on Friday, Geo News reported.

Jubilations erupted at Tehrir Square, the epicenter of the protests that had been going on in Egypt, demanding ouster of Hosni Mubarak who had been ruling the country for the past 29 years.

Hosni Mubarak stepped down and handed power to the military, Vice President Omar Suleiman said in a brief televised statement.

"Taking into consideration the difficult circumstances the country is going through, President Mohammed Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the post of president of the republic and has tasked the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the state's affairs," Suleiman said.

Astonished and elated Egyptians poured into the streets across their nation on Friday, dancing, cheering and crying as they celebrated the long-awaited ouster of president Hosni Mubarak.

A wave of joy swept across the country, with people rushing from their homes and offices to join the spontaneous street party, an expression of nationwide relief at the collapse of the only regime many Egyptians have ever known.

People called friends and clutched strangers to offer their congratulations at the end of the strongman's 30-year rule.

In the minutes after the announcement was made, cars sped across the bridges crossing the river Nile, honking their horns in celebration, their drivers leaning out of windows to spread the news.

"He's gone! He's gone! It's finished!" one man shouted to passers-by.

In Cairo, people flooded towards the city's central Tahrir Square, the epicentre for 18 days of protests against Mubarak's regime.

Inside, people could barely move except to clap along to chants, sing the national anthem, and lift their camera phones to snap pictures of fireworks shooting into the air over the crowd.

It was the party they had been promised a day earlier, when hundreds of thousands had gathered in Tahrir Square to hear Mubarak deliver an address that was expected to be his resignation speech.

Instead, he announced he would transfer some powers to his vice president but remain in office, prompting fury among the demonstrators.

But the speech that so disappointed the masses on Thursday did turn out to be Mubarak's last as president. Announcements that the army was taking power and Mubarak would step down came from the military and vice-president.

In Tahrir, the crowd roared "the people have overthrown the regime" and "lift your heads up high, you're Egyptian," proud that their country had joined the "free world."

"Now the Egyptians have their freedom," said Mohammed Gamal, a 21-year-old Cairo University student. "We broke down the wall of fear. We changed our people."

Many expressed shock at the speed of Mubarak's departure, just 18 days after the start of massive protests inspired by the popular revolt that chased Tunisia's strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile after a 23-year reign.

"Who would have thought we could finish the job in such a short time?" shouted Ahmed Zahran, a protest organiser and cyber activist, as he joined the raucous party in Tahrir.

"We had been so depressed and so unsure. This is the happiest moment of my life," he said. "This is the happiest day for everyone in Tahrir Square and in Egypt."

Outside the main presidential palace in the Heliopolis neighbourhood protesters shouted "God is greatest!" as they hugged one another, danced and ululated. Some fell to the ground, overcome with emotion.

Elsewhere in Cairo, gunshots and the enthusiastic car horn honking usually reserved for weddings were heard as Egyptians celebrated Mubarak's resignation.

At one roundabout, jubilant Egyptians clambered on top of army tanks, almost every inch of the military vehicles taken up by flag-waving citizens desperate to have their picture taken with grinning soldiers.

On the roads, young men sat and stood on cars, trucks and buses, patriotic music blaring from their radios, many of them wiggling their hips and clapping to the beat.

The country's most organised opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, hailed the departure of Mubarak, whose regime had banned but tolerated the Islamist group while arresting and mistreating thousands of its members.

"We salute the great people of Egypt in their battle," Essam al-Erian, a senior Brotherhood leader and spokesman, told media.

"We salute the army, which kept its promises... We celebrate this moment with the Egyptian people, and we will follow the people in this course."

Top opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei on Friday called Egypt "a free and proud nation" on the micro-blogging website Twitter.

As they basked in the glow of Mubarak's departure, some protesters admitted some worry about whether the revolt would achieve its larger goal of replacing the regime with a democracy.

"I don't think it's my last night in Tahrir. Until now we've had no news on what's happening outside Cairo," said 22-year-old Hani el-Qadi, a credit officer. "We need to know everything. I'm still cautious."

But despite his caution, he said he could not help but be excited.

"This is a success for us, but this is the first step." (GEO/AFP).

Husband pledges in contract not to remarry

Mauritanian women say no to polygamy

NOUAKCHOTT:  Many Mauritanian women and their families are now stipulating the one-wife as a prerequisite before marriage, but religious scholars have condemned it as a violation to Islamic teaching.

