For one day only…

The Times paywall is down today, for 24 hours only, in celebration of The Queen’s Jubilee.

[You have to register but no fee]

Now as much as I’d like to think everyone will be sitting in front of their computers on a Sunday just to read more than 73 reports I’ve written on Yemen since 2010, someone came up with the sensible suggestion that I select three pieces. Not easy but here we go:

December 2010:

US secretly supplied weapons to help Saudi Arabia fight Yemen rebels

Not exactly a fine piece of prose but this was related to the Wikileaks cable releases at the time. This particular find was, in my view, under reported, or not picked-up on at all in the US media: American assistance in the war against the Houthis. I wrote a short post about it at the time.

May 2011:

Death in the darkness: how Yemeni leader deals with Arab Spring

From all of last year’s reports this one stood out. I didn’t want to write a first person dispatch at the time when my editor requested it. I remember strongly protesting at the idea whilst on the phone, standing in the mosque turned field hospital in change square, surrounded by hundreds of casualties. Despite him being unaware of the events of that night at the time of his request, he was right. This single piece got more attention then anything else I’ve written before or since, in turn raising awareness of what was really happening in Yemen.

May 2012:

Beheadings, mutilations, scalping: the savage legacy of al-Qaeda in retreat in Yemen

From my recent trip to Abyan two weeks ago.

God Save the Queen! (For one day only)