Middle East

A hairdryer whirrs. Teenage girls reach for sequins, glitter and hairpins. It's the weekend in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and seven sisters are dressing for a wedding.

The eldest, Ashwaq, 21, a university graduate, wants to be a journalist.

Asked what she thinks about Yemen's new self-appointed morality authority, she looks up from styling her sister's hair.

"The first thing they'll do is stop women from working. Then they'll force us to wear the veil."

Yemen is a conservative Islamic society, where parliament boasts only one woman out of 301 MPs.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh's July declaration that the four-year, stop-go guerrilla war in the northern province of Saada was "over" took everyone in Yemen by surprise.

Now, rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has agreed to come down from the mountain.

In a letter publicised by Yemen's state-run media today, al-Houthi accepted Saleh's peace terms. The rebels will surrender their strategic mountaintop positions and hand over their heavy and medium weapons to the authorities.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. Its 22 million-strong population is set to double by 2035 at the current rate of growth, but it's fast running out of water – and oil. Yemen's state structures are weak and incomplete, and the country faces substantial development challenges.

I reported from Yemen for a year – from 2006 to 2007 – and now I'm back to see whether recent reforms are diffusing social, political and economic pressures in this fragile state.

Here's a Pulitzer-sponsored piece from Sunday's Washington Times.

This wasn't the best trip for blogging, since it was much easier to work than it was last year. (Less time locked in hotel means less time for blogging.) On the bright side, we have about 50 hours of video to sort through and edit.

Tomorrow morning Rick and I will take the land route out of Iraq, rather than risk being grounded at the airport by the dust storms that have marked much of our trip. It will be the first time I've driven out since 2003.

The Lebanese authorities are planning to rebuild the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al-Bared, which was pulverized last year by the Lebanese army. Is the rebuilding a covert attempt at gaining control over the semi-autonomous refugee camps in Lebanon

Continue reading in Norwegian.

All the rooms are full at the Bourj Babel Hotel outside of Basra. Every guest is there to visit a family member inside of the US detention facility at Bucca.

At 3:30 AM minivans take them out into the the desert where they wait at the first gate until it opens at 7 AM.

All the rooms are full at the Bourj Babel Hotel outside of Basra. Every guest is there to visit a family member inside of the US detention facility at Bucca.

At 3:30 AM minivans take them out into the the desert where they wait at the first gate until it opens at 7 AM.

There is no electricity and the town is dark. Oil flares light the sky. Bucca burns on the desert floor like an alien city.

Our driver to Basra was playing this song on the trip.

As the sun came up on a recent morning in the district of Sadr City, Iraqi army troops searched as many as a thousand houses, arresting a dozen suspects and collecting nearly 50 unregistered weapons.

Four months ago, these streets, some too narrow for Humvees, were controlled by the Jaish al-Mahdi, a Shi'ite militia whose name in Arabic means the Mahdi Army, which in 2006 poured out of Sadr City and took over large parts of Baghdad.

Mehyar said he had a car, but he didn't bring it with him.

"It's broken," he told me, and I'm sure my expression gave away my dismay. "We can take a cab, or we can take my bike."

Today, the newspapers plant their flags on a mountain of corpses and a city of walls.

She empties her lungs.Capillaries blossom red. Color leaks back into lips.They move, but our ears are still ringing.Brace against the door frame for a secondary blastand pray that it never comes.

For five years, we let the asphalt burn our feet,breathed in the smell of sewage and blood,and waited for     a spring full of tulips,     a black shirt stained with salt,     a red kaffeiya and coal black eyes. . .

In the lobby, he smiles while his hands fidget with the room keys'When I saw him bleeding from his chest,I swear I forgot how to speak - in Arabic and in English. . .my only son. . . I am an old man now. . . he was all I had.'

'They own the land, and now we are their guests on it.'

...

Today, on the edge of Amara.Flies swarm around the desk.He buckles his belt.Prison tattoos curl around his wrist and a shadow clouds his forehead.

Yesterday, on the edge of Falluja.The same room with the same old men.Nicotine teeth, gold watches and pearl handled revolvers.

It is, at least, a safe place to sleep.

After five years, we have lost even this - even the clarity of death.Nothing left but the hospitality of thieves.

San Francisco's KPFA Morning Show interviewed David Enders on July 30 about the current state of Baghdad and how the recent American troop surge has affected the region.

Listen to the Morning Show (David Enders begins at 80 minutes)

Download the episode