Armies of Liberation

David at Medien Kritik characterizes the kidnapping of the former German ambassador thus: Arab extremists kidnapped another German.

In reality, the kidnappers are disenfranchised tribesmen, who are effectively excluded from the political system (because they comprise the greatest potential check on Saleh’s authority). Lacking a functional judiciary, many kidnappings occur to effect the release of family members held without trial, often as hostages, by the regime.

From the Yemen Times:

He said the kidnappers’ sole demand was to release five tribesmen arrested more than a month ago in relation to tribal vengeance incidents…

They were supposed to be tried in the court of law for involvement in successive vengeance battles since 1993. The kidnappers say the authorities did not fulfill their promises and hence the tribe decided to kidnap the tourists to plea their case….

They were outraged by news that the security officer, who killed their relatives was promoted to a higher rank by the government after the murder.

They said authorities did not bring the officer and the other culprits to justice despite many appeals, forcing Aal Abdullah to take the matter ‘into their own hands’.

This is a good description of their motivation, even if its possible Faris wrote it. In general,

They aim to extract concessions from the government, pledges to build facilities, roads, free prisoners or, in the worst cases, claim a ransom.

This last demand, however reprehensible, is a reflection of the fact that the kidnappers are often living in abject poverty, desperate for food, clothes, or even medicine for their children or elderly relatives.

These are not “Arab extremists.” These are not terrorists, they are terrorized instead by the regime’s biased use of power. These are extremely poor people without any legitimate means to impact the highly authoritarian and rampantly corrupt regime.

Kidnapping is *not* a good way to voice their grievances or gain bargaining power with the regime. But this kidnapping, as the one before it, does not belong in some handy dandy little box of “Arab extremism.”

Some quotes from the Yemeni papers with links

Buying good media coverage, not an unusual occurance:

As for chairman of the board of directors of the Watani Bank Dr Ahmed Al-Hamdani, and according to media sources, has allocated around YR one million for journalists who would stand by him against dealing with the attack on him, saying it was targeted against him from among the other banks operating in the country.

Why the Houthis?

Politicians differed in their explanations of the reasons that led the authorities to uproot the activities of Al-Houthi followers. Some say that the reasons are political; others describe them as ethnical while the third group relates the authorities’ attempt to exterminate Al-Houthi as a response to U.S. and Israeli demands. Majority of politicians, however, believe that Saudis, through their strong influence in Yemen, have a hand in plans for eliminating the Shiite movement of Al-Houthi, which according to their belief, limits the expansion of the Wahabi movement in Yemeni territory.

Why the kidnapping?

The kidnappers told the mediators that ‘they resorted to kidnapping because they failed to convince the security authorities to release their relatives and refer them to judiciary”….Security authorities claim the three detainees have been accused of fighting the US-led coalition in the Iraqi territories. They also accuse them of having connection with one of the organizations facilitating the transportation of Yemeni fighters to Iraq.

Agriculture:, a main stay of the economy.

They said they aimed at achieving a high rate of productivity this season but insecticides spread in their farms destroyed the crops. A vast area was destroyed because of these bad insecticides making the 2005 product less than the planed rate by far….Consequent to their deteriorating conditions, many farmers were compelled to abandon their farms.

Women agricultrual workers:

The study, published by the Labor Market Information System (LMIS) program, added that the majority of working women are concentrated in the agricultural sector as unpaid family workers. It is estimated that approximately 61.9% of women workers in Yemen are unpaid.

Business:

The report pointed out that Yemen had captured the highest figure in the cost of building a legal entity for businesses. While in Kuwait it is 24% of the average income of the individual, it reaches at 269.2% of the average of income of the individual in Yemen.

Criminal enterprises: of the powerful negatively impact society.

Considering the strategic location of Yemen, drugs are usually shipped from Southeast Asia through the Gulf of Aden and other coasts around the country. From there, it is shipped to numerous gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and other countries in the region. Not surprisingly, many of these illegal drugs are left behind and used in Yemen. New markets for these drugs have been created in places like Aden, Hodieda, and other cities across the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf shores.

Traffic police:

Traffic police only get paid the equivalent of $5 for a day’s work, which is the reason for this widespread problem….A traffic police officer who preferred to remain anonymous said, “People don’t understand that we are living through this dark age as well. With salaries like the equivalent of $150 monthly, we can’t even guarantee ourselves a future.” It is hard to imagine who is right when you hear the story from both sides. Citizens complain of traffic police oppression, while traffic police complain of government oppression.

Yet Another Journalist Targeted:

“They called me an al-Houthi associate and accused me of acting against the regime and the state, which is the same accusation used by security officials in the area against any citizen rejecting their brutal and illegal actions,” he said. He added, “other calls were made by those officials to my relatives asking about my home in Sanaa and where I go.”

He said he fears retaliation by the police, who could attack his family living in the Al-Shahil district because of what he has written in the report.

The cultural heritage:

I think the governmental sector failed in protecting antiquities. It is very difficult to convince the authorities with the importance of antiquities and to make them realize what antiquities are….Confronted with a question about the security of archeological sites many of which are believed to have been left to looters and robbers, Prof. Yosuf replied that this is the duty of the locals themselves and the local government.

GCC:

Other political analysts described the summit results as below expectations, some going so far as to say that even the pro-Yemen GCC attitudes were below what the people of the Gulf states aspire to. Other analysts believe that any steps taken by the GCC countries are useful to Yemen and should be welcomed. Nasserite leader Mohammed Al-Sabri believed Yemen required further reforms in all sectors to avoid lagging behind the Gulf states.

On the other hand, theres a few saved posts and links lists I can throw together:

Transparency Yemen offices corrupted per this oped:

People start working and then receive their payment, not to exceed 50,000 Yemeni Riyals. The receiver is to sign the receipt, leaving the rest for the organization’s official who enters the date, spending purpose and beneficiary’s name. However, the corrupt official then writes the sum as $900 (180,000YR). Invoices and purchase receipts often are handled this way. Finally, the donor receives a file with all documentation proving funds were spent on the project. Of course, also included are published news items about the project.

