DUBAI - Yemeni Nobel Prize winner Tawakkol Karman was suspended from an Islamist party allied with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after she accused the Saudi-led coalition that backs him in the country's civil war of acting as occupiers.

Karman won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in Arab Spring protests that ousted authoritarian President Ali Abdullah. More recently she has ramped up public criticism of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, accusing them of backing a campaign to divide Yemen by supporting southern separatists against the internationally recognized government.Speaking at the Warwick Economics Summit in London over the weekend, Karman said Saudi Arabia and the UAE were driven by a "reckless adventurism" when they intervened in Yemen in 2015 after Iran-aligned Houthi forces drove Hadi into exile.In an earlier Twitter message, she wrote: "Saudi Arabia and UAE took advantage of the (Houthi) militia coup in Sanaa to launch a very ugly occupation and an uglier influence in Yemen."The Islah party, regarded as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is viewed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a terrorist organization, tried to distance itself from Karman and order her suspended from its ranks. </s> (This version of the Feb. 4 story corrects venue of gathering to Warwick University in paragraph three)

Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen looks on during a news conference as part of the Nobel Women's Initiative to gather a first-hand account of the ongoing violence against women land defenders, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera

DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemeni Nobel Prize winner Tawakkol Karman was suspended from an Islamist party allied with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after she accused the Saudi-led coalition that backs him in the country’s civil war of acting as occupiers.

Karman won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in Arab Spring protests that ousted authoritarian President Ali Abdullah. More recently she has ramped up public criticism of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, accusing them of backing a campaign to divide Yemen by supporting southern separatists against the internationally recognized government.

Speaking at the Warwick Economics Summit at Britain’s Warwick University over the weekend, Karman said Saudi Arabia and the UAE were driven by a “reckless adventurism” when they intervened in Yemen in 2015 after Iran-aligned Houthi forces drove Hadi into exile.

In an earlier Twitter message, she wrote: “Saudi Arabia and UAE took advantage of the (Houthi) militia coup in Sanaa to launch a very ugly occupation and an uglier influence in Yemen.”

The Islah party, regarded as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is viewed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a terrorist organization, tried to distance itself from Karman and order her suspended from its ranks.

“Tawakkol Karman’s statements do not represent the Islah party and its policies, and are not in line with the party’s positions,” a statement posted on Islah’s website said.

“Therefore, the general secretary has decided to freeze her membership according to the party’s status.”

Karman, who left Yemen after Houthi militia seized the capital Sanaa in a series of military advances that began in late 2014, responded on her Twitter account by describing Islah leaders as “prisoners and slaves” of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Tensions between Islah and southern separatists have been rising since Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, announced a boycott of Qatar in June last year over allegations that Doha backs Islamist militants. Qatar denies the charges.

Islah, eager to ease the worries of Gulf Arab states about its Islamist leanings, has sought to distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood denies accusations from conservative Arab governments of involvement in terrorism, saying it seeks democracy by peaceful means only.

The southern separatists want to restore the independent state of South Yemen, which merged with North Yemen in 1990. They have fought the Houthis alongside Hadi’s forces, but rose up last week and seized control of the southern port of Aden after Hadi refused to sack his prime minister, whom the separatists accuse of mismanagement and corruption. </s> SANAA, YEMEN: The political party of Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was killed in December by his erstwhile Huthi rebel allies, on Sunday named his replacement.

The General People's Congress, a key player in Yemeni politics for decades, elected former deputy premier Sadiq Amin Aburas by consensus at a meeting of its general committee, it said in a statement.

It made no mention of the Huthis, but said it would continue to "reject and resist aggression and siege" against Yemen, a reference to a military campaign being waged since 2015 by a Saudi-led coalition.

Aburas, 65, is seen as having been close to Saleh, the long-time Yemeni strongman killed by Huthi gunmen on December 4 after their alliance collapsed.

Saleh held power in the Arabian Peninsula country for three decades before being ousted in 2012 following mass protests.

