Why Yemen's youths are not bowing to government pressure, violence (The Christian Science Monitor)

Sanaa, Yemen – Yemen protesters have returned to the main entrance of Sanaa University to stage a sit-in, calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down and defying the police and plain-clothed government supporters who opened fire on them Saturday.

“God willing, we will be here until the system falls,” Adel Al Suraby said Sunday night as other demonstrators, mostly young men in their 20s, danced behind him in the celebratory atmosphere. Others laid large blue tarps out on the ground for the protesters to sit on overnight.

Despite the brutal attacks against them throughout the past week, Yemen’s idealistic and determined younger population continues to be the main voice pressing for regime change, as was initially the case in Egypt. Yet unlike in Egypt, these youths are trying to mobilize a highly uneducated population, many of whom lack access to the Internet and believe that ousting President Saleh will prove too bloody of an affair due to Yemen’s highly armed population.

Countries in the Middle East where the 'winds of change' are blowing

"The situation here is totally different from Egypt. Here in Yemen there are very few that use technology like Facebook and Twitter,â€

Yemen protesters get organizedStill on Sunday, the young protesters in Sanaa seemed to have defeated one of their main problems: disorganization.

After a week of protests in which the location, time, and purpose were flexible until the last minute, Sunday’s demonstration was much more structured.

There was a tent for medical services, free dinner, and even an impromptu checkpoint on the perimeters of the sit-in. Some of the plain-clothes thugs who have been attacking protesters carry pistols in their jacket pockets.

“We are still in the beginning,â€

Gregory Johnsen, an expert on Yemen based at Princeton University in New Jersey, says the protests' increasing intensity underscores that protesters are starting to believe in their power to change the political order.

"We haven't yet reached the point in Yemen where it is clear that President Saleh will be forced to step down, but Yemenis are, for the first time, beginning to believe that what happened in Tunisia and Egypt can also happen in Yemen, and that is a major change in the mindset of most,â€

In a press conference Monday morning, however, the president rejected demands to step down and said that if protesters "want power, they must reach it through the ballot boxes." He said the protests are part of an “influenzaâ€

Youths weary of corruption, monarchyThese youths, more tuned into the rest of the world than ever before, say that they are tired of the corruption that riddles Yemeni society. Many of them are unemployed.

“I graduated from university in 2006,” says Noman Al Shurahy. “People told me that I had to pay 5,000 rials ($23) to get a job. Can you believe that, that I had to pay money to find a job?”

“We want the president to come from the people. Not Ali Saleh’s sons,” says Ruqaya Al Qawas, who was handing out cookies at the protest.

She echoed the common distrust protesters felt toward Saleh when he said in a conciliatory speech two weeks ago that there would be “no inheritance” in Yemen’s leadership.

Many protesters also express confusion as to why the United States continues to give aid to their president, who has ruled for 32 years. Because the threat from Al Qaeda has little or no effect on their lives, these young people don’t understand the crux of American policy toward Yemen – counterterrorism.

“Why do the Americans support the oppression of Saleh?” asks Faruq Abdelmalek.

Holding their groundProtesters have vowed that they will not be intimidated by the plain-clothed thugs who have routinely attacked them.

On Saturday, after protesters held their ground and yelled “Don’t be afraid” when government supporters shot live ammunition into the air about three blocks away, the gunfire began to be directed at them. At least four protesters were shot, one of whom remains in critical condition.

After a week of violence, Yemen’s coalition of opposition parties finally pledged their support for the young protesters on Sunday. In a statement, the coalition said that they "warmly tribute the actions of youths and civil society" and would "unite with the young protesters" to demonstrate against "the continued oppression, tyranny, and corruption.”

But protester Adel Al Abasy says that the northern tribes who protect Saleh in times of trouble will make it difficult to bring about regime change. And most Yemeni men, he adds, are comfortable sitting back and chewing the popular narcotic qat on their afternoons, instead of joining the protests.

“If there was no chewing qat," he adds, "[revolution] would be easier."

Countries in the Middle East where the 'winds of change' are blowing

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NY lawmaker touched by gun violence presses on (AP)

GARDEN CITY PARK, N.Y. – Out of nowhere, a deranged gunman shoots into a crowd of innocent victims, firing until bystanders tackle him as he tries to load a new clip of ammo. Six people are killed and several injured; one person suffers a head wound but survives to face a long period of rehabilitation.

