Video of the destroyed Presidential Mosque in the Yemeni capital Sana'a
2130 GMT: Media are reporting tonight that the Vice President, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is now acting President and Supreme Commander of the armed forces.
Meanwhile, Abdel Rahman Ba Fadel, an opposition member of the Yemeni parliament, has told Al Jazeera, "A medical team arrived from Saudi Arabia but there is a plane ready to take him [President Saleh] there if they fail to treat him in Yemen."
Photo: Hani Mohammad (AP)UPDATE 1930 GMT: The Times has an article with a different approach this afternoon, "Yemen Battles Opponents on Two Fronts". While the reference to "Islamist militants" remains, this at least is set alongside the developments in Taiz:
"The Yemeni government ratcheted up its violent response to opponents on two fronts Monday, pounding a major coastal city with airstrikes aimed at dislodging Islamic militants, and smashing the country’s largest antigovernment demonstration in overnight clashes that killed more than a dozen protesters, according to witnesses reached by phone."
So what happens to the priorities of "Western" reporting when the spectre of "Islamist militants" arises?
Exhibit A from The New York Times, which headlines on the occupation of Zinjibar in Yemen by 300 insurgents, "Islamists Seize a Yemeni City, Stoking Fears". (The lead photograph (see left) of armed men is not actually of "Islamists" in Zinjibar, but of "tribesman" in the capital Sana'a, if you can read the small-font caption.)
Yemen is currently witnessing two parallel power shifts: a popular revolution inspired by the 'Arab spring', and an elite power struggle.
Competition between rival elite factions has been brewing for several years and has intensified as Yemen's long-serving president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has concentrated power around his family.
Each faction cultivates clients and proxies across the political spectrum, within government ministries and the military, as well as among traditional community leaders.
Footage from inside the compound of Yemeni opposition tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, taken by Tom Finn of The Guardian, showing the destruction from regime shelling and treatment of an injured tribesman
2035 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for taking the LiveBlog through the afternoon.
More on the story, which began circulating yesterday, that the Libyan regime is offering conditions for a cease-fire and talks with the opposition....
"We have received a message from the Libyan government seeking an accord for a possible ceasefire," a spokesman for the office of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, said on Thursday.
The initiative came from Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi. He said at a news conference in Tripoli, "We are ready for a ceasefire. The solution cannot be a military one. There must be debate among Libyans far away from bombs."
But al-Mahmoud set one important condition: "Muammar Qaddafi is the leader of the Libyan people. If Muammar Qaddafi goes, all the Libyan people go."
The Independent of London reported on Wednesday that it had a copy of a letter from al-Mahmoudi to foreign governments, proposing an immediate ceasefire to be monitored by the United Nations and the African Union, unconditional talks with the opposition, amnesty for both sides in the conflict, and the drafting of a new constitution.
Sounds and images of Monday's battle in Sanaa in Yemen (see 0500 GMT):
2040 GMT: Yemeni officials say 38 people have died in the clashes in the capital Sanaa, 24 from the regime's security forces and 14 supporters of tribal leader Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar.
1915 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for taking the LiveBlog through the afternoon.
Reports from Yemen indicate that supporters of the tribal leader Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar now control the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Education buildings.
Armed Men Trap Ambassadors in UAE Embassy, 22 May 2011As Yemen's President Saleh repeatedly backs away from a deal for transition of power and armed clashes escalate on the streets of the capital Sanaa and other cities, the US and the European Union seem to be spinning helplessly, entangled in their alliance with Saleh in the War on Terror.
Karen DeYoung reports for The Washington Post:
The Obama administration and its Arab and European allies are reassessing their military and economic support for Yemen in a desperate search for ways to force President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s resignation before civil war erupts.
1806 GMT: A source in Syria provides us with these videos, both taken today. The first shows demonstrators gathering in Kafr Nabl, in the Idlib region of Northwestern Syria.
The second video has the title "Demonstration is always free to women in Syria."
Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 18:25 | 