A good report from the YO on corruption in the embassies:

In Yemeni Embassy of the United Kingdom it has been found that Yemeni nationals and foreigners are asked to pay one hundred pounds sterling for approval of a single document, whether personal or commercial. “You have to deposit the total amount for the number of documents you need approved in a private company account,” a Yemeni-British businessman told the Yemen Observer. “I discovered from the bank receipt that the account is under the name of the financial officer of the embassy.”

The article details also the practices in the Yemeni embassies in Saudi Arabia and Beruit.

An analysis of the very high rates of female mortality, also from the YO:

A recent study found that for every 100,000 baby delivered, an estimated 366 women die due to birth-related complications…The corresponding number of these maternal deaths in neighboring countries is just 10.

While 51% of women in the developing countries deliver babies with the aid of one skilled attendant, then in Yemen, a very broad section of women have no access to any obstetric medicine at all.

Lack of access to obstetric services remains a pivotal reason behind high maternal mortality rates.”

whew, now this guy really didn’t like Finkel’s articles: The problem, for those who think reality is worth knowing, is with the distorted vision of a hotel-based journalist on a limited assignment published via dismissive rhetoric and translated quotes scattered about in tepid newspaperspeak like shrapnel after a cluster bomb explodes. And some more: Yemen is more than an embryonic democracy. Unlike Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, where most of the perpetrators of the September 11 bombing came from, Yemen is already a democracy with several successful elections as supporting evidence. I guess that depends on your definition of success and democracy. Its a long analysis, with some valid points, that I have to read again. But I heard positive reaction from Yemenis about Finkles articles. I think Finkle did a good job, considering the country is so unknown, playing out the relation between Saleh and the tribes was a major accomplishment. Describing the administration as a kleptocracy is spot on.

Now this is odd. An article in the Arab News notes a Swiss court’s decision to acquit Yassin Abdullah Al-Qadia (also Kadi Qadi Quadi), a Saudi national who donated to Zindani’s al-Iman university. The article says, “The charges alleged that Al-Qadi gave money in 1998 ostensibly to construct student housing at Al-Iman University in Yemen while knowing that the funds may have ended up supporting Al-Qaeda’s plan to attack New York City.” The suit was brought by 9/11 families, not the USG.

The odd thing is that The 9/11 Report and other analysis ties all the financing directly to bin Laden. The article states, “And on Dec. 12 the Swiss concurred, stating that no evidence ever linked Al-Qadi to any knowledge of the possibility that his money could have ended up in the hands of a known terrorist organization.” So did the Swiss court find that this guy just didnt know? Or that the money that went to al-Iman did not end up in the hands of a terrorist organization?

The US Treasury Dept classified Zindani as a “major terrorist” in 2004 as a contact and I think also a financier. But this is the first time I ever saw anything published that linked Zindani to 9/11, other then the fact that he was bin Laden’s mentor and spiritual advisor.

Analysis of the GPC conference from the Daily Star:

Yemen’s ruling party on Friday re-elected the country’s long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh as its head, in a move widely interpreted to mean that he was likely to seek a new term. President Saleh has served his country honorably, and long - but perhaps long enough, because he embodies two of the chronic, structural problems in Arab political governance systems during the past 40 years.

One problem is that too many Arab heads of state have been former armed forces commanders who have tended to run their countries in the same top-down way they used to run their militaries….The second problem that plagues much of this region is that of presidents-for-life. Saleh has run the former North Yemen and then the united Yemen for a total of 27 years - a full generation. Rulers who stay in power for so long tend to rule badly after the first 25 years, because they allow systems to develop around them that slowly atrophy and succumb to mismanagement, insularity, corruption and general mediocrity.

And the presidential term is seven years, that’s a long time.

This is also strange for several reasons: Al-Sahwa.net – (12/20)

Yemeni official sources revealed that
the United States of America asked Yemen to open US
prisons in Yemen.

Chairman of the Political Circle of the Nasserite
Unionist party Mohammad al-Sabri said that US
requested Yemen to open special American prisons
during the latest visit of president Ali Abdullah
Saleh to the United States last November.

Al-Sabri confirmed the US request in a paper offered
in a debate session held by the Yemeni Center for
Strategic Studies on Tuesday on the reforms initiative
of the Joint Meeting Parties.

Saleh told al-Sabri this?
And an official denial via 26 Sept.

more links
(Read on …)

Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men

Joy to the World

I have lots o’ links but I had no time to post them with all the Christmas preparations, but I have to mention these now that dinner is in the oven and we are home from church.

My Present From Saleh: Hope

In an interview with Ahmed Jaralleh (who BTW is an editor for whom I have great respect,) President Saleh said:

Q: You have said you won’t compete for the presidency of Yemen again. Is this to measure your popularity or are you really tired and want to bow out?

A: Some politicians may think I am using this issue to measure my popularity and find out whether people still want my leadership. However, I assure you there is no need for such speculations because Yemen is full of intellectuals, smart politicians and highly educated people. I have taken this decision because I want to encourage my citizens to prepare themselves to replace Ali Abdullah Saleh. Although I am not old and still capable of handling this huge responsibility, I want to see my people take over the authority in a democratic manner.

Is he really this smart? I know Saleh is smart but is he smart enough to see that he will be world renowned and acclaimed if he really does step down?

Also on such a holy day, I hate to argue with the Pope but…

He singled out the Darfur conflict in Africa in urging strength for all those who are working for peace, development and the prevention of conflicts. He urged protection “of the most elementary rights of those experiencing tragic humanitarian crises, such as those in Darfur and in other regions of central Africa.”

And thats very good, and some of the older readers will remember when I asked everybody to email Kofi Annan before the Darfur situation hit the media. Come to think of it, that was the first blogger alliance I made, way before Yemen, and all the bloggers were very good then to post about Darfur when I asked them. And Darfur is truely a tragic humanitarian crisis, and there are others in Africa. But lets note that the bottom three most malnourished children in the world are Sudanese, Yemeni and Malawi in that order.

