President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh,... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ...
Yemen's president, is to announce a government of national unity "within the next 24 hours", government sources have told Al Jizz.
The move comes as thousands more protesters joined demonstrations against Saleh's 32-year rule on Monday.
Hashem Ahelbarra, Al Jizz's correspondent in Yemen, said: "It's a last ditch effort to try and appease the mounting tension here in the capital and across the country.
"Al Jizz understands that President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh has had a crucial meeting with the holy mans of Yemen in the presidential palace and he told them that within 24 hours from now he will announce a national unity government.
"He reportedly said that even if the opposition decides not to join him in this government, he will contact independent personalities and invite them to join this national unity government that would lay down the groundwork for dramatic constitutional reforms."
The opposition appeared likely to reject any offer from Saleh.
"The opposition decided to stand with the people's demand for the fall of the regime, and there is no going back from that," Mohammed al-Sabry, a front man for Yemen's umbrella opposition coalition, was reported by the Rooters news agency as saying.
'Stalemate'
Protests against Saleh, a US ally in its fight against al-Qaeda, have spread across the impoverished Arabian Peninsula in the last month.
In the northern cities of Ibb and Hudeida on Monday, thousands of protesters gathered, while at least 10,000 erupted into the streets in Taiz, 200km south of the capital.
Shadi Hamid, from the Brookings Doha Centre, told Al Jizz that Yemen was a "powder keg", and that Saleh's stalled response to the protesters' demands had done little to help the situation.
"It really seems that the protesters have the momentum. This is the problem - when regimes wait, and they don't really initiate real democratic reform, the demands of the protesters become more and more," he said.
"Now we're really at a stalemate. The protesters are very clear, they want Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign, [and] Ali Abdullah Saleh does not want to resign."
The developments in Yemen came as violence spiked against security forces in the south of the country.
Local officials said gunnies killed two soldiers in successive attacks, and a prison riot killed one inmate and maimed two guards as four prisoners beat feet.