The proximate cause is a global increase in food prices, and affects primarily landless Yemeni who cannot grow their own food. The real cause is infrastructure failure of the government to invest in job-producing infrastructure and enterprises, ahead of the time when Yemen will run out of oil, estimated in 2017.
Ali Abdullah Saleh, the dictator of Yemen who recently transferred power to a colleague in return for total immunity, is worth $35 Bilion. Canada MSN Money.
This is one million dollars, in packes of $100 bills;
This is a pallet of 1million dollars,
made up of packs of one million dollars dollars each.
Saleh has 35 of these pallets.
Saleh made off with a bundle of Yemeni money, none of it invested in the South.
There is no record that Saleh has "pledged" anything, nor is there anything I can find on the Web about where his ill-gotten gains has been sequestered. A malefactor of great wealth, and not the only one.
According to the Times:
International donors pledged $1.46 billion in aid to the country at a meeting in New York on Thursday. The donors, including China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, as well as Gulf Arab states, had already promised $6.4 billion." [Emphasis added.]
Babies are starving today.
To whom will the pledged money go? If History is the lamp by which to guide our feet , it will go to Saleh's successor, who will distribute it in a way to insure that his regime survives, and that the Southern Secessionist Movement fails.
∼ ∼ ∼ ∼
The Southern Movement is failing.
NZWeek reports:
ADEN, Yemen, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) — Yemen’s pro-secession Southern Movement kicked off its first meeting calling for independence for the south from the central government in Sanaa on Sunday, amid the boycott of more than 20 senior separatist leaders.
The Yemeni dictator, supported by the West as usual, retorts, as Persian Gulf dictators always retort whenever threatened, as reported in
Al-Monitor :
During his visit to Berlin yesterday [Oct. 4], Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi accused Iran of supporting southern Yemenis who seek secession.
The dictator with Chancellor Angela Dorothea Merke in the Berlin, least you think the US is the only complicit party.
Typical McCarthy, Bahraini, Saudi, Romney tactic.
If the Movement cannot hold its staring groups together, the youngsters, hungry and with nothing to lose, will take action. Then we'll see.
Demonstration in Sanaa
I predict a slaughter that makes Syria look a model of civility.
And the dictator will be supported by the West, including United States.
And even facing station, football Rules:
So don't count the South out just yet.
Or: Let's move to Tuvan. Or even Dagestan. Dagestan is the home of great wrestlers.
Dagestan free style wrestler Haji Hajiyev
September 30, 2012
Millions Are Facing Food Crisis in Yemen, U.N. Agency Says
By REUTERS
SANA, Yemen (Reuters) — Nearly half of Yemenis go to bed hungry as political instability compounds a surge in global food and fuel prices, giving Yemen the world’s third-highest rate of child malnutrition, the World Food Program said Sunday.
Yemen has been in turmoil since the revolt last year against Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had ruled for more than three decades. Already weak state control in outlying regions broke down as the army split into pro- and anti-Saleh factions and Al Qaeda militants occupied some areas.
The country has to import most of its food needs because of a paucity of arable land, and the rise in food and fuel prices has hit it badly, a World Food Program spokesman, Barry Came, said.
“Five million people, or 22 percent of the population, can’t feed themselves or buy enough to feed themselves,” Mr. Came said. “These are mostly landless laborers, so they don’t grow their own food, and with high food prices they can’t buy it either.”
“There is another 5 million who are being really hard hit by high food prices and on the edge of being food insecure,” he said. “So 10 million people in this country go to bed hungry every night.”
The number of people receiving daily food rations from the United Nations agency has risen to more than 3.8 million from 1.2 million in January, but poor infrastructure and fear of kidnappings have complicated the logistics of providing food aid.
“They are really hit by fuel and food price rises,” Mr. Came said, “but there’s also political instability, conflict, terrorist activity and huge population displacement. Without political security and stability you can’t solve the problem.”
Thirteen percent of children were now acutely malnourished as a result of the political and economic strains of the past year, giving Yemen, which has a population of 24 million, the third-highest rate of child malnutrition in the world, Mr. Came said.
Mr. Saleh was forced to stand down in February after more than 2,000 people had died. Mr. Came said that there were now 500,000 internally displaced Yemenis after the fight with militants in the south and Mr. Saleh’s 2009-10 war against Shiite rebels.
International donors pledged $1.46 billion in aid to the country at a meeting in New York on Thursday. The donors, including China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States, as well as Gulf Arab states, had already promised $6.4 billion.
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