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Yemen, the Middle East, and the World Beyond
Well, what we reported earlier this morning with caution, is now being confirmed by the Yemen Embassy in Washington. Muhammad al-'Awfi was arrested and sent back to Saudi Arabia according a press release that just arrived in my in-box: Embassy of the Republic of Yemen, Washington D.C. Date: Feb ...
Khalid al-Hammadi writes about violations of press freedoms in al-Quds al-Arabi, which goes well with this report from the National on a proposed new press law in Yemen. Of course Minister of the Interior al-Masri's supposed remarks that there is no al-Qaeda presence in the country is getting a ...
Neither Gregory nor I are economists. My idea of economic analysis is "do I have enough money for cigarettes? (answer: usually no) But this morning I am going to channel my inner-Krugman and talk about a story that caught my eye. It is one that doesn't always do so- a story in the Yemen Times ...
Yemen, or at least the newspapers in Yemen, are fairly quiet this morning. Trey pointed out that the Ministry of the Interior has put together a list of terrorist that combines both al-Qaeda suspects and al-Huthi supporters. The article is here. One note, for some reason the article mistakenly ...
I like to spend Sunday afternoons on the couch with a football game (US or European) or a novel maybe something by Rushdie or McEwan, but sometimes the outside world intrudes and I get hooked on something and lose my entire afternoon. Today was such a day. Al-Ghad, one of the better independent ...
This report in the New York Times details the latest drone attack in Pakistan, which killed at least 25 people Saturday. Yemen has long been compared unflatteringly to both Afghanistan and Waziristan not only in the English press but also in Arabic newspapers and even local Yemeni reports. Back in ...
There isn't much in the pan-Arab papers today with the exception of a small UPI piece in al-Quds al-Arabi denying that the 176 released prisoners have any link to al-Qaeda. Trey has an excerpt from al-Thawra with the official Yemeni take on the confusion. The other news today seems to mostly be ...
Mareb Press publishes what claims to be the most accurate list of Yemenis in US prisons both Guantanamo and Bagram. The list is available here. I have written previously about the problems with the list released by the DOD, namely that it is only in English. Initial attempts by Arabic newspapers ...
Khalid al-Hammadi, one of the best reporters out there, writes in al-Quds al-Arabi on electoral politics and the opposition warning the government (GPC) against playing with fire. (For another take, my own brief thoughts on the upcoming election were re-printed yesterday in the Daily Star.) Not ...
The news today from al-Jawf that five al-Huthi commanders were killed in an ambush by what some are charging as a militia linked to the government is yet another in a long line of signs that the nearly five year conflict is far from over. The five men killed are listed as: 1. Zayd Ali Hasan al ...
I went to a very nice party last night at the Reuters building in New York for aspiring young foreign correspondents. Besides the nice view from Times Square, I was also impressed with the quality of the individuals being recognized. While newspapers may be cutting back, which is unfortunate ...
It is a bit too late, after that last post, for another one on al-Qaeda so instead we have one on Bedouin poetry. This article features friend of this blog and the world's foremost expert on Mahri poetry, Samuel Liebhaber. Quite a guy. For anyone who has ever heard the old Orientalist joke about a ...
There has been a great deal of confusion over what exactly is going in Yemen, and whether or not the country is releasing AQ suspects. On the surface, this looks like another Homer Simpson moment for Yemen, what are these guys doing releasing suspects just weeks after AQ Yemen and Saudi Arabia ...
I thought it might be appropriate to kick-off this blog with a story focusing on a problem that will be with us for the forseeable future, far beyond the closing down of the prison in Guantanamo Bay. The story from NPR's Dina Temple-Raston details some of the concerns many in the US have with ...