Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi

A British law firm filed requests on Feb. 11 with the authorities in Britain, the United States and Turkey to arrest senior officials from the United Arab Emirates on suspicion of carrying out war crimes and torture in Yemen.

The formation of a new government by Yemen's armed Houthi movement and its political allies will hinder peace efforts in the country, the U.N. special envoy to Yemen said on Nov. 29. 

The move, reported by the Houthi-run state news agency on Nov. 28, has been seen as a blow to U.N.-backed efforts to end 20 months of war in Yemen. 

Saudi-led warplanes struck a funeral at a community hall in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, the country's Houthi-run administration said on Oct. 8, but the coalition denied any role in the attack.

More than 140 mourners were killed, according to local health officials cited by the United Nations, in an attack that prompted a strong rebuke from Washington, a key Saudi ally. 

Yemen's government forces battled al Qaeda in the country's south on April 23, aiming to push back advances the militant group has made during a year-long civil war while peace talks take place in Kuwait. 

Yemen's warring factions held their first direct talks in a U.N.-backed peace process on April 22 and will meet again despite failing to agree on an agenda, participants said.

The United Nations envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said the meetings in Kuwait had been constructive and the positive atmosphere was a step forward in efforts to end the conflict.

Talks aimed at ending Yemen's war opened in Kuwait on April 21, with Kuwait's top diplomat appealing to both sides to "turn war into peace" after more than a year of conflict which has killed more than 6,200 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.

A Saudi-led coalition air strike killed a Yemeni judge and seven members of his family in the capital Sanaa on Jan. 24, residents said, as an aid convoy delivered food to a besieged southern city for the first time in months.

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Iran-allied Houthis, who control the capital, since March.

Yemen's warring parties agreed on Dec. 16 to exchange hundreds of prisoners as part of confidence building measures under U.N.-sponsored peace talks now under way in Switzerland, officials from both sides said.

The governor of Yemen's Aden province Jaafar Mohammed Saad was killed on Dec. 6 when a suicide bomber rammed his car into the governor's convoy in the western part of Aden city, residents and a local official said.

Al Qaeda have retaken the two major southern Yemeni towns of Zinjibar and Jaar, while Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah rejected a cabinet reshuffle ordered on Dec. 1, by Hadi.