YEMEN: Two protesters die in clashes with security forces.
Security forces fired on a demonstration in the central city of Taiz on Tuesday, killing one protester and wounding two others, according to witnesses and a doctor at the demonstration’s field hospital. In the capital, Sana, another protester died in a clash with security forces and plainclothes government supporters.
The violence came as the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation regional group, sought to broker an end to the political crisis. Yemen’s Saba news agency said government officials were meeting with the council in Abu Dhabi after similar meetings with opposition representatives Sunday.
According to a plan drafted by Western nations, President Ali Abdullah Saleh would hand over presidential powers to his vice president and then leave office a month later under a guarantee of immunity from prosecution for himself and his family.
Presidential elections would be held after 60 days in accordance with the country’s constitution. The plan is seen as a compromise between what the ruling party and the opposition have been seeking.
Yemen’s opposition coalition, known as the Joint Meetings Parties, has indicated its support for the plan; Saleh has yet to respond.
SYRIA: New Cabinet endorses reforms.
Syria’s newly appointed Cabinet endorsed reforms Tuesday that appear to broaden civil liberties in the highly restricted one-party state, an attempt to stave off a burgeoning protest movement that threatens President Bashar Assad’s regime.
But in a sign of possible discord within the ruling elite, security forces continued a violent crackdown on protesters and warned Syrians “to refrain from any mass rallies or demonstrations or sit-ins under any title,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
The combined warning and concession came hours after at least three protesters were killed by security forces in the city of Homs. Hundreds of people reportedly have been killed in recent weeks during protests inspired by democracy movements across the Middle East.
EGYPT: Death toll in uprising far exceeded official estimates, panel finds.
At least 846 Egyptians died in the nearly three-week-long popular uprising that toppled long-serving President Hosni Mubarak, electrifying the region, a government fact-finding mission announced Tuesday.
In its report, the panel of judges described police forces shooting protesters in the head and chest with live ammunition and presented a death toll more than twice that of previous official estimates.
The judges held Mubarak ultimately responsible for the killing of the protesters because his interior minister, Habib el-Adly, had issued the orders to open fire.
BAHRAIN: Troops to stay to counter Iran.
Troops from Persian Gulf nations will remain in Bahrain as a counter to Iran, the Bahraini foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid Bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, said in a posting on Twitter.
Bahrain declared a three- month state of emergency March 15 after troops from Saudi Arabia and other gulf states arrived to help quell protests led by majority Shiite Muslims, who are calling for more democracy and civil rights.
