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Yemen is the subject of a high-level international conference in London today. There are fears the Arab nation could become a failed state and a haven for al-Qaeda. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the Middle East editor of London’s Guardian newpaper, Ian Black.

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MARCO WERMAN: A month ago Omar Farouk Abdulmuttalab pushed the Arab nation of Yemen into the international spotlight.  Abdulmuttalab was allegedly trained by Al Qaeda in Yemen before attempting to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day.  The incident focused the world’s attention on Yemen’s fragile government and its uphill battle against militants in the country.  That situation in Yemen was the subject of a high level international conference in London today.  Ian Black recently visited the country as Middle East editor for London’s Guardian newspaper.

IAN BLACK: First of all, Yemen is a very poor country.  It’s in the Arab world, but only just.  It’s on the edge of the Arab world.  It’s got far more in common with Africa, just across the Red Sea.  It’s a population of 23 million people nearly half of whom live on less than $2.00 a day.  It’s running out of water.  San’a the capital may become the first capital city in the world in some years to actually run out of water. Its oil reserves are being depleted rapidly.  It’s got a very rickety infrastructure and the country has always been seen as one which is difficult to govern.  The President once talked about his job being like dancing with snakes.  That’s a pretty vivid description of what it’s like to hold this place together.

MARCO WERMAN: And dancing with snakes refers to what?

IAN BLACK: Dancing with snakes refers to the shear difficulty of running an extremely poor country which is still largely tribal with a very large population, remote, rugged areas where now and the current western preoccupation, people see the beginnings, if you like, of new safe havens or something like that for Al Qaeda.  It’s Al Qaeda that is the source of the immediate international interest. They’re the problems of Yemen.  Of course they’ve been around for many, many years, but it’s the link to western security, to the ability to attack the United States, Britain and others that has brought this very, very intense focus which is behind the meeting here in London today.

MARCO WERMAN: And yet the country’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who mentioned that ruling Yemen can be like dancing with snakes, is the same man who, as you point out in your article on Sunday in the Guardian, built this incredible mosque in San’a, the capital which blazes lights all night long even when power cuts out.  Do you think that the government of Ali Saleh is nimble enough to cope with the challenges that you’ve just mentioned?

IAN BLACK: Well I think that’s absolutely the question.  The Saleh regime is a very difficult one.  He’s been around for 30 plus years maneuvering, buying people off.  The sense is it can’t go on like this, that his own ability to maneuver is being restricted by the economic crisis.  He can no longer afford to buy people off, to buy security and that links him to the fear that Al Qaeda is making in roads and that Saleh’s dance with snakes, if you like, is getting harder and indeed more dangerous.

MARCO WERMAN: So the officials meeting in London, do you think they’re on the right track?  They seem to have the stick, but what is the carrot for this incredibly impoverished country?

IAN BLACK: Well I think the carrot is quite clear.  Yemen isn’t facing problems simply from today.  In 2006 there was a previous international conference, also held in London, which pledged around $5,000,000,000.00 in aid.  But the difficulties involved have been clear over the years.  Only a small fraction of that money has actually reached Yemen, partly because of reasons of a lack of capacity to absorb development aid, partly because of the way things are handled in that part of the Middle East.  I think that the U.S. and Britain would dearly like to see Saudi Arabia, this powerful and wealthy country next door to Yemen, take a more active role including getting the Yemeni’s to behave more like an accountable government which can receive the kind of aid it so desperately needs and that that aid can go to the right kind of projects and not simply line the pockets of corrupt officials, bureaucrats, whatever and not reach the Yemeni people whose need is so very, very great.  So that’s what the Yemeni’s are being required to do.  It’s quite a tall order, but I think what you see is this international concern is underlining the sense of urgency about the situation.  Everybody is afraid of another failed state in this very strategic part of the world.

MARCO WERMAN: Ian Black, Middle East editor for the Guardian, very good to speak with you.  Thanks a lot.

IAN BLACK: Thank you.

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