YEMENI police killed at least one person and injured scores of other protesters when they opened fire in the city of Taiz on Sunday, local residents said.
Over 100 were injured by police who used live rounds, tear gas and truncheons to try to break up the protest a local doctor reported.
The protests to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s resignation have gripped Yemen since February.
Saleh has said he was now ready to discuss a ‘peaceful transition of power’.
In office for more than three decades, he announced earlier he would not seek another term in office.
Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, is among a dozen other Arab countries in the Middle East to have seen anti-government unrest this year.
Transition plan
Taiz, a city of nearly half a million people 200km (125 miles) south of the capital Sanaa, has seen particularly massive demonstrations against the president.
Eyewitnesses said police had shot dead a young man who was tearing up a poster of the president.
The police continued to fire as the security forces pushed back the demonstrators to a square where they had been holding a sit-in as part of nationwide protests.
One activist, Bushra al-Maqtari, said that the security forces were backed by tanks.
‘Armoured vehicles and tanks are surrounding us,’ she said.
‘They have spent three hours firing tear gas and bullets in the air trying to break up the protest,’ he added.
On Saturday, the opposition coalition Common Forum called on the president to hand over power to his deputy, Vice-President Abdu Rabu Hadi.
The umbrella group Common Forum, which includes the five biggest opposition organisations in Yemen, offered a five-point plan for the hand-over:
l President Saleh resigns and is replaced by Mr Hadi
l Hadi announces a restructuring of the security forces to make them accountable to the government.
l an interim government is created based on national reconciliation.
l a new electoral commission is established.
l civil liberties are boosted and an investigation is launched into the killing of protesters.
Speaking at a meeting in Sanaa with representatives from Taiz Province on Sunday, President Saleh called on Common Forum to ‘end the crisis through calling off protests and removing roadblocks’.
Any transition, he said, would have to be made ‘through constitutional ways’.
Trade union leaders
Bahrain’s Shi’ite workers are venting their fury on online forums over trade union bosses for their policies during the recent unrest.
Many of them are now demanding that the president and members of the general-secretariat of the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions resign.
In letters published on various internet forums, they say they are now facing lay-offs and pay cuts because of the federation’s wrong policies during the unrest.
Some of them have even voiced fears of being marginalised as a result.
An Akhbar Al Khaleej report says their call for resignations aims to protect the source of income for thousands of workers and prevent them from being sued and severely punished for following the federation’s policies.
The federation first announced a nationwide strike on February 20, but called it off after the military withdrew from the GCC Roundabout.
It then announced an indefinite strike on March 13 in solidarity with protesters, which was called off on March 22.
Businesses and industries have warned of job cuts over large-scale absenteeism, prompting a government warning of a major crack-down unless workers get back to work.
The federation had appealed to King Hamad to intervene and ensure that workers were not sacked from their jobs.
Among the companies hit by absenteeism during the unrest were Bapco and Alba.
Omani clashes
Dozens of protesters staged a sit-in in the Omani capital of Muscat to demand investigations into alleged state abuse after clashes with security forces left at least one person dead and sharply boosted tensions in the strategic Gulf nation.
Saturday’s protest and the unrest on Friday in the northern industrial city of Sohar, where the protest movement began more than six weeks ago.
The high-level shake-ups and other concessions by Oman’s rulers appear to have fallen short of the demonstrators’ demands for greater political freedoms.
Witnesses said that security forces detained between 50 and 60 protesters in clashes on Friday in Sohar.
State brutality
The violence on Friday during a fifth week of protests involved the use of knives, stones, tear-gas and rubber bullets, Oman’s general prosecutor said.
In a sign of worries about more violence, the military has stationed units around government offices and other key buildings in the city, about 200 km northwest of Muscat.
Medical officials said Khalifah al-Alawi, 22, injured by a rubber bullet in Friday’s clashes, died in hospital.
At least four other protesters were wounded.
Activists said that security forces used tear-gas and beat some protesters with batons.
Authorities say they only used tear-gas, water cannons and rubber bullets in self-defence after the crowds began pelting riot police with stones and brandishing knives, according to a statement by the prosecutor’s office.
Protesters, however, claim that police opened fire with live ammunition.
It was at least the third protest-related death in Oman since protests broke out in late February to demand more job opportunities and a greater public voice in political affairs.
The government has failed to halt the wave of rallies, sit-ins and strikes to demand changes, including more media freedom and weakening the ruling system’s grip on power.
The protest demands have not yet included the sultan’s resignation.
Several dozen protesters staged a sit-in outside the chief prosecutor’s office on Saturday to demand the release of people detained in recent security crack-downs.
The demonstrators also appealed for a judicial investigation into the deaths of the two protesters since February.
Their leaders have urged more demonstrations in Muscat and other cities around the country.
Corruption
Oman’s unrest remains limited compared with other Arab uprisings, but it is closely watched because of the country’s strategic role as co-guardian of the Strait of Hormuz.
Oman and Iran share authority over the crucial waterway at the mouth of the Gulf, which is the route for 40 per cent of the world’s oil tanker traffic.
Oman also plays an important role as a mediator between Iran and the West because of its strong ties to Tehran and Washington.
Last year, Oman negotiated a $500,000 bail for the release of American Sarah Shourd from Iranian custody.
Shourd and her two US companions, who remain jailed in Tehran, were arrested along the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009 and charged with espionage.
The protests in Oman, which pumps out 800,000 barrels of oil a day, have focused on demands for better wages, jobs and an end to corruption.
Many protesters have demanded that the government be held accountable for the detention of hundreds of demonstrators in Sohar.
Wealthy Gulf Arab oil producers launched a $20bn aid package this month for their less prosperous neighbours, Oman and Bahrain.
It is seen as a measure intended to generate jobs by upgrading their housing and infrastructure.
Sultan Qabus bin Said, Oman’s ruler, replaced more than a dozen cabinet officials and promised other reforms such as 50,000 new civil servant posts.
