Tens of thousands of protesters massed on Feb. 3 at Yemen's Sana'a University for a "day of rage" against Ali Abdullah Saleh's rule—while government loyalists flooded the city's central square in support of the embattled president. With Saleh supporters, some of them armed, taking over Tahrir Square the previous night, protest organizers were forced to change the planned venue of their demonstration. From early morning they drove through the streets publicizing the new site over megaphones, saying that "the men of the ruling party and their armed elements are holding Al-Tahrir."

Hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip rallied Feb. 3 in solidarity with the uprising in Egypt. Marchers carried banners reading "People want the regime out" and "Down with Hosni Mubarak." A student group distributed a statement calling on the UN to take action against the regime. "The massacre being carried out against protesters in Tahrir square warrants a decisive stance," the statement said. It called on the international community to "respond immediately" to the crisis.

Fighting between protesters and government loyalists raged into a second day in Egypt Feb. 3, with clashes continuing for control of Cairo's Tahrir Square. The Health Ministry said five people have been killed and 835 injured over the past 24 hours. Army troops finally moved in to create a buffer zone between the clashing demonstrators early in the day, but pro-regime militants later broke through the lines to hurl stones and protesters. Opposition leaders say they will go ahead with plans for a massive demonstration on Friday, their designated "departure day" for Mubarak.

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, facing growing demands that he step down, said Feb. 2 that he will drop constitutional changes that would allow him to be president for life. "No to hereditary rule and no to life presidency," Saleh said during an emergency session of parliament ahead of a "day of rage" civil society groups and opposition leaders have called. Saleh, whose term is due to end in 2013, urged an opposition alliance known as the Common Forum to halt its street protests. Four people have set themselves on fire in protests in Yemen over the past weeks.

A Chinese court ruled Feb. 1 that the death of a village chief run over by a truck Dec. 25 was an accident—sparking outrage from supporters, who insist he was murdered for his protests over land seizures. Qian Yunhui, 53, was crushed by a truck, and gruesome photos of his body were posted on the web in an online campaign to pressure authorities for justice in the case. Qian had demanded compensation for farmers whose lands in Zhaiqiao village, Zhejiang province, were seized to make way for a power plant. The unlicenced driver of the truck received three-and-a-half years in prison for the "accident."

In their fist official statement, Russian investigators have linked last week's suicide bombing at Moscow's airport to a militant Islamist group from the Russian republic of Dagestan, naming leader Ibrahim-Khalil Daudov as the mastermind of the attack. Violence meanwhile continues unabated in the North Causasus, barely winning international headlines. Four were killed and six wounded when a blast ripped through a cafe in Dagestan Jan. 27. It was the second car bombing in the city of Khasavyurt in the past two weeks. On Jan. 14, a similar attack killed four and wounded five in the city. (SAPA, Jan. 31; Xinhua, Jan. 27)

The Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) said Feb. 2 that 2010 was the deadliest year for civilians in the country since the US-led invasion of 2001, with more than 2,400 non-combatants killed. Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for more than 60% of the dead, according to the report. "Almost everything related to the war surged in 2010," said the report, noting that the number of Afghan government and foreign forces surged to some 350,000, as the number of "security incidents" rose to more than 100 per week. Between January and December 2010, "at least 2,421 civilian Afghans were killed and over 3,270 were injured in conflict-related security incidents across Afghanistan," the report finds. By comparison, there were 2,332 civilian deaths as a result of the war in 2009.

An Italian court on Feb. 1 convicted former Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohamed Ben Riadh Nasri on terror charges and sentenced the Tunisian man to six years in prison. Prosecutors accused Nasri of working for a terror group associated with al-Qaeda while living in Milan in the 1990s. The US transferred Nasri, who was arrested in Afghanistan, from Guantánamo Bay to Italy in 2009 along with Abdel Ben Mabrouk as the part of the government's plan to shut down the detention center. Nasri's lawyer said he plans to appeal the conviction.