Protesters Celebrate Departure of Yemen’s Leader

Jun 5, 2011 by AssociatedPress

Protesters danced and sang in the central square of Yemen’s capital Sunday to celebrate the departure of the country’s authoritarian leader for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia after he was wounded in a rocket attack on his compound. (June 5)

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Yemen opposition to stop Saleh return

Monday, June 06, 2011

Yemen’s opposition has vowed to work to prevent the return of beleaguered President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Yemen’s opposition has vowed to work to prevent the return of beleaguered President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Yemen’s opposition vowed on Sunday to work to prevent the return of beleaguered President Ali Abdullah Saleh, transferred to Saudi Arabia for treatment of injuries sustained in an explosion.

‘We will work with all our strength to prevent his return,’ parliamentary opposition spokesman Mohammed Qahtan told AFP. ‘We see this as the beginning of the end of this tyrannical and corrupt regime.’

US-compliant Yemeni president ‘injured’ after palace shelled; US, Saudi’s preparing his replacement

Jun 3, 2011 by itnnews

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been ‘slightly injured’ say officials after his palace was reportedly shelled.
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[The article from the Guardian, below, describes the shifting terms of the struggle in Yemen–which began as a popular uprising against a brutal, repressive regime, and now has special attention from the US and Saudi Arabia, who are intent on having a controlling hand in the government and military powers that emerge after Yemeni President Saleh’s probable-impending demise.  This has some similarity with the process in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, after the eruption of people’s revolts, where the US moved, rather clumsily, to drop relations with compliant and allied dictators Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gaddafi, and moved to control the emerging new forces in a process of moving from imperialist “business as usual” to finessing claims of “concern for humanitiarian issues” and “democracy”, to ensuring the bottom line: strategic control of the political economy, through corrupt surrogates, military intervention, racketeering, and starvation.  For the people, getting rid of Saleh, as with Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gaddafi, is only one part of getting rid of imperialism and all reactionaries (including other styles of reactionaries like al Qaeda).  Developing revolutionary forces with clear-sighted political independence and initiatives is the only immediate objective which leads forward. — Frontlines ed.]

Yemen slides towards all-out war after President Saleh survives rocket attack

Government claims attack on presidential compound was ‘attempted coup’ as fighting intensifies in Sana’a

Ian Black, Middle East editor and Shatha al-Harazi in Sana’a
guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 June 2011

Yemen‘s embattled president survived an apparent attempt to kill him on Friday as fighting intensified in Sana’a amidst warnings that the country is sliding inexorably into all-out war.

Security forces open fire on protesters in southern Yemen

Yemeni anti-government protesters shout slogans during a demonstration demanding the departure.

Jun 2, 2011

Sana’a/Cairo – Yemeni security forces opened fire on protesters in the southern city of Taiz calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign, as fighting continued in the capital Sana’a on Thursday.

Dozens of people have been killed in Taiz this week, as security forces repeatedly used violence to disperse protesters gathered in al-Hurreya square.

In Sana’a, at least 15 people were killed in overnight fighting between security forces and tribesmen loyal to Sheikh Sadeq al-Ahmar.

Yemen: Anti-government protests have grown much larger than Saleh’s support

Yemen sees huge rival protests

AlJazeeraEnglish on Apr 15, 2011

Hundreds of thousands gather in Yemen’s capital Sanaa to show support for President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
But protests opposing his continuing rule reportedly draw millions to the streets of 16 provinces around the country, after religious and tribal leaders join calls for him to step down.
Hakim Almasmari, editor in chief of the Yemen Post, speaks to Al Jazeera.
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Thousands of Yemeni women protest over Saleh remarks
REUTERS, Sat Apr 16, 2011
By Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA (Reuters) – Thousands of Yemeni women protested in Sanaa and other cities on Saturday, enraged by President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s remarks it was against Islam for women to join men in the demonstrations aimed at toppling him.

The women, many clad in black Islamic dress with full face veils, said their role in protests was religiously sound and called on the president to step down in line with nearly three months of demonstrations demanding his ouster. “It seems that President Saleh failed in all his efforts to employ tribes and security to strike at those seeking his exit, and so he resorted to using religion, especially after he saw that thousands of women were taking part in protests,” said Samia al-Aghbari, a leader in the protest movement. Saleh, who has warned of civil war and the break-up of Yemen if he is forced out before organising an orderly transition, urged the opposition on Friday to reconsider their refusal to join talks to resolve the crisis in the fractious state.

11 protesters killed by security forces in Yemen

TAIZ, YEMEN : At least eleven protesters were killed during clashes with security forces in southwestern Yemen, the Yemen Post reported on Monday.

According to medical staff, nine demonstrators were killed on Sunday and two more died on Monday. Protesters clashed with Yemeni law agents in the main street and a square of Taiz city.

Taiz Governor Hamoud al-Soufi denied reports of civilian deaths and said that riot police was deployed to control clashes that he claimed were provoked by infiltrators and some ‘young hotheads’.

Al-Soufi added that they threw stones at the security forces and as a result eight police officers were injured, one seriously. However, local media and witnesses said that the riot police were shooting at unarmed protesters.

On Sunday, hundreds of thousands staged a peaceful demonstration to demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The police intercepted the massive demonstration heading to the Taiz government building.

The protesters departed from the main square and police officers used live ammunition and nerve gas against them for hours. On Monday, demonstrations continued in both Taiz and Sana’a.

The demonstrators condemned the deadly crackdown on the anti-Saleh protests in Taiz and other cities. They marched through the streets of Sana’a and gathered in Change Square outside Sana’a University.

In addition, a deadly crackdown between protesters and police officers took place in the western province of Hodeida. Hundreds of people attempted to reach the republican palace but police fired at them, killing at least 8 protesters and wounding many more.

President Saleh blamed the unrest on a foreign agenda and added that some hostile media outlets have exaggerated about the situation in Yemen. He recently fired his government and then designated it as caretaker until a new government is formed.

The decision was announced after 52 protesters were killed by security forces on March 25. Yemeni protesters have been demanding the resignation of Saleh for the past two months. The demonstrations were initially inspired by the Tunisian revolt, but they gathered momentum with the success of Egypt’s revolution.

–BNO News

Women in Yemen have found their voice

By Afrah Nasser

SANAA, Yemen—Traditionally in Yemen, women are literally not allowed to raise their voices. Even calling out in the street to attract someone’s attention is considered unacceptable.

But in recent weeks, many women in the country have discovered their voice as they joined in the revolution that has not only swept the country but the region as well.

Women’s participation in this revolution started on a very small scale.

Yemen: Repressive regime threatens military defectors

 

One of Yemen’s most powerful military commanders, Major General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, announced his support for protesters last Monday, leaving Saleh to threaten war against him. YT photo by Jeb Boone

Saleh threatens civil war

by Shatha Al-Harazi

Sana’a, Mar. 22 — President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned of bloody civil war, if the armed forces failed to unite, following the mass defection of a dozen military commanders.
 

On Monday, senior military leaders announced their solidarity for the protesters and the “peaceful revolution”. Ali Mohsen Saleh Al-Ahmar, a key general and leader of the 1st Armored Division, sent his soldiers to protect the protesters on Monday following the massacre that left 52 dead and hundreds injured after last week’s Friday prayers.

46 dead in Yemen protest bloodbath: medics

Yemeni anti-government protesters carry away a wounded demonstrator in Sanaa March 18, 2011 as more than 30 anti-regime protesters were shot dead and over 100 wounded, medics and witnesses said. (Ahmad Gharabli/Getty Images)

Jamal al-Jaberi and Hammoud Mounassar, AFP
March 19, 2011

Beleaguered Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered a state of emergency Friday after regime loyalists killed at least 46 protestors in the deadliest incident in weeks of unrest, according to medics.

Witnesses said pro-Saleh “thugs” had rained bullets from rooftops around a square at Sanaa University, the centre of demonstrations against Saleh, adding that more than 400 people were wounded.

