Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Yemen leader postpones US trip as pressure mounts
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
"President Ali Abdullah Saleh has decided to postpone a visit to the United States... scheduled for late February due to the current developments in the region," an official in his office said, quoted by state news agency Saba.
The two countries would to set a new date, the statement added.
The Yemeni opposition meanwhile agreed to resume talks suspended since October with the government, as pressure rose on the regime in the wake of protests calling for the president's overthrow.
The Common Forum, an alliance of parliamentary opposition groups, is "ready to sign a framework agreement this week... on (resuming) the national dialogue," it said, in a statement received by AFP.
It said the draft deal calls for the formation of a unity government and the inclusion in the dialogue of the secessionist Southern Movement, the Shiite rebels of northern Yemen and opposition members in exile.
Talks would resume from the point at which they were suspended on October 31, said the Common Forum, grouping Al-Islah (Reform), which is Yemen's main Islamist opposition, the Yemeni Socialist Party and other smaller factions.
"We urge the authorities to learn a lesson from what happened in Tunisia and Egypt," where massive revolts by the people forced out their respective leaders, it said.
The opposition warned of a "popular uprising" in Yemen, a country they said was weighed down by "corruption, poverty, unemployment, repression, injustice and tyranny."
Protests similar to those that brought down leaders in Tunisia and Egypt have been held in Yemen since mid-January calling for Saleh to step down.
On Sunday, riot police used batons to disperse a protest by an estimated 2,000 demonstrators in Sanaa, injuring a woman and making 10 arrests, according to witnesses.
Police also used batons in the southern city of Taez to break up a protest in the main square, arresting 120 demonstrators, participants told AFP.
The Common Forum urged Saleh to prove his goodwill by dismissing his family members and relatives holding top posts in institutions such as the Yemeni army, police, government and regional councils.
Under opposition pressure to stand down, Saleh, in power for 32 years, said on February 2 his son would not succeed him.
He also announced a freeze on constitutional amendments that could have enabled him to stay in office for life.
And the president put off a controversial plan to hold an April election without a promised dialogue on reform.
He has appealed for an end to street protests.
But later on Sunday, hundreds took to the streets in Crater, a district of the main southern city of Aden, protesting against dialogue with Saleh's regime and calling for its overthrow, witnesses told AFP.
"No dialogue, no talks," they chanted. "The people want to topple the regime." "Out, out, Ali."
A security official said: "Security services did not stop them but were heavily deployed to prevent riots and vandalism."
Elected to a seven-year term in September 2006, Saleh has urged the opposition to resume dialogue aimed at forging a government of national unity.
The current parliament's term was extended by two years to April under a February 2009 agreement between the ruling General People's Congress and the opposition to allow time for dialogue on political reform.
But the talks have stalled since the government decided to hold a legislative election on April 27 without waiting for the dialogue process to run its course.
And a special committee set up to oversee reform has met only once.
Besides poverty and unemployment in the Arab world's poorest country, Saleh's government is grappling a secessionist movement in the south, rebellion in the north and a regrouping of Al-Qaeda on its soil.
Source: http://yhoo.it/eHOFfO
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Yemen told: 'Reform or al-Qaida wins'
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
Yemen must undertake urgent political reform to counter the mounting threat posed by al-Qaida militants who are using the country as a base to launch terror attacks against Britain, according to William Hague, Britain's foreign secretary.
As Mr Hague arrived for talks with President Ali Abdullah Saleh on the third stage of his emergency five-nation tour of North Africa and the Middle East, tens of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets in protest at Yemen's autocratic government.
Earlier in the week Mr Saleh, who has ruled the country for 32 years, announced his intention to stand down in 2013, and confirmed he would not allow his son to succeed him. But, amid concern that unrest could spread in a country regarded as a key Western ally in the war against Islamist-inspired terrorism, Mr Hague urged the president to undertake long-promised reforms.
"The problems of Yemen are a vital issue for us in foreign and security policy," Mr Hague said following a lunchtime discussion with Mr Saleh at the presidential palace. "Economic and political reform are crucial to the long-term stability of Yemen.
"Yemen is a long-standing ally in fighting international terrorism and it is here, in Yemen, that reform in the Arab world can begin."