He later allied with his former enemies, the Iran-backed Huthis, to seize the capital in 2014 from the internationally backed government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

That prompted Iran's regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia to lead an intervention against the alliance the following year.

In late 2017, the Saleh-Huthi alliance fell apart after Saleh offered to "turn the page" with Riyadh in return for a ceasefire and the lifting of a crippling blockade.

That sparked fighting in the streets of Sanaa, and Saleh was gunned down as he tried to flee.

The GPC said Aburas would lead it until its next general assembly, a date for which could not yet be set "because of the current difficulties".

The GPC said it was still open to dialogue and "national reconciliation".

More than 8,750 people have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen, according to the World Health Organization.

The country also faces what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. </s> On Friday, The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Literature Prize, announced an Iranian-born poet and a judge as new members as it seeks to recover from a #MeToo scandal that forced it to postpone this year’s literature Nobel.

Eight of its total 18 members have either resigned or are on hiatus due to a deep rift within the academy on how to manage its long-standing ties to a Frenchman recently convicted of rape.

For the first time in 70 years, it postponed this year’s literature prize by a year while it attempts to sort out its problems.

The election of Jila Mossaed, a Tehran-born poet who writes in Swedish and Persian, and Swedish supreme court judge Eric Runesson, brings the Academy’s active members to a quorum of 12.

Members have traditionally been elected for life, but with several members no longer actively participating, and to ensure the venerable body’s survival, its patron, Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, changed its statutes to make it possible for members to resign and be replaced.

“The election of two new members is positive. I hope The Swedish Academy will be given the opportunity to continue rebuilding the trust of the institution and that the academy can now continue its important work,” the king said in a statement.

“My words were not appreciated in my old home country, but my new nation is offering me one of the best literary positions because of what I write,” Mossaed, who’s been living in exile Sweden since 1986, told TT news agency. She replaces Swedish author Kerstin Ekman, who ended her involvement with the academy in 1989 over its refusal to condemn a fatwa issued by Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini against author Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses.

Meanwhile, Runesson, who also worked as a professor at Lund University, jokingly referred to himself as an “ignorant hellion” compared to his other academy colleagues.

Author and member Peter Englund told TT news agency, “This is about two people with strong integrity, who, with their different backgrounds, knowledge, and competence, complete the academy in a welcome and interesting fashion.” </s> Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has long been among the most vehement advocates of foreign intervention in the United States Senate, supporting US interventions for “regime changes” across the world.

Now Saudi Arabia has joined the list of countries where Graham has demanded regime change. Interviewed Tuesday morning at the Fox News show Fox & Friends, Graham declared that Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “has got to go.”

While proclaiming in the interview that he has been Saudi Arabia’s “biggest defender on the floor of the United States Senate,” Graham says that bin Salman is “toxic” and a “wrecking ball” and had Jamal Khashoggi “murdered in a consulate in Turkey” earlier this month.

So long as bin Salman is in charge in Saudi Arabia, Graham promises to refuse or “do business with” or visit Saudi Arabia. Graham also says in the interview that he will be pushing to “sanction the hell out of Saudi Arabia.”

Ron Paul Institute Chairman Ron Paul has a very different take on Saudi Arabia and its leader bin Salman.

Interviewed Monday at Fox Business, Paul applied his consistent noninterventionist approach, declaring that the “proper policy” for the US government is neither to punish nor aid Saudi Arabia. Sanctions or other punishment imposed by the US are not justified, says Paul.

Paul also declares in the interview, as he has often declared before, his opposition to the US policies of being “a close ally with Saudi Arabia” and providing military aid to Saudi Arabia for its ongoing war on Yemen — policies Graham has supported.



 This article was published by RonPaul Institute </s> (ABC NEWS)- Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad each have won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for their work to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war in armed conflict.

There were no clear favorites in the run-up to the award, but the Norwegian Nobel Committee declared that “each of them in their own way have helped to give greater visibility to wartime sexual violence so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.”

