Yemen's Saleh vows to leave, troops kill 9 protesters

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Saturday he would leave for the United States and give way to a successor, hours after his forces killed nine people demanding he be tried for killings over nearly a year of protests aimed at his ouster.

But Saleh, who agreed to step down last month under a deal cut by his wealthier neighbours who fear civil war in Yemen will affect them, did not say when he would depart and vowed to play a political role again, this time opposed to a new government.

The bloodshed and political uncertainty hinted at the chaos which oil giant Saudi Arabia and Saleh’s former backers in Washington fear Yemen could slip into, giving the country’s al Qaeda wing a foothold overlooking oil shipping routes.

Troops from units led by Saleh’s son and nephew opened fire with guns, tear gas and water cannon against demonstrators who approached his compound in the capital Sanaa after marching for days from the southern city of Taiz, chanting “No to immunity!”

Mohammed al-Qubati, a doctor at a field hospital that has treated protesters during 11 months of mass demonstrations against Saleh, said some 90 people suffered gunshot wounds in addition to the nine killed. About 150 other people were wounded by tear gas canisters or incapacitated by gas, he said.

The marchers denounced the deal Saleh agreed last month giving him immunity from prosecution in exchange for handing power to his deputy, who is to work with an interim government including opposition parties before a February presidential election.

That plan, crafted by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and mirrored in the terms of a U.N. Security Council resolution, has been bitterly denounced by youth protesters who demand Saleh face trial and his inner circle be banned from holding power.

“The blood of the martyrs has been sold for dollars,” shouted protesters, before forces from the Republican Guard and Central Security Forces attacked on roads leading to Saleh’s compound, which was surrounded by tanks and armoured vehicles.

ACTIVISTS ROUNDED UP

Saleh, who repeatedly backed out of the Gulf plan to nudge him from power before a June assassination attempt forced him into hospital in Saudi Arabia, said he would both let Yemen’s new government work, and oppose it.

“I will go to the United States. Not for treatment, because I’m fine, but to get away from attention, cameras, and allow the unity government to prepare properly for elections,” he said, adding he would undergo some medical tests.

“I’ll be there for several days, but I’ll return because I won’t leave my people and comrades who have been steadfast for 11 months,” he said. “I’ll withdraw from political work and go into the street as part of the opposition.”

Alluding to the relationship of his poor, populous country to its resource-blessed neighbours, he said: “An unstable Yemen means an unstable region. So, protect the security, unity and stability of Yemen, neighbour states; its security is yours.”

A Yemeni online publication quoted the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa, Gerald Feierstein, describing the march as a provocative act, during a meeting with Yemeni journalists. The ambassador could not immediately be released for comment.

As Saleh spoke, a member of the bloc of opposition parties that share the cabinet with members of Saleh’s party said security forces had rounded up dozens of people including Samia al-Aghbari, an activist in the anti-Saleh protest movement.

Aghbari sent a text message saying: “The Republican Guard is taking me and (another activist); they are dragging us by our clothes and shooting in the air.”

Saleh’s General People’s Congress party said on Thursday that the protest violated the terms of the transition pact, under which the government is to oversee disengagement of his forces from rebel army units and tribal militias with whom they have fought in Sanaa and elsewhere.

Their battles, which the youth protesters regard as an internecine conflict among a criminal elite, have left parts of the capital and Taiz, 200 km (125 miles) to the south, in ruins and deepened a humanitarian crisis in a country with multiple, overlapping regional conflicts.

U.S. DRONE STRIKE IN SOUTH

Those include fighting with militant Islamists in the south, where Islamists have seized much of the territory in one province and have significant influence in another.

Saleh’s opponents have accused him of ceding ground to Islamists to bolster his claim that he alone can check the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda, which has planned abortive attacks abroad from Yemen.

A Yemeni security source said on Friday that a U.S. drone had killed a relative of the al Qaeda wing’s leader in Abyan, the Islamist militant-held province where battles with government troops have cost at least 50 lives this week.

