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Egypt’s Mubarak to make ’important speech’

01 February 2011 21:48 (UTC +04:00)

In an earlier speech on Saturday, Mubarak named a vice president who is considered his designated successor, and also sacked his Cabinet and promised economic and political reforms called for by his protesters.
Hundreds of thousands of chanting demonstrators, meantime, continued Tuesday to pack downtown streets while thousands more jammed the airport trying to flee Egypt on Tuesday.
Throngs of men and women waved flags, chanted slogans and hung effigies of Mubarak, reveling in an unprecedented expression of political frustration and anger.
They responded to a call for a "million-man march" and a nationwide strike to force Mubarak from office.
The momentum of the demonstrations, which began a week ago, seems to have caught even the organizers off guard. Mostly young, they promoted their cause on the Internet and "never had it in their mind it would be a revolution," said Alaa al-Aswani, an Egyptian author and political analyst.
Protesters have gained confidence with each passing day, pledging to remain in the streets until they bring Mubarak’s rule of almost 30 years to an end.