Thursday, 9th February 2012

For the Society’s first event of 2012, we are delighted to welcome Dr Qais Ghanem who will be talking about Recent Developments in Yemen.

Accomplished physician, poet, community leader and radio show host in his adopted city of Ottawa, Dr Qais has drawn on his own experiences in his new novel Final Flight from Sana’a, which has been described as “reflecting an undeniable anxious love for a different and difficult birthplace of Yemen but a full love for the "free" life lived in the West ... a courageous and poignant true reflection of the many similar, yet unwritten, life stories, where the love for an emigree's original roots often conflict with realities of change".

Copies of Final Flight From Sana’a will be available for sale at a specially discounted price.

The lecture will start at 6 p.m. (refreshments from 5.30 p.m.) at the Middle East Association, Bury House, 33 Bury Street, London SW1Y 6AX.

Tickets on the door for non-Members: £10 (£5 if accompanied by a Member).

Please advise the Hon. Secretary, preferably by email (1.rebeccajohnson[at]gmail.com), if you wish to attend. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.

Annual Subscriptions

Members are reminded that subscriptions for 2011 are now due from those Members who have not signed Banker’s Orders. Cheques for £20 should be made out to ‘The British-Yemeni Society’ and posted to the Hon. Secretary at the address below.

AGM

A notice with the agenda will be sent out separately, but meanwhile Members might wish to note that this year’s AGM will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, 23rd June at the Yemeni Embassy.

Facebook

Your Society now has a Facebook page, under the name ‘The British-Yemeni Society’, in both English and Arabic. It aims to keep the wider public informed about Society activities, provide a forum for the exchange of ideas on Yemen, and network people with common interests.

Essay Competition 2010

The Society is pleased to announce that first prize has been awarded to Warda Eissadi for her essay Smile, you are in Yemen! and second prize to Fernando Carvajal for Decentralization through Dialogue. Warda’s essay will be published in the 2011 Journal.

British-Yemeni Society Grant 2011

This year’s academic grant has been awarded to Benedict Wilkinson for fieldwork towards his PhD on counter-extremism strategies operated by the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Yemen - From Aden's Steamer Point to Cardiff's Tiger Bay

Pat Aithie will be giving a lecture in the Drwm space at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth on Wednesday 23 March 2011 at 1.15 p.m. An exhibition of Pat and Charles Aithie’s photographs of Yemen are currently on display there. For further information, contact ffotograff@easynet.co.uk

Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen

The above catalogue, edited by St John Simpson (ISBN 0-7141 - 1151 -1 The British Museum Press) is now available from the new British Museum bookshop at £9.99, reduced from £24.99.

To find the bookshop: enter British Museum by main entrance, turn left on ground floor, walk through cloak room and mini shop to hall with Assyrian sculpture. Turn left again here and you will find yourself at the entrance to the bookshop.

Members’ contact details

We occasionally need to make last minute changes to the programme and make every effort to keep members up to date. Where members have provided an email address, this is a simple procedure; for members without email, the Hon. Secretary will advise as many as possible – and practical – via telephone.