Deaths from attack on Yemen protest rise to 13

FE Team | Published: December 26, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

SANAA, Dec 25 (agencies): Thirteen people were killed on Saturday in an attack by security forces and loyalists to President Ali Abdullah Saleh against a march of thousands calling for the embattled leader's trial, medics said. "Thirteen people were killed and 50 others were wounded by live rounds," a medical official said Sunday, updating an earlier toll of nine dead. The medic from a field hospital in the capital said that 150 other people suffered from breathing difficulties due to tear gas inhalation. Syria opposition demands Arabs go to besieged Homs The opposition Syrian National Council appealed Sunday for the Arab League to immediately send observers to the besieged city of Homs and other hotspots of a bloody crackdown on dissent. "Since early this morning, the (Homs) neighbourhood of Baba Amr has been under a tight siege and the threat of military invasion by an estimated 4,000 soldiers," the SNC said in a statement received in Nicosia. Egypt to free jailed blogger CAIRO, Dec 25 (AFP): Egypt's judiciary decided on Sunday to free blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has spent the past two months in custody, his sister said. Mona Abdel Fattah announced on Twitter that a court had decided to "free Alaa," who had been remanded in custody on October 30. The blogger was accused of inciting violence during an October 9 demonstration by Coptic Christians in Cairo. He also faces charges of vandalism during the demonstration that degenerated into clashes with security forces in which 25 people were killed, most of them Copts protesting over the burning of a church in the southern city of Aswan. The young man reportedly refused to undergo questioning by the military prosecution on the grounds that the military itself was implicated in the case. Coptic witnesses said they were fired upon by soldiers during a protest march and that several people were killed when armoured vehicles ran over and crushed them. Iraq's dwindling Christians call for peace Iraq's dwindling Christian population marked Christmas Sunday with religious leaders calling for peace, days after attacks across Baghdad killed dozens and a political row raised sectarian tensions. The commemoration came a week after US forces completed their withdrawal from the country, with a senior bishop noting little was being done to prevent a continuing Christian emigration from Iraq. At the Church of Our Lady of Sacred Heart in east Baghdad, hundreds of worshippers gathered for a 90-minute Sunday morning mass, the second of three such celebrations planned by the church. Outside, half a dozen armoured security vehicles and an Iraqi army humvee stood guard, with several heavily-armed soldiers and policemen patrolling the street opposite the church. A handful of soldiers with machine guns were also perched atop the building.