Yemen Newsfeed

[Rusty Shackleford]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/414019...deastn_africa/

SANAA — More than 20,000 Yemenis filled the streets of Sanaa on Thursday for a "day of rage" rally, demanding a change in government and saying President Ali Abdullah Saleh's offer to step down in 2013 was not enough.
Further anti-government protests were expected across Yemen, which Saleh has ruled for more than three decades, and supporters of the president were driving around the capital urging Yemenis over loudspeakers to join pro-government counterdemonstrations.
But by early morning, anti-government protesters had already gathered the largest crowd since a wave of protests hit the Arabian Peninsula state two weeks ago, inspired by protests that toppled Tunisia's ruler and threaten Egypt's president.
"The people want regime change," protesters shouted as they gathered outside Sanaa University. "No to corruption, no to dictatorship."
Saleh, eyeing the unrest spreading in the Arab world, indicated on Wednesday he would leave office when his term ends in 2013, and promised his son would not take over the reins of government, among a host of other political concessions.
Video: Yemen's president won't seek re-election (on this page) It was his boldest gambit yet to stave off turmoil in Yemen, a key ally of the United States against al-Qaida, as he sought to avert a showdown with the opposition that might risk sparking an Egypt-style uprising in the deeply impoverished state.
Unsatisfied
Wael Mansour, an organizer of the Thursday rally, said Yemenis were not satisfied with Saleh's concessions.




"Today will bring more, fresh pressure on President Saleh, who will have to present further concessions to the opposition," he said, without specifying what those concessions might be.
The risks are high for Yemen, on the brink of becoming a failed state, as it tries to fight a resurgent al-Qaida wing, quell southern separatism, and cement peace with Shiite rebels in the north, all in the face of crushing poverty. One third of Yemenis face chronic hunger.
The United States relies heavily on Saleh to help combat al-Qaida's regional Yemen-based arm which also targets neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter. Instability in Yemen would present serious political and security risks for Gulf states.
However, new U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks Thursday said Saleh "appears to be muddling through a challenging situation" and is relying on a "shrinking leadership circle."
"The United States sees no real alternative to supporting Saleh," the document said. "The U.S. is nevertheless determined to send a very clear message on its future expectations while assistance will be conditionally based."
Slideshow: Yemen in the spotlight (on this page) Still, U.S. President Barack Obama telephoned Saleh to express support for his initiative, the state news agency Saba said. "You have handled the situation well, and I look forward to working with you in a good partnership between the two countries," it quoted Obama as saying.
The Obama administration welcomed Saleh's move Wednesday to reach out to political opponents.
But there are still fears that anti-government sentiment in the key U.S. counterterrorism ally could explode into unrest like that in other states like Egypt and Tunisia.
Administration officials told The Associated Press that Saleh's announcement was "positive" and "significant." They allowed that it remained to be seen whether Saleh would fulfill the pledges.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Princess Luna]

the good news is Saleh does not seem to be nearly as entrenched as Mubarak , so lets hope it goes quick and smooth.

[Rusty Shackleford]

AlJazeera is now showing video of Yemen. And, in the crowd i counted at least 4 posters of Che

[Tommy4ever]

What's the political landscape like in Yemen?

[Rakhmetov]

Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful

[apawllo]

looks like saleh is following mubarak's lead, and even learning from his mistakes. the pro-government side was out in full force today as well, and apparently armed. the anti-government side in yemen likely doesn't have the fearlessness that the egyptians have after 10 days of protest, fighting with cops, and so forth. maybe saleh sees this as a way to silence the opposition before they start and step back in to the fold by "popular demand."

[Rusty Shackleford]

which may lead to armed camps competing because civil protest is made dangerous by saleh.

[RadioRaheem84]

Yemen looks like it's people really want socialism. Every clip of a protestor I've heard has said the main goals are economic social justice!

[apawllo]

which may lead to armed camps competing because civil protest is made dangerous by saleh.

yeah, he'd have blood on his hands, but he'd also have the potential to still be in power. that's often the dilemma that leaders are placed in, isn't it? expecting them to make the right choice would be naive.

