Why now is Somali piracy headlining around the world? it is hardly a new phenomenon. I decided to take a quick look around the online media to see what is being rumoured, theorised and conspired.

Like many others in Yemen on the 4th November, i bought a bag of Qat, and pulled an all nighter watching the US election coverage on TV zapping between BBC, Sky, Fox News, CNN, Al Jazeera and even France 24.
By far the BBC coverage was the most clunky but i think that was because they had a boatload of guests to squeeze in. The Jeremy Vine touchscreen wotsit made me nauseous. Simon Schama the historian was clearly pissed and close to drooling involuntarily all over the desk. It …

So, i have arrived back in the UK for a couple of weeks after a solid 3 month stint tending to business in Yemen. I have left behind a country whose tourism people are visiting a tourism expo in Madrid off the back of the killing of 2 Belgian tourists and their Yemeni guides in Hadramout a week earlier. Not good timing for them, but perfect timing for whoever planned it. Anyway, more on that in a future post.
Arriving back in the UK i am confused and bamboozled by what …

Brian Barron has a segment within the latest FOOC program on 24/11/07. You can read it / download it here
For anyone who just reads or downloads it here’s my smackdown to a story that does nothing but enhance the ’failed state’ image that has plagued Yemen.