British security officials thwarted a major terror attack at the end of last year when they discovered a bomb at East Midlands airport among the cargo of a plane en route from the Gulf to Chicago.
Intelligence experts concluded the bomb had been made by al-Qaida terrorists in Yemen, who regularly declare their determination to attack British targets in messages broadcast on the Internet. Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior al-Qaida figure blamed for several recent terrorist attacks, maintains close links to al-Qaida from his Yemen base.
British intelligence officials remain concerned that Yemen is not doing enough to tackle the mounting threat posed by al-Qaida militants. It is estimated there is a hard-core of around 300 militants associated with al-Qaida in the region. Although Yemen's security forces have lost hundreds of soldiers fighting al-Qaida groups predominantly based in the south-east of the country, Western intelligence experts believe the government could still do more to counter the al-Qaida threat. "The Yemeni government is not taking as effective action as it could against the al-Qaida threat," said a senior intelligence official in Yemen.
"What they need to do is give them a good whacking."
Mr Hague had flown to Yemen from Jordan, where he had a private dinner with King Abdullah, who is also under pressure from anti-government protesters to undertake wide-ranging political reforms.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Yemen+told+Reform+Qaida+wins/4252378/story.html#ixzz1DYmd1T1F
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Yemen protests not major threat to regime: analysts
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
Tens of thousands of protesters turned out for a "day of rage" against President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Thursday, but tensions have since calmed and opposition groups are calling for the implementation of promised reforms -- without announcing more demonstrations.
"I don't see strong indicators that would suggest that they would be able to overthrow Saleh," said Ibrahim Sharqieh, deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center.
"The Yemeni opposition, they are able so far to start protests, but they are unable to maintain it, they are unable to maintain momentum," he said.
And while a large number of protesters turned out on Thursday, "the regime ... was able to send equal numbers of protesters in the street," Sharqieh said, adding that Saleh has faced and survived significant challenges in the past.
"Saleh is a smart guy, he's a survivor, he's managed to be in power in a very difficult country, in a very difficult situation for over 30 years, and this is not the first... crisis he is facing in the country."
Saleh has ruled without interruption through Cold War division, civil war, a rebellion in the north, a revived southern secessionist movement and an Al-Qaeda insurgency, among other threats.
He moved to calm opposition discontent on Wednesday, announcing that he would freeze proposed constitutional changes that would have enabled to remain president for life.
This was a "strong move on his side, and something that would help him," Sharqieh said.
Saleh has also said he is against hereditary rule, in response to suspicions he was grooming his son to succeed him, pledged that controversial April elections would be postponed, and announced new social security measures.
The opposition has demanded that Saleh make good on his promises, and that until he does so, it will keep boycotting parliament.
In Yemen, "these aren't broad-based protests like we see in Tunisia or Egypt," said Christopher Boucek, an associate in the Carnegie Middle East Program.
"I think what's going on ... is elite power players trying to jockey for position ahead of some kind of negotiation," he said.
"People are trying to maximise their positions ahead of that to get more concessions from the government before going out for some kind of settlement," Boucek added.
"Within Yemen, I don't think anybody really wants to see a revolution happen."
That also goes for the international community, he said.
"Nobody wants to see the Yemeni government fall. Regardless of what you think of President Saleh or his government, the international community needs this Yemeni government to fightterrorism."
"I think they (the regime) probably think they have it under control for the time being. I think they know the Americans are not going to push for big change, the Americans don't want to see him (Saleh) go," Boucek said.
In Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, where oil production is dwindling andunemployment is high, the economy poses a bigger threat, he said.
"At the end of the day ... the biggest threat to President Saleh is the economy," Boucek said. "That is what will destabilise the regime and threaten the state."
"The protests on Thursday were closer to party mobilisation than popular, and were not an expression of the popular will," said Ali Saif Hassan, the executive director of the Political Development Forum in Sanaa.
"The slogans were rehearsed, there were no women, and the protesters dispersed at an arranged time," he said.
That time, according to AFP correspondents, was in the early afternoon, when many Yemenis relax and chew qat leaves, a mild and wildly popular narcotic.
"The youth of Yemen, where 70 percent of the population is under 30, have every reason to be angry, because of poverty, unemployment," Hassan said.