[Sentinel]

Stickied and renamed to be the newswire from Yemen -- please post breaking news here. Here's a CWI report that gives some background to the situation in this country (it's a couple of days old though):

Yemen

Poorest of the poor
www.socialistworld.net, 14/02/2011
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI
Nest of social and political problems lie behind the country’s turmoil
Khalid Bhatti, SMP (CWI Pakistan), Lahore

Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East and a largely tribal society with more problems than most. It has emerged as a new base for al-Qa’ida militants driven out of their traditional sanctuaries on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Yemen is also battling a secessionist movement in the south, an on-off rebellion in the north, and grinding poverty. Its oil reserves, which make up 70 percent of the government’s revenue, are dwindling and the nation relies on US aid. Nearly half of all Yemenis live below the poverty line and unemployment is at least 45 per cent.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom many analysts accuse of overseeing a corrupt regime that has failed to tackle economic grievances, has reacted to the unrest by backtracking on his plans to seek another term in 2013 and denying accusations that he will try to hand over power to his son. He has also promised to slash taxes and cap food prices and raise the salaries of civil servants and the military. In 2006 Mr Saleh won a seven-year term in Yemen’s first open presidential election. Observers said the poll was fair but opposition parties complained of vote rigging.
The government offered simple reforms including an increase in employees’ income, $20, and decreasing the income tax but corruption, slow and useless reforms, an increasing rate of unemployment and low income, have encouraged people in Yemen to follow the people in Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria, where the high levels of poverty are actually not as bad as in Yemen. Though many Yemenis share the same grievances and frustrations driving the upheavals in those countries, Yemen’s situation has distinct features. Activists are facing numerous obstacles, straddling political, social and economic fault lines, even as they gain courage and inspiration from the momentous events unfolding in the region.
Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, impoverished Yemen has a small middle class and a large uneducated and illiterate population. Social networking sites such as Facebook, that helped mobilise the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, are not widely used here. Yemen’s internal security apparatus is at least as sophisticated and deeply entrenched as in Egypt; the army is staunchly loyal to Saleh, as are powerful tribes in a country where tribal allegiance is more significant than national identity. The opposition, while strong in numbers, is divided in its goals.
"There is a popular movement and a political movement in Yemen," said Khaled al-Anesi, a lawyer and human rights activist who helped organise many of the recent protests. "But there is no support from the political parties for the popular movement, which is not organised. It is still weak and in the beginning stages".

The president and his backers

President Ali Abdullah Saleh came to power in 1978, first as president of North Yemen and then as leader of the newly united republic. North Yemen and the Democratic People’s Republic of Yemen (south), merged in 1990 but fought a nasty civil war in 1994. Saleh has marginalised political opposition groups and installed relatives and allies to key political, military and internal security posts maintaining an extensive informal patronage network of tribal leaders, businessmen and clerics.
At the beginning of January, President Saleh proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow him to stand for re-election in the next presidential ballot in two years’ time. However, events in Cairo and Tunisia made that move temporarily untenable and President Saleh has promised to stand aside in 2013. (He made a similar promise before the 2006 presidential election, but eventually reversed this position.)
After 30 years in power, he faces widespread anger, complaints of corruption and the concentration of power within his tribal sub-group, the Sanhan clan. Large areas of the country are already in open revolt against his regime, with a breakaway movement in the south, attacks on the security services by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and a de-facto semi-autonomous area under the control of northern rebels. Yemen has emerged as a new base for al-Qa’ida militants driven out of their traditional sanctuaries on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Western governments - worried about AQAP activity in Yemen and reluctant to deploy their own conventional military forces - are providing money and training to Yemen’s elite security and intelligence units. US special forces have helped to plan "track and kill" operations with the Yemeni military and the US has carried out several cruise missile strikes. President Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali, and three nephews command these elite security and intelligence units. The president denies he intends to hand power to his son, but many Yemenis still believe he favours an eventual transfer of power within his family.
Al Qaeda

