Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh rejected an opposition plan for him to step aside this year, as protests against his three-decade rule over the impoverished nation swelled into hundreds of thousands.
The opposition said Saleh, a US ally against al-Qaeda, was sticking to an earlier plan to step down only when his current term ends in 2013, but had agreed to a proposal by religious leaders to revamp elections, parliament and the judicial system.
“The president rejected the proposal and is holding on to his previous offer,” said the opposition’s rotating president Mohammed al-Mutawakil.
A spokesman for the president’s ruling party, Tarek al-Shami, said Saleh had approved of the opposition plan, but wanted it to be modified so he could complete his term. “He would accept the opposition’s plan, including the article about a smooth transition of power, but it needs to be implemented at the end of the president’s term in 2013.”
Yemen, a neighbor of Saudi Arabia, was teetering on the brink of failed statehood even before recent protests, with Saleh struggling to cement a truce with Shiite rebels in the north and quell a budding secessionist rebellion in the south.
“Oh God, God please get rid of Ali Abdullah,” demonstrators chanted in the capital Sana’a, where protests stretched back for more than 2 km in the streets around Sana’a University.
Political analysts say growing protests, inspired by unrest that has toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia, may be reaching a point where it will be difficult even for Saleh, a clever political survivalist, to cling to power.
In the north, Shiite Muslim rebels accused the Yemeni army of firing rockets on a protest in Harf Sufyan, where thousands had gathered. Two people were killed and 13 injured.
“During a peaceful protest this Friday morning ... demanding the fall of the regime, an end to corruption and political change, a military post fired rockets at a group of protesters and hit dozens of people,” a rebel statement said.
The government said men had fired on a military post in Harf Sufyan, wounding four soldiers, but denied firing on protesters.
Clerics sympathetic to the opposition, whose ranks have grown with the defection of Saleh allies, joined protesters in Sana’a for Friday prayers and called on Yemenis to take to the streets to demand Saleh step down.
In another political blow to Saleh, Ali Ahmad al-Omrani, an influential ally, resigned in front of tens of thousands of protesters rallying at Sana’a University on Friday.
Omrani, a tribal sheikh from the southern al-Baida Province, is the tenth parliament member to defect from the 68-year-old leader’s ruling party since last week.
Possibly more than 100,000 protested earlier on Friday in one of the largest demonstrations in the capital yet, and similar numbers rallied in Taiz, south of Sana’a.
More than 20,000 protesters marched in Aden, some carrying black flags of mourning for three protesters killed in the city last week. Tens of thousands more marched in Ibb, south of Sana’a.
Opposition leaders said more than 500,000 people were protesting in Sana’a and Taiz, but that could not be verified.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS