Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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Yemeni people carry drinkable water due to the water shortage, affecting daily life ahead of Ramadan, in Sana’a, Yemen on June 16, 2014. (Photo by Sinan Yiter/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Nor Any Drop To Drink

by James Spencer | Jul 11, 2014 | Majalla Blogs

In classical times, Yemen was called Eudaimon Arabia and Arabia Felix (meaning “fortunate”), thanks to the rains which fell on its mountains, almost unique in an otherwise arid Arabian Peninsula. In those days the rains were heavier, so today less groundwater is now...

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Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Mahmud (C) chairs on April 28, 2014 a meeting of an international commission monitoring a limited peace deal in Sudan’s Darfur, in el-Fasher, northern Darfur. (AFP PHOTO/ASHRAF SHAZLY)

Making Friends, Qatar-Style

by James Spencer | May 12, 2014 | Majalla Blogs

For fifty years during the second half of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union and the West were locked in a Cold War, a period of mostly static adversity marked by ideological and military posturing mainly in Europe, but including financial and military support...

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Army troopers man a checkpoint on a street in Sanaa October 28, 2013. Yemeni authorities have tightened security in the capital city and other main cities following a spate of assassinations, state media reported. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah (YEMEN – Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST MILITARY)

A Rolling Stone to Crush Corruption

by James Spencer | Nov 30, 2013 | Majalla Blogs

Something decidedly ordinary happened in Yemen earlier this month: The government re-assigned various senior police, civil defense forces and coast guards from one province to another. In almost every other region of the world, such an announcement would barely be...

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A US Navy handout photo shows ships breaking formation during the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise (IMCMEX) in May 2013. (AFP Photo/US Navy/MC2 Terah L. Mollise)

Time and Tide Wait for No Man

by James Spencer | Jun 5, 2013 | Majalla Blogs

The geopolitical waves that roil across history have many origins and characteristics. There is the rise and fall of civilizations over generations, usually falling due to malaise and complacency. The best-documented examples of these ocean rollers are the waves that...

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A member of Yemen’s newly formed Special Security Forces is stationed at a machine gun mounted on a patrol vehicle at a checkpoint in Sanaa. (REUTERS)

Yemen’s Military Makeover

by James Spencer | May 8, 2013 | Majalla Blogs

President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s April 10 reforms represent the third, and potentially most significant, stage in Yemeni security sector reform (SSR). They also reflect not only a much-needed realignment of the Yemeni military, but also both the current state of...