When Yemen held parliamentary elections in 1997 Ahmed Ali Saleh, then aged 24, was a first-time candidate. Though new to politics, he won by a handsome margin – a victory that was no doubt helped by having his father, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and many of the ruling party's elite as voters...
Blog archive: Yemen
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11th December 2017
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5th December 2017Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been killed aged 75, held power in Yemen for almost 34 years – an extraordinary feat in one of the world’s most fractious countries. He likened his survival technique to “dancing on the heads of snakes” and his political career ended much as it had begun, in...
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28th September 2017The war in Yemen is one where western media coverage scarcely excels – as the Russian propaganda channel, RT, is quick to point out. But can RT do any better? To "clarify" the picture, RT called on Caleb Maupin, its "international correspondent", who gave what is surely the weirdest...
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22nd September 2017Viewed from outside, the war in Yemen is mainly a two-sided conflict between the "legitimate" government of President Hadi and the Houthi rebels backed by ex-President Saleh. But this fails to recognise the extent of Yemen's fragmentation since the outbreak of war, a former government minister...
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5th September 2017A public relations firm which became notorious for assisting dodgy regimes – including several in the Middle East – has finally got its comeuppance. London-based Bell Pottinger has been expelled from the PRCA (the trade body for "respectable" PR firms) for bringing the industry into...
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31st August 2017Writing about conflicts in the Middle East for the New York Times yesterday, columnist Thomas Friedman talked of "the power that is lost to a society like Syria or Iraq that needs an iron fist to make its many into one, and when that fist is removed, how the society fractures into small shards"....
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24th June 2017Burger King and Domino's Pizza have joined McDonalds in pledging allegiance to Saudi Arabia's new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. While McDonalds paid for a newspaper ad to announce its support (as I reported on Thursday), Burger King and Domino's have opted for a cost-free solution by...
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15th May 2017There are three possible outcomes to the war in Yemen: reconstruction as a single state, partition into two states – north and south – or fragmentation into multiple statelets. Of these, only a single state can offer some hope of a more secure future for the Yemeni people but the prospects for...
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9th May 2017For the last two years a Saudi-led coalition has been waging a war in Yemen to restore the "legitimate" government headed by Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. But that goal is now in doubt because Hadi's lacklustre performance has opened up a rift between Saudi Arabia and its key ally in the conflict,...
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27th March 2017Repeated bombing over the last two years by the Saudi-led coalition has brought the conflict in Yemen no closer to a solution. In the article below, HELEN LACKNER considers the unfolding disaster. Two years ago, on 26 March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition started aerial attacks...
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23rd February 2017When it comes to reporting the conflict in Yemen, Fox News is exceptionally bad. Fox has been fooling its viewers for years but now, with Donald Trump installed in the White House, the problem is becoming a more serious. Trump is a devotee of Fox News: it tells him what he wants to hear – about...
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16th February 2017For the second time in little more than four months the Saudi-led coalition has bombed a funeral gathering in Yemen. An airstrike yesterday hit a house where women had assembled to mourn the death of another woman. At least five of them were killed in the attack and dozens wounded, ...