(my new article at World Press in English and in Yemen at al-Shoura, in Arabic, and in al-Thoury in Arabic. )

Yemen: Failure or Democracy

Ahmed al-Rabei recently described the worst case for Yemen as, “an Afghan scenario and a civil war that will spread to the borders of G.C.C. countries.” Al-Rabei, a columnist for Alsharq Alwasat, wrote with great affection for the Yemeni people of his concern for the future of Yemen. Al-Rabei is not alone in his assessment of an uncertain future for Yemen. A variety of international organizations and many reports have highlighted increasingly dysfunctional Yemeni institutions and governance.

Transparency International has noted widespread and growing corruption, ranking Yemen near the bottom of its corruption scale. The qualification assessment for the U.S. funded Millennium Challenge Account determined that the Yemeni regime has moved backwards from previous assessments. In the 2005 round, Yemen failed all six “ruling justly” indicators. It failed three of the four indicators of “investing in people.” As a result, Yemen did not qualify for substantial U.S. developmental funding. The World Bank recently cut Yemen’s funding by 34 percent due to corruption. Christiaan Poortman, vice president at the World Bank, noted during a press conference that the regime’s performance indicators fell markedly.

Yemen ranks eighth on the Fund for Peace’s “Failed State Index.” The goal of the Fund for Peace (F.F.P.) is the prevention of war, and the Failed State Index analyzes states in terms of the potential for state failure, whether from implosion, explosion or erosion, with the hope of averting violent crises. Yemen exhibits many symptoms of a failing state. In the F.F.P. analysis, Yemen scored lower (more stable) in terms of social indicators and was ranked higher on economic and political indicators. An analysis of the methodology used by the Fund for Peace reveals how the concentration of power in Yemen increasingly distorts the state.

Uneven Development

One of the two standard economic predictors of state failure is “uneven development,” defined as “group based inequality, and/or impoverishment.” Yemen scored high on this criterion. (Read on …)

the petition for Saleh to honor his pledge to step down, in response to GPC announcement of a petition drive for him to run again.

The Arab News in Saudi Arabia titles the article: Pro-Democracy Activists Call on Saleh to Step Down. The article notes: In 1999, he was elected for a seven-year tenure in country’s first universal suffrage presidential vote with a 96 percent margin. His term ends next year, but the constitution allows him one more term in office.

As you follow the story of Yemen, you start to notice the same people over and over again. Like I found some article about press violations in 2000 and there was Jamal Amer, the recently kidnapped editor.

Mohammed Qahtan of the Islah party got a letter that said: “It is astonishing that you have accepted to become a rabid dog for a party that was able to use the hounding talents of fools and opportunists like yourself in the service of its interests.” He has charged that the secret police was behind the letter predicting he would “drown in a cesspool”.

This al-Bukari is another one.

Al-Sahwa.net –(12/11) The manager of the office of the Saudi
Okaz newspaper in Sana’a Hafez al-Bukari was dismissed
from his job, reasons are vague.

While al-Bukari refused to comment on the dismiss,
some media reports though it based upon pressures on
and calls to the Okaz headquarters in Saudi by Yemeni
informants who do not agree with al-Bukari activities
and defending stances for the sake of press freedom
after he had been elected a secretary-general of the
Yemeni Journalists Syndicate in 2004.

(Read on …)

ADNKI: Yemen pushes for entry into the GCC.

At the Gulf summit in Muscat, Oman, in 2001, Yemen was admitted to the council of ministers of education, health and social affairs and to the Gulf Football Cup. Yemen now hopes to join the economic groups and other institutions of the GCC, and offers its recent World Bank-backed economic reforms as proof that it deserves to get full membership, the Yemen Observer reports.

Was this the same soccer league that recently suspended the team because of governmental interference? Economic reforms, where-decreasing the oil subsidies while increasing military spending 50%?

World Bank statistics put Yemen’s Gross National Income (GNI) at 570 US dollars per capita. The GNI of the other GCC members ranges from Oman at 7,890 dollars to Kuwait at 17,970 dollars and the United Arab Emirates at around 20,000 dollars. Life expectancy in Yemen is also significantly lower than that of the Gulf countries.

Child mortality is significantly higher.

are corrupt themselves and will be our first target.

Seriously, he said that:

“The corruption must be uprooted through referring corrupt people to the courts. Some accuse others of corruption as they are themselves corrupted,” said Saleh.

He said that to fight corruption state has first to fight those corrupted who raise anti-corruption slogan, in the opposition parties
or in the GPC party.

YO

Yemen ranked 43 out of 196 countries in the under-five mortality rate in the report of two years ago, an estimated 111 out of 1000. The following government expenditure statistics from the 2004 report reveal the depth of the problem: Health 4%; Education 22%; Defense 19%;

The last figure I had for child mortality was 8% which is terrible. 11% is worse. The birth rate is high. We’re talking about a lot of child deaths here.

This is the best reporting I’ve ever seen on Yemen, and I’ve seen it all, literally.

Highlights from part three of his series.

Long sanguine about Yemen, Burrowes has become so pessimistic about its future because of corruption that instead of describing Yemen as a democracy, as he used to do to the point of being considered an apologist for Saleh, he now calls it a “kleptocracy — a government of, by and for thieves.” As for the kind of leader Saleh has grown into, Burrowes said, “He has become a very good dictator.”

Yes a very good dictator, also the king of spin.

“We have values. We have ethics. We wish for order. We wish for stability. We wish for democracy. We wish for all good things,” M’Fareh went on about the tribes, and then said of Saleh’s government, “They live on divide and rule. When they see us having relations with internationals, it makes them very angry.”

Wishing for democracy is a common thing in Yemen.

But on the far side of such rhetoric was its reality: a teetering program in a teetering place where the question of democracy’s meaning turned out to be a decision about whom to ignore.

A president who is vital to the U.S. war on terrorism?

Or a sheik who represents a country’s most-forgotten people and was now saying so earnestly as to be heartbreaking, “We are citizens. We are Yemenis. The problem is they don’t want to reach out to us because we will speak openly about all of the problems. And they don’t want that to happen.”

Speaking openly about problems is *strongly* discouraged by the regime.

