Yemen

PRESIDENT ALI Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has appeared on the brink of stepping down or being overthrown for weeks — yet somehow keeps hanging on. Last week he seemed to be yielding to a proposal from Persian Gulf states that he turn the government over to his vice president, in exchange for immunity for himself and his family. But on Friday Mr. Saleh delivered the latest in a series of defiant speeches to a crowd of supporters, rejecting the compromise and returning his country to an increasingly dangerous stalemate.

SANAA, Yemen -- Call them vice and virtue vigilantes: Even as Islamic scholars and lawmakers push Yemen to create a police unit to enforce religious standards, gangs of bearded men have appeared ad hoc to police public mores. Nader Abdul Kadoos, a 50-year-old returning student, was set upon by one such street committee last month in the southern port city of Aden, in a confrontation that received broad attention in Yemen's news media. Kadoos's apparent offense was to stroll out of the gates of Aden University after class in a group of male and female students.

The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said. Securing permission to use these "signature strikes" would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives. The practice has been a core element of the CIA's drone program in Pakistan for several years.

Yemen is changing its visa procedures as a result of the Dec. 25 airline bombing attempt in the United States and will require entry permits to be issued at its embassies abroad rather than granting them on arrival in Yemen, Foreign Minister Abubaker al-Qirbi said Wednesday. His government has also asked all Arabic-language institutes in Yemen to provide information on foreign students, Qirbi said. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian charged with attempting to detonate a bomb aboard the Amsterdam-Detroit flight last month, was a student at such a school in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, before he allegedly joined the al-Qaeda affiliate there last fall.

SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Sunday made no pledge to step down immediately in his first public address since abruptly returning to Yemen , but he called for early elections and declared that he was still committed to an internationally backed plan to transfer power. "Let's all move towards dialogue, understanding and peaceful exchange of power through election boxes and early presidential elections," he said in the 20-minute broadcast speech, which was defiant at some moments and conciliatory at others.

When President Obama tried to simultaneously disavow the anti-Muslim YouTube video that sparked widespread anti-American protests and defend freedom of speech at the United Nations last week , he ran headlong into the new governing principles of old allies like Egypt and Yemen. The presidents of Egypt and Yemen denounced the protesters' violence in speeches to the U.N. General Assembly. But they were equally fervent in defending the religious outrage behind them and challenging Obama's fulsome view of free speech.

AS PART OF HIS new pro-democracy policy for the Middle East , President Obama last week called on a longtime U.S. ally , Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to step down. For a few hours on Sunday, it looked as though the strongman might comply. Then an armed mob of the president's followers surrounded an embassy where the U.S. ambassador had gathered with Arab and European envoys. After being trapped for several hours, the ambassadors escaped to the presidential palace — only to watch as Mr. Saleh reneged on a deal that would end his 32 years in power.

SANAA, Yemen — The U.S. military used a drone to strike Thursday at an al-Qaeda target in Yemen, the first such U.S. attack using unmanned aircraft in that country since 2002, according to U.S. and Yemeni officials. Two al-Qaeda operatives were killed in the attack in the remote, mountainous Yemeni governorate of Shabwa early Thursday, a Yemeni security official said. Drones operated by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command were redeployed in Yemen last year as part of a secret U.S. effort to reinvigorate the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in the country.

SANAA, YEMEN -- The last remaining Jews in Yemen are vanishing, driven out by politics, war and hatred. Once numbering 60,000, one of the oldest Jewish populations in the Arab world now has fewer than 350 members. In recent months, persecution by Islamist extremists has intensified, accelerating Jews' flight from Yemen. Many are heading to the United States. With the help of the U.S. government and U.S.-based Jewish organizations, 57 Yemeni Jews have been resettled in New York since July.

THREE times the strongman of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, promised to sign an agreement to step down, and three times he reneged. Twice he left the country for medical treatment — most recently heading to the United States — only to disappoint most of his countrymen by returning home again . Now at last it appears that the Arab world's poorest country — and strongest base for al-Qaeda — will rid itself of the man who has dominated it...