Summary: the war and the humanitarian disaster it has caused have received intermittent coverage but the story of Yemen’s 4.3 million IDPs has been virtually ignored.
Summary: an end to the blockade of Qatar last year has, on the surface, eased tensions between Abu Dhabi and Doha but look a little deeper and the animosity remains.
Arab Digest editor William Law’s guest this week is the Yemen and Jihadist expert Dr Elisabeth Kendall. She assesses the enduring threat of AQAP – Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – and the extent to which the movement can exploit both the war and the current truce in an attempt to reassert its terror bona fides.
Summary: Rasha Al Aqeedi celebrates the joys of Arab cuisine while reserving a special place at the table for her favourite dish.
Summary: while a temporary truce continues to hold thousands of prisoners languish in Houthi, IRG and UAE-supported STC jails in appalling conditions, their plight largely ignored by the outside world.
Sitting at number six in the top ten countdown is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: down but not out with Elisabeth Kendall. Her conversation with William Law was podcast on 17 September, 2021. Dr Kendall is a Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University’s Pembroke College and an expert on Yemen and on Jihadist movements. In October she takes up her appointment as Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge.
Summary: a brewing conflict between generals is proving useful to Abu Dhabi’s goals to fortify its growing power in Sudan and do Moscow a good turn as it seeks to position itself as the Middle East’s key power player.
Summary: the truce has stopped the fighting but the situation for the vast majority of Yemenis after more than seven years of war continues to worsen.
Summary: with time running out and autumn storms ahead action is finally happening to offload more than 1 million barrels of crude from a derelict ship moored in the Red Sea but big oil needs to step up and use their recent massive windfall profits to cover a donor shortfall.
Summary: while the Yemen truce has largely held and there is hope it will be renewed, the war in Ukraine has exacerbated food insecurity with prices soaring for wheat and other commodities even as ordinary Yemenis, hit hard by rampant inflation, are already lacking the money to buy food.
