Will of the people in Egypt?

Egypt’s new military rulers have signaled their intent to share power with civilians and amend the constitution rapidly by popular referendum, opposition activists and a British minister said yesterday.

Wael Ghonim, a Google executive detained, then released, for his part in the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, said members of the military council had told him a plebiscite would be held on constitutional amendments in two months.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik had let him know that he would reshuffle his cabinet in the coming week to bring opposition figures into the lineup appointed by Mubarak last month.

In the wake …

» Police in Bahrain fired teargas and rubber bullets to break up pro-reform demonstrations yesterday and one protester was killed, witnesses said, in a “Day of Rage” stimulated by popular upheaval in Egypt and Tunisia.

» A special Syrian security court sentenced a teenage blogger yesterday to five years in jail on charges of revealing information to a foreign country, despite U.S. calls to release her, rights defenders said. The long jail term for high school student Tal al-Molouhi, under arrest since 2009 and now 19 years old, is another sign of an intensifying crackdown on opposition in Syria in the wake of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, they said.