Terrorism

Censorship and criminalization in the North Caucasus forced Valery Dzutsev, a former coordinator for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)  to either “quit journalism or never return home.” He chose political asylum in the U.S. and cut ties with Russia.

A one-way ticket from Russia to Georgia bought Oleg Panfilov journalistic freedom. After the success he has now gained in Georgia, he reflects upon the hopelessness of journalism in Russia.

Journalist Elena Maglevannaya dared to expose the torture of Chechen detainees in Russian prisons. As a result, she was sued for libel, attacked by neo-Nazis and threatened with institutionalization.

A profile of Natalia Estemirova, a Chechen journalist who paid with her life to expose human rights abuses in her homeland.

One of the first things you notice wandering around anywhere in Yemen is the kids. They are everywhere. Playing soccer in the streets, collecting water, selling vegetables, and shooting marbles in the alleyways. And if you have a camera, you will here the constant refrain of "Sura! Sura!" the Arabic word for picture. I've collected a lot of pictures of Yemeni children over the past few months.

On May 3, as the United Nations marked World Press Freedom day, Reporters Without Borders released a list of the world’s worst “predators of press freedom.”

Yemen is the most gorgeous place you'll probably never visit.

In the north and east, the walled-cities of Sana'a and Shibam, both UNESCO Heritage sites, rise up out of the desert, all filigree and engraved ornamentation, like weathered wedding cakes, and in the west and south, the ancient port cities of Zabid and Aden, craggy and timeless, look out over an expanse of white sand beaches, shimmering turquoise water and an exposition of sea life that would make even a hardened diver swoon.

After a 13-year-old girl's death, the conservative Islamists are retrenching -- with some bizarre, yet somehow effective, arguments.

Mental_Floss Magazine

"It's the world's worst place to be a woman, and a breeding ground for terrorism; yet Yemen still exhibits real charm. Pull up a chair as we cover gingerbread architecture, daggers as an investment strategy, and why two scoops of strawberry ice cream are no match for a woman's veil."...

This Article was featured in the May-June 2010 issue of Mental_Floss.

A failed suicide attack on the British ambassador's convoy Monday morning shattered windows, terrified passersby and left debris and broken glass scattered on the sidewalks of the capital.

Only the bomber was killed and damage was minimal, but the incident seemed to demonstrate the continued strength of Al Qaeda in Yemen despite American and Yemeni counterterrorism efforts.

So there I was, lying on my back in a bikini on a deserted white-sand beach in Yemen, squinting into the shimmering turquoise sea to the west, wondering if I could make out Somalia from here.

I couldn't. Propped on my sandy elbows, all I could see were my own toes, a tract of impossibly fine white sand, and miles and miles of the Arabian Sea, which faded ever so slowly through a spectrum of teals before settling into a deep sapphire blue before, I couldn't help thinking, bumping up against Somalia, 160 miles away.

Last week, it was reported that the CIA may attempt to capture or kill Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based American cleric with ties to al-Qaeda.

Some say that's bad news.

Not because Awlaki is a particularly loveable guy – he's linked to both Umar Farooq Abdulmutallab's attempted bombing of the plane on Christmas day, and to Major Nidal Malik Hasan's shooting rampage at Fort Hood last fall – but because he's not important enough to kill.