Yemen
Southern Yemeni Activists Prepare for Nationwide Rally
For the first time, a Million-Person Rally or milyuniyya will be held in Yemen’s oil-rich eastern province of Hadramawt. It is being called milyuniyyat al-huwiya al-junubiyya or the Million-Strong Rally for Southern Identity. The mass demonstration aims to unify all of the southern YemeniSeven Questions for Ammar Basha
Ammar Basha is a Yemeni filmmaker. His documentary films include Breaking the Silence [http://womensvoicesnow.org/watchfilm/breaking_the_silence1], about the discrimination faced by working women of African descent in Yemen, and a series called Days in the Heart of the Revolution, about the 2011 YemRomancing the Throne
President Barack Obama plans an overnight stay in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on March 28-29 for a rendezvous with King ‘Abdallah. The enduring but always strange bedfellows [http://merip.org/mer/mer220/decline-not-fall-us-hegemony-middle-east] have been quarreling of late over Saudi Arabia’s belligThe First International Yemeni Film and Arts Festival
March 18 was the third anniversary of what Yemeni “peaceful youth [http://merip.org/mer/mer269/demonstrators-dialogues-drones-dialectics]” call the Jum‘at al-Karama massacre, the day in 2011 when snipers opened fire on Friday of Dignity protesters in the space they had begun to call Midan al-TaghyirThe Middle East Despot's 13-Point Guide to Longevity and Prosperity
Only a few dictators are blessed with a security apparatus powerful enough to suppress any and all challenges to their rule. The wretched remainder have to turn to Machiavelli’s Il Principe -- a handy companion for political realists -- for answers to the question of how to forestall their otherwiseDemonstrators, Dialogues, Drones and Dialectics
In 2011 Yemenis shared a vision of revolutionary change with protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria demanding the downfall of cruel, corrupt presidential regimes. Today, like many of their cousins, the peaceful youth (shabab silmiyya) of Yemen face a counter-revolutionary maelstrom from withiSojourners and Settlers
The United States is a nation of common people from marginal environments. In spite of contemporary America’s preoccupation with coats of arms, few of our ancestors were the children of privilege. Nor did they come from lush plains or fecund valleys. More often it was the mountains and hill countrySojourners and Settlers: An Introduction
The full moon over Mecca marked the end of the holy month of pilgrimage. Ten thousand miles away in California, a Yemeni work crew gathered around a pickup truck with its precious cargo of sheep destined for sacrifice. A group of cowboys looked on, bewildered. These farmworkers are part of a two-decOf Bodies and Blank Notebooks
A man walks into a library and asks the librarian for a book on human rights in Saudi Arabia. The librarian hands him a blank notebook. A woman walks into a bookstore and asks for a tourist guide to Saudi Arabia. The bookseller hands her a blank notebook. A reporter walks into the Saudi embassy anThe Laryngitic Dog
Senate hearings to confirm John Brennan as the Obama administration’s appointment to be director of the CIA brought to light [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/06/cia-using-saudi-base-drone-yemen] a heretofore clandestine American military facility in Saudi Arabia near the kingdom’s border wi
A New Green Zone in Sanaa
Welcome to the Sanaa Sheraton! It’s now officially part of an expanded US Embassy estate that some are calling Yemen’s “Green Zone,” the plush, heavily guarded civilian headquarters for revised twenty-first-century “rules of engagement” in the Yemeni “theater.” It’s a risky place to stay.
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8 min read