Archive: yemen

5th February 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
Chatham House, the foreign affairs thinktank, has issued a progress report on Yemen's post-Saleh transition – though I'm not sure "progress" is the right word to describe it. "With attention focused on the National Dialogue process," it says, "the transition government is paying insufficient… Read more
30th January 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
Saudi journalist Faheem al-Hamid seems to be having an interesting time in Yemen. Following his hilarious interview the other day with ex-president Salih, Hamid has now had a close encounter with the ex-president's ex-trousers. The remains of the trousers – which Saleh was wearing at the time of… Read more
28th January 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
Gaddafi is dead, Mubarak is in jail, Ben Ali is in exile but Yemen's former dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is living comfortably at home – thanks to a vote in parliament which gave him immunity from prosecution – and he has been talking about his new life as "a normal Yemeni citizen". In an… Read more
15th January 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
Since 2004 the Yemeni government has waged a series of wars against the so-called Houthi rebels in the far north of the country, close to the Saudi border. This conflict is currently in abeyance but a long-term solution will be needed if Yemen is to undergo a successful political transition. In the… Read more
15th January 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
There is no doubt that southern Yemenis had a raw deal under President Ali Abdullah Saleh – though they were by no means alone in that. There is also no doubt that southern grievances and aspirations will have to be addressed in the forthcoming National Dialogue if Yemen's political transition is… Read more
14th January 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
Yemen has become the focus for "two quite different and fundamentally contradictory phenomena", Sheila Carapico, an American political scientist, told the London conference on Yemen last week. One of them is an uprising for social justice and and the other is "a not-so-covert military intervention… Read more
11th January 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
A two-day academic conference on the future of Yemen opened in London on Friday. Organised by the London Middle East Instituteand the British-Yemeni Society, it comes at a timely moment as Yemen prepares for its national dialogue – a key step in the country's political transition plan. The London… Read more
2nd January 2013
By: Brian Whitaker
Killers on motorcycles were responsible for the murders of 40 military and security officers and four civilians in Yemen during 2012, the interior ministry said yesterday. A further 21 military officers and nine civilians were injured in attacks involving motorcycles: "Most of the motorcycle-used… Read more
18th December 2012
By: Brian Whitaker
One of the more intriguing and unexpected consequences of the fall of President Saleh in Yemen is that the national pastime of chewing qat has begun to be seriously challenged. An ambitious plan presented to parliament last week seeks to eradicate qat from Yemen by 2033. Politically, the idea of… Read more
12th December 2012
By: Brian Whitaker
Ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh continues to haunt the political scene in Yemen, more than nine months after being ousted from office. In the latest confrontation, Saleh's eldest son, Ahmed, is refusing to hand over long-range Scud missiles to the defence ministry, Reuters reports. Ahmed, a… Read more