Egypt swears in new cabinet

A new Egyptian cabinet took office on Monday but the protest movement calling for the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak said the changes were irrelevant, Reuters reported.

The cabinet has a new prime minister, a new interior minister and fresh faces in the key economic ministries.

Mubarak dismissed his old cabinet on Friday after tens of thousands of angry Egyptians poured on to the streets demanding he resign. He also appointed intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as vice president.

The new prime minister, also appointed on Friday, is former air force commander and civil aviation minister Ahmed Shafiq, who was Mubarak's subordinate in the military in the 1970s.

In the new cabinet, Defence Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi retains his post and gains the status of deputy prime minister, confirming a shift in favour of military personnel.

Protesters, who have been demonstrating in Cairo and other cities since last Tuesday, say personnel changes will not placate them. They say their main demand is to overthrow Mubarak and get rid of all this associates.

The main change in the military and security establishment is the appointment of Mahmoud Wagdy as interior minister in place of Habib el-Adli, whose vast riot police force failed to prevent the protests from taking over the city centre.

As usual in Egypt, the new interior minister comes from within the police force. Wagdy was formerly head of the criminal investigations department and of the prison service.