Yemen: the Disease Known, the Cure Mysterious……………..
“Yemen’s population growth rate is close to 3.5 percent, one of the highest in the world, with 50 percent of Yemen’s 23 million people under the age of 15 and 75 percent under 29. Unemployment is 35 to 40 percent, in part because Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states booted out a million Yemeni workers after Yemen backed Saddam Hussein in the 1990 gulf war. Thanks to bad planning and population growth, Yemen could be the first country to run out of water in 10 to 15 years……….. It’s not a secret how to fix this country, argued Mohammed al-Asaadi, a media consultant who sat in with us: “We need a revolution against the status quo. We need to build capacity, institutionalize the rule of law and build a culture of ownership and responsibility.” Added Murad Hashim, the Al Jazeera bureau chief here: “We need more education, but we have not used our educated people.” Indeed, Yemen has the resources to save itself, but they need to be mobilized by better governance…………”
Thomas Friedman forgets to mention the elephant sitting and defecating in the room: the 32-year dictatorship of one man, one family. Friedman is too polite, as he usually is, to put his finger on the source. He is usually too polite with other Arab absolute monarchs and dictators as well, but that is understandable for a journalist, they provide him with access.
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