Word: sana
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Such hostages were rarely harmed until this June, when nine foreigners were kidnapped - including two German women and a South Korean woman whose mutilated bodies were later discovered by shepherds. After the attack, the government effectively stopped granting permission to foreigners - including journalists - to travel anywhere but the capital, Sana'a, and the coastal region around the port city of Aden. (See pictures of conflict in Yemen...
Western diplomats in Sana'a, however, suspect that the real culprits behind this year's attacks on foreigners come from the growing band of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Under pressure in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, al-Qaeda is turning the lawless mountain areas of Yemen into a new staging area. U.S. officials and terrorism experts don't think Yemen is close to becoming a failed state like Somalia - just across the Red Sea. But there are warning signs that things could get worse: the Houthi rebellion, secessionists in the south, Somali pirates menacing the coast, an economy that...
...discussing all your problems and think you've solved everything, but in fact you haven't done anything in the last four hours, because you've just been chewing khat and all your problems actually got worse," says Adel al-Shujaa, a professor of political science at Sana'a University and the head of the Yemen Without Khat Association. Plus, he says, "all the decisions you've made are bad because you've made them while on khat...
...afternoon, most men walking the streets of Sana'a are high, or about to get high - not on any sort of manufactured narcotics, but on khat, a shrub whose young leaves contain a compound with effects similar to those of amphetamines. Khat is popular in many countries of the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa, but in Yemen it's a full-blown national addiction. As much as 90% of men and 1 in 4 women in Yemen are estimated to chew the leaves, storing a wad in one cheek as the khat slowly breaks down into the saliva...
...plant thrives in the high hill country outside Sana'a, where nearly every patch of irrigated land is covered in khat. Unlike coffee, which Yemenis claim was first cultivated here, khat is easy to grow and harvest. And though cultivating and dealing the leaf doesn't generate the kind of instant wealth associated with growing poppies in Afghanistan or coca in Colombia, it certainly provides a steadier income than growing vegetables does - that's why nearly all of the country's arable land is devoted to khat. And khat needs a lot of water, which is scarce in Yemen...