Peaceful civil protests are a good thing, especially when you haven’t been paid in two months.

Al-Sahwa.net- (12/11) Tens of workers in the Textile Factory
in Sana’a made an open sit-in protesting the delay of
paying them salaries for last October and November.

The strikers ask for their payments and the extra
wages according to the new strategy of wages and
salaries.

Meanwhile, 700 workers at the electricity stations in
Mocha and Katheeb carried out a strike on Saturday for
an hour protesting the ignorance of the Public
Corporation for Electricity to pay them the extra
sages in accordance with the new wages strategy.

Source in Mocha and al-Katheeb Stations stated that
the one-hour sit-in was just a warning before a
general strike to be achieved this week.”

“The strike will continue till the corporation pays
our financial rights. We started last Monday issuing
statements requesting the ministry of electricity to
pay our rights but the concerned body did not respond
to our request,” source told al-Sahwa.net.

“The administrations of the two stations tried to
pressure us to stop asking for our legal rights like
employees in other state bodies,” the source added.

Statements called the concerned bodies to immediately
apply the new wages and salaries strategy to them like
other colleagues, otherwise they will continue the
strike.

On the other hand, tens of motorcyclists rallied in on
Saturday before the premise of the Capital Secretariat
condemning the decision of the secretariat to
confiscate all motorcycles in the capital Sana’a to
prevent them work in the capital.

This is a very good article by David Finkel in the WaPo. It shows how the extreme poverty in Yemen (caused in the most by by rampent elite corruption) hinders the moderization of tribal culture. Tribal modernization and an end to “revenge” is opposed strongly by President Saleh as it constitues a threat to his supreme power. Also the article gives a real flavor of the hardships and obstacles facing those who are trying to help the people inYemen. There’s very little written about Yemen’s tribes that doesn’t just throw them in a box as “ungovernable.” This article breaks that streotype. I’m looking forward to parts 2 and 3.

Also it should be noted that the tribal regions have little to no electricty, running water, or health care,and the educationsl systems are in a shambles. This article says the school is a blanket. Meanwhile the 2006 budget cuts the electrity allocation by 60% and increases the military by 50%.

Update: Part 2 of the series. It really puts a face on the poverty and lack of resources. There really are no schools and no doctors.

and apparently accepts.

The seventh assembly of the General People Congress (GPC) announced few minutes ago that President Ali Abdullah Saleh is the party’s candidate for presidency in next year elections….

However, President Saleh thanked the thousands people gathering for the GPC seventh assembly conference for the confidence in him. He also accepted the nomination under one condition.

He postponed his decision on the nomination. “It should be made in a democratic way in an exceptional conference,” the president addressed the GPC assembly tonight.

Saleh has announced earlier in July that he will not run for a second term in the September 2006 presidential elections.

So this is unclear. He accepted or he postponed? He’s nominated but accepts only on the condition of a “vote”? At another blowout conference? They spent millions on this one.

Related: (Saleh) said there was no corruption committed by GPC leaders in governmental establishments and rejected claims that the GPC abused public wealth.

Meanwhile, Saleh issued orders to secure positions for some members in new local permanent committees regardless of the results of the elections, through which members of the new local permanent committees should be selected.

Also Saleh re-elected as head of the GPC.

More: The GPC also condemned opposition parties that have been calling for Saleh, who has been ruling Yemen for 27 years, to honor his pledge not to run again and to allow the peaceful transfer of power in 2006. Yes, how dare they expect him to be truthful. What an outrage.

Update: Cute. Pick off the leadership of the oppostion parties and reward them with high ranking positions in the GPC, bypassing the party’s electoral process.

However, some members were handpicked to be members of the party’s PC and did not need to go through the election process.

Upon the request of President Saleh, Mohamed Abuluhum was chosen to be a member of the PC without the need to be voted for as tribute to him for leaving his Republican Party and joining GPC.

Abdullah Mujeidi was also selected in reward for leaving his senior post in the opposition Yemeni Socialist Party to join the ruling party.

This article was written by someone inYemen who I didn’t know but who apparently knows me. It was translated from Arabic.

Update: So of course they are saying I orchestrated this article myself (from the comments): “May be Novak Asked him to write that to make her picture better in Yemen. It is the fact only.”

Jane Novak and the Democracy of Waq Al-Waq
By Mohammad Ezz Addeen
12 Dec, 2005

There are many who interested on writing about the Yemeni affairs. But only few of them who put the hand on the defectiveness places to diagnosing the situation in the country. May be the American journalist and political analyst Jane Novak taking advanced position on the experts list of the Yemeni cases. However, she is new epoch in interesting the Yemeni Affaires.

There is no dubiety that the media campaign against Novak powered by the governmental and rule party media and others which orb in it’s falk supported it’s thesis. It was busy with attacking Novak and harassing her instead of explaining the wrong thing in which she was talking about. It was thinking that in this way they will kill her theses against the corruption in the state.

Novak experience appeared through what she effecting and thrilling the official speech, which became known for all people nearly three weeks ago on «from Washington» show on the channel of Aljazeera. It became known the level of the governmental speech in Yemen for all around the world. The women did not gave anything new. She talked about gross (overall) of reports, news, studies, and writing that she referred to, and reproduced it in organized way. However, many opposition politicals, journalists, and public had written and spoken about different subjects more explicit than her. She collect all at one and produce it all at once without any consideration of redlines or being afraid from the official investigation. Also I think the foreign kink [or gnarl] participating in raising her ideas for the authority and the opposition. Especially that no one spoke seriously in the same serious and focus way that she did in a small period.

The «accusations kitchen» is not incompetent to insulting her. As the treason, stooge, and separatist are formal accuses for the opposition political and journalists, when they are talking about the corruption and reform, particularly this days. Novak got accuses something different to be corresponding with her state. She is Zionist, Free Mason, jobless, or [the one who work for money], who the USA Newspaper did not digested her articles, but she found a free space to publish it in the Yemen’s democracy fame of 170 Newspaper and only one Channel which became feudalist only for the authority and the rule party, and did not open it’s doors to hosting (receiving) oppositional members.