A CIA drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, earlier this year.

Fighting in Abyan has forced tens of thousands of people to flee the province, compounding the humanitarian crisis in a country where about half a million people are displaced and oil exports that fund imports of staple foodstuff have mostly ceased during the struggle over Saleh’s fate.

Elsewhere in southern Yemen, gunmen killed a Briton of Yemeni origin and wounded a soldier accompanying him in an attack on an oil company vehicle that a local official blamed on highway robbers.

In the southern port city of Aden, a grenade blast, apparently the work of feuding gangs, killed one person and wounded five at a market late on Friday, a local official said.

Separatist sentiment is running high in the south, formerly a socialist republic that fought a civil war with Saleh’s north in 1994 after four turbulent years of formal union.

Russian election protesters rally in 60 cities

In what has been called the largest ever showing of anti-government protest in post-Soviet Russia, tens of thousands gathered across the country Saturday — with a massive demonstration in Moscow — to rally against alleged election fraud.

Demonstrations were held in more than 60 cities and much of the public anger is being directed at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the ruling United Russia Party. There were fewer than 100 arrests nation-wide, indicating a surprising show of restraint by police.

The independent Russian election-observer group Golos said Saturday the "[United Russia Party had] achieved the majority mandate by falsification," confirming what opposition activists and independent monitors had already alleged as widespread fraud in last weekend's parliamentary elections. Demonstrators want the government to nullify those results and hold fresh elections.

Exact figures on the turnout were nearly impossible to confirm. Police said 25,000 amassed in a Moscow square while some protest organizers put the figure as high as 150,000.

At least 50,000 officers and riot troops were deployed in the city ahead of the demonstrations, the BBC reported. However, police appeared content to remain on the sidelines. Elsewhere in Russia, an estimated 7,000 protesters assembled in St. Petersburg, and demonstrations ranging from a few hundred people to a thousand were held in other locales.

"You can see thousands … of people peacefully protesting what they are calling ballot stuffing and vote rigging," Jessica Golloher, a correspondent with GRN, told CBC News from Moscow.

Putin, who was the president of Russia in 2000-2008 before stepping aside because of term limits, will seek a new term in the Kremlin in the March presidential elections. The protests have tarnished his campaign, but there is not yet any obvious strong challenger.

A statement released late Saturday by Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, acknowledged the day's protests by people "displeased" with the elections but noted demonstrations in support of the elections in recent days.

"We respect the point of view of the protesters, we are hearing what is being said, and we will continue to listen to them," the statement said. "The citizens of Russia have a right to express their point of view, in protest and in support, and those rights will continue to be secured as long as all sides do so in a lawful and peaceful manner."

The crowds included both the young and old with demonstrators chanting slogans, waving flags and carrying placards. The turnout was enough to draw the attention of the country's state-controlled media, which normally ignores the opposition. The protests received a significant amount of air-time.

A top United Russia official, Andrei Isayev, acknowledged late Saturday that "expression of this point of view is extremely important and will be heard in the mass media, society and the state."

The demonstrations come three months before Putin, who was president from 2000-2008 and effectively remained the country's leader while prime minister, is to seek a third term in office. The public outpouring challenges his image, supported by state-controlled TV channels, as a man who won the affection of most Russians.

That image was undercut by parliamentary elections on Dec. 4, during which his United Party narrowly retained a majority of seats — despite opposition claims of fraud — but lost the unassailable two-thirds majority it held in the previous parliament.

"A lot of people that I've spoken with basically say that they want Vladimir Putin out of the country," Golloher said. "They don't want him to rule Russia anymore."

Others at the protest said they want more democratic freedoms.

"I don't think any citizen of the country can say he is very happy with anything. We don't have an independent judiciary, there is no freedom of expression — all this combined creates a situation where people are forced to protest," said demonstrator Albert Yusupov.

Several hundred demonstrators gathered in the Pacific city of Vladivostok shouting "Putin's a louse." The Interfax news agency reported that about 15 people were arrested at a protest in the Siberian city of Perm and about 30 were arrested in the eastern city of Khabarovsk when a flash mob started an unauthorized protest.