If the simmering insurrection in Yemen boils over, it has potentially dire consequences for the United States. American officials have worked closely with Yemeni leaders to stop al Qaeda from turning the country into the kind of stronghold Afghanistan was before 9/11.Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who was an adviser to President Obama on the Afghanistan-Pakistan review, said a collapse of the government in Yemen would be a major blow in the fight against terrorism.
Al Qaeda has waged a successful propaganda war in Yemen, experts said, using government corruption and Saleh’s overtures to the United States to create unrest. Christopher Boucek, a Yemen specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "We need to support the Yemeni government while they make changes but they need to make changes.”
The terrorist group merged in Saudi Arabia and Yemen to form a single organization in early 2009. It calls itself al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has emerged as the group’s leader. Al-Awlaki, an American of Yemeni decent, is believed to be hiding in Yemen.
He is the only American on the CIA’s list of important targets to apprehend or kill. Boucek said the people of Yemen are justifiably angry at the Saleh government. "You look at Yemen and you have a very wealthy elite in control and everybody else. Most of the population gets by on a dollar a day," he said.
That creates a dilemma for the United States, experts said -- continue to back a corrupt government in an effort to deny al Qaeda a key base, or deal with the inevitable chaos if that government collapses.
The current government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is corrupt, despotic, and presently fighting northern Shiites and separatist-minded southerners. Saleh’s government has limited influence outside of the capital. “Whoever runs the place,” according to The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn, has to contend with “tribal confederations, tribes, clans, and powerful families. Almost everybody has a gun, usually at least an AK-47 assault rifle, but tribesmen often own heavier armaments.”
To make things even more complex, Yemen’s northern neighbour, Saudi Arabia, has sent troops and warplanes to back up Saleh. The Saleh government and the Saudis claim the Shia uprising is being directed by Iran - there is no evidence to back up the charge - thus escalating a local civil war to a regional face-off between Riyadh and Teheran. According to Reuters, “The conflict in Yemen’s northern mountains has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands.” Aid groups put the number of refugees at 150,000.

US imperialism’s interests

The U.S. is already in Yemen, and was so even before the attempted bombing on Christmas Day last year of a Northwest Airlines flight by a young Nigerian. For most Americans, Yemen first appeared on their radar screens when the USS Cole was attacked in the port of Aden by al-Qaeda in 2000, killing 17 sailors. It reappeared this past November when a U.S. Army officer linked to a Muslim cleric in Yemen killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Colorado. The Christmas Day attacker said he was trained by al-Qaeda, and the group took credit for the failed operation.
But U.S. involvement in Yemen goes back almost 40 years. In 1979, the Carter Administration blew a minor border incident between north and south Yemen into a full-blown East - West crisis, accusing the USSR of aggression. The White House dispatched an aircraft carrier and several warships to the Arabian Sea, and sent tanks, armoured personal carriers and warplanes to the North Yemen government.
The tension between the two Yemens was hardly accidental. According to UPI, the CIA funnelled $4 million a year to Jordan’s King Hussein to help brew up a civil war between the conservative North and the wealthier and so-called socialist south.
The merger between the two countries never quite took hold. Southern Yemenis complain that the north plunders its oil and wealth and discriminates against southerners. Demonstrations and general strikes by the Southern Movement demanding independence have increased over the past year. The Saleh government has generally responded with clubs, tear gas and guns.
When Yemen refused to back the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraq from Kuwait, the U.S. cancelled $70 million in foreign aid to Sanaa and supported a decision by Saudi Arabia to expel 850,000 Yemeni workers. Both moves had a catastrophic impact on the Yemeni economy that played a major role in initiating the current instability gripping the country.
In 2002 the Bush administration used armed drones to assassinate several Yemenis it accused of being al-Qaeda members. The New York Times reported that the Obama administration launched a cruise missile attack on December 17 at suspected al-Qaeda members that, according to Agence France Presse, killed 49 civilians, including 23 children and 17 women. The attack has sparked widespread anger throughout Yemen that al-Qaeda organisers have heavily exploited.
So is the current uproar over Yemen a case of a U.S. administration over-reacting and stumbling into yet another quagmire in the Middle East? Or is this talk about a “global danger” just a smokescreen to allow the Americans to prop up the increasingly isolated and unpopular regime in Saudi Arabia?
The game in play is considerably larger than the Arabian Peninsula and may have more to do with the control of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea than with hunting down al-Qaeda in the Yemeni wilderness.
The Asia Times’ M.K. Bhadrakumar, a career Indian diplomat who served in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Pakistan and Turkey, argues that the current U.S. concern with Yemen is actually about the strategic port of Aden. “Control of Aden and the Malacca Straits will put the U.S. in an unassailable position in the ‘Great Game’ of the Indian Ocean,” he writes.
Aden controls the strait of Bab el-Mandab, the entrance to the Red Sea through which passes 3.5 million barrels of oil a day. The Malacca Straits, between the southern Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, is one of the key passages that link the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
“Energy security” has been at the heart of U.S. foreign policy for decades. The 1980’s “Carter Doctrine” made it explicit that the U.S. would use military force if its energy supplies were ever threatened. Whether the administration was Republican or Democrat made little difference when it came to controlling gas and oil supplies, and the greatest concentration of U.S. military forces is in the Middle East, where 60 percent of the world’s energy supplies lie.
Except for using Special Forces and supplying weapons, it is unlikely that the U.S. will intervene in a major way in Yemen. But through military aid it can exert a good deal of influence over the Sanaa government, including extracting rights for its bases.
The White House has elevated the 200 or so “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” members in Yemen into what the President calls a “serious problem,” and there are dark hints that the country is on its way to becoming a “failed state,” the green light for a more robust intervention. However, as Jon Alterman, Middle East Director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, argues, “The problems in Yemen are not fundamentally problems that military operations can solve.”

