The faith is of Yemen [1]

Written by J. Comins

Translation: María Blanco Palencia

Innocence of Muslims may be the latest and greatest offering of the “renowned” US independent or B movie industry. With a visibly scarce budget and a limited staff of interpreters, its scriptwriter, producer and director –who goes by the name of Sam Bacile, according to The Wall Street Journal– has been able to show the public his personal idea of Islam as a “destructive, odious, hypocrite, and carcinogenic” religion. Although his major achievement may have been evidencing, less than two months before the presidential elections in his country, that, despite all conciliatory and apparently well-intentioned discourses (as the one done by Obama at Cairo University in 2009), anti-Americanism continues strongly rooted in a relevant portion of the Arab and Islamic world. The Yemeni street is not the exception that proves the rule. (more…)

Yemen: There is No Use in Discussing If You Cannot Talk

Written by J. Comins 

Translation: Jon Sebastian Rodríguez 

An A -. That is the grade that the journal Yemen Post has given to the new president Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi’s administration during these six months in which he has led a transition process full of controversy. The decrees for the reform of the security sector and other institutions of the state have not managed to hide the Government’s inability to stop the constant terrorist attacks in the capital and in the Southern provinces of the country. If all this was not enough, the preparations for the Conference of National Dialogue, the top priority in the Government’s agenda, have become yet another headache for the Yemeni leaders. The agreement to start this initiative of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is under risk of not producing any results if, finally, the opposition movement of the south and other important actors within the country’s stability do not participate.

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Refugees and IDP: Another Dimension of the Conflict in Yemen

Written by J. Comins

Translation: María Blanco Palencia

Yemen is not only the poorest country in the Arab world and one of the most depressed in the world. It is moreover the scenario of multiple open and simultaneous conflicts: collision of tribal loyalties, armed confrontations in northern provinces, secessionist movements in the south, an intense anti-terrorist struggle which does not know territorial limits, and a blossoming transition process. All this has generated a serious humanitarian crisis among an increasing number of internally displaced people and refugees mostly from different countries of the Horn of Africa. (more…)

More Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

Written by J. Comins 

Translation: María Blanco Palencia

The humanitarian crisis caused by the Syrian conflict continues aggravating in view of the international community’s passivity. If last Wednesday’s attack against the National Security’s head office in Damascus has, on one hand, generated scepticism around the strength of the Syrian regime, it has, on the other, overcome the already cruel statistics of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The issue of refugees does not only represent a humanitarian challenge for the country of cedars, exceeded by the lack of means and by its current complex economic and social crisis; moreover, the Lebanese Government faces an increasingpolitization of the issue.

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Yemen: «You have clocks. We have time»

Written by J. Comins

Translation: María Blanco Palencia

The franchise of Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula (AQAP), who saw a breeding ground for directing their operations in the most poor and unstructured country of the Arab world, is profiting from the chaos caused by the break-out of the Yemeni revolt. If at the beginning of the popular insurrection, hardly losing any time, it took control of several cities in the province of Abyan through one of its affiliated groups –named Ansar al Sharia–, during the last weeks a large scale offensive executed by the military and supported by Washington has reverted this situation. Literally, terrorists have lost ground, but just this.

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