In an unusual move, government officials gave the go-ahead for many of the demonstrations, including allowing 30,000 to attend the rally in Moscow.

But in what appeared to be an attempt to prevent young people from attending in the capital, the city's school system declared Saturday afternoon a mandatory extra school day for grades nine through 11.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev conceded this week that election law may have been violated. In another rare move, Putin suggested "dialogue with the opposition-minded."

The Kremlin has come under strong international pressure, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling the vote unfair and urging an investigation into fraud. Putin in turn criticized Clinton and the United States for allegedly instigating protests and trying to undermine Russia. Hundreds of people were arrested in smaller protests earlier in the week, including several prominent opposition activists.

Although U.S. Sen. John McCain recently warned Putin through Twitter that an Arab Spring-type movement was coming to the country, many commentators have questioned whether Russian activists can sustain a prolonged demonstration similar to the one that ousted Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.

"It's not clear whether or not it will have legs," Julia Ioffe from Foreign Policy magazine told CBC News.

However, the rally in Moscow was a noticeable increase in the number of people willing to voice their opposition to perceived wrongs, she added. Activists are also calling for follow-up demonstrations on Dec. 17 and 24.

Russian police are unlikely to tolerate long-term occupations of public areas and staged events at regular intervals may be less effective at pushing for change.

Russia's opposition is also vulnerable to attacks on the websites and social media that have nourished other protests. This week, an official of Vkontakte, a Russian version of Facebook, reported pressure from the FSB, the KGB's main successor, to block access to opposition groups, but said his company refused.

On election day, the websites of a main independent radio station and the country's only independent election-monitoring group fell victim to denial-of-service hacker attacks.

Still, Ioffe said the large turnout Saturday will likely put pressure on the government to make some concessions.

Occupy Toronto protesters squat in Queen Street West building

Less than one week after being evicted from St. James Park, a small group of Occupy Toronto protesters has quietly moved into a downtown building and constructed barricades inside.

The group’s new home is the basement of 238 Queen Street West, a large brick building that has been the subject of legal dispute between the city and its lessor, Queen St.-Patrick Market Inc.

At around 3 p.m. on Sunday, a handful of men were planning construction of barricades, with hardware and tools littering the space.

According to a member of Occupy Toronto’s food team who uses the pseudonym Antonin Smith, the group plans to eventually use part of the space to prepare food for the homeless. The space also contains roughly half a dozen offices and a large, central room suitable for meetings, which Mr. Smith says could be used by the group’s media, finance, and outreach departments.

First, though, the group will work “to become the legitimate lessor of this place.”

“Possession being nine-tenths of the law, we’ve already done the important part,” said Mr. Smith, adding “We’ll negotiate with the city and relevant authorities to make us the permanent occupier of this lovely location.”

A last-minute injunction following the city’s initial push for eviction on Nov. 15 granted the protesters a brief respite. The city evicted the occupiers from St. James Park on Nov. 23, two days after Justice David Brown found that it was within the city’s rights to do so.

Mr. Smith said the group is in touch with a real estate lawyer regarding their claim to the Queen St. space, but will squat in the hopes of eliciting a discussion with the city. Mayor Rob Ford and his supporters on council have maintained their opposition to the protest.

The group had meagre food supplies when the Globe toured the space on Sunday, but planned to bolster their stores before finishing the barricades.

Mr. Smith said that a core group of seven activists, all involved with food preparation at the St. James encampment, first moved into the space on Friday evening. They found the back door to the building unlocked and have since remained undetected.

The small food court on the main floor is under construction and not heavily patronized.

A report indicates that the city granted Market Inc. a 50-year lease in 1989 based partially on the understanding that it would have “ambience similar to the St. Lawrence Market.” The city, which is supposed to collect 10 per cent of the profit generated by the building’s business, took legal action against Market Inc. over its alleged failure to pay rental arrears.