Yemen - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi (2012)
Prime Minister: Khaled Bahah (2014)
Total area: 203,849 sq mi (527,969 sq km)
Population (2012 est.): 24,771,809 (growth rate: 2.575%);
Birth rate: 32.57/1000; infant mortality rate: 53.5/1000; life expectancy: 64.11; density per sq mi: 115.7
Capital and largest city (2003 est.): Sanaá, 1,937,451
Other large cities: Aden, 568,700; Hodiedah, 426,100; Tiaz, 317,600
Monetary unit: Rial

The history of Yemen dates back to the Minaean (1200–650 B.C. ) and Sabaean (750–115 B.C. ) kingdoms. Ancient Yemen (centered around the port of Aden) engaged in the lucrative myrrh and frankincense trade. It was invaded by the Romans (1st century A.D. ) as well as the Ethiopians and Persians (6th century A.D. ). In A.D. 628 it converted to Islam and in the 10th century came under the control of the Rassite dynasty of the Zaidi sect, which remained involved in North Yemeni politics until 1962. The Ottoman Turks nominally occupied the area from 1538 to the decline of their empire in 1918.
The northern portion of Yemen was ruled by imams until a pro-Egyptian military coup took place in 1962. The junta proclaimed the Yemen Arab Republic, and after a civil war in which Egypt's Nasser and the USSR supported the revolutionaries and King Saud of Saudi Arabia and King Hussein of Jordan supported the royalists, the royalists were finally defeated in mid-1969.
The southern port of Aden, strategically located at the opening of the Red Sea, was colonized by Britain in 1839, and by 1937, with an expansion of its territory, it was known as the Aden Protectorate. In the 1960s the Nationalist Liberation Front (NLF) fought against British rule, which led to the establishment of the People's Republic of Southern Yemen on Nov. 30, 1967. In 1979, under strong Soviet influence, the country became the only Marxist state in the Arab world.
The Republic of Yemen was established on May 22, 1990, when pro-Western Yemen and the Marxist Yemen Arab Republic merged after 300 years of separation to form the new nation. The poverty and decline in Soviet economic support in the south was an important incentive for the merger. The new president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was elected by the parliaments of both countries.

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Albania - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Bujar Nishani (2011)
Prime Minister: Edi Rama (2013)
Land area: 10,579 sq mi (27,400 sq km);
total area: 11,100 sq mi (28,748 sq km)
Population (2014 est.): 3,020,209 (growth rate: 0.3%); birth rate: 12.73/1000; infant mortality rate: 13.19/1000; life expectancy: 77.96; density per sq mi: 272
Capital and largest city (2011 est.):Tirana, 419,000 Albania
Other large cities: Durres, 113,900; Elbasan, 97,000
Monetary unit: Lek

A part of Illyria in ancient times and later of the Roman Empire, Albania was ruled by the Byzantine Empire from 535 to 1204. An alliance (1444–1466) of Albanian chiefs failed to halt the advance of the Ottoman Turks, and the country remained under at least nominal Turkish rule for more than four centuries, until it proclaimed its independence on Nov. 28, 1912.Largely agricultural, Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe. A battlefield in World War I, after the war it became a republic in which a conservative Muslim landlord, Ahmed Zogu, proclaimed himself president in 1925 and king (Zog I) in 1928. He ruled until Italy annexed Albania in 1939. Communist guerrillas under Enver Hoxha seized power in 1944, near the end of World War II. Hoxha was a devotee of Stalin, emulating the Soviet leader's repressive tactics, imprisoning or executing landowners and others who did not conform to the socialist ideal. Hoxha eventually broke with Soviet communism in 1961 because of differences with Khrushchev and then aligned himself with Chinese communism, which he also abandoned in 1978 after the death of Mao. From then on Albania went its own way to forge its individual version of the socialist state and became one of the most isolated—and economically underdeveloped—countries in the world. Hoxha was succeeded by Ramiz Alia in 1982.

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United Arab Emirates(Dubai) - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan (2004)
Prime Minister: Sheikh Muhammad ibn Rashid al-Maktoum (2006)
Total area: 32,278 sq mi (83,600 sq km)
Population (2014 est.): 5,628,805 (growth rate: 2.71%); birth rate: 15.54/1000; infant mortality rate: 10.92/1000; life expectancy: 77.09; density per sq mi: 256
Capital (2012 est.): Abu Dhabi, 942,000
Largest city: Dubai, 1.978 million
Monetary unit: U.A.E. dirham
Originally the area was inhabited by a seafaring people who were converted to Islam in the 7th century. Later, a dissident sect, the Carmathians, established a powerful sheikdom, and its army conquered Mecca. After the sheikdom disintegrated, its people became pirates. Threatening the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman early in the 19th century, the pirates provoked the intervention of the British, who in 1820 enforced a partial truce and in 1853 a permanent truce. Thus what had been called the Pirate Coast was renamed the Trucial Coast. The British provided the nine Trucial states with protection but did not formally administer them as a colony.
The British withdrew from the Persian Gulf in 1971, and the Trucial states became a federation called the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Two of the Trucial states, Bahrain and Oman ,