Arab autocracy under threat

Tawakel Karman, a female activist who has led several protests in Sanaaa, said on being released from detention:"We will continue until the fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime". She explained that the ’Southern Movement’ in the south, the (Shia) Huthi rebels in the north and the parliamentary opposition are all calling for political change.
As Arab Royals and Arab “Presidents” peep through their palace windows, watching their nations’ unemployed and disenchanted use cell phones and laptops to communicate their daily struggles on Facebook and Twitter, a cold and forceful breeze can be felt in backstreet bazaars, university campuses and palace corridors. The breeze’s scent is not that of leather furniture and new money but rather the aroma of old suitcases and travel trunks. Could this be the end of Arab autocracy? Only time will tell.
Yemen is a country slightly smaller than France with a population of 22 million - perching on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the poorest country in the region, with one of the most explosive birthrates in the world. Unemployment hovers above 40 percent and projections are that its oil - which makes up 70 percent of its GDP - will run out in 2017, as will water supplies for the capital, Sanaa, in 2015.
Yemen’s economy depends heavily on oil production, and its government receives the vast majority of its revenue from oil taxes. Yet analysts predict that the country’s petroleum output, which has declined over the last seven years, will fall to zero by 2017. The government has done little to plan for its post-oil future. Yemen’s population, already the poorest on the Arabian peninsula, is expected to double by 2035. An incredible 45% of Yemen’s population is under the age of 15 and nearly 70% is less than 24. These trends will exacerbate large and growing environmental problems, including the exhaustion of Yemen’s groundwater resources. Given that a full 90% of the country’s water is used for agriculture, this trend portends disaster.
Yemen’s population has tripled since 1975 and will double again by 2035. Without a transformation of its economy through state ownership and democratic planning state revenue is forecast to decline to zero by 2017 and the capital city of Sanaaa will run out of water by 2015 - partly because 40% of Sanaaa’s water is pumped illegally in the outskirts to irrigate the narcotic ’qat’ crop.
A governmental report has revealed that there are about 1.4 million Yemeni children still outside education and unable to attend schools. The report, issued recently by the Supreme Council for Education Planning says this will mean a doubling of the number of illiterate people in the country. Widespread poverty forces parents to withdraw their children from first school grades and push them into the labour market, the report explained.

