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Anti-government rallies in Yemen
They took to the streets on Thursday, tens of thousands of pro- and anti-government demonstrators, driven by the upheavals gripping the Arab world and a desire to shape the course of their impoverished nation.
"We need freedom. Get out, Ali Abdullah Saleh, get out!" the crowd in one part of the capital chanted, referring to their president and holding banners calling for the end of corruption.
"No to chaos and destruction," the crowd in another part of the capital shouted, clutching large portraits of Saleh and declaring that he was vital to Yemen's stability.
The sentiments exemplified how much the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have altered mind-sets across the region. Among both groups of protesters in Yemen's capital, a long-standing fear of autocracy had vanished, replaced by a boldness that may represent in the years ahead the most far-reaching change that emerges from the wave of populist rebellions.
On the streets of the dusty, crowded capital there was a sense that here, too, ordinary people could finally hold their president, a vital U.S. ally, accountable after more than three decades in power.