The North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in had been the favorites for the award for their work on denuclearization.

The bookies Sky Bet had priced the pair at 4/7, while U.S. President Donald Trump had been touted as the second favorite at 4/1.

There were 331 candidates for the prize this year, of which 216 were people and 115 were organizations. Nobel policy is to not release the list of nominees until 50 years have lapsed.

In the event that the committee didn’t reached a consensus, it turns to a simple majority vote, according to its website.

In recent decades the academy has often come under scrutiny for a number of controversial awards.

Henrik Urdal, the director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told ABC News that Nobel Prize winners former U.S. President Barack Obama and Myanmar Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi were two such laureates.

“I think Barack Obama is a case where they jumped too early,” he said. “When it comes to Aung San Suu Kyi, she was awarded for something I think is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. But she hasn’t lived up to the expectations afterward.”

Obama was given the prize after less than a year in office, and Aung San Suu Kyi has been accused of severe human rights violations since becoming prime minister.

The selection process is often fraught with dilemmas, and this year would have been no different.

The committee voters “are trying to vet the candidates for background,” Urdal said. “But there is no guarantee whatsoever that they don’t do something ridiculous and something that’s in opposition to the idea of the prize at a later point in life.”

Daniel Hogsta, the campaign coordinator for last year’s winners, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told ABC News that the biggest change that comes from winning the award is the increased media attention.

The award “hasn’t fundamentally changed the priorities of the work, but it elevated everything to a different level,” he said. “It’s been difficult in some aspects –- we’re flooded with requests for comment, appearances and interviews.

“The attention that it brings every year is not getting any less,” he added. “They are able to award the prize for very different kinds of achievements. If all the winners were agreeable to everyone I don’t think the prize would be equally important.” </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s party named a new leader after he was killed by his one-time allies in the country’s civil war, the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, last month.

The General People’s Congress party said Sadeq Amin Abou Rass, a former agriculture minister, had succeeded Saleh. The Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis had received backing from army units loyal to Saleh, which it hoped would help it gain a major edge in the three-year conflict.

Sunday’s announcement criticized Saudi “aggression” and said the party would keep resisting, but did not mention the Houthis. </s> The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their contributions to combating wartime sexual assault.

The prize was announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway, on Friday morning. The committee praised the winners for being symbols in the fight to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, has treated victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo for most of his adult life. He founded the Panzi Hospital, which supports survivors of sexual assault.

"His basic principal is that justice is everyone's business," the committee said.

Murad herself is a victim of sexual war crimes.

The 25-year-old is a member of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq and was taken captive by ISIS members who had launched an attack on her small village. She was held as a sex slave and subject to other abuses for three months before escaping. In 2016, at the age of 23, she was named the U.N.'s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

"She refused to accept the social codes that require women to remain silent and ashamed of the abuses to which they have been subjected," the committee said.

There were 331 candidates for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, the second-highest number of candidates ever. The Peace Prize is the only Nobel Prize awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Last year's prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, a global organization seeking to "outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons" under international law.

The committee praised ICAN for drawing attention to "the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons." The world's nuclear powers have not committed to their treaty.

This year's Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry were announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences earlier this week. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics will be awarded on Monday. </s> Al Mukalla: Yemen’s General People’s Congress party have accused the Iran-backed Al Houthi militants of seeking to hijack the party by pressuring the party to choose a new leader.

The accusations came as party members in Sana’a chose Sadiq Ameen Abu Ras on Sunday to succeed its founder Yemen’s ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh who assassinated by Al Houthis on December.

In a statement carried by the Saba news agency, the party’s members, who live in government-controlled areas or abroad, said that Al Houthis have released senior members of the party, who have been under house arrest since Saleh’s killing, and forced them to meet in Sana’a to select a new leader to the party and issuing a statement backing Al Houthis and criticising the Saudi-led coalition.