That shooting on a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993 inspired Carolyn McCarthy, who lost her husband and saw her son paralyzed, to run for Congress. And the more recent shooting at an Arizona shopping center with which it shares eerie similarities has thrust her back into the spotlight as she seeks to outlaw the high-capacity magazines believed to have helped both gunmen.

McCarthy has been doing this for so long that she answers the Second Amendment question on gun ownership before it is asked.

"Many people are saying, 'Oh, you're taking away our rights to own a gun,'" McCarthy said. "This has nothing to do with taking away the right of someone owning a gun. The Supreme Court already came out and said everybody has a right to own a gun. The large-capacity clips, though, should only be for our police officers and our military."

McCarthy, a 67-year-old Democrat who won a tight race for an eighth term last year, was glued to the television for hours after the Tucson shooting, hearing echoes of Long Island in the news coverage, of why she ran for Congress in the first place and of why she's risking her precarious congressional seat.

Her son Kevin, now 43, suffered a head wound similar to that of Giffords, who is undergoing rehabilitation in Houston. Her son's recovery, she said, took two years and cost $1 million. These days, he is married with two children, 12-year-old Denis and 10-year-old Grace.

"They are my miracles as far as I'm concerned, given that I was told Kevin would never survive," McCarthy said.

Though McCarthy has expanded her portfolio to topics beyond gun control, including health care and family issues, the time after the Tucson shooting was ripe for returning to her roots.

"She realizes it's going to be hard to get all-encompassing gun control passed, but she's smart enough to know that it's important to make some progress," said Rep. Peter King, a Republican and fellow Long Island congressional member who supports McCarthy's ammunition clip legislation. "Deep down, I think she knows that."

McCarthy's bill, introduced shortly after the Tucson shooting, would limit ammo clips to 10 rounds. King is sponsoring a companion bill that would ban people from carrying handguns within 1,000 feet of the president, members of Congress or federal judges. Some conservatives have advocated carrying guns to political rallies, and a federal judge was killed in the Tucson shooting.

McCarthy is seeking a meeting with President Barack Obama as she elicits support, and she's reaching out to schools and through social networks. She spoke recently to seniors at Mineola High School, noting that some of them hadn't been born when mass violence hit so close to home.

"Young people today with social media have friends not only in the state, but in the country," she told reporters afterward. "Most of them are seniors who will go off to college, and again take this issue up and talk to their family and friends and hopefully we'll have a groundswell."

If McCarthy has opponents in the gun-rights movement — the National Rifle Association says her bill would "severely violate the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense" — she also has them in her suburban Nassau County district. She replaced her chief of staff, communications director and overhauled her legislative staff after surviving a stiff challenge last November from a popular Republican.

In a tough year for Democrats nationwide, McCarthy won a 7-point victory for her eighth term. She insists she loves her job and won't even bring up the R-word — retirement. But because New York is expected to lose two House seats in upcoming redistricting, some have speculated that McCarthy's could be vulnerable.

Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic strategist, called that "certainly a possibility."

McCarthy and her staff insisted she doesn't plan on going anywhere.

"There are days when I want to put this comforter over my head and say, 'Why am I doing this?'" she said. "Well, I'm doing this to try and save lives and try to prevent injuries."

The congresswoman said she has not contacted the Giffords family, preferring to let them focus on their loved one's recovery.

"She's going through the same kind of treatment that Kevin went through," McCarthy said. "It's going to be a very, very long journey for her and all the other victims."

Although he worked as a financial planner for a time, Kevin McCarthy is currently on disability because of his injuries.

"He's doing very well. He's still partially paralyzed. He struggles," his mother said. "He still has a little bit of anger in him. When something like this happens he won't even watch the TV because it brings him back to a place he doesn't want to go."

That place, she said, is the knowledge that nearly 20 years later, another Colin Ferguson was allowed to end or disrupt so many lives.

Ferguson, she noted, "had 15 bullets in a clip, and every one of his bullets hit somebody."

"We're saying that you can't have more than 10," she said. "That's common sense, as far as I'm concerned."

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