"But at the same time, Yemen does not have a civil society with a national agenda capable of leading such a movement."
"The southerners have their agenda, as do the Huthis (Shiite rebels) in the north, or the Salafists (religious fundamentalists)," Hassan added. "Yemen has a better chance of disintegration" than a popular uprising.
Source: http://yhoo.it/dWz76J
Saleh's 30-year rule in Yemen
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
Here is a timeline of Saleh's 30-year rule:
July 1978 - President Ali Abdullah Saleh takes power in the former North Yemen.
February 1979 - Saleh crushes an attempt to overthrow him.
May 1990 - Pro-Western North Yemen and socialist South Yemen merge after 300 years of separation to form a powerful new republic dominating the strategic entrance to the Red Sea.
-- North Yemeni leader Saleh proclaims the unification in Aden after the parliaments of both states elect him president.
May-July 1994 - Northern Yemen declares the Yemeni civil war is over after gaining total control of its southern foe's last bastion, Aden, and ending a bid to revive an independent state.
-- Sanaa declares that former vice-president Ali Salem al-Baidh and his supporters who tried to secede from a four-year merger with the north have been soundly defeated in a bloody two-month civil war and that unity for the Yemen is now assured.
-- Southern leaders led by Baidh, who set up a breakaway southern state on May 21, are forced to flee into exile.
October 2000 - Bombing of USS Cole in Aden harbour kills 17 sailors and blows hole in navy vessel's hull.
November 2001 - After the attacks on U.S. cities, Saleh declares support for Washington's "war on terror," in part to enlist U.S. support against the Houthis, whom Yemeni officials accuse of having links to al Qaeda, Iran or Lebanon's Hezbollah.
March 2003 - Yemeni's protest against any U.S.-led war on Baghdad shouting "Death to America, death to Israel.
September 2004 - Yemeni forces kill anti-U.S. rebel cleric Hussein al-Houthi and dozens of his supporters, ending over two months of clashes in which over 200 rebels and troops have died.
-- Houthi was one of a number of rebel leaders in Yemen, but he represented a considerable target having engaged the security forces over a long period.
February 2008 -- A fragile truce is signed with the Houthis, but clashes soon resume. Saleh has yet to crush the four-year-old Houthi revolt by Zaidi Shi'ite tribes in the northwest region of Saada. Saleh unilaterally declares the war over in July 2008. However full-scale fighting resumes a year later.
January 2009 - Al Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi wings announce merger in new group called al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) led by Nasser al-Wahayshi.
November 2009 - Saudi Arabia launches a military offensive against rebels after a rebel cross-border incursion.
-- The Houthi deny accusations that infiltrators entered Saudi territory and call the offensive against the group "unjustified" and accuse it of mainly targeting civilians through air raids.
January 2010 - A meeting of Western and Gulf foreign ministers in London aims to bolster Yemen's fight against al Qaeda.
February 2010 - The Yemeni government and northern Shi'ite rebels agree to a truce aimed at ending a war that has raged sporadically since 2004 and drawn in Saudi Arabia.
February 2011 - Saleh, a key U.S. ally against al Qaeda, says he will not seek to extend his presidency in a move that would end his three-decade rule when his current term expires in 2013.
-- A day of anti-government protests on February 3 draws more than 20,000 people in Sanaa, the biggest crowd since demonstrations hit Yemen two weeks ago.
Source:http://yhoo.it/fn7Hbx
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Yemen calls emergency meeting ahead of protests
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh has called for an emergency parliamentary meeting Wednesday ahead of the "day of rage" protests scheduled for the following day, according to the country's official news agency, SABA.
In recent weeks, thousands of people have taken to the streets in Yemen demanding the kind of change that forced Tunisia's president from office last month.
Some of the protesters have called for Saleh to step down as president.
Earlier this year, Yemen's parliament began debating proposed amendments to the country's constitution. The measures, which would cancel presidential term limits, have sparked concerns among the opposition that Saleh might try to appoint himself president for life.
Saleh has been in office for 32 years and was last re-elected in 2006.
Separately, the president has also ordered the release of journalist Abdul Elah Haidar Shaye who was sentenced to five years in jail last month after he was convicted of collaborating with al Qaeda in Yemen, the news agency reported.