The attacks against Novak gave many services for her. It make her sure that she is in the truth bath after she received thanks and supporting letters from whom become interested on her opinions and make her on the front because of the media campaign. However, she was trending to praise the president Saleh and gave soft criticize for some actions discordant to his ambition [some thing he want to do].

I am not hiding the fact that the governmental media kails my attention to this woman. It also encourage me to search about her articles about Yemen, Iraq, Palestine and the Arab countries to stricture the accuses and try to know more about her, with the help of my weak English supported by many dictionaries to translating the Article not published in Arabic in Yemen.

The Beginning

Novak started writing articles, and she became more interested on the Middle East affaires after the attacks of 11 sep. she found that most of the terrorists were from this region. Then she focus on Yemen synchronizing with the growing democracy conference held in Sana’a on January 2004.

She noted that the prohibiting of the journalists and Non gov Orgs to participate on the conference is disaccording with the democratic ethics that Yemen goes through. Yemen was the typical sample of the growing democracies on the region.

Novak quoted a phrase of the president speech in the opening session of the conference. In her articles after the conference, She was point that president Saleh said that the democracy is the rescue ship for the regimes, and it is the choice for all people. In addition, she was criticized softly the abuses that may happened in the democracies, even it disaccording with that she was thinking Saleh is supporting it.

The Ship Sinking

When Al-khaiwani went to the jail, Novak began writing about his case. She was representing the American view that the society health and avoid the terror is with the free speech.

So Al-khaiwani’s jailing disaccording with the democratic principles that the president is caring about.

In most her article about AL-khaiwani’s case, she was appealing Saleh to interference to release him. At that time, she was not know the unlimited authorities of the president, which include Justice, Army forces, media, and others that she talked about in the show. She was only appealing Saleh mindful of the ship to not be sinking in the typical democracy in the region.

May be the president media secretary still remember that his English paper (Yemen observer) published an article entitled (Yemen in the spring) for the (jobless, and [the one who work for money]). It talked about the terror and the possibility of transferring the terrorists to Yemen if there was real democracy in Iraq. She quoted that from Zarqawi statement when he said that if the Iraqi Gov take control allover Iraq, and the occupation left it. Then he’ll leave to another country. So Novak said that the other country may be Yemen, because it suffering for the freedom, jailing journalists, and narrowing of the press freedom, which make the state wild environment for the terror growing, where the terrorists are exploiting the lack of freedom and the hate for the regimes to achieve their goals. However, she did not forget to mentions the rescue ship that Saleh talked about.

For knowledge, Novak was getting up in different times from the midnight to Al-fajr [aurora time or daybreak] when it is the time of the day broken in Yemen. She could not wait to the New Jersey morning (afternoon in Yemen) to read what she was expecting that the news’ll say about the releasing of Al-khaiwani. So these times became a habit for her that she was getting up even after the releasing of Al-khaiwani by presidential feted. She talked about this point in her blog. So we should understand that the different between the time zone of Sana’a and New Jersey is means the different between the human and the one who works for money.

With continuing of the trail drolly of Al-khaiwani and attacking the lawyers and the journalist in the court, Jane released that the ship is sinking in the corruption which is the ruler, and no existence of some thing named law.

The democracy and the unicorn in Yemen, and the justice in Yemen, which published in Al-wasat News paper, in these articles she announces her actual oppose for the Yemeni regime representing by president Saleh .

Both articles were the beginning of Novak getting out all her hate against corruption and rights abuses and freedom theft in Yemen.

Novak and Sistani

(Read on …)

This is scary, in part one, he was so optimistic:

ASAW One must be aware that, if Yemen relied on its own capabilities, it will remain trapped in a vicious circle. The auditing and management of public finances is to be desired and much is being spent on the military establishment but the resources remain limited and the capacity to solve outstanding problems is small.
I admit that, despite my continuous bias and hope for the future, the outlook for Yemen, in the medium and the long term, does not call for optimism. The economic conditions, poverty, unemployment and illiteracy create a thriving environment for extremism. The crisis will remain so as long as a comprehensive development plan that will raise income overhaul the infrastructure and provide the minimum for a decent life is lacking. Education and health services need to be improved and loyalty to the state should be strengthened. In turn, the government ought to protect its citizens and be willing to tackle corruption as it promotes reform.

My pessimism is due to the fact that, in political analysis, different scenarios need to be considered, including the worst. Of course, I do not wish that for Yemen. Yet, the reality remains that the worst possible outcome will be disastrous for everyone, especially neighboring countries, and in particular members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Didn’t the rise in fuel prices, a few months ago cause clashes, deaths and vandalism? This decision was necessary as part of the economic reform program, despite being badly implemented. What will happen if the economic situation deteriorated to a full-blown crisis? What will happen to a country where tribal and regional conflicts are able to drive thousands of men to take to the streets under the banner of an economic crisis or high unemployment rates? We must remember that extremist forces are present in Yemen. The clashes led by al Houthi are but one example which can be repeated. Can the country and its neighbors put up with an Afghan scenario and a civil war that will spread to the borders of GCC countries?

No no no this is why the JMP reform plan is so necessary. It will decentalize power and give people hope as things start turning around. I hope thats what part three of this series by Ahmed Al-Rabei says.

But on the third hand, its very good that this guy recognizes how desperate the situation is, how close to major instability, and how victimized the people are.

from GULF STATES NEWSLETTER • VOL 29 • NO 771 • 9 DECEMBER 2005
(page 8 )

As Ali Abdullah Saleh faces security threats from Salafyist
Sunnis, the Zaydi rebellion and a range of criminalised
sub-state factions, the apparently outgoing president has
begun the slow-process of reorganising Yemen’s main internal
security organisations (GSN 770/8).

There have been years of criticism and whispers about the
security establishment’s lack of financial probity, but this is not
the cause of security sector reform: the reorganisation is
primarily driven by a recognition that many elements of the
system are seeded with militant Salafyist or Baathist elements,
and they are now working against the security policy of
Yemen and its major ally, the United States.

