Yemen’s rural population: Ignored in an already-forgotten war

Nineteen million people live in Yemen’s rural areas. More than 12 million of them are poor, and food insecure, while more than 5 million are on the verge of starvation and don’t know where their next meal is coming from. What does this tell us about rural living conditions

Understanding the Yemeni crisis : the transformation of tribal roles in recent decades

Tribes are a fundamental element of Yemen’s social fabric and therefore important in understanding the various levels of conflict in the country. They are vastly misunderstood, the term ‘tribe’ is often used in an anti-historical way, ignoring the changes which have taken place over the decades, within tribes and in their relations with others. Not only misunderstood, but also subject to multiple prejudices which caricature and generalise on the basis of selected characteristics about individual tribes. Disparaging and indeed, insulting statements about tribes can be found with great ease in the media, even in academia and among educated people. Most of us involved in the region will certainly have experienced them on an almost daily basis. In particular urban people tend to despise tribesmen and use the word bedu to disparage both tribespeople and nomads. Among others, Corstange presents an excellent summary of these prejudices: “in the Yemeni context… the tribesmen are often stylized as uneducated, backward, ignorant, uncultured, tradition-bound, irrational, uncivilized and violent. These views are often strongest among city- dwellers, the educated elite, and those who strongly oppose the current governing regime in Yemen, which is associated with tribalism and tribal traditions. Unflattering jokes abound about the ignorance and stupidity of tribesmen, and the epithet ‘tribal’ is not infrequently used as a synonym for ‘backward’. Other than demystification, there are many reasons why tribes and their changed nature and relationship to other social groups in Yemen are very relevant to the country’s present and future. Here are just two examples: - One outcome of the transition process which started in 2011 is that the country should become a federal state of six regions: should tribal allegiances be a relevant consideration in the definition of these regions’ borders? Can they be? Is the tribal factor more or less relevant to this issue than water basins? - Among those prosecuting the current war, it was assumed that the allegiance of tribesmen could be ensured by the provision of incentives (as had been done during the civil war in the Yemen Arab Republic in the 1960s), but this has clearly not been the case. The military balance in the war over the past year has certainly been influenced by the allegiances of tribes on different fronts, but incentives have been unable to tip it. Had things been different, the coalition forces would have reached San‘a months ago. This paper addresses a set of related aspects of this problematic. - First I briefly examine some of the debate around the nature of tribes and the wide range of phenomena described as tribal. This will clarify some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings about Yemen in general and its tribes in particular. - This is followed by a description of Yemen’s social structure at the time of the revolutions of the 1960s. This period is indicative of the situation for the preceding century or so. While I do not suggest for a moment that Yemeni society prior to this time was static or enjoying the ‘eternal present’ encountered in much traditional anthropological literature, this period roughly represents a state of affairs prior to the significant social, political and economic transformations which later fundamentally redesigned its social structure. - The third part addresses changes in social structures since the 1970s, and the way in which these structures have fully developed since unification in 1990 as a result of modifications in the nature of the country’s economic base. I will discuss the tensions which have arisen as a result, particularly through the emergence of a single elite combining military, economic and political power, and its impact on tribal relations and the nature of the tribe as a concept. - Finally, I will assess the relevance of these changes in social formations on two of today’s urgent issues, the role of political parties and the importance of jihadism. I conclude with some remarks on the extent to which the emerging social forces could contribute to a solution of the country’s current deep crisis

Workers in the vanguard: the 1960 Industrial Relations Ordinance and the struggle for independence in Aden

The promulgation in 1960 of a new Industrial Relations Ordinance in Aden was a singular event in the history of British decolonisation because it made many forms of strike action illegal. Earlier initiatives to liberalise trade union law in the colonies were intended to channel and manage the discontent of workers; but for nationalist movements, the new order in industrial relations provided an opportunity to mobilise workers in the cause of independence. Aden, which was the location of a significant British base, a major oil refinery and a key commercial port, became the site of a bitter confrontation between the nascent trade union movement and the colonial administration. Three aspects of the conflict were of particular significance. First, Aden’s unique political status as a British colony in the Arab world and it strategic and economic value, contributed to the fractious industrial relations environment. Secondly, conflicts between workers and the colonial government demonstrate continuity with wider British efforts to suppress anti-colonial dissent and demonstrate that charges of appeasement in the last years of empire are not well founded. Lastly, the exceptional nature of the new legislation attracted the critical attention of the ILO and the major international trade union confederations, which internationalised the dispute over the IRO. An examination of the manner in which the British government sought to regulate its relations with various labour organisations, including the British TUC, the colonial ATUC and the two rival international labour confederations of the WFTU and ICFTU, demonstrates that the conduct of industrial relations in Aden was significant in the context of both the Cold War and decolonisation