[Crux]

Yemen

A growing and unifying mass opposition movement

www.socialistworld.net, 22/02/2011
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI
“The president wants to get rid of the people!”
A Yemeni socialist

Monday 21 February saw the 11th day of the mass opposition struggle in Yemen. The movement is growing and unifying. Friday 18th February was called a “start-up-Friday” all over the country, meaning the movement will not end until President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his regime are overthrown.
On 17 February, all the ex-leaders of the south of Yemen advised the “southern movement” to join the rest of the protesters in calling for the down fall of the regime.
In Aden, since this announcement the movement has been growing. This in contrast to the first days of the protests, when there were two separate mass demonstrations in Aden, with one if the protests calling for self-determination for the south. Underlining this developing unity, a soldier in the capital, Sanaa, who joined the movement, spoke at a mass meeting on Monday morning, 21 February: “I will not serve under a regime that send us to fight a pointless war – six civil wars in six years – my brothers in the forces are eager to join you”.



In Taiz, the third biggest city in Yemen, about ten thousand people have been staying in Freedom Square, sleeping at night and protesting at day – for eleven days now.
On Saturday 19 February, the protesters in Taiz were attacked by grenades thrown at them from a land cruiser which is owned by the local governor. The governor is a wealthy businessman, a member of parliament and a leader of the party of president Saleh. After the assault, thousands of people joined the protesters and formed committees of defence.


In Aden, two protesters were killed, 18 wounded and hundreds arrested on Wednesday 16 February, in an attempt to crush the movement. Armed vehicles and tanks moved around the city, setting up checkpoints. People nonetheless protested after Friday prayer and continued into the night, as part of ‘Start-up-Friday’. On Saturday, the armed forces completely seized the city, blocking anyone from entering or leaving.
In Shiehk Othman, a township in Aden, the population revolted. Two city councillors resigned and joined the movement. A police station and the local office of the president’s party were burned down. The army responded ferociously, forcing families to leave their houses, to use them as human shields, and as high ground for snipers. Four people were killed in Shiehk Othman. No journalists are allowed into Aden’s hospitals, so the number of injured is not known.
“Loyalty festival’

The same night, the president’s party organised a “loyalty festival” in Sanaa. After being hailed by a number of propagandists, the president gave a speech but with no real intent to win over the people. He apologised for the deaths in Aden and Taiz and for the student who was killed in Sanaa and then the president promised “fundamental change”. He said, “We have to solve this through constitutional dialogue”, meaning he wants to contain and derail the mass movement. People on the streets responded, saying: “The president wants to get rid of the people!”
The enormous strength of the ever-growing movement is shown by the positions taken by the Muslim leaders. During the first days of the demonstrations, they said that protesters would “go to hell”. Now they say the thugs attacking peaceful protesters will go to hell. Pro-bourgeois leaders are also adapting, for example providing some food and tents to protesters via NGOs. But they still want to have a foot in each camp, as they are confident about the final outcome of the struggle. Hussein al-Ahmar, a well-known tribe leader, gave a message saying he would ‘protect’ protesters from thugs, if the government cannot guarantee the safety of the protesters.



The movement in Yemen is encouraged by the news of protests in neighbouring Bahrain, Oman and Djibouti. But there are discussions and fears about role of Saudi Arabia and the US. The movement still has the upper hand – all 22 provinces have seen protests. The regime is near the edge and can collapse. But what is needed is organisation for the masses and clear ideas of how to fight feudalism, capitalism and imperialism. There are already lessons to be drawn from Tunisia and Egypt, about the decisive role of the working class in achieving the removal of despots, as well as the threat from the counter-revolution and the role of the “opposition leaders” that want to derail the revolutionary movements. Needed most urgently is a mass party of the working masses and poor that will strive to take power to secure all their democratic and social demands.

