With 25 million people, Yemen is home to the largest population in the region, it is the second-largest country on the peninsula, has the highest mountains and the longest border with Saudi Arabia [AFP]
Published On 25 Jan 201025 Jan 2010
Yemen has a fascinating millenary culture and its cities are famed throughout the world for their unique architecture [AFP]
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Yemeni jihadi networks appear to be growing as operating conditions in Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia become more difficult and "under-governed" areas in Yemen seem to offer sanctuary. In reaction to this, the budget for US military assistance to Yemen is doubling [AFP]
Obama has pledged to double the $70mn in counterterrorism aid, a figure that does not include covert programmes run by US special forces or the CIA. Yemen will now top Pakistan, which gets $112mn [AFP]
Britain had taken a lead on development aid well before the current focus on terrorism. While last year USAID provision for Yemen was $34mn, the funding provided by Britain was $40mn, a figure that is expected to rise to $60mn in 2010 [AFP]
According to Clive Jones, an expert on Yemen from Leeds University, providing money to tribal areas in Yemen is the best way to "wean" tribes away from al-Qaeda. "It has to be recognised that the government in Sanaa has existed not as a means of controlling the tribes, but of arbitrating between them," he says. "That arbitration role seems to have broken down" [AFP]
Since first coming to power as leader of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) in 1978, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has balanced progress with nepotism, developing a fragile democracy which has been discredited by rapacious elements of his own regime [AFP]
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"Yemen was the first Arabian country to institute regular elections, limit presidential stays to two terms and allow women to vote and be elected to government," said Abdulwahab Abdulla al-Hajjri, the Yemeni minister for defence and security affairs [AFP]
"Any intervention or direct action by the US could strengthen the al-Qaeda network and not weaken it. Our position is clear; we will fight and chase the al-Qaeda group depending on Yemeni forces and security agencies," said Rashed al-Aleemi, the Yemeni minister for defence and security affairs, January 7, 2010 [AFP]
Yemen relies on the oil sector for 90 per cent of its export earnings and 70 per cent of government revenue - a problem when oil reserves are being depleted (production has gone from 460,000 bpd in 2002 to 280,000 bpd last year [AFP]
The Yemeni military has an estimated 85,000 personnel - 900,000 potential forces including conscripts [AFP]
The military budget represents 40 per cent of the government budget and seven per cent of GDP - one of the highest in the world [AFP]
Despite of being the poorest Arab country, 50,000 people from Somalia and Ethiopia crossed the Red Sea in 2008 as refugees and the number climbed to 80,000 in 2009 [AFP]