Fertility education for adolescent cancer patients: Gaps in current clinical practice in Europe

Objective: As adolescent cancer patients may suffer from infertility following treatment, fertility counselling is essential. Our aim was to explore the current situation in four European countries in terms of (I) education about the risk for infertility, (II) counselling on fertility preservation, (III) patients' knowledge on fertility, (IV) sufficiency of information and (V) uptake of cryopreservation. Methods: In total, 113 patients (13–20 years) at 11 study centres completed a self-report questionnaire three and six months after cancer diagnosis. Multivariate logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: As many as 80.2% of participants reported having received education about the risk for infertility prior to treatment, 73.2% recalled counselling on fertility preservation. Only 52.3% stated they felt sufficiently informed to make a decision. Inability to recall counselling on fertility preservation (OR = 0.03, CI: 0.00–0.47) and female gender (OR = 0.11, CI: 0.03–0.48) was associated with lower use of cryopreservation, whereas older age was associated with higher use. Conclusion: Fertility counselling was available to a relatively high proportion of patients, and it did influence the utilisation of cryopreservation. However, many patients did not feel sufficiently informed. Further improvement is needed to enable adolescent cancer patients to make an informed decision on fertility preservation

Long-range DNA looping and gene expression analyses identify DEXI as an autoimmune disease candidate gene

The chromosome 16p13 region has been associated with several autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes (T1D) and multiple sclerosis (MS). CLEC16A has been reported as the most likely candidate gene in the region, since it contains the most disease-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), as well as an imunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif. However, here we report that intron 19 of CLEC16A, containing the most autoimmune disease-associated SNPs, appears to behave as a regulatory sequence, affecting the expression of a neighbouring gene, DEXI. The CLEC16A alleles that are protective from T1D and MS are associated with increased expression of DEXI, and no other genes in the region, in two independent monocyte gene expression data sets. Critically, using chromosome conformation capture (3C), we identified physical proximity between the DEXI promoter region and intron 19 of CLEC16A, separated by a loop of >150 kb. In reciprocal experiments, a 20 kb fragment of intron 19 of CLEC16A, containing SNPs associated with T1D and MS, as well as with DEXI expression, interacted with the promotor region of DEXI but not with candidate DNA fragments containing other potential causal genes in the region, including CLEC16A. Intron 19 of CLEC16A is highly enriched for transcription-factor-binding events and markers associated with enhancer activity. Taken together, these data indicate that although the causal variants in the 16p13 region lie within CLEC16A, DEXI is an unappreciated autoimmune disease candidate gene, and illustrate the power of the 3C approach in progressing from genome-wide association studies results to candidate causal genes

Participatory Development and the Emergence of a Rural Civil Society (abstract)

The beginning of the 1990’s witnessed an important change in the concepts of rural development. The direct aid of state institutions being considered as no longer efficient, the major international investors emphasized on decentralization, privatization and the beneficiaries’ participation in the activities of development. These latter were defined as “community organizations”. However, this new ‘participating’ approach remains questionable, particularly in that whether the community organiza..

Participatory Development and the Emergence of a Rural Civil Society

Introduction Since the 1990’s development orthodoxy, as promoted by the major international bilateral and multilateral donors, has emphasised decentralization, privatization and the participation of beneficiaries in development activities. Previous Welfare State approaches have been regarded as expensive and inefficient, civil servants being often said to work little and cost much. The new approach is presented as a means of addressing the ‘inefficiency’ of direct support to government admin..

A house built on sand : a political economy of Saudi Arabia /

Bibliography: p. 218.Includes index