Considering Yemen’s recent history, the presence of
embedded Baathists and Salafyists should not come as a
surprise. Yemen remained a strong backer of Saddam Hussein
– a personal mentor to Saleh – throughout the 1990-91 Gulf
crisis and for some time thereafter. Senior Saddam-era Iraqi
advisors are seeded throughout the military. Advisors to a
number of Yemeni army battalion and company commanders
previously served in the Iraqi army; indeed have seen heavy
service since the beginning of the twin Al-Houthi rebellions
in 2004-05 (GSN 760/7, 741/6). Their presence was shown
when three Iraqi personnel were injured in a Zaydi grenade
attack against the Yemeni Air Force’s Air Defence Academy in
Sanaa on 7 May.

Within the Yemeni military, sympathy for the insurgency in
Iraq is high. The country has also been fertile ground for the
Wahhabi indoctrination that flowed in during the anti-Soviet
jihad in Afghanistan and during the early1990s, when figures
such as Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri invested
resources and time to embed militant Salafyist thinking
throughout Yemen. Saleh actively welcomed returning Afghan
Arabs and used them as a paramilitary militia at the violent
edge of politics during the unification period (1990-94) and
subsequently as military forces in the 1994 civil war.

There are indications that some irregular units of former
jihadists have been used against Zaydi militants in the Sadah
area, indicating a return to Yemen’s predilection for the use of
Salafyist proxies. Salafyist tribesmen appear to be being used
against the Zaydi by North West Region commander and
presidential half-brother Ali Mohsin Al-Ahmar – a powerful
figure, married into an influential southern family, who is seen
by some Yemenis as a potential future president.

This would not go down well in Washington, where
unconfirmed rumours abound that Al-Ahmar worked with
Saudi Salafyists, including Bin Laden, in the effort to recruit
Yemenis to fight in Afghanistan. After his May 2005 defection
to the United Kingdom, former Yemeni ambassador to Syria
Ahmed Abdullah Al-Hasani alleged that Al-Ahmar was
complicit in the December 1998 kidnapping of 16 Western
tourists; two days before the botched rescue resulted in the
deaths of four tourists, Al-Hasani alleged that members of the
terrorist group were in Al-Ahmar’s house in Sanaa.
Such allegations cannot be verified – and might simply
reflect the tangled web of tribal contacts that any Yemeni
securocrat needs to maintain – but with the USA looking hard
at the government’s connections to terrorism, controversial
figures like Al-Ahmar are increasingly finding that mud sticks
in Washington.

PSO’s ambiguous role

Perhaps most significantly, considerable elements of Yemen’s
oldest internal security arm, the Political Security Organisation,
are seeded with Salafyists, recruited when Saleh was using
them as deniable political paramilitaries in the early 1990s.
Headed by General Ghaleb Al-Qimch, the PSO is
independent of the Ministry of Interior and its leaders are all
military officers. The PSO is theoretically an intelligence-gathering
arm reporting directly to the president, but, it has
long carried out direct actions, including the harassment of
journalists and political opponents.

The rumour mill continued to turn with lively conjecture
about an alleged PSO role in the December 2002 assassination
of Yemeni Socialist Party assistant general secretary Jarallah
Omar. Defence lawyers for alleged assassin Ali Al-Saawani
have suggested that a state ‘organisation’ manipulated Al-Saawani
into killing Omar, the architect of the Islah/YSP
alliance that now looks so threatening to the Saleh’s ruling
General People’s Congress faction (GSN 769/4).
With Washington breathing down Saleh’s neck about
political reform, such activities are no longer a mainstay of
government practice, but critics say the PSO is slow to change
its violent ways and has increasingly become a liability to the
president. These critics say the PSO is responsible for much of
the “revolving door” strategy that has seen militants escape or
be released to engage in recidivist militancy.

Should Saleh really shuffle off the political stage in 2006 as he
has threatened, the PSO would constitute a power base within
the GPC that could threaten the accession of a designated Saleh
ally – such as presidential son Ahmed Ali Saleh – as surely as
Syria’s old guard have weakened President Bashar Al-Assad’s
rule.

Just what I love, good hard numbers, the allocation (or not) of the budget on infrastructure.

[12/12/2005] (NewsYemen ) Dec 12, Sanaa – The 2006 budget proposed by the government allocates much more for defense and security compared to developmental sectors such as education, health, and electricity, said Yemeni parliamentarian Abdulkarim Shaiban.

The education sector was allocated YR 184 billion with an increase of YR 7 billion and health increased by 10% to become YR 46 billion. Electricity got YR 27 billion, which constitutes a decrease of almost 60% from last year’s budget.

Meanwhile, defense and security were the biggest winners in the proposed budget as they gained an unprecedented increase of YR 100 billion, totaling YR 274 billion. This is greater than all the aforementioned three developmental sectors put together.

Shaiban, who is a member of the parliament’s financial committee added that “increase of allocated amount for the education sector could barely cover the extra expenses for the new students who would enroll in 2006. This is the case despite the statistics that confirm that one million children are in the schooling age but are not enrolled.”

He added that among the biggest disappointments was the “electricity sector, which was reduced by YR 38 billion as it was YR 65 billion in 2006.”

Shaiban noted that the government admitted a decrease in investments, which he said would continue to decline if the government continues to ignore vital infrastructure services such as electricity.

He said there is a ‘mystery’ in the way the government is dealing with the oil sector. “While allocating YR 176 billion to support petroleum derivatives for 2005, which resembles an increase of %85, we all know that subsidies for those products were partially lifted in July 2005.” Shaiban said.

“The citizen is going to be the ultimate victim.”

Concerning the government’s pledges to fight corruption, Shaiban is convinced it is merely ‘empty rhetoric’ and that the financial statement of 2005 demonstrates that the government continued to overlook corruption and ignore taking serious efforts to curb it.

“Corruption requires clear and courageous steps and not general moves.” he said, adding that corruption will flourish if the government does not channel funds to the sectors in need such as local councils, which will continue to suffer from fund shortage. He noted that despite planned yearly increases of YR 25 billion for local councils, the budget for 2006 approved an increase of just YR 8 billion.

