In a separate incident, three tribesmen were killed in clashes with security forces, the officials added. They said 16 people were injured in the two clashes in which both sides used automatic guns and heavy artillery. The violence occurred in the district of Marib, 170 kilometres north-east of the capital Sanaa. Protesters and security forces have been clashing since 19 June when the government raised prices of gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas by 40 per cent to meet demands by the International Monetary Fund. Fifty-two people have been reportedly killed and 214 others injured since the outbreak of the violence.

Assad in Paris
SYRIAN President Hafez Assad announced he will travel to France on July 16 and 17 in his first state visit to a Western country in 22 years.

The visit indicates the growing ties between Syria and France and Assad's appreciation of the role Paris has been playing by putting pressure on Israel to remain committed to the peace process. Assad will hold talks and dine with French President Jacques Chirac on the first day of the visit, and will meet Prime Minister Lionel Jospin the following day. Assad's last official visit to a Western country was to France in June 1976, when Valery Giscard d'Estaing was president and current president Chirac was prime minister.

Turkish visit
TURKISH Foreign Minister Ismail Cem arrived in Israel on Monday for discussions with Israeli officials on bilateral relations and the stalled Middle East peace process.

Cem met Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday and was due to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Gaza yesterday. The visit is the latest move indicating the growing ties between Turkey and Israel, despite Arab protests. Turkey signed a military agreement with Israel last year, and has since insisted that the only aim of the cooperation is to conduct joint exercises and not to target any Arab country.

African defiance
PRESIDENTS of Chad and Niger defied the six-year-old UN air embargo against Libya and flew to Al-Bayda, 1,200 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli, to take part in a mass prayer which Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi was planning to lead to mark the birthday of Prophet Mohamed.

However, Gaddafi was forced to stay in bed after breaking his hip while having his daily exercises on Monday and the mass prayer had to be held in his absence.

The United States pressured the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Libya for refusing to hand over for trial two Libyans suspected of bombing Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing 270 people. But African leaders, after their latest summit in Burkina Faso last month, said they would no longer remain committed to the air embargo as of September if the US continued to refuse Libyan proposals to solve the crisis. Washington insists the two suspects should face trial in either the US or Britain, while Tripoli has offered to have the trial in any third neutral country.