Source: http://bit.ly/i6mxfJ
Yemen hopes to stave off spreading Arab unrest
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
A wave of sporadic demonstrations has already struck the deeply impoverished and autocratic Arabian Peninsula state, inspired by protests that toppled Tunisia's ruler last month and now threaten to bring down Egypt's president. The Yemen protests, which drew thousands to the streets last week, have so far not translated into a sustained movement against the three-decade rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
But the situation is fluid, and may yet change.
Yemen, teetering on the brink of becoming a failed state, is trying to fight a resurgent al Qaeda arm, cement peace with Shi'ite rebels in the north and quell separatism in the south, all in the face of crushing poverty that has left a third of Yemenis suffering from chronic hunger.
Another large rally, due on Thursday in Sanaa, is seen as a barometer of the strength and size of Yemen's opposition, although organisers are coordinating their plans with the authorities to avoid a conflagration.
Should a popular revolt erupt in Yemen, the resulting instability could represent a substantial political and security risk to oil-exporting Gulf Arab neighbours, especially Saudi Arabia, with which Yemen shares a porous land border. In a worst case scenario, the country could eventually split in two.
But an uprising in Yemen, where society is heavily armed and tribal conflicts have often led to bloodshed, would probably be messier and unfold more slowly than the outpouring of protest seen elsewhere in the Arab world so far.
Saleh is likely to be able to contain Yemen's large umbrella opposition group, which has so far sought fairly modest concessions and has not asked for his ouster. But an emerging, more marginalised force of young Yemenis without a strong tie-in to the system could make more radical demands.
“He is facing young educated youth who have access to the Internet and access to Facebook and Twitter, and they are reflecting on the experiences of others in Tunisia and Egypt,” said Ibrahim Sharqieh, a Yemen expert at Brookings Doha Centre.
CONCESSIONS POSSIBLE
Saleh, seeing the seriousness of the threat, has called a meeting of the parliament and Shoura council for Wednesday, and is expected to deliver a major political statement although officials have offered few clues as to what it may contain.
Saleh has already offered some concessions on presidential term limits and pledged to raise salaries of civil servants and military personnel by at least $47 a month, no small move in a country where around 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.
“Saleh is obviously watching Egypt very closely,” analyst and blogger Brian O'Neill wrote on his blog about Yemen politics, Always Judged Guilty. “On Thursday he can either crack down and attempt to crush the protests, or he can use the time between then and now to offer legitimate concessions, including a pledge to not run again and to open up the process.” Yemen's current rules would require Saleh to step down as president when his term ends in 2013. But some members of the ruling party riled the opposition late last year with a proposal floated to lift that limit.
Yemen's opposition tried to rally against the idea in December, but failed to bring large numbers to the street.
But seeing the protests in Tunisia and discontent at home, Saleh's party backtracked, proposing a new amendment that would limit a president to two terms of either five or seven years but would still allow Saleh to run again.
Now, the ruling party has gone further, offering to negotiate on constitutional changes regarding term limits and rejigging an offer for a unity government in which opposition parties would get just over a third of cabinet posts. But the opposition has yet to take the bait.
Yemeni political analyst Abdul Ghani al-Iryani said Saleh would have to make a big move, and had at most a 6-month window to make meaningful concessions to avert a popular uprising.
“I think they need something more to quiet the street. I think if the ruling party does not come out with something earth-shattering we are going to go the way of Egypt, much slower, much bloodier,” he said.
Iryani said Saleh would need to offer greater local control of government, while others suggested he would also need to bring in international observers for parliamentary elections due later this year to bring the opposition on board.
But Saleh, with a reputation as a political survivor, has already come through longstanding unrest in Yemen's north and south.
Yemen: Orderly Uprising Set for #Feb3
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
Well its on. Yemen's next protest is scheduled for February 3 and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands nationally, if not millions. This protest was called by Yemen's political party alliance, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP). The JMP decided on a gradation of colors, from pink to red, if demands are not met as protests progress; so Thursday's should be fuchsia, maybe mauve. Other colors already carry too much significance.
