A Yemeni protester died of gunshot wounds yesterday after being hit when police opened fire overnight on anti-regime demonstrators in Sana’a, a medical official said.
The protester was wounded when police fired live bullets and tear gas to disperse a students’ demonstration outside Sana’a University late on Tuesday. He later died of his wounds in hospital.
Three other demonstrators were also wounded by gunfire, while some 60 others were lightly hurt due to being beaten by police batons or inhaling tear gas, the official said.
Meanwhile, a security official said that 12 policemen were injured by rocks hurled by demonstrators.
Police had intervened to prevent protesters from erecting tents in a street close to the University Square, where demonstrators have been camping since Feb. 21 in a protest demanding the departure of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The police action was condemned yesterday by the Common Forum, an alliance of parliamentary opposition groups.
“Even the medical teams coming to rescue the wounded were not spared the attacks,” Common Forum spokesman Mohammed Qahtan said in a statement.
‘ACCOUNTABLE’
The alliance said it held “Saleh personally accountable for the crime committed by the central security and the republican guard against the students.”
Demonstrations also continued elsewhere in the country. In the southern port city of Aden, a crowd of women joined a demonstration after a young protester was shot in the head and critically wounded during a rally there the previous day.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in Ibb Province, calling on the government to bring to justice those responsible for a deadly attack there on Sunday.
Opposition activists blamed “government thugs” who descended on protesters camped out on a main square. One person was killed in that violence and 53 people were hurt.
Even before Yemen was hit by the wave of protests, it was growing increasingly chaotic with a resurgent al-Qaeda, a separatist movement in the south and a Shiite rebellion occasionally flaring in the north.
Seeking to head off the protests, Saleh called for national dialogue after meetings on Monday with the country’s top political and security chiefs.
CONFERENCE
The state-run news agency said the conference would be held today and would include thousands of representatives from across Yemen’s political spectrum.
However, opposition leader Yassin Said Numan said there would be no dialogue unless Saleh agreed to step down by year’s end.
Saleh’s recent pledge not to run for re-election in 2013 has failed to quell the protests.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of