OK so for what it is worth, not much probably, here are some of the key things that the conference should be considering and actioning:
1. Stopping direct flights between UK and Yemen is ridiculous – unless there is a REAL reason for doing it.
Terror threats isnt a real reason. There are only 2 flights to London from Sanaa a week. If there is a real reason such as upgrading technology and security infrastructure, why not be honest about it? Why not say: “we are having to stop flights until …

So, Obama and Brown are going to save the world from Yemeni and Yemen influenced nasties. The media is loving being able to fill space and 24 hour news graphics with lots of scary details about how Yemen is now home to various head choppers and plane bombers. OK so i love it here and hate hearing anything bad about the place, but yes there are some people here who we, the west, have decided to not to like, namely islamists who dont like us and would like to see …

It is with great sadness that i heard about the IY626 Sanaa to Comoros plane crash on Tuesday morning. I know several Yemenia cabin crew, thankfully they werent on that flight, however of course their colleagues were and they are all very upset.
I quite often get asked what it is like to fly Yemenia. Is it safe? being the real point of the question. I have flown in first class and economy class on Yemenia over 30 times, on routes inside Yemen and also to London, Rome, Dubai and Jeddah.
My …

Chewed some extraordinary Qat last week, freshly plucked from the fields of Wadi Dhar. Was promised the best sleep of my life. Indeed, i was out for about 13 hours.
Subject of the chew was mainly to do with Iran elections and the Saa’da kidnapping.
The latest theories on the kidnapping – in which actually only 3 bodies have been discovered not known publically what has happened to the other people – are as follows:
1. Jihadist freelancers funded by Saudis popped over the border from a camp in Saudi and did it
2. …

Update 1845 Sana’a. It is increasingly likely that a group aligned to Al Qaeda and based in northern Yemen has committed this atrocity. Whether all 9 have been killed or whether 7 have been killed with 2 of the children being found alive, is not confirmed.
At some point between Friday 12th June and Monday 15th June,  a picnic arranged by a group of 9 foreigners in the Saa’da region in north Yemen, turned into a horror story. We know that at least 7 bodies have been found, 3 German women …