[Crux]

Yemen

Huge demonstrations against regime

www.socialistworld.net, 02/03/2011
website of the committee for a workers' international, CWI
Mass anger after 20 killed by security forces
A Yemini socialist

Tuesday 1 March saw the biggest demonstrations, so far, in the mass opposition movement in Yemen, even larger then last Friday. One million people participated in Sanaa and Ibb respectively. Around 300,000 took part in Aden, despite the ongoing military seige and checkpoints in the city. 500,000 demonstrated in Taiz, 200,000 in Mukalla and thousands in many other cities.
The preparations for Friday’s mobilisations took place under different names. In Sana’a, it was ‘The unification Friday’, in Taiz ‘The stand-up Friday’ and in Aden, ‘Resistance Friday’.
The response from the regime included banning Al-Jazeera’s from ‘Change Square’ in front of Sana’a university. They also paid a mob in Tahrir square to praise president Saleh and to demand so-called “stability” in the country. A similar attempt in Aden failed completely. Here the security forces used brutal force. Shotguns and even anti-aircraft arms were used against peaceful protesters. Twenty people were killed and more than 80 people injured. Eighteen reporters from local media were arrested in Aden last Friday. Some were released on Sunday but others are still held in custody. After this massacre, even the UN and the British foreign minister were forced to make hypocritical criticism of the use of live ammunition, calling for the president to listen to the people.



Because of the events in Aden, last Saturday, an influential member of the president’s party and the head of one of the strongest clans in Yemen, Hussein Al-Ahmar of Hashed, resigned from the party in front of 200,000 people from his clan. He announced he was joining youth in their struggle against the regime. He added that neither he nor his rich and influential brothers would run for president.
On Saturday also, 150 employees of the presidential office and palace went on strike, demanding an immediate end to corruption, arbitrary firing and hiring, and demanding wages that have not been paid for the last three months. The strike grew to 400 workers. They also demand the resignation of the head of the president’s office and the right to form a trade union.



On Monday, Hameed Al-Ahmar advised the president, before Tuesday’s Day of Anger, “to work effectively and to appoint a president from the south”. He wanted the opposition to support this proposal. The people’s comment to this statement was “No to appointed presidents - Yes for the people’s righteousness!”
An attempt was also made on Monday to unleash counter-revolution in Hudidah, a city well-known for sporting activities, but this failed. Two ministers were sent by the president to hire youth to act as thugs against the people protesting in the city square for five days. After failing the pay the thugs, however, the mayor resigned and the youth joined the protesters!
No to deals with the regime!

Tuesday 1 March witnessed the biggest mass demonstrations so far, in almost every Yemeni city. The main slogans, “People want the downfall of the regime” and “Peacefully, we will overthrow the regime”. Only in Taiz was there successful repression against a demonstration. The whole city was besieged by military checkpoints, where soldiers demanded from people ‘loyalty’ to the president.
On Tuesday afternoon, the president gave a speech in which he accused his allies in the White House, “aiming to take down the Islamic-Arabic systems, running the operation in a room from Tel Aviv”. But the Yemeni people know that he is lying through his teeth, changing the colour of his political rhetoric faster than a chameleon. In September 2010, the same president allowed the US air force to make strikes in Yemen, supposedly against “Islamic terrorists”, which killed 60 civilians, of which 18 were children.



Alongside the revolutionary movement now developing in Yemen, there are now attempts by pro-capitalist forces (a so-called “Wise Committee”) and the ‘official’ opposition to cut some kind of deal with the regime. However, ‘youth revolutionary committees’ rejected proposals from these forces for talks regarding “political reforms”.
The revolution in Yemen continues to gain momentum. Already, five generals have declared they have joined the masses. The key to splitting and neutralising the army, to overthrow the regime, is to win over rank and file soldiers, by creating democratically run committees in the armed forces.



Committees of workers and youth have been formed; these need to be organised on a democratic basis, and linked at all levels. To successfully back the courageous determination of the masses, it is necessary for the organised masses to discuss how to get rid of the regime and what kind of system should replace the present one. The struggle is for democratic rights, but also against corruption, feudalism, capitalism and imperialism.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Protestors claim attacks by Army forces

[Os Cangaceiros]

US to American citizens: gtfo of Yemen!

The State Department is warning Americans not to travel to Yemen, urges those currently in the country to consider leaving, and authorizes the families of embassy staff and nonessential personnel to leave.

