Many Egyptians live hand-to-month and have felt the strain as protests demanding Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak step down spread across the country, disrupting services ranging from food supplies to cash machines. Dozens of people were queuing at machines in Cairo's financial district.

Newly appointed Trade Minister Samiha Fawzi outlined an emergency plan on Tuesday to get vital foodstuffs and fuel from ports, warehouses and factories to distribution outlets, and witnesses said many Egyptians were also lined up outside food shops in many locations around the country.

The Internet and text messaging on mobile phones resumed operation on Wednesday as well.

Disrupted trains resumed service to both southern and northern part of the country but not on a regular schedule, the state news agency said.

Finance Minister Samir Radwan, who took office on Monday, announced pensioners, employees and others would be allowed to withdraw up to 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($170.7) a day in pensions and salaries.

The state news agency said the banks themselves would remain closed for a fifth straight day on Thursday but reopen on Sunday. The stock exchange will also remain closed, a bourse official said.

Journalists covering protests in Cairo, including CNN's Anderson Cooper and two Associated Press correspondents, have been roughed up in the crowd.

Cooper says he and his crew were attacked by supporters of President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday. CNN later said no one was seriously hurt.

Two Associated Press correspondents and several other journalists were roughed up during gatherings of Mubarak supporters. European papers reported that a Belgian journalist was also beaten, detained and accused of spying by unidentified people in civilian clothes.

State TV reported Tuesday night that foreigners were caught distributing anti-Mubarak leaflets, apparently trying to depict the movement as foreign-fueled.

In another development, Link TV is giving Dubai-based Al-Jazeera English a long-sought American television audience during the political turmoil in Egypt.

Link says it is simulcasting about 12 hours a day of live Al-Jazeera. Its in-depth coverage of the protests has won praise from journalists and hostility from Egyptian authorities, who closed the channel's Cairo office and detained six journalists in their hotels.

Link TV spokeswoman Julia Pacetti said Wednesday that the network felt it was important to see a perspective on Egypt's crisis not filtered through Western eyes.

Al-Jazeera has been frustrated for years in its effort to be carried on US cable or satellite systems. Link is available on DirecTV and the Dish satellite systems and cable systems totaling 33 million of the nation's nearly 116 million homes with televisions.