chose not to join the federation, reducing the number of states to seven.
The country signed a military defense agreement with the U.S. in 1994 and one with France in 1995.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the UAE was identified as a major financial center used by al-Qaeda in transferring money to the hijackers (two of the 9/11 hijackers were UAE citizens). The nation immediately cooperated with the U.S., freezing accounts tied to suspected terrorists and strongly clamping down on money laundering.
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founder of the UAE and ruler of the federation since 1971, died in Nov. 2004. His son succeeded him. In Jan. 2006, Sheik Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the prime minister of the UAE and the emir of Dubai, died. Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammad ibn Rashid al-Maktoum assumed both roles.
The Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, was completed in January 2010 and became the world's tallest building at 2,716 feet (828 meters) and 160 stories. It contains the world's fastest elevators, 20.7 acres of glass, and is expected to use about 250,000 gallons of water per day.

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Syria - The Wide Worlds Snaps

President: Bashar al-Assad (2000)
Prime Minister: Riyad Farid Hijab (2012)
Land area: 71,062 sq mi (184,051 sq km);
total area: 71,498 sq mi (185,180 sq km)
Population (2014 est.): 17,951,639 (growth rate: -9.73%); birth rate: 22.76/1000;

infant mortality rate: 15.79/1000; life expectancy: 68.41; density per sq mi: 306.5
Capital (2011 est.): Damascus, 2.65 million
Other large cities: Aleppo, 3.164 million; Hims, 1.369 million; Hamah, 933,000
Monetary unit: Syrian pound
Ancient Syria was conquered by Egypt about 1500 B.C. , and after that by Hebrews, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, and Alexander the Great of Macedonia. From 64 B.C. until the Arab conquest in A.D. 636, it was part of the Roman Empire except during brief periods. The Arabs made it a trade center for their extensive empire, but it suffered severely from the Mongol invasion in 1260 and fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1516. Syria remained a Turkish province until World War I.
A secret Anglo-French pact of 1916 put Syria in the French zone of influence. The League of Nations gave France a mandate over Syria after World War I, but the French were forced to put down several nationalist uprisings. In 1930, France recognized Syria as an independent republic but still subject to the mandate. After nationalist demonstrations in 1939, the French high commissioner suspended the Syrian constitution. In 1941, British and Free French forces invaded Syria to eliminate Vichy control. During the rest of World War II, Syria was an Allied base. Again in 1945, nationalist demonstrations broke into actual fighting, and British troops had to restore order. Syrian forces met a series of reverses while participating in the Arab invasion of Palestine in 1948. In 1958, Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic, with Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt as president. However, Syria became independent again on Sept. 29, 1961, following a revolution.
In the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, Israel quickly vanquished the Syrian army. Before acceding to the UN cease-fire, the Israeli forces took control of the fortified Golan Heights. Syria joined Egypt in attacking Israel in Oct. 1973 in the fourth Arab-Israeli War, but was pushed back from initial successes on the Golan Heights and ended up losing more land. However, in the settlement worked out by U.S. secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger in 1974, the Syrians recovered all the territory lost in 1973.
In the mid-1970s Syria sent some 20,000 troops to support Muslim Lebanese in their armed conflict with Christian militants supported by Israel during the civil war in Lebanon. Syrian troops frequently clashed with Israeli troops during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and remained thereafter as occupiers of large portions of Lebanon.

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Saudi Arabia - The Wide Worlds Snaps

Sovereign: King Abdullah (2005)
Land area: 829,995 sq mi (2,149,690 sq km)
Population (2014 est.): 27,345,986 (growth rate: 1.49%); birth rate: 18.78/1000; infant mortality rate: 14.58/1000; life expectancy: 74.82; density per sq mi: 31
Capital and largest city (2011 est.): Riyadh, 5.451 million
Other large cities: Jeddah, 3.578 millioin; Makkah (Mecca), 1.591 million
Monetary unit: Riyal

Saudi Arabia is not only the homeland of the Arab peoples—it is thought that the first Arabs originated on the Arabian Peninsula—but also the homeland of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. Muhammad founded Islam there, and it is the location of the two holy pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina. The Islamic calendar begins in 622, the year of the hegira, or Muhammad's flight from Mecca. A succession of invaders attempted to control the peninsula, but by 1517 the Ottoman Empire dominated, and in the middle of the 18th century, it was divided into separate principalities. In 1745 Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab began calling for the purification and reform of Islam, and the Wahhabi movement swept across Arabia. By 1811, Wahhabi leaders had waged a jihad—a holy war—against other forms of Islam on the peninsula and succeeded in uniting much of it. By 1818, however, the Wahhabis had been driven out of power again by the Ottomans and their Egyptian allies.

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is almost entirely the creation of King Ibn Saud (1882–1953). A descendant of Wahhabi leaders, he seized Riyadh in 1901 and set himself up as leader of the Arab nationalist movement. By 1906 he had established Wahhabi dominance in Nejd and conquered Hejaz in 1924–1925. The Hejaz and Nejd regions were merged to form the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, which was an absolute monarchy ruled by sharia. A year later the region of Asir was incorporated into the kingdom.

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