Yemen

Hundreds of Yemeni women on Wednesday set fire to traditional female veils to protest the government's brutal crackdown against the country's popular uprising, as overnight clashes in the capital and another city killed 25 people, officials said.

Yemeni government forces opened fire with anti-aircraft guns and automatic weapons on tens of thousands of anti-government protesters in the capital demanding ouster of their longtime ruler, killing at least 26 and wounding dozens, medical officials and witnesses said.

Even as Yemen’s political crisis deepens, the country is on the brink of an economic collapse so dire it could take years to recover, and hobble efforts to rebuild its fragmented society.

A deal on a transition of power in Yemen fell through at the last minute on Wednesday, even as Washington stepped up pressure on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to sign a Gulf-brokered agreement to ease him out of office.

A leader of the al Qaeda offshoot that U.S. officials have called the greatest threat to the U.S. vowed in a message posted on Islamist websites Wednesday to take revenge against the U.S. for the death of Osama bin Laden, saying that jihad would only intensify and that Americans would come to "wish for the days of Osama."