YEMAN

Yemen (ⁱ/ˈjɛmən/; Arabic: اليَمَن‎‎ al-Yaman), officially known as the Republic of Yemen, is an Arab country in Western Asia, occupying the southwestern to the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen is the second-largest country in the peninsula, occupying 527,970 km² (203,850 sq mi). The coastline stretches for about 2,000 km (1,200 mi).^[6] It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea to the south, and Oman to the east and northeast. Although Yemen's constitutionally stated capital is the city of Sana'a, the city has been under rebel control since February 2015. Because of this, Yemen's capital has been temporarily relocated to the port city of Aden, on the southern coast. Yemen's territory includes more than 200 islands; the largest of these is Socotra.

Yemen was the home of the Sabaeans (biblical Sheba), a trading state that flourished for over a thousand years and probably also included parts of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 275 AD, the region came under the rule of the later Jewish-influenced Himyarite Kingdom. Christianity arrived in the fourth century AD, whereas Judaism and localpaganism were already established. Islam spread quickly in the seventh century and Yemenite troops were crucial in the expansion of the early Islamic conquests.^[11] Administration of Yemen has long been notoriously difficult. Several dynasties emerged from the ninth to 16th centuries, the Rasulid being the strongest and most prosperous. The country was divided between the Ottoman and British empires in the early 20th century. The Zaydi Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen was established after World War I in North Yemen before the creation of the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962.South Yemen remained a British protectorate until 1967. The two Yemeni states united to form the modern republic of Yemen in 1990.

Yemen is a developing country, and the poorest country in the Middle East. Under the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen was described as a kleptocracy. According to the 2009 international corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, Yemen ranked 164 out of 182 countries surveyed. In the absence of strong state institutions, elite politics in Yemen constituted a de facto form of collaborative governance, where competing tribal, regional, religious, and political interests agreed to hold themselves in check through tacit acceptance of the balance it produced.The informal political settlement was held together by a power-sharing deal between three men: president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who controlled the state; major general Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who controlled the largest share of the army; and sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, figurehead of the Islamist Islah party and Saudi Arabia's chosen broker of transnational patronage payments to various political players, including tribal sheikhs The Saudi payments have been intended to facilitate the tribes' autonomy from the Yemeni government and to give the Saudi government a mechanism with which to weigh in on Yemen's political decision-making.

Yemen has been in a state of political crisis since 2011. starting with street protests against poverty, unemployment, corruption, and president Saleh's plan to amend Yemen's constitution and eliminate the presidential term limit, in effect making him president for life. President Saleh stepped down and the powers of the presidency were transferred to Vice President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was formally elected president on 21 February 2012 in a one-man election. The transitional process was disrupted by conflicts between the Houthis and Islah, as well as the al-Qaeda insurgency. In September 2014 the Houthis took over Sana'a, later declaring themselves in control of the government in a coup d'état. Since then, a Saudi-led intervention has caused a new civil war to take place.

Regards

Mark R. Rienzie

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