“Al Houthis’ attempts to hijack the party in Sana’a through [pushing the party’s] hostages and prisoners to legitimise their crimes and pass their policies do not reflect the party’s unchanged nationalist principles and the speech of its founder before his martyrdom by Al Houthis.” the statement said.

In the wake of supressing a brief military uprising by Saleh, Al Houthis launched sweeping arrests and executions of Saleh’s supporters and members of the General People’s Congress.

Al Houthis took control of Saleh’s media outlets including Yemen Today TV and a newspaper that carries the same name.

The party said that most its members are currently in exile or in liberated areas and Al Houthis are trying to dismantle the party by poaching its members who live inside their territories.

Two days before his death, Saleh vowed to “turn a new page” with the Saudi-led coalition and officially ended three years of uneasy alliance with Al Houthis by urging his supporters in all Yemeni provinces to revolt against them.

Yasser Al Awadhi, a senior member of the party and Saleh’s close friend, said that he would oppose any statement from the party that does not echo Saleh’s appeal to his supporters to sever tries with Al Houthis.

“I am against any statement [from the party] that does not declare severing ties with killers of Saleh and the Secretary General [of the party] and other issues,” Al Awadhi said on his official twitter feed on Monday.

The General People’s Congress was founded by Saleh in 1982 and has dominated the political landscape in Yemen ever since.

The party and the Yemen’s Socialist Party are credited for unifying the former South and North Yemen in 1990.

Meanwhile on the ground, Yemeni troops are continuing to advance towards Al Hays in the Al Houthi-controlled coastal province of Hodeida, with heavy backing from the Saudi-led Arab Coalition forces.

The UAE Air Force has provided cover for the troops, cutting the supply lines of the Iranian-backed Al Houthi coup militias between Taiz and Hodeida, south of Al Hays.

The forces are advancing towards farms adjacent to a line between Al Hays and Taiz.

UAE forces have secured the road, cutting the supply route of Al Houthis and capturing dozens of militiamen while regaining control of a number of villages in the region.

A number of tanks and military vehicles were also captured.

On Sunday, an Al Houthi militia commander turned himself in to UAE forces and voiced willingness to work for the Saudi-led Arab Coalition.

Shaikh Hamir Ebrahim, who was in charge of the Hais and Al Khokha fronts in Yemen, urged, in statements to the Emirates News Agency, his tribesmen to surrender, turn themselves in and join the ranks of the Arab coalition against the Iran-backed Al Houthi rebels in order to “liberate the entire Yemeni territories.”

He added that the rebels are forcing the Yemeni people to fight along with them before leaving them in the lurch in utter suffering along with their children who are “forced to fight on the frontlines.”

“Whoever dares to reject their orders is targeted and expelled away along with his family from their tribe and from the entire area,” he said.

He noted that he has received fair and decent treatment from the UAE forces after giving himself in, urging all those fighting along with the Al Houthi militias to renounce them and adhere to “the righteous path of the Arab Coalition who are fighting for restoring legitimacy in Yemen.”

He called upon all Yemeni people to close ranks against the Al Houthis who, he said, are “wreaking havoc on all Yemeni territories”, affirming that the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces are going on the “right path toward achieving victory and liberating the entire Yemeni lands from the grip of the rebels.”

Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi came to power in early 2012 after massive Arab Spring protests ousted Ali Abdullah Saleh who ruled Yemen for more than 30 years.

He was forced to flee to Aden after escaping Al Houthi-imposed house arrest in 2014.

Since then, Hadi has led an offensive to liberate Al Houthi-occupied territories. With help from the Saudi-led Arab coalition, it has achieved widespread gains in many provinces, but Al Houthis still control the capital Sana’a and most northern provinces including Hodeida, Ibb, Mahweet, Yareem, Amran, Baydha and Hajja.
2011 Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Tawakkol Karman is ordered suspended from the Islah party's ranks after she likened the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen to "reckless adventurism" and "ugly occupation".