The police in United Arab Emirates (UAE) have warned against wearing vendetta masks while celebrating the 41st national day of the UAE. Any person who wears this mask would face legal questionnaires, as the mask refers to opposition to the government and authorities.

According to the police, wearing this mask or any similar symbol violates the security of the state. It is considered a criminal offense and punishable by law, even for those who don’t know what this mask might refer to.

In a Gulf news website, a Dubai police official said “Using any symbol that insults the country or instigates unrest against its system is not allowed. We urge citizens to celebrate using other symbols such as national flags, slogans or photos that are more appropriate to the happy occasion of National Day.”

The vendetta mask, also called Guy Fawkes mask, was designed to hide Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes was the principle of the group that failed to bomb the British House of Lords in London in 1605.  In the end he was captured and hanged in Westminster January 31,1606.

Every November 5, the people in the UK, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa celebrate Guy Fawkes Night for his failure to bomb the British House of Lords.

The advertisements to sell this mask in the UAE have shown up in some online stores featuring number 41 and the UAE flag colors, red, black, green and white. The price of the mask is about $20 USD.  After the police call, most of the advertisers have withdrawn the advertisements from the online sites, especially in the UAE-based web sites and blogs.

Vendetta is a Latin word used in English and other languages which means revenge. This mask was so popular during the Arab spring demonstrations in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and Libya revolutions. In these countries, many protesters used to wear these masks to show their maximum discontent on their government while calling to overthrow it.

This year, the UAE is celebrating the 41 anniversary of being united and independent. The UAE is a confederation of 7 sheikhdoms which were united on December 2, 1971. Sometimes they call it union day rather than national day.

The capital of UAE is Abu Dhabi, while Dubai is the commercial capital and the most famous city in the country. The other sheikhdoms are Sharjah, Ajman , Umm al-Quwain , Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah.

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Washington, U.S.A. — As World Population Day approaches, Wilson Center consultant and demographer Elizabeth Leahy Madsen says the Arab Spring demonstrates that countries with very young age structures are prone both to higher incidence of civil conflict and undemocratic governance. “Among the five countries where revolt took root, those with the earliest success in ousting autocratic leaders also had the most mature age structures and the least youthful populations,” she writes on the New Security Beat . What happens next in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria will further test the connection between youth and democracy discovered by fellow Wilson Center consulting demographer Richard Cincotta.

In South Asia, Madsen finds that as Afghanistan and Pakistan’s political circumstances have become more entwined, their demographic paths are more closely parallel than expected. “For Afghanistan, given its myriad socioeconomic, political, cultural, and geographic challenges, this is good news. But for Pakistan, where efforts to meet family planning needs have fallen short of capacity, it is not,” she writes in the first issue of the newly relaunched ECSP Report, “Afghanistan, Against the Odds: A Demographic Surprise.”

Other top population issues to watch:

• New commitments to family planning: An international summit in London on July 11, co-hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Department for International Development and supported by USAID and UNFPA, may produce financial commitments toward meeting a new and ambitious goal of generating $4 billion to fund contraceptives for 120 million women in developing countries by 2020.
• Changing fertility rates in Africa : Contraceptive use over the past five years is growing much faster than the regional average in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda, leading to declining fertility rates. However, contraceptive use in other countries, including Mozambique, Senegal, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, are declining or showing only modest increases.
• Revised global population projections : The 2013 revision of the World Population Prospects will provide a new global population prediction for 2050. This figure can vary dramatically: If the global fertility rate changes by 0.5 children per woman in either direction, the total population could be more than one billion higher or lower in 2050.

Since 1994, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) has actively pursued the connections between the environment, health, population, development, conflict, and security. ECSP brings together scholars, policymakers, the media, and practitioners through events, research, publications, multimedia content (audio and video), and our award-winning blog, New Security Beat. The Environmental Change and Security Program Report 14 is the latest volume of ECSP’s flagship publication. Published since 1996, ECSP Report is now an online series of policy briefs.