The opposition parties include the Yemeni Socialist Party, which formerly ruled south Yemen, and the Islah party, an Islamist reform party that ranges from hard-line Islamists to hard-line democrats and a strong tribal wing. Certainly elements of Islah (notably the Abdulmajid al Zindani wing) advocate the al Qaeda world view including jihad and child marriage. However it is those elements of the party that are in fact close allies of President Saleh and an essential component of his power. For more on this complicated relationship, see my 14 page report at the Gloria Center here.
Others in the JMP grouping include a small Zaidi (Shiite) party and, yes, Baathist and Nassirite parties. Individually their ideologies are stale but the JMP's unified platform since its inception in 2002 calls for social reform, corruption controls and the establishment of a proportional electoral system. The state reneged on promises of electoral reform following the 2006 presidential election, triggering a delay in Parliamentary elections scheduled for 2009, but there's been no progress since. The Saleh regime is going forward unilaterally with Parliamentary elections scheduled for April.
In typical fashion, the state announced pay raises for civil servants today, the desperate scrambling of desperate men. But its likely that the tactics that worked before to tamp down unrest won't work again; a new wages strategy promised during the 2005 fuel riots never was fully implemented, triggering teachers strikes in subsequent years.
In another typical move, Yemeni President Saleh made a major announcement inviting the opposition to a national dialog, but didn't actually invite them. Saleh has no credibility, being a habitual liar and all. And the only question about the planned protest is whether the security forces are going to open fire on the protesters, as they have done over the last three years, killing hundreds, in response to peaceful demonstrations by the southern independence movement.
AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula) for its part responded to the events unfolding globally by declaring holy war on the Houthi rebels. Saleh has been in power since 1978, and like Mubarek was hoping to pass the throne to his son Ahmed, who is also head of Yemen's CT forces. Follow unfolding events on twitter @JaneNovak_Yemen or my (banned in Yemen) site Armies of Liberation.
Yemen Times: SANA’A, Jan. 30 – Yemen’s coalition of opposition parties, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), confirmed that this Thursday will be Yemen’s ‘Day of Anger’ after National Dialogue Committee talks failed to materialize. Mohammed Saleh, spokesman for the JMP, told the Yemen Times that the opposition has planned for protests around the country. “It will be huge, all over the country,” he said...Yaseen Saeed No’man, general-secretary of the opposition Socialist Party and a member of the National Dialogue Committee, said that the ruling party called for talks but that was to “waste time”. He told the Yemen Times that the JMP did not receive any official invitation to resume talks.“The dialogue has stopped. It was only media talk and GPC talk and nothing official,” No’man told The Yemen Times. “Everything is getting more complicated now since the GPC repelled the National Dialogue talks. They formed the electoral committee and made constitutional amendments on their own.”
Source: http://bit.ly/f03ee7
Yemen president to convene parliament ahead of demo
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
Ali Abdullah Saleh is expected to address the special meeting ahead of a "day of rage" that civil society organisations have called for Thursday, an official said without providing details of what the president would say.
Facing protests that have multiplied since the mid-January ouster of Tunisia's president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali following a wave of demonstrations there, Saleh has taken measures aimed at soothing popular discontent.
On Monday, after increasing wages and reducing incomes taxes, he ordered the creation of a fund to employ university graduates and to extend social security coverage.
Unemployment was a key issue in the protests that toppled Ben Ali.
Saleh also decided to exempt university students from the rest of their tuition fees for this academic year, and charged the high council of universities to reduce the cost of a degree, Saba said.
A governing body of Saleh's General People's Congress party called on Friday for a resumption of dialogue with opposition parties, which are currently at an impasse.
Talks on political reform has stalled since the authorities' decision to hold legislative elections on April 27, without awaiting the dialogue outcome, and a special committee set up to oversee reform has met only once.
"I'm afraid that it has become too late for dialogue as ... People are no longer demanding dialogue," said Mohammed al-Sabri, a leader in the Common Forum, a parliamentary opposition alliance.
Yemenis are now calling for "changing the regime and the ouster of the president." They also want an end to "the unilateral action taken over the constitution and the elections."
Yemenis, who have been protesting on a nearly daily basis in Sanaa since mid-January, have called for a nationwide "Day of Rage" on Thursday.
The opposition has no choice left but to call for "change ... beginning with the president," said Sabri who appealed to the army to back the people.
If passed by parliament, a draft amendment of the constitution, could allow Saleh, who has been president for decades and was re-elected for a seven-year mandate in September 2006, to remain in office for life.
