By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, November 27 -- Hours before the Yemen briefing to the UN Security Council by envoy Jamal Benomar, protesters across First Avenue from the UN called for independence for Southern Yemen.
This coincided with news that members of the Southern Movement or Al Harak had pulled out of the National Dialogue Conference. When Benomar came to speak at the Security Council stakeout, Inner City Press asked him about the status of the Southern Movement.
Benomar replied that yes, some members had withdrawn, but emphasized that others had stayed in and would be holding a press conference tomorrow. Of proposals that the next president and other senior officials could not, for example, have a foreign spouse -- echoes of Myanmar there -- Benomar merely said that many proposals have been considered and vetted in the Dialogue.
But will the National Dialogue keep the merged country together? Inner City Press posed the question of what other countries got gone from being UN member states to disappearing in a merger. Through the magic of Twitter these answers came in: South Vietnam, East Germany, Zanzibar. Among territories called "disappeared" though never UN member states were Scotland, Flanders, Electorate of Bavaria, Bohemia & Moravia, Muscovite Duchy, Catalonia, Lombardy. Will any parts of Yemen join the list?
