Blog archive all
Last Thursday Yemen's southern separatists sent a letter to the UN Security Council and to the foreign ministers of all EU member states. Written in flawless English, it set out their grievances and demanded "credible southern representation" in political processes aimed at ending the four-… Read more
On Saturday, after four days of armed clashes, separatist forces seized control of Aden – the "temporary" capital of Yemen's internationally-recognised government. They appear to have met little resistance in taking over military camps, the home of the interior minister and, most symbolically, the… Read more
Fighting between rival militias in Yemen's anti-Houthi coalition is continuing for a third day, according to reports this morning from the southern city of Aden.
The clashes which broke out on Wednesday involve southern separatists on one side and supporters of Yemen's ousted but internationally… Read more
Dozens of northern Yemenis living in the southern city of Aden have been "deported" back to the north during the last few days, according to local media reports. Forces of the Emirati-trained Security Belt are said to have raided homes, shops and markets, rounding up northerners.
The anti-… Read more
The Arabia Foundation, a pro-Saudi think tank established in Washington only two-and-a-half years ago suddenly closed down yesterday, citing "ongoing differences" among its donors that have "made continued operations difficult".
In a series of posts on Twitter the organisation's founder, Ali… Read more
A new team to identify the perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria is now "fully operational", the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced last week. However, the creation of the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) has already caused a rift within… Read more
Before the war in Syria few people had heard of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and even fewer had any idea what it did. It was one of those obscure international bodies populated by anonymous technocrats, and obscurity suited it well. The general lack of interest meant it… Read more
The point of diplomatic cables, and the cause of excitement when they are leaked, is that they are meant to be private – from which we might assume they contain information that is not generally known and is perhaps too interesting to be shared with the public.
Sadly, that wasn't the case with a… Read more
After a lengthy silence the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has revealed some interesting new details about a controversial internal document that surfaced recently on the internet.
The document in question was an “engineering assessment” relating to the OPCW’s… Read more
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has now published a response to Russian and Syrian criticisms of the investigative work done by its Fact-Finding Mission (FFM).
On 1 March, the FFM issued a report which found “reasonable grounds” for believing a toxic chemical had… Read more