Key messages

• High food prices and political instability have pushed additional poor households into a condition of extreme food insecurity.

• Widespread lack of access to food is reported. Food distributions by international agencies are constrained by conflict and high levels of insecurity.

• According to UNHCR some 320,000 people are internally displaced while some 212,000 are Somali refugees fleeing the country as conflict continues.

WFP's Yemen office was an ideal candidate to pilot the organisation's new emergency planning package. Facing conflict, insecurity, refugees, drought, serious food insecurity , the Yemen operation is a microcosm of all the challenges WFP faces.

ROME -- Yemen Country Director Giancarlo Cirri was less than thrilled about having his team be the guinea pigs for a new package designed to enhance planning for emergencies, fearing that it would produce a document that would be forgotten about when an emergency actually happened.

Published:14-10-2010

IBB, Oct. 11 - Mohammad Nu'man, 27, in Al-Makhadr district, Ibb, and his family were forced to leave their house due to repeated earthquakes and torrential rains, Mohammad told the Yemen Times.

Repeated earthquakes that started in mid-September and continued for 20 days have displaced around 50 families, the tribal leader Sheikh Salah Noman Al-Wesabi, in Al-Tilal village of Al-Makhadr district told the Yemen Times on the telephone. An average of seven to ten earthquakes per day shook the area during the 20 days, according to the local source.

Key Points

There have been peace talks in Doha, Qatar, between government representatives and the Al-Houthi on the 26th August, which ended in an agreement of a timetable for implementing 22 truce points to end the fighting.

Yemeni riyal seems to have recovered from its fall against the US dollar.

Severe rains have caused a major disturbance in Hodeida governorate with two districts severely affected. It is estimated that over 700 families have lost their homes.

Towards mid-July, intense clashes were reported in the volatile area of Harf Sufyan, in northern Amran governorate. Since then, sporadic clashes have continued, adding to an already difficult humanitarian situation.

"Many people are destitute, having

* 5 days of rain leave villagers stranded, homes submerged

SANAA, July 16 (Reuters) - Fierce rains and floods have killed 24 people in northwest Yemen and southwest Saudi Arabia and cut off several villages, local media and government officials said on Friday.

Heavy downpours in Yemen's Wasab Safil district forced a dam to burst, the Interior Ministry said, citing witnesses, killing nine people.

Scattered floods throughout Yemen's northwest region brought rocks tumbling down from hillltops onto buildings. Several