The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact. By conducting relevant and timely research and promoting dialogue from all perspectives, it works to address the critical current and emerging challenges confronting the United States and the world

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Yemenis troops took two of al-Qaeda’s southern strongholds 12 June 2012 in an operation known as Golden Swords. The offensive, which began 12 May 2012, took over ninety percent of the provincial capital of Abyan, Zinjibar, and the city of Jaar. The troops also took the highway linking Jaar to the port of Aden, the area through which sixty percent of Yemen’s oil passes.

The Yemeni military was backed by dozens of US troops who remained in a command center at a nearby air base.

The Yemeni troops have been shelling the strongholds for about the past two months. The troops took Jaar in a surprise dawn attack, driving the al-Qaeda group out. The residents of the town celebrated the victory of the operation. One Jaar resident, Khaled Mohsen stated, “we thought it would take a year in order for the army to get rid of al-Qaeda, but we were surprised when they swept into the town in no time. I have been hearing constant exchange of gunfire all night, then suddenly everything was quiet. I looked from the windows, and I saw soldiers in uniform in the center of the town.”

The fighting in Zanjibar was much lighter than in Jaar since most of the city was already taken and many of the militants left for Jaar to defend that city.

Twenty militants and forty troops were killed in the fighting. The al-Qaeda militants fled from the town to the mountains and small towns in the region; most are now in the coastal town of Shaqra, the last remaining stronghold of al-Qaeda in the Abyan region. The group claims that they left the city to “spare bloodshed” and threatened to attack the capital of Sanaa in retaliation, according to CP24, a Canadian news agency. As they left Jaar the militants wrote “Al-Qaeda has withdrawn. Al-Qaeda was not defeated” on shutters and walls.

Al-Qaeda has been in possession of most of the southern province of Abyan for over a year. Although the Yemeni military has tried to take the region back, past attempts have failed because they are ill-equipped, badly trained, have no developed intelligence system, and there are still some conflicted loyalties to former President Saleh.

Newly elected President, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has promised to purge Yemen of al-Qaeda; so far his efforts seem to be successful. According to Gamal al-Aqil, governor of the Abyan province, the Yemeni government has succeeded in dealing al-Qaeda “painful blows.”

The United States views al-Qaeda in Yemen as the greatest threat to its national security. They have been aiding the Yemeni government as it tries to overthrow the group. The United States has also sent many drone attacks to the area over the past several years, although many in Yemen oppose the strikes. According to the BBC around forty people, including Yemeni citizens, were killed in US drone strikes in 2009.

Although al-Qaeda seems to be on the run in Yemen, the government is still worried about sleeper cells that may remain elsewhere in Yemen. The group has also retaliated recently with a suicide bomber in Sanaa in response to the foiling of a bombing attack on a US airliner.

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May 21, 2012 saw one of the most brutal suicide bombings ever in Yemen. At least 90 soldiers were killed and 222 injured during a parade rehearsal. The attack happened around 10 AM in the al-Sabeen square in Sanaa when the troops were listening to the national anthem, just minutes before the defense minister was due to give a speech. The suicide bomber is believed to be either a soldier or a man dressed in a soldier’s uniform.

The parade rehearsal was to commemorate Yemen’s National Day, the day in 1990 when the north and south of Yemen were united.

Most of the soldiers killed were from the Central Security Organization, a paramilitary force led by Yahya Saleh, nephew of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Yahya Saleh was dismissed only hours after the attack. One of the security officers was fired by presidential decree as well.

The al-Qaeda group in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), claimed responsibility for the attack. The AQAP declared that the attack was revenge for the US war on followers from southern Yemen. In the same announcement AQAP warned that there would be more attacks stating, “We will take revenge, God willing, and the flames of war will reach you everywhere, and what happened is but the start of a jihad project in defense of honor and sanctities.”