Many of the Mauritanian women now insist on including a condition in the marriage contract that prevents the husband from keeping a previous wife or taking a new one. In case the husband violates this condition, the woman becomes entitled to file an immediate divorce.

For many parents, this restriction has become one of the most important conditions while negotiating marriage details with a suitor since they believe it is the key to their daughter’s happiness and marital stability.

Mauritanian women give up a lot of their rights in order to talk the groom into accepting the condition of not having another wife, said Fatima who insisted on this condition in her current and previous marriage.

“In order to be granted that right we neither ask for big dowries nor a divorce settlement," she told AlArabiya.net. “We also don’t care about the apartment, furniture or the honeymoon.”

Several women in Mauritania even stay with their families after marriage to give their husbands a chance to accumulate money to buy apartments ready at their own convenience.

“We make all these sacrifices in order to preserve our dignity.”

Fatima added that this practice, even though considered unusual in the beginning, has earned Mauritania a lot of praise in the region.

“Arab and African women who visited Mauritania were impressed and several neighboring countries started imitating us like Morocco and Senegal.”

Human rights organizations hailed this practice as a positive step towards granting Mauritanian women more rights, and praised the government for instructing the Civil Rights Authority to give women the right to set this condition in the marriage contract.

Islamic scholars disagreeOn the other hand, several religious scholars in Mauritania slammed the condition and considered it as violation of Islamic laws that give men the right to take up to four wives.

This condition, they argue, has a negative impact on society since it will increase divorce rates whether in making the man leave his previous wife or in giving the woman the right to divorce if the husband remarries.

Some scholars say that a woman and her future husband can verbally agree that he does not remarry without writing this condition on the marriage contract.

The "verbal contract" they justify it is that women can change their minds later on by deciding on not wanting to have a divorce if their husbands take second wives.

However, few scholars sanction the condition as long as the husband agrees to abide by this commitment

Men’s way out

Despite the fact that a considerable portion of Mauritanian men agree not to have another wife, there is always a way of going around it. Some men divorce the first wife then take her back after marrying the second one.

Other men remarry in secret taking advantage of the social conditions that lead several Mauritanian women to accept a secret marriage. Divorced and unmarried women agree to marry a married man in secret believing that their marriage prospects are diminishing as they get older.

Poor families also agree to marry their girls to rich married men in secret since the future husband usually provides for the entire family.

Sometimes a woman would know that her husband violated the condition and would pretend not to and not ask for divorce. This especially applies to upper classes where women care about their social image and prefer not to announce that their husbands remarried in secret.

When it startedScholars disagree as to when the anti-polygamy condition started to be applied.

According to Mauritanian traditions, most pre-nuptial agreements were made verbally in the presence of several witnesses from both families.

The man, for example, would pledge to treat his wife well and never to leave her and sometimes would commit to household details like bringing her a maid and so on.

Sometimes parents would set religious conditions that make the husband ensure that his wife practices her rituals on regular basis. For example, the husband can pledge to wake his wife up every day when it’s time for dawn prayers.

Marriage conditions have undergone remarkable changes as women started gaining more rights in Mauritania. For example, a woman would demand that she continues her education and/or work after marriage even if she has children.

Obama is 'international villain': Iranian speaker

TEHRAN:  Iran rejects U.S. President Barack Obama's invitation to resolve differences because he is an "international villain," parliament speaker Ali Larijani said Saturday.

"How dare Obama announce that he wants to help the Iranian nation. He should know that he is an international villain," Larijani was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying during a visit to the southern city of Shiraz.

"The Americans are displaying an act that deserves an international evilness medal... Mr Obama should know that we do not need his message, what we need is to be able to trust the words he utters," he said.

Larijani's remarks came a day after the American leader told the BBC's Persian service that the door for diplomacy with Tehran was still open over its longstanding nuclear dispute with the international community.

"Our strong preference is to resolve these issues diplomatically. I think that's in Iran's interest. I think that is in the interest of the international community," Obama said.

"I think it remains possible, but it is going to require a change in mindset inside the Iranian government," he said.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have become increasingly fraught since the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, and his defiant pursuit of Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

Ahmadinejad, while attending the UN General Assembly session in New York this week, said Tehran was open to new nuclear talks, provided the U.S. and the western powers were respectful to the Islamic republic.