Saleh had urged the opposition, which rejects the amendment, to take part in April 27 parliamentary elections to avoid "political suicide."
The mandate of the current parliament was extended by two years to April under a February 2009 agreement between the GPC and opposition parties to allow dialogue on political reform.
The reforms on the table included a shift from a presidential regime to a proportional representation parliamentary system and further decentralisation of government -- measures that have not been implemented.
Meanwhile, GPC spokesman Tareq al-Shami told AFP that his party has "decided to take to the streets (on Wednesday) to protect the people from the deception carried out" by the opposition.
Shami, who said the GPC will abide by whatever decision is reached through dialogue, added that his party's "biggest concern is to go ahead with the (April) elections."
He accused the opposition of "trying to take advantage of what happened in Egypt and Tunisia."
A popular uprising in Tunisia saw the downfall of its strongman Ben Ali on January 14, and demonstrations in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981, have been ongoing for over a week killing an estimated 300 people.
But "by no doubt that we have learned a lesson from what happened in Tunisia and what's going on in Egypt ... we are trying to work more on responding to the people's demands within our country's capabilities," he said.
However, Shami warned that the consequences of any move similar to that in Egypt or Tunisia "will not only affect Yemen but its aftermath will extend to other countries in the region."
Source: http://yhoo.it/dUZ4qu
Monday, January 31, 2011
Yemeni opposition plans for massive protests Thursday Feb3
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
The spokesperson of the Joint Meeting Parties Mohammad al-Qubati told the opposition al-Sahwa Net that massive protests will be organized on Thursday in all Yemeni provinces in protest to “unilateral elections, constitutional amendments and the extension of President Saleh's term.”
Al-Qubati said that demonstrations on Thursday represent the end of first stage of protests the Joint Meeting Parties launched on January 15. he said the JMP will then launch a new stage of protests until the regime meets people's requests.
Head of media section in the National Dialogue Committee Mohammad al-Sabri told News Yemen that the coming protests will be larger than previous demonstrations.
“Demonstrations are not in support of the Joint Meeting Parties' requests but in support of demands of the Yemeni people,” said al-Sabri.
In an attempt to defuse the angry unemployed graduates and poor families, President Saleh instructed the government to expand social security network and adopt additional 500,000 needy families as well as to establish a special fund for university graduates to create jobs for 25 percent of the graduates this year and remaining in the following years.
Presidential decree calling for Parliament-Shura meeting
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
According to the decree, the meeting should be held at 10:00 am to deliberate what the President plans to offer to the meeting regarding issues and developments concerned by the nation.
A time of challenge and trouble in Yemen
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
This year may turn out to be pivotal for Yemen in shaping its direction and outlook.
The challenge can be seen in the drive from Sana'a airport into the capital's main hub. Widespread poverty and lack of basic infrastructure is clearly visible against the backdrop of stunning historic architecture in the city of some 2 million.
Recently, apart from the more adventurous business type, visitor numbers have dwindled, although special service personnel and government officials remain conspicuous.
Challenges facing the government are significant and include rebel forces operating in the north and south of the country, and an increasingly active al Qa'eda wing. It is a fertile environment for dissent, with an estimated 46 per cent of the population surviving on less than US$2 (Dh7.34) a day against a 17 per cent average for the Mena region.
For Yemen, the numbers are significant, with a population of 23.5 million, just below that of Saudi Arabia's 25 million.
Political and economic issues are closely entwined, while the heat on Yemen's long-serving president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is growing. Addressing a conference for army and security commanders in Sana'a this month, Mr Saleh said: "Yemen is a country of freedom and democracy, but we warn [against] chaos and demagogy. Yemen is not like Tunisia."
Mr Saleh also criticised those who say he wants to pass power to his son, saying he is against hereditary rule: "Talking about hereditary rule is an impudent symphony. We are a republican and democratic system and we are against the hereditary rule."
Yemen's security risks are a real issue. Gulf nations have been ready to provide financial and technical assistance to set up strategic projects in Yemen but reluctant to build infrastructure projects, according to Abdul Aziz al Owaishiq, the director of the GCC's Economic Integration Department.
