Jane Marriott

On Wednesday 26 February, the United Nations Security Council in New York adopted a new Resolution on Yemen, UNSCR 2140. In its unanimous adoption of this resolution, the Security Council delivered five clear messages: Firstly, that the international community continues to focus on Yemen and wants to support the Yemeni people towards a more stable […]

Every Yemeni and their international friends know that the real test of Yemen’s political transition process will be whether it improves the lives of most Yemenis. Progress won’t happen overnight: significant structural reforms are needed and corruption needs to be tackled before there are real improvements. Life in Yemen is tough: in 2005, 18% of […]

Guest blog by the Embassy Lyricist This week the British Embassy (and millions of Scots worldwide) gathered to remember the Scottish poet Robert Burns.  Britain and Yemen’s shared love of poetry led us to think, could the 18th century poet actually have hailed from Yemen? I’ll leave you to decide! How can a man born in […]

Over the past week or two I have observed that there seems a renewed determination to bring the National Dialogue Conference to an end, though there is still keen debate about what should be in the final outcomes: what needs to be agreed definitively now, and what might be worked out in detail later. While […]

Nelson Mandela was buried today at his family home in Qunu, South Africa. Over the last few days I have been reflecting on Mandela’s life, his achievements, and how – through the art of forgiveness, reconciliation and the power of dialogue – Mandela brought about visionary and historic change in South Africa. With the change […]

On Wednesday night, Yemenis and their international friends drew a collective breath of horror as we saw the CCTV footage from inside the Urdhi hospital.  For those (outside Yemen) who may not know the background: on 5 December 2013 a team of suicide bombers and gunmen in military uniforms launched an attack on a hospital […]