The AQAP is considered a key threat to US security by the US government. This is the same group that tried to bomb an airplane flying over Detroit and plotted to send mail bombs to Chicago via cargo planes in 2010. Most recently, the AQAP is also responsible for the failed attempt to get a suicide bomber onto a US bound plane in April 2012. The US has sent twenty-one missile attacks to AQAP territory since January 2012.

No top officials were harmed during the bombing, although they were present; instead, most of the victims were Yemeni soldiers. In the past soldiers have been off-limits for the AQAP because they believed that it would make them unpopular with the Yemeni people. Previously the AQAP has gone so far as to release 75 soldiers that they captured in southern Yemen.

This attack seems to demonstrate that the AQAP has expanded influence since most of its operations have taken place only in Southern Yemen. It is possible that the group has grown because of pressures on the al-Qaeda group in the Federall Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan now that Pakistan is cooperating more with the US.

The bombing came 10 days after the Yemeni military started airstrikes and ground assaults near the outskirts of Jaar, the most important militant-controlled town in Yemen. Although the US military is advising the Yemeni government it is not getting involved militarily. Obama stated, “I think one of the things that we’ve learned from the Afghanistan experience is for us to stay focused on the counter-terrorism issue, to work with the government, to not overextend ourselves.”

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San Francisco, U.S.A. - In 2010, the self-immolation of a produce vendor in Tunisia catalyzed a series of massive democratic revolutions and uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

These events would come to be known as the Arab Spring. In some countries, strongmen who had held power for decades collapsed under the force of youthful popular movements. In others, despots violently and mercilessly clamped down on demonstrators.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope  is a collaboration between San Francisco–based publishers McSweeney’s and Byliner Inc. The substantial e-book collects the most important primary source documents from those historic uprisings, telling the story of the Arab Spring from the perspective of those who lived it—men and women, young and old, from all sectors of society: musicians, poets, writers, political activists, actors, labor unionists, journalists, workers, and professionals.

Voices from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria provide a comprehensive and captivating narrative of the momentous events of last year. From the harrowing accounts of tortured protesters to the hollow appeals of crumbling regimes and the triumphant songs of revolutionaries, these documents catalog the events of the Arab Spring in all its complexity and drama. They will remain fresh and urgent for a long time to come.

Now That We Have Tasted Hope is edited by Daniel Gumbiner, the associate director of the Zeitoun Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the continued rebuilding and social advancement of New Orleans and to the promotion of understanding between people of disparate faiths around the world.

The foreword is written by Diana Abouali, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College, and the introduction is by Elliott Colla, coeditor of the e-magazine Jadaliyya and author of Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, and Egyptian Modernity.

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On January 16, Al-Qaida forces took over Radda, a Yemeni town 100 miles south of the capital, and captured the local prison, setting at least 150 convicts free. According to an Associated Press photographer, the al-Qaida militants who attacked Radda were equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, automatic rifles, and other arms.

Residents said that a black al-Qaida banner was flown at the top of a captured mosque. Around 200 militants invaded Radda from already captured points, according to security officials. These points included an ancient castle, mosque, and school. Some of the freed criminals were given arms and joined in the fighting, according to anonymous officials who were not allowed to speak to the media.

The officials divulged that the leader of the al-Qaida fighters was Tariq Al-Zahab, whose sister was married to Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida cleric and recruiter who was killed in a U.S. airstrike. The fighters maintained a security ring around Radda, so nobody could enter or leave.

Al-Qaida militants are taking advantage of the fact that the Yemeni government has been weakened due to an anti-regime uprising which was influenced by the Arab Spring revolts. This takeover has added to the number of towns that al-Qaida has already conquered in the mostly lawless south. After months of opposing protests, President Ali Abdullah Saleh finally ended his 33-year rule. The capture of Radda gives al-Qaida a foothold close to the capital, which is believed to contain many terrorist sleeper cells.

Thousands protested the security officials’ failure to protect the town in the provincial capital of Bayda. They blamed Saleh for the attack, as did some tribal leaders. “We are surprised by the silence of the security forces,” said one protester, Abdel-Rahman al-Rashid, who lives in Radda. “They have not moved, which only means that this is all arranged to spark chaos.”

