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Saleh proposes early polls, power transfer

Protesters reject ojfers; general killed

AfP/Sanaa
Yemen's opposition held mass protests Monday, escalating demands for the immediate departure of President All Abdullah Saleh after the ailing leader said his future should be determined at the ballot box.
On Sunday, Saleh said he is ready to quit through early elections and is committed to a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal, without committing to sign it himself, in his first speech since returning from a months-long absence.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched in two demonstrations, one for men and another for women, from Change Square, epicentre of antiregime protests which have rocked Yemen since late January, an AFP correspondent reported.
In Taez, Yemen's second largest city, hundreds of thousands marched from Jamal street to the protest encampment at Freedom Square.
Mohammed Qahtan, spokesman for the parliamentary Common Forum of opposition parties, said Saleh clearly had no intention of stepping aside.
"Saleh has shown in his address that he is still clinging to power, and that he refuses the Gulf initiative that provides for a political transfer," Qahtan said.
"After the speech of the president, there is no way to reach a political solution, and the revolution will intensify," he added.
Saleh, who unexpectedly returned Friday to Yemen after a months-long
stay in Saudi Arabia for treatment from bomb blast wounds, late on Sunday challenged the opposition to head to earlyelections.
"You who are running after power, let us head together toward the ballot boxes. We are against coups,” Saleh said in a speech aired on state television on the 49th anniversary of the September 26,1962 revolution that saw Yemen proclaimed a republic.
The 69-year-old president has repeatedly refused to sign a power transfer deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in terms of which he would hand power to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in return for immunity from prosecution.
At Change Square, youth protesters were prompt in rejecting Saleh's speech.
"The youth will not accept," said Walid al-Amari, a leading member of the youth protest committee, addressing demonstrators at the square during the night.