Thousands of Yemenis marched toward the capital on Thursday, to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh face trial for killing protesters during 11 months of demonstrations against him, and to denounce a new government that would spare him prosecution.The United Nations, which endorsed a pact brokered by Yemen's wealthier neighbours to stave off civil war by easing Saleh from power, said he would need medical treatment abroad while the country prepares to elect a successor.
The struggle over Saleh's fate has rekindled the poor country's multiple conflicts, and fanned fears in Washington that the Yemeni wing of al Qaeda could grow stronger if the Arabian Peninsula state descends further into chaos. "The goal is to bring down the regime and try its figures, to refuse giving Saleh and his aides any parliamentary immunity," said Waddah al-Adeeb, an organiser of the march, which set out from the southern city of Taiz earlier this week.
The Yemeni state news agency on Wednesday quoted the oil minister as saying those attacks had cost Yemen $700 million, without elaborating whether that sum came from lost exports, estimated damage to infrastructure or both. Separately, a source in the office of Yemen's new prime minister said a ministerial committee had been formed to run the flagship airline Yemeniyya, in response to a strike by workers demanding the sacking of its top executive and Saleh's son-in-law, Abdeul Khaleq al Qadi.
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