Yemen, being the poorest nation in the Arab world, has long been in danger of splitting up along regional lines, with al-Qaida in possession of remote, guarded areas in the country’s mountainous areas. If this happens, Yemen could turn into something similar to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and become a power base for militants to plot terrorist attacks against the US and its allies.

The active al-Qaida branch in Yemen has previously been connected to terror attacks on the United States and Saudi Arabia and is considered one of the most formidable franchises of the international terror organization. The US once viewed Saleh as an ally in the fight against al-Qaida. However, the US stopped its support last summer and encouraged Saleh to resign.

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One man has ruled Yemen, like many of its neighbors in the Middle East for a very long time. At times it seems like the leaders in the region compete for who stays on the job the longest. President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen is no exception.

Like Egypt’s Mubarak and Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Yemen’s president was planning to mark yet another anniversary of his rule (33rd in his case). However that seems highly unlikely given the recent protests in that country.

The opposition in Yemen has achieved a major milestone in their fight to oust their president. They have agreed in principle to a five-point manifesto that charts the course of their country’s future. They have also made President Saleh agree to some form of unity government as a transitional phase.

Considering that the embattled president has been experiencing increased pressure in his country, with tens of thousands of protestors demanding he resign, it is understandable that he would claim to have found “common ground” with the five point demands of the opposition.

A summary of the five-point agreed to by the opposition is as follows,

1- A peaceful and smooth transition of power before the end of 2011. This point also includes the stipulation that President Saleh will not be allowed to appoint nor recommend any specific candidate, including family members of the president that currently hold high posts in the military.

2- Prohibits the exclusion of the various opposition parties and figures in the coming elections. This includes those in the south of Yemen, the youthful protestors as well as the various exiled Yemeni opposition figures currently living abroad

3- The formation of a new unity government inclusive of opposition members. The new government must give assurance to create an environment in which the next elections occur in a free and fair manner.

4- The right to assemble and protest peacefully.

5- to give financial assistance to those injured during the uprising as well as to the families that have lost loved ones.

The five-point agreement seems to be a comprehensive step in the right direction to expand the rights of the Yemeni people as well as their choices. How the process unfolds and to who power will finally rest is something the remainder of the world will certainly be anxiously awaiting to see.

One thing is certain though, the tremors of this major shake up rocking the whole of the Middle East will be felt by everyone in the months and even years to come.

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Made famous by the fact that Chandler from Friends once fled there to avoid an ex-girlfriend, Yemen is the latest Arab nation to be undergoing a revolution. The countries current dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh has ruled the nation since it was officially formed in 1990. However his career leads back much further then that, as he also served as the president of North Yemen for 12 years before the nations unified.

Saleh is another president with ties to the US, like Hosni Mubarak he has been supportive of a variety of US policies, and is still struggling with links to al-Qaeda operatives within the nation. This came to an abrupt end as Saleh made several furious statements blaming the US for the widespread protests in the Yemeni capital of Saana.

Much of the protest is concentrated at the University of Saana grounds in the capital city. Al Jazeera has reported the protests are daily now in the capital, with thousands demanding an end to the government’s reign. Yemeni protesters are frustrated with widespread corruption and nearly a third of the workforce is out of a job. More than 40 per cent of Yemen’s 23 million people live on less than two dollars a day.

The protests in Yemen have now been going on for weeks, with Saleh trying a number of tactits to end the protests in the capital. There have been reports of attacks from soliders resulting in the deaths of protestors, Saleh has tried blaming both the US and Israel for the protests, giving an impassioned speech against President Obama and has even attempted to propose a unity government.

Like Libya the future of the Yemen opposition movement will only be revealed through time – but it does seem possible that at least three large arab nations could overthrow long-standing dictators by utilizing the power of peaceful protest.

Photo Credit: Messay Shoakena – 2011 Messay

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