Last week's shutdown of Sanaa's airport by security forces seeking to reverse President Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi's dismissal of top brass loyal to the ancien regime exemplified exactly where Yemen is stuck.
During an artillery barrage last Nov. 11, Yemeni security forces killed 13 civilians in the city of Taizz. One of them was a patient at al-Rawdha Hospital, which mortar rounds and tank fire struck seven times as the wounded poured in for emergency care.
Yemen's version of the Arab Spring has eclipsed urgent social concerns both in debates within Yemen and with donor countries. One of these issues is the widespread forced marriage of girls; very young girls in some cases.Now that President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to cede power, there may be an opportunity to press for social reform as part of the transition process.
In Norway on Saturday, three women stepped up to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011. The awarding of the Nobel to Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkul Karman and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is a long-awaited and, some may think, overdue testament to women's courage. While just three women ascended to the podium in Oslo, the victory will be shared by many, many more -- and couldn't have come at a better time.
Back in January, when the Arab Spring didn’t even have a name, Yemeni authorities threw Tawakkol Karman in jail for two days for helping stage a rally in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital.
If Washington, Riyadh, and other key players do not move swiftly, Yemen could be headed down the path of Somalia, a failed state just across the Gulf of Aden where armed Islamist militants have imposed draconian rule across vast swaths of territory, and famine and fighting have ravaged the population. In that scenario, last week's mayhem could be just a taste of the killing and suffering to come.
Yemen's donors and neighbors are right to be deeply concerned about the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda and to question whether the group will benefit from a security vacuum after Saleh leaves office. But a foreign policy based solely on security concerns is bound to fail by alienating local populations.
The 27 EU member states immediately should ban exports of arms and security equipment to Yemen and Bahrain in response to their brutal repression of peaceful dissent until authorities in the two countries stop their violent crackdowns against citizens, conduct independent investigations into the attacks, prosecute suspected perpetrators, and recognize and compensate victims.
In the past, any mention of Yemen's women in the news media has usually been about two issues, neither of them positive. The first is that they are more likely than most women in the Middle East to die in childbirth, and the second that they are among the least empowered women in the world.
Last week's shutdown of Sanaa's airport by security forces seeking to reverse President Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi's dismissal of top brass loyal to the ancien regime exemplified exactly where Yemen is stuck.
During an artillery barrage last Nov. 11, Yemeni security forces killed 13 civilians in the city of Taizz. One of them was a patient at al-Rawdha Hospital, which mortar rounds and tank fire struck seven times as the wounded poured in for emergency care.
Back in January, when the Arab Spring didn’t even have a name, Yemeni authorities threw Tawakkol Karman in jail for two days for helping stage a rally in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital.