Yemen

The Yemeni government and southern separatists have failed to meet a deadline to establish a power-sharing government, an ominous sign for hopes of a wider deal to end years of war.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Tuesday, November 26 that it will release 200 insurgents, as efforts pick up pace to end the conflict in the impoverished country. … Yemen’s warring parties agreed under a deal brokered in Sweden last December to exchange 15,000 prisoners, but the accord has not been fully implemented.

The momentum to reach a political settlement in Yemen “has been building”, the United Nations Special Envoy to the country told the Security Council on Friday, attributing the positive development to compromises on “a range of issues”.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels hijacked a ship in the southern Red Sea, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The move came as Yemen's internationally recognized government returned to the country for the first time since being forced out by the southern separatists last summer.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Iran-backed rebels are holding indirect, behind-the-scenes talks to end the devastating five-year war in Yemen, officials from both sides have told The Associated Press. The negotiations are taking place with Oman, a Gulf Arab country that borders both Yemen and Saudi Arabia, as mediator.

The top UN official in Yemen has welcomed an agreement to end infighting between the Government and separatist allies in the south of the country, known as the Southern Transitional Council, signed on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths described the Riyadh Agreement as “an important step for our collective efforts to advance a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Yemen."

The United Arab Emirates has said it has completed the withdrawal of its troops from Yemen's southern port city of Aden as part of a deal brokered with Saudi Arabia to end a power struggle between southern separatists and the internationally backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Yemen's internationally recognised government and the Houthi rebels have agreed to set up four observation posts to monitor a fragile ceasefire in the flashpoint port city of Hodeidah, according to the United Nations.

A Saudi-brokered deal to end a standoff between Yemen's internationally recognised government and southern separatists in the port city of Aden is expected to be announced on Thursday, officials have said.

War-ravaged Yemen is on course to become the world's poorest country if the conflict persists, the United Nations said in a report. … Because of the war, poverty in Yemen has jumped from 47 percent of the population in 2014 to a projected 75 percent by the end of 2019.