And the government's finances are tight. Although the country has registered year-on-year growth throughout the global financial crisis, economic expansion has not been sufficient to raise employment or income to any meaningful level.
The fall in 2009 in the price of oil, on which Yemen depends significantly to underpin government finances, did not help. Lower oil production has also added to fiscal pressures. The increase in the price of oil last year boosted economic growth to about 5 per cent, and the sustained increase in prices this year will provide a much needed fillip to the economy.
The impact of the global crisis was also felt on the external balance of payments through lower export receipts and weaker inward investment and remittance flows. These developments made the fiscal and external positions more difficult.
The government hopes to address the economic imbalances by boosting non-oil revenues through improving its tax policy and administration to allow higher capital and social outlays over the medium term.
Recognising the need to control potential discontent, Mr Saleh has announced plans to increase the salaries of state employees and the military. Steps of this kind may be necessary to control the hostility to the phased reduction of fuel subsidies and the introduction of a goods and services tax.
Further safety nets may be needed to protect the vulnerable. However, such measures may not be enough to prevent gathering opposition.
The response by the Yemeni government and the security forces to the protests has so far been relatively low key. The authorities perhaps prefer to wait to see if protests escalate. A Yemeni government spokesman, Mohammed al Basha, said about the marches: "The government of the Republic of Yemen strongly respects the democratic right for a peaceful assembly."
But such a reserved and moderate response would be unlikely from the Yemeni government if protests grew or became violent. Over the past few days there have been only minor gatherings in Yemen. The Yemeni people may themselves be waiting to see how events in Egypt, which have grown dramatically, are concluded. If the Egyptian turmoil results in the resignation or departure of the president, Hosni Mubarak, this will probably spur on popular action for change in Yemen.
It is not only regional leaders and governments that will be concerned at the escalation of tension throughout the Mena region. The US and other western countries have long been supporters of current regimes in military states. The regimes in turn have provided a moderate political and religious position. But even the US is calling for an "orderly transition of power" in Egypt.
Governments and leaders may change but both short and long-term political and economic reforms are needed to increase standards of living and place countries on a more stable base.
Unless the problems are addressed in a real and meaningful way, protests may increase and the contagion could spread. The issue is, however, that a rapidly growing part of the population feels the time for change has come.
Parliamentary elections in Yemen are due in April and there is likely to be much volatility until then at least.
Darren Stubing is a senior adviser at Capital Intelligence in Cyprus
Source: http://bit.ly/gwj0bq
Despite Social Media Block, 'Egypt' Surges On Twitter
Observed by: Mr. Alaa Isam
Though Egypt blocked Twitter following the protests that erupted on January 25th, tweets about Egypt have surged in the days leading up to and after the start of the revolution that has rocked the capitol.
According to Sysomos, the number of tweets that contained the words "Egypt," "Yemen," or "Tunisia" increased more than tenfold after January 23rd: there were 122,319 tweets between January 16 and 23 containing these terms, and 1.3 million tweets between January 24 and January 30.
Sysomos also analyzed the location of those tweeting about Egypt and found that a minority were from Egypt, Yemen, or Tunisia. The company writes,
We analyzed 52 million Twitter users, and discovered that only 14,642, or 0.027%, identified themselves as being from Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia. Of these people, 88.1% were from Egypt, 9.5% from Tunisia and 2.13% from Yemen. It is important to note this number probably doesn’t reflect the number of Twitter users since many users in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen likely do not provide their location information to protect their identities.
"#Jan25," a Twitter hashtag that debuted when the protests began, remains the most common hashtag used to discuss the unrest in Egypt.
While Facebook and Twitter have been heavily relied upon to share information about the situation in Egypt, users have also turned to more unlikely social networks to express their support for the protesters. For example, on Polyvore, a fashion website, users from Tunisia, the U.S. and other nations posted images with captions such as "My Heart is with Egypt today," or "Egypt now cut off from Internet plz help spread their cause." Those with access to Twitter have used the social network to search for missing colleagues, like Google executive Wael Ghonim, who disappeared after arriving in Cairo.
Forced to do without Internet access, Egyptians are using low-tech technologies to communicate with each other and people abroad. Fax machines, ham radios, and dial-up Internet connectionshave all been used in place of high-speed networks.
Source: http://huff.to/fZx4rm