(Read on …)

Child Labor: http://www.yobserver.com/news_8692.php

Malaria: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/e43bbc5a7a4433d09eaacf058236ce31.htm

Women: http://www.yobserver.com/news_8640.php

central bank: http://yementimes.com/newsarticle.shtml?a=20_2005_11_17_7000

drug smuggling: http://www.yobserver.com/news_8546.php

qat: http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=874&p=report&a=1

qat and agricultrual stats: http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=6_2005_11_26_5618

girls education: http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20050802-09171000-bc-yemen-women.xml

literacy and education: http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=898&p=report&a=1

journalists: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/02bcaa94b83d74dca0eb73c312e86545.htm

child trafficking: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31207

AIDS: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=50445

Internet usage: http://www.yobserver.com/news_8770.php (Read on …)

Its my filing cabinet folks.

BS: The FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough in Mursi to have posted a $5 million reward this year for his capture. Egypt’s government reportedly is interested enough to have locked up his two sons in an effort to track down their father….

After the U.S. invasion in 2001, computer files uncovered by reporters in Afghanistan showed that by 1999 Mursi, armed with a startup budget of $2,000 to $4,000, was working to develop chemical and biological weapons in Afghanistan….

Experts believe the gas was hydrogen cyanide, used in gas-chamber executions. But NATO chemical weapons specialist Rene Pita says that compound has long been viewed as an unsatisfactory mass-casualty chemical weapon because of its instability and low density….

Even before discovery of his Afghan operation, Mursi was quietly being hunted as an al-Qaida bombmaker, Mohamed Salah, a Cairo expert in extremism, said. He said the Egyptian was suspected of having helped train suicide bombers who attacked the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.

Five months after that October 2000 attack, Egyptian authorities arrested Mursi’s son Mohamed as he flew into Cairo with a fake Yemeni passport, Cairo’s al-Ahram Weekly reported at the time.

“That indicates the family was in Yemen,” said Salah. “Abu Khabab must have gone to Yemen. Why Yemen? Because of the USS Cole.”

There’s a few of these around. One holds the bodies of the Nasserites who were involved in a coup attempt against Saleh. This is a sad legacy. Maybe the families will have greater peace now.

UPI: Yemen said Saturday the authorities unearthed a mass grave with 16 bodies in the south of the country believed to date back to 1986.

The defense ministry said in a statement on its website the authorities were digging the mass grave in Aden province, adding it was discovered by a group of laborers doing routine digging for housing construction near a military base.

It added the military base was formerly the intelligence and state security headquarters in southern Yemen, which was ruled by the Socialist Party, before the unification of north and south in 1990.

The statement speculated the bodies found belonged to military officers because pistols were found near the remains, adding these weapons were only allowed to be carried senior officers in the former South Yemen.

The ministry said it believed the officers may have been killed during armed battles between two wings of the ruling Socialist Party members in January 1986, in which thousands were killed from both sides.

Any decent forensic pathologist should be able to determine the time frame in which these deaths occurred. Its not determined yet if its pre or post 1990.

More

KT: Lawyer Jamal Al Jaabi told Reuters the court ordered Jamal Al Adeenee, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly Al Osboo, to pay a fine of 30,000 rials ($154) for accusing an Education Ministry official of administrative and financial violations. His newspaper was suspended for three months.

He said Abdul-Wadood Al Mattari, editor-in-chief of the weekly Al Rassid, received a two-month suspended jail sentence for accusing the stores of selling sub-standard goods, and his newspaper was banned for one month.

What is the bigger story here:

YT/NY: Al-Jazeera’s Yemen correspondent Ahmed Al-Shalafi and cameraman Ali Al-Baidhani were detained today by security forces while filming a protest in Sanaa and were released more than an hour later after ‘high-level’ instructions were given….

Al-Shalafi explained that while they were filming a protest by employees of a public textile company, they were confronted by armed police forces who arrested and took them to a police station. They were kept in detention for more than ninety minutes waiting to be released.

He added that the film that was recorded at the scene of the protest was confiscated and destroyed at the police station. Both journalists could have been held longer in the station if it were not for the intense calls that they made to high-ranking officials to interfere and set them free.

Al-Shalafi told NewsYemen that the forces that arrested them said they had ‘high-level orders’ to prevent any journalists from covering the protest and to destroy any recorded material, including video footage or regular photographs.

It is worth noting that a brutal attack against journalists working for another prominent Arab news channel, Al-Arabiya, took place in the same location last month. The government said it would investigate that incident

The incident at the time led to severe injury of one of the beaten journalists, who later suffered from internal bleeding.

However, no one was held accountable since then, and journalists still feel insecure when covering events near that area.

and Press Freedom

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the beating and intimidation of Mohammad Sadiq al-Odaini, head of a Yemeni independent press freedom group. Al-Odaini, secretary-general of the Center for Training and Protecting Journalist Freedom, told CPJ that earlier this week he was threatened at gunpoint by a man he recognized as a member of the security forces. A few days later the same man assaulted him along with two other attackers.

Al-Odaini said he believed he was targeted because of his organization’s annual report published last month that accused the authorities of failing to investigate attacks on the press.

On December 5, a man who al-Odaini identified as security officer Asaad Ali Hezam al-Aayawi, pointed a pistol at al-Odaini’s head and accused him of being a traitor, the journalist said. The officer, who showed al-Odaini his badge, is a well-known figure in the area, the journalist said. On December 8, the same man along with two masked men dragged al-Odaini from his house in the capital Sana’a around 9:30 p.m. and beat him. They tried to enter the house but left after neighbors intervened. The attackers returned later and stayed outside his home until 2 a.m. Al-Odaini called the police but they did not arrive until after daybreak.

More at News Yemen.

What a good organization:

Several opposition figures currently living abroad have also announced that they plan to run for president. In July, President Ali Abdullah Saleh said in a speech that he will not run in the next elections, saying he wanted to give young people the opportunity to run the country.

In 1999 he won the country’s first ever direct presidential elections with 96 per cent of the vote, but the main opposition party says it was banned from fielding a candidate and the Washington-based National Democratic Institute said the election was flawed by political intimidation, underage voting, inappropriate behaviour by the security forces and vote-buying.

