Sometimes you wait and wait for an event, and nothing ever happens. Pakistan is always said to be teetering on
the brink of collapse but never quite edges over the precipice. The same used to be the case with Yemen. In fact, Coffee House predicted that Yemen would implode last year, but Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh managed to hold the country together in the
face of terrorism, irredentist movements, insurgency and, recently, pro-democracy protesters demanding his resignation.
Now, however, the wily leader may finally have run out of road. Heavy clashes have erupted in the capital Sanaa, a day after Saleh again refused to sign a Gulf-brokered power-transition. The clashes have pitted government forces against armed tribesmen loyal to Yemeni opposition leader Sadiq al-Ahmer. Earlier pro-Saleh demonstrators trapped the US, British and European Union ambassadors in an embassy surrounded by gunmen angry about efforts by Arab mediators to ease the president out of power.
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