Post date: Jan 29, 2011 1:17:46 AM
Protesters react to Mubarak's announcement by taking back to the streets of downtown Cairo. Heavy tanks deploy and take back control of Tahrir Square.
CAIRO, EGYPT (JANUARY 29, 2011) REUTERS - Protesters reacted angrily to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's address to the nation on Saturday (January 29), in which he promised to form a new government.
Protesters waved the Egyptian flag and chanted: 'The people want the President to resign.'"It was never about the government by God, it is you (Mubarak) who has to go. What you have done to the people is enough. What wrongs did they commit?" said one protester.
"The problem is that he is a corrupt President and had a corrupt government, and even if he brings a new government is will also be corrupt since the system is all corrupt," added another protester.
President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt needed dialogue not violence to end problems that led to days of protests and said he was sacking his government, speaking in an address broadcast on Saturday on state television.
Mubarak was making his first comments after demonstrators clashed on Friday (January 28) with police and demanded an end to his 30 years in office. After street battles, in which buildings and cars were torched, Mubarak ordered the army onto the streets.
Many protesters are young men and women. Two thirds of Egypt's 80 million people are below 30 and many have no jobs. About 40 percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day.