Yemen is currently witnessing two parallel power shifts: a popular revolution inspired by the 'Arab spring', and an elite power struggle.
Competition between rival elite factions has been brewing for several years and has intensified as Yemen's long-serving president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has concentrated power around his family.
Each faction cultivates clients and proxies across the political spectrum, within government ministries and the military, as well as among traditional community leaders.
Footage from inside the compound of Yemeni opposition tribal leader Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar, taken by Tom Finn of The Guardian, showing the destruction from regime shelling and treatment of an injured tribesman
2035 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for taking the LiveBlog through the afternoon.
More on the story, which began circulating yesterday, that the Libyan regime is offering conditions for a cease-fire and talks with the opposition....
"We have received a message from the Libyan government seeking an accord for a possible ceasefire," a spokesman for the office of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, said on Thursday.
The initiative came from Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi. He said at a news conference in Tripoli, "We are ready for a ceasefire. The solution cannot be a military one. There must be debate among Libyans far away from bombs."
But al-Mahmoud set one important condition: "Muammar Qaddafi is the leader of the Libyan people. If Muammar Qaddafi goes, all the Libyan people go."
The Independent of London reported on Wednesday that it had a copy of a letter from al-Mahmoudi to foreign governments, proposing an immediate ceasefire to be monitored by the United Nations and the African Union, unconditional talks with the opposition, amnesty for both sides in the conflict, and the drafting of a new constitution.
Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 7:11
Yemen is currently witnessing two parallel power shifts: a popular revolution inspired by the 'Arab spring', and an elite power struggle.