Three protesters wounded at demonstration in Yemen

Three protesters were wounded on Friday evening when Yemeni security forces fired into the air and used tear gas to disperse demonstrators at a sit-in in the southern port city of Aden.

Protesters were dispersed after they had gathered at a square in the city's Sheikh Othman district following Friday prayers, witnesses told Reuters.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh rejected on Friday an opposition plan for him to step aside this year, as protests against his three-decade rule over the impoverished nation swelled into hundreds of thousands.

Protesters say they are frustrated with widespread corruption and soaring unemployment in a country where 40 percent of its 23 million people live on $2 a day or less and a third face chronic hunger.

Possibly more than 100,000 protested on Friday in one of the largest demonstrations in Sanaa yet and similar numbers rallied in Taiz, south of the capital.

More than 20,000 protesters marched in Aden and tens of thousands marched in Ibb, south of Sanaa.