Ivory Coast soldiers and police fired warning shots and tear gas on Sunday to halt a protest by opponents of President Laurent Gbagbo who were advancing towards the presidential palace to demand he step down at midnight, according to Reuters. The demonstrators scattered and ran as the officers fired their automatic rifles into the air to stop them moving onto a strategic bridge that leads to the centre of Abidjan, the nation's main commercial city. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Chanting "Goodbye Gbagbo", the protesters had streamed out of a sports stadium in Abidjan's Treichville suburb where they had earlier held a noisy rally to demand that Gbagbo quit the presidency when his current term ends at midnight on Sunday. Opposition youth leaders had repeated threats to force Gbagbo out with street protests if he did not give up the leadership of the world's top cocoa producer, which was split in two by a 2002 civil war that created separate rebel and government zones. But Gbagbo, bolstered by a U.N peace plan that gives him up to 12 more months in office, says he will stay put until elections and had ordered his army to stifle any unrest. --More 1940 Local Time 1640 GMT
