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Showcasing democracy
by Brian Whitaker
Originally published in Middle East International,2 July, 1999
YEMEN has begun the window-dressing for its first direct presidential election. With polling just three months away - on September 28 - no serious candidates have yet emerged from the shadows,…
Kidnappers' call to London imam
Leader of Supporters of Shariah tells Arabic language magazine he was called an hour after 16 Western tourists were seized in Yemen
by Rory Carroll and Brian Whitaker
Originally published in The Guardian, 14 January 1999
NEWS of the kidnap of 16 Westerners was…
National unity and democracy in Yemen: a marriage of inconvenience
by Brian Whitaker
Conference paper delivered at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 25 November, 1995
WHEN NORTH and south Yemen united on 22 May 1990, they also democratised. To understand subsequent…
Row with Britain
by Brian Whitaker
Originally published in Middle East International,15 January 1999
THE KIDNAPPING of 16 western tourists - 12 of them British - inYemen on December 28 sparked a full-scale diplomatic row between London and Sana'a.
Britain complained that it was not informed in…
Yemen's north tightens grip
by Brian Whitaker
Originally published in The Guardian, 15 June 1994
PRESIDENT Ali Abdullah Saleh is already boasting of his place in military history; how his campaign to reunify Yemen will become a model studied in textbooks. Such talk may be premature but his success…
by Brian Whitaker
Originally published in Middle East International,9 January, 2004
YEMENI AUTHORITIES have apparently gleaned valuable information from the interrogation of a senior al-Qaeda suspect who was arrested last month.
Saudi-born Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal is said to have admitted planning,…
New trial threat
by Brian Whitaker
Originally published in Middle East International,12 March 1999
THE LONDON-BASED imam, Abu Hamza al-Masri, has issued a new threat on behalf of the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan. It warns the British and American ambassadors to leave Yemen and says that if they stay…
Clear-out at the top
by Brian Whitaker
Originally published in Middle East International,20 April, 2001
IN YEMEN'S biggest government clear-out for years, President Ali Abdullah Salih has replaced his prime prime minister and more than half the cabinet.
The new prime minister, 55-year-old Abd al-…
"Joint Goals" proposal
Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire plan proposed by US envoy Anthony Zinni on 26 March 2002 - full text
NOTE: This is the full text of a ceasefire plan - the "Joint Goals" proposal - put to Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on 26 March 2002 by the US special envoy, Anthony…
Islamist kidnap
by Brian Whitaker
Originally published in Middle East International,14 September, 2001
THE apparently routine abduction of a German diplomat in Yemen has turned into one of the longest and oddest kidnappings in a kidnap-prone country.
Rainer Berns, a 55-year-old commercial attache…
ARAB ART ONLINE: Susan Hefuna: Al Sabr Gamil (Patience is Beautiful) 2007. Ink stained on wood 140 x 170 cm. More information | Click to enlarge
