Yemen protesters reject Saleh's offer

The Dangerous US Game in Yemen

This article, which showed up in The Nation of all places, gives a great overview of US policy in Yemen over the previous decade.

Sites Blocked, Hacked as Uprising Gains Further Momentum

This story the Yemen Post ran earlier today is nothing new. Sites have been blocked and hacked for years in Yemen - almost always the Arabic language (native language) sites. One thing you will not see happen, however, is the muzzling of a government mouthpiece such as the Yemen Observer. These sites, and their too clever-by-half attempts at propaganda, are there for your reading pleasure.

President Saleh willing to transfer powers to new government chaired by opposition.

This is the title of a story written earlier today by Nasser Arrabyee. Interesting to note is that the opposition in this article is not necessarily the JMP, but the Islah party. Hakim Almasmari was wrong about regime change in Yemen this March, but it may come in April.

And speaking of Hakim Almasmari, he has kept up the drumbeat for the honorable exit of Saleh for the last few months. For those of us in the West used to leaders going peacefully into retirement, it's important to note that most rulers in the Middle East either die or are killed while in office. What Saleh could do for Yemeni society by peacefully entering retirement while remaining in Yemen and acting as the elder statesman cannot be overestimated.

Yemeni Leader Offers to Exit Earlier

In the NYT today:

SANA, Yemen — As his tenuous grasp on power eroded further with more public figures defecting to the opposition, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has accepted a proposal by his adversaries to plan his departure from office by the end of the year, a government official said on Tuesday. Previously he had offered only to leave by 2013.

Violence in Yemen Escalates

With all eyes on Libya late last week, it was still surprising that Yemen's woes were all but ignored. I switched between CNN, MSNBC and Fox News and found little reportage on the current state of affairs there -- aside from a couple 30 second spots and running text beneath the stories of Libya and Japan. The story, of course, is that (government?) snipers killed 52 anti-government protesters on Friday, and Saleh declared a state of emergency in Yemen (just as Bahrain did earlier in the week) on Saturday.

Thank God for Al-Jazeera, which faces greater security risks than western media when reporting in Yemen, but nevertheless does a better job in educating English readers. Last week, they did an in-depth story on Tawakkol Karman and the protest movement in Yemen called "Yemen: A tale of two protests."

My favorite blogger on Yemen (and a foremost scholar), Gregory Johnsen, has an up-to-date list of defectors from the regime located here. This list is substantial - including the resignation of Yemen's ambassador to the UN, who resigned this weekend.

Yemen's opposition ‘thugs’ attack young man in Dhamar

An intersting story insofar as the Governor and general secretary of the local council of Dhamar both went to visit this man in the hospital. I don't wnat to minimize the fact that both his legs were broken, but the insight to be drawn from this article is that he was visited by two of the most prominent men in the province.

My guess it that important personages not only do not visit anti-regime protesters that are injured and killed, but that they could care less.