Yemeni water

""Saada has a huge water problem, but they can't think about the future because they are thinking about today," he added.

Despite the afternoon downpours in Sanaa, Yemen's northern highlands have been suffering a two-year drought.

"The rains this year have been poor and late," said Ramon Scoble, a water expert for the German development agency GTZ who works in Amran province, just north of the capital.

"Rural sectors of north Yemen may face famine," he said, echoing a warning sounded in June by Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, senior political adviser to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"They won't be producing their own foodstuffs for another year and they won't have harvested enough seed to be able to grow again next year," Scoble said."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LR54877.htm