Police, protesters clash for 5th day in Egypt

Egyptian police clashed with anti-government protesters for a fifth day in central Cairo Wednesday as a rights group raised the overall death toll from the ongoing unrest to 38.       

The clashes came one day after tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square rejected a promise by Egypt's military ruler to speed up a presidential election to the first half of next year. The military previously has floated late next year or early 2013 as the likely date for the vote, the last step in the process of transferring power to a civilian government after Hosni Mubarak's ouster.       

In a televised address late Tuesday, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi did not set a date for handing authority to a civilian government, but instead offered a referendum on the immediate return of the armed forces to their barracks.       

The Tahrir crowd, along with protesters in a string of other cities across the nation, wants Tantawi to step down immediately in favor of an interim civilian council to run the nation's affairs until elections for a new parliament and president are held.            

"Our demands are clear," said Khaled El-Sayed, a protester from the Youth Revolution Coalition and a candidate in the Nov. 28 parliamentary election. "We want the military council to step down and hand over authority to a national salvation government with full authority."