An AFP correspondent saw protesters rush into the surrounding buildings and throw six alleged gunmen from the rooftops.

A 14-year-old boy was shot in the head in front of him.

“We were protesting peacefully and they shot at us. I won’t leave this place until the president goes, even if I have to die,” said one demonstrator, Ahmad, 25.

Protesters shot dead in Yemen

Euronews on  Mar 12, 2011

In Yemen police have killed two children and hundreds of people have been wounded in clashes in the capital Sanaa and the southern city of Mukalla.  On Saturday security forces fought protesters in the capital in an attempt to prevent the spread of a makeshift camp housing thousands of government opponents.  At least 30 people have lost their lives in weeks of unrest in the poverty-stricken country. The protesters are demanding an end of the 32 year rule of President Ali Abdulla Saleh.

The Independent (UK): Only some revolutions will be televised

By Jody McIntyre

Thursday, 10 March 2011

Another ‘million person march’ happened in an Arab state earlier this week.  Headline news, you might think. At least on Al Jazeera?  Whilst the media continue to focus exclusively on events in Libya, the huge march in the south of Yemen was ignored.

The Qatari-based news channel has played an intriguing role throughout the recent wave of revolutions across northern Africa and western Asia.  By “choosing” one uprising at a time to focus on, it has led the gaze of the public, begging the question, would a revolution on the Egyptian model have ever succeeded without the media attention Al Jazeera provides?

On the other side of the coin, these new media sources, and the Internet in particular, have allowed us to follow these uprisings in a way that would never have been possible in the past.  The BBC no longer can no longer monopolise our opinions; the corporate media no longer have complete control over which information we do and do not recieve.  By viewing Twitter feeds which are updated on a minute-by-minute basis, we are seeing events as they happen, not as they are reported.

Yemen leader blames protests on US

Yemen’s President Saleh (joining Libya’s Gaddafi) accuses US and Israel of destabilising his country and Arab world as fresh protests hit capital Sanaa.  01 Mar 2011

Yemen’s president has hit out at Israel and the US, accusing them of destabilising his country and the Arab world as protesters demanding his ouster press ahead with demonstrations.  Ali Abdullah Saleh’s comments on Tuesday marked his harshest public criticism yet of the US, a key ally with which his government is battling al-Qaeda pockets in the Arab Pensinsula. He said “there’s an operations room in Tel Aviv with the aim of destabilising the Arab world” and that it is “run by the White House”. The United States said on Tuesday Saleh “knows better” than to charge that a foreign plot was behind unrest in his country, saying he should respond to his people’s aspirations.

Yemen: Protesters can topple Saleh: Yemeni analyst

February 17, 2011
euronews spoke with Abdullah Al Fakih, a political science professor at Sanaa University, who believes Yemen’s anti-government protesters could topple President Saleh.
Al Fakih described the demonstrations as “a popular youth movement.”  “It began with protests calling for the overthrow of President Ali Abdallah Saleh. This movement progressively became larger, spreading across the country,” he told euronews in a telephone interview.  http://www.euronews.net/

Protests in Yemen continue

YEMEN: ‘Day of Rage’ draws Yemeni protesters onto streets

February 03, 2011 — YEMEN: ‘Day of Rage’ draws Yemeni protesters onto streets
More than 20,000 people massed in Sanaa on Thursday for a “Day of Rage”, demanding further concessions from Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has said he will step down in 2013.

With protests in several Middle East countries, there are also now fears for Algeria, Yemen and Syria

A demonstrator reacts in Tahrir Square in Cairo today. There are fears that the protests will spread

Wednesday 02 February 2011

By Harriet Alexander, The Telegraph (UK)

Algeria

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has ruled the country since 1999, was elected on the promise to end the violence that had plagued the country for much of its history since independence from France in 1962.

To a certain extent he has succeeded, and after years of political upheaval the country is beginning to emerge as a centre of enterprise, heavily assisted by the country’s huge oil and gas reserves. It has estimated oil reserves of nearly 12 billion barrels, attracting strong interest from foreign oil firms.