President Ali Abdullah Saleh said on Friday he was ready to cede power to prevent more bloodshed in Yemen but only to what he called “safe hands” as a massive “Day of Departure” street protest against

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh offered to hand over power to "safe hands" but vowed to resist an escalating campaign to force him out of office, in an address to a huge crowd of supporters.

MPs met on Wednesday to vote on the imposition of a state of emergency in unrest-swept Yemen, the scene of deadly protests demanding the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule.

Yemen seethed with anger today as medics raised the death toll from a sniper attack on protesters to 52 and thousands rallied despite a state of emergency imposed by the autocratic regime.

Vast numbers of protesters poured into a square in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Tuesday for a massive anti-regime rally, as President Ali Abdullah Saleh blamed the US and Israel for a wave of Arab revolts.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since 1978, vowed on Monday not to quit under pressure from the street, as MPs joined thousands of protesters in Sanaa calling for his departure.

Yemen's President, under pressure from protests calling for his overthrow, has postponed a visit to the United States as the opposition agreed to resume talks with the government.

Battles against Al Qaeda jihadists and Southern separatists killed 178 members of Yemen's security forces in 2010, the interior ministry announced on Thursday.

A car bomb stuck a religious procession in a Shia rebel bastion of north Yemen on Wednesday, killing 15 people and rattling a fragile truce with the government, a rebel spokesman and a tribal chief sa