International donors hope to raise $5 bln for Yemen
Source: Reuters
LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Middle eastern and European Union officials and multilateral lenders will meet in London this week to raise up to $5 billion for Yemen, the poorest state in the Arab world, Britain's overseas aid department said on Tuesday. The meeting, organised by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) will be attended by Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh who has ruled the country since 1990 and was re-elected to office in September. Ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states -- Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar -- will attend the conference, along with representatives of the World Bank and the United Nations. Almost 50 percent of Yemenis are illiterate and 4 out of 10 people live on less than $2 a day, DFID said in a statement, adding that Yemen's oil, its main earnings source, is expected to dry up by 2015. The country, a U.S.-ally and the ancestral home of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has also faced several militant attacks, including a deadly one on a warship which killed 17 U.S. soldiers in 2000.
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