PARIS - The United States called on Thursday for all sides in Yemen to immediately cease violence and again urged President Ali Abdullah Saleh to sign a transition agreement and step down. "We call on all sides, on all sides, to immedidately cease the violence," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference in Paris. "We continue to support a united and stable Yemen and we continue to suppoort the departure of president Saleh who has consistently agreed that he would be stepping down from power and then consistently reneged on those agreements," she said. Dozens of Yemenis were killed in overnight gunbattles in the capital, Sanaa, as fighting aimed at ending Saleh's 33-year rule threatened to ignite civil war.
