YEMEN: Proposal urges president to begin transfer of power.
Yemen’s embattled president must speed up reforms and begin a transfer of power according to a plan backed by the international community, said a U.N. envoy on Monday.
Jamal Benomar visited Yemen for a week to promote a proposal backed by Persian Gulf nations that calls for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to transfer power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Saleh told a TV interviewer that he will sign, but he did not say when. Saleh has resisted the proposal despite nearly nine months of protests against his 30-year rule.
Pro-Saleh forces regularly engage in deadly clashes with armed tribesmen and military defectors who support the protesters in Yemen’s largest cities, and al-Qaeda-linked militants have taken control of entire towns in the south.
LIBYA: Newly formed army sent to quell feud.
Hundreds of uniformed men described as members of a new Libyan army have been deployed for the first time to settle a bloody feud between rival militias, officials said Monday.
The soldiers, wearing beige camouflage uniforms and ID badges, were sent to serve as a buffer between gunmen from the city of Zawiya and the nearby tribal area of Warshefana.
Four days of fighting, the most sustained since the capture and killing of Moammar Gadhafi last month, had claimed at least 13 lives. The violence raised questions about the ability of Libya’s interim leaders to restore order after eight months of civil war.
EGYPT: Court rules former members of Mubarak’s party can run in elections.
Former members of Hosni Mubarak’s political party won legal backing Monday to run in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the ouster of the longtime leader.
The Supreme Administrative Court overturned a ruling that had barred members of the now-dissolved National Democratic Party from contesting the election in one province. Monday’s ruling applies nationwide and cannot be appealed.
The decision went against the wishes of many segments of the protest movement that took part in Egypt’s uprising.
Denver Post wire services