In a travel warning issued Sunday morning, the department also said that “should a crisis occur, evacuation options from Yemen would be extremely limited due to the lack of infrastructure, geographic constraints, and other security concerns.”
The missive adds, “The security threat level in Yemen is extremely high due to terrorist activities and civil unrest.”

http://www.nationaljournal.com/natio...yemen-20110306

[Os Cangaceiros]

Four soldiers killed by suspected Al Qaeda gunmen

[Os Cangaceiros]

Don't know if anyone's been following the situation in Yemen, but the intensity of the protests seems to be growing, not shrinking...tens of thousands went out into the streets yesterday.

Authorities open fire on protestors in Yemen.

[Volcanicity]

Four protesters including a 12-year-old schoolboy were killed in fresh bloodshed in Yemen on Saturday, as clashes between police and anti-regime demonstrators raged across the country.

Security forces in the impoverished country, a key US ally in the war against Al Qaeda, fired bullets and tear gas at demonstrators camping at University Square, killing one and wounding many more, protest organisers said.

A sniper shot dead another man as he walked with a group of demonstrators to the square, an opposition party member said.
Police shot dead the schoolboy in the southeastern city of Mukalla as they tried to disperse a student demonstration, witnesses and medics said.

And another protester was later killed as police opened fire to disperse a demonstration in the southern port city of Aden, where several anti-regime marches were held, medical and security sources said.

"Five demonstrators were wounded by police gunfire and one of them has died of his injuries," said an official at the city's Dorrat al-Dar hospital.

The violence comes a day after 14 protesters were wounded in protests across the country, which is already battling secessionist unrest, a Shiite sectarian rebellion and jihadists from Al-Qaeda's Arabian Peninsula offshoot.
More than 30 protesters were shot with live rounds in Sanaa's University Square, and hundreds more suffered injuries including loss of consciousness and spasms from breathing gases, medics said.

The dawn assault targeted demonstrators who had breached a concrete police barrier at the square, where activists have been staging a sit-in for almost three weeks to demand the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saleh has insisted he will see out his term until 2013 while offering to devolve power to parliament after a referendum on a new constitution this year.

The United States has applauded the offer, with US President Barack Obama's top anti-terror advisor, John Brennan, on Friday calling on the Yemeni opposition to "respond constructively," according to a White House statement.

Opposition groups had already dismissed the promise of constitutional change and have vowed to escalate protests until Saleh, in power since 1978, resigns.

Parts of Sanaa resembled a battleground as people passed out in the street and convulsed after inhaling gas fired at the demonstrators.
"This isn't tear gas. This is poison gas that disables the nervous and respiratory systems. People hit by this gas pass out," said Iraqi doctor Hussein al-Joshaai, a nerve specialist who was at the scene.

Another doctor, Abdulwahab al-Inssi, said: "Those wounded today couldn't have been hit by tear gas grenades. They are suffering spasms."
The interior ministry denied the allegations as "baseless slander."
It accused protesters of opening fire at security forces who had tried to prevent clashes between demonstrators and residents near the square. It said 161 police were injured.

Street battles raged all morning as security forces blocked roads to the square and prevented ambulances from evacuating casualties, protest organisers said.

A security official said police were not planning to storm the sit-in, only "return the demonstration to its size of yesterday because the expansion of the sit-in has disturbed residents."

US ambassador Gerald M. Feierstein described Saturday's clashes as "dangerous."
"As the tension grows, as the positions of the two sides harden, the possibility for conflict grows. We consider this to be dangerous, we consider this not to be in the interest of the Yemeni people," he told journalists.

The way forward was not through anarchy and chaos but "dialogue and negotiation," he told reporters in Sanaa.

He also reiterated Washington's concerns that Al-Qaeda militants based in Yemen's unruly tribal areas could capitalise on the instability.
"Of course we believe that the uncertainty and instability is helpful to Al-Qaeda and some of the extremist groups," he said.

US special forces troops are in Yemen helping to train anti-terror forces as the country struggles to contain Al-Qaeda's local offshoot -- described by a State Department official as the biggest threat to the US homeland.

