Protesters say Egypt military uses force on them

Egyptian soldiers fired in the air and used batons in the early hours of Saturday to disperse activists demanding the cabinet appointed by Hosni Mubarak be purged by the country's new military leaders, protesters said. Thousands had gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square to celebrate two weeks since Mubarak's removal and remind the country's new rulers, who have promised to guard against "counter revolution" of the people's power. In the gathering in the epicenter of the uprising against the president, activists urged the military, who had promised there would be "no return to the past" of the Mubarak era, to overhaul the cabinet and install a team of technocrats. But after midnight, protesters said the military fired in the air, shut off the light from lampposts, and moved in on protesters to force them to leave the square. "Military police used batons and tasers to hit the protesters," Ahmed Bahgat, one of the protesters, told Reuters by telephone. "The military is once again using force. But the protesters have not responded."