More than 30 people have been killed since the unrest erupted in late January, amid a tide of pro-democracy protests that have gripped the region, toppling regimes in Egypt and Tunisia and sparking an armed revolt in Libya.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20110312...e-b04fc5e.html

[Volcanicity]

Two anti-regime protesters died in Yemen on Sunday, a day after police shot them in the head, a medic said, raising the death toll to seven from demonstrations against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The two succumbed to wounds after "being shot in the head" in the southern city of Aden, said the medic, adding four other demonstrators were in a critical condition after also being shot in the head.
On Saturday, two other protesters were killed in Aden, one by police when they opened fire to disperse a demonstration and the other when demonstrators set fire to a police station in the city.

A medical official said Saturday hundreds of angry people had set ablaze the police station to protest the death of the protester earlier in the day. Several people were also wounded by gunfire, he said.

Elsewhere, a 12-year-old schoolboy was shot dead when police opened fire at a demonstration of students in the southeastern city of Mukalla.
And two other people died in the capital Sanaa on Saturday, one as police attacked demonstrators in University Square, where anti-government protesters have been staging a sit-in since February 21.

The other was shot dead by a sniper while walking to the square with a group of protesters.

Two doctors at the scene in Sanaa said that toxic gas, rather than ordinary tear gas had been used against the protesters, a claim dismissed as slander by the authorities.

The European Union, Britain and the United Nations condemned the brutal crackdown.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Saleh's government to honour promises he had made this week to protect demonstrators and uphold their right to free assembly.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20110313...u-383fe17.html.

[Volcanicity]

Dozens of people were wounded on Sunday in fresh clashes between anti-regime protesters and security forces in Yemen, as the death toll from weekend violence climbed to seven.

Police and loyalists of the ruling General People's Congress party attacked protesters occupying University Square with live gunfire and tear gas, wounding dozens, witnesses said.

Six demonstrators were shot in the head during bloody clashes with police overnight in the southern city of Aden, with two dying of their wounds, medical sources said.

Witnesses said police sharp-shooters fired on demonstrators from rooftops in the city, where a police station was set ablaze in a night of bloody unrest.

The deaths brought the toll since Saturday to seven as pro-democracy opposition groups and students escalated their campaign to oust autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh after 32 years in power.

Britain, the European Union and the United Nations condemned the crackdown in the impoverished country, where US special forces are helping train local units engaged against Al-Qaeda's offshoot in the Arabian Peninsula.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the "excessive use of force" against peaceful demonstrators and urged all sides to engage in dialogue, his spokesman said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement released late Saturday the violence against demonstrators was "unacceptable" and called on all British citizens to leave the country.

"This is in direct contradiction to the president?s recent announcement on constitutional reform and fresh elections, which we have welcomed," Hague said in a statement.

In a speech to tens of thousands of people at Sanaa's stadium on Thursday, Saleh promised to protect protesters from violence and offered to hold a referendum on a new constitution which would devolve power to parliament.

The United States, which sees Saleh as a pillar of stability in the deeply tribal nation, has welcomed the gesture but Yemen's parliamentary opposition says the president has lost all credibility and must resign this year.

European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton slammed Saturday's violent crackdown on protesters in Sanaa, as the toll from weeks of unrest rose to around 40.

She urged the government to stand by Saleh's promises to protect demonstrators and uphold their right to free assembly.

"Urgent, concrete and credible measures are now needed to meet the aspirations of the Yemeni people," she said, adding all sides must "embark on a meaningful and genuine dialogue process."

In the capital Sanaa, thousands more demonstrators demanding democratic reform, jobs and an end to corruption poured into University Square overnight despite fierce clashes there on Saturday in which one person was killed.

The square has become a cauldron of dissent since and a pro-democracy tent city was established there on February 21.

Streets to the square were blocked with tents earlier Sunday, many flying flags and other symbols denoting the provinces of demonstrators who have come from around the country to join the opposition movement.

More than 30 protesters were wounded by the gunfire and tear gas on Saturday morning as police tried to push the campers back into the heart of the square.

On Friday, 14 protesters were wounded in demonstrations across the country, which is already battling secessionist unrest and a Shiite sectarian rebellion.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20110313...n-b04fc5e.html.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQONtb-sgYY.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Governor of Yemeni northeast province of Marib was stabbed in the chest while he was trying to break up anti-government protests on Monday, a local security official told Xinhua.

nothing more to read here