In 2001 the country’s constitution was amended to allow the presidential term to be extended from five years to seven, and Saleh had been widely expected to run in the next elections. He is Yemen’s longest serving leader since the republican system was proclaimed in North Yemen in 1962 and in South Yemen in 1967. Saleh is backed by the two main powers in Yemeni society; the army and the tribe.

However, in the parliamentary elections in 2003, despite reportedly exerting intense pressure on the electorate, Saleh’s party, the General People’s Congress, only secured 58 percent of the vote.

Corruption to Poverty to Child Trafficking
Reuters:
In early 2004, Saudi authorities handed over 9,815 children to Yemeni authorities. Many of them had been found begging or were lost.

Remarkably, about 82 percent of child trafficking occurs with the consent of the child’s parents, according to UNICEF. In almost 60 percent of cases, however, it is against the will of the child involved.

“Child trafficking is one of the consequences of people suffering from poverty,” said Minister of Human Rights Amat al-Aleem al-Soswa at a recent conference addressing the issue. “If families were better off, parents wouldn’t let their children go to places where they will be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation”.

Over a quarter of the children who have been deported back to Yemen by Saudi authorities say they faced hunger and physical violence while abroad. Some 65 percent of them ended up living on the streets or sleeping in mosques or abandoned buildings during the course of their travels, according to UNICEF.

Despite Yemen’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991, national law does not contain specific provisions on the sale of children, child prostitution and child trafficking, according to UNICEF.

Aid workers note that the criminalisation of such practices is a key first step in combating them.

Fisk, yes that Fisk, but anyway: Although many Americans know about the kidnappings in Iraq, they may not have heard that some of the tens of thousands of kidnapped Iraqis are forced into sexual slavery in Yemen. Time for the tin foil hat? I dont know.

The Organization of Islamic Unity in Mecca: Among attending heads of state is Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who included in his delegation Sheikh Abdel Majid Zandani, who is wanted by the U.S. administration on suspicion of financing terrorism.

Zandani, head of the Islamic Iman (faith) University, traveled out of Yemen for the first time since he was included in an international list of terrorism financiers by the U.N. Security Council last February.

Also the 4th annual al-Quds Conference was recently held in Sanaa.

7/12/2005 al Sahwa:
The leaders of resistance in Palestine
and Iraq renewed their intent to continue their legal
struggle against the occupation forces.

Khaled Mashal, chair of the political office of Hamas,
…renewed his pledge to continue resistance as a
strategic choice to conquer occupation. He reviewed
challenges that Arab and Islamic Umah faces at all
levels and the pressure that America practices on Arab
and Islamic nations and leaders to impose its
dominance in the region and to support Zionist entity….

Hussein Hadrooj, member of the political office of the
Lebanese Hezbullah, called upon resistance movements
to carry their responsibility towards people and to
consider the dangers around….

Chairman of the Muslim Scholars Association in Iraq
Hareth al-Dhari…also confirmed before the students
rally the adherence to the constructive resistance
choice in order to thoroughly crush occupation forces
that constantly kill and oppress Iraqi people.

al-Qaradawi also in attendence per Saba:
The Chief of Trustless Council of al-Quds foundation Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said that the Sana’a conference of the foundationwas fruitful and came out with positive results. Upon his departure, Sheikh al-Qaradawi said that the donations reached about $ 4 millions for supporting the activities of the foundation.

Qaradawi (Aug 2005): “It is a duty. All scholars say that defending an occupied homeland is an individual duty applying to every Muslim. Reducing this duty to a ‘right,’ which can be relinquished, is a kind of depreciation….

“This has nothing to do with suicide. This man does not want to commit suicide, but rather to cause great damage to the enemy, and this is the only method he can use to cause such damage…The truth is that we should refrain from raising this issue, because doubting it is like joining the Zionists and Americans in condemning our brothers in Hamas, the Jihad, the Islamic factions, and the resistance factions in Iraq. It is as if we are joining them.”

So to discuss even the legitimacy of suicide bombing is traitorous.

at al-Motamar, Full text to follow, but here is an exerpt:

Q: what about your none nomination in 2006 presidency elections? Was it just for propoganda as opposition says, or was it aerial intention, as had been declared?
A: when we announced that we were and still mean it, the target was to push others for nomination, so that every one in our country get used to democracy and peaceful transition of power.
Q: Fine, but what about the alternative?
A: the alternative is the person whom would be elected by people through ballots.
Q: do you think that the opposition through its figures is capable to fill the gap, if you insist on your position.
A: this question must be directed to the opposition, but we call it develop leader ship that can hold responsibility.
Q: Openly, why did you declare that, though you were not obliged to do so? I mean was there a political necessity behind that announcement?
A: In order every one in our homeland learns principles of democracy and the peaceful transition of power, and in order to stabilize and develop multiple choices in democratic practice.

I will personally give him a legacy as a great leader if he actually steps down without bringing in Ahmed.

Of course a free and fair election does require equal access to the broadcast media, some fiddling with the election law (including the issue of proportional representation), equal rights for oppostion journalists and equal financing (and maybe their buildings back) for the opposition parties. ™

(Read on …)

YT: President Musharaf raised several points during the bilateral discussions such as the military training and supply however no final agreement was concluded. The security cooperation agreement also contained the exchange of information in the war against terrorism, organized crime and drugs manufacturing and trafficking.

However, the agreement signed was confined to security and intelligence issues, considering that there are sensitive elements of fundamentalist and terrorists who work clandestinely and are believed to receive funds from unidentified sources. Yet, it was not disclosed whether such funds are being provided from, or through, Yemen. President Musharaf only said that the two countries should coordinate their intelligence efforts to face this threat….

According to Altjamo’ weekly, the Pakistani people are troubled by the continuous recruitment of Arabs including Yemenis to join or support Al-Qaeda. It is worth mentioning that over 32 thousand Afghan-Arabs had returned to Yemen in 1992-1994, with the consent of the Yemeni authorities, in order to support President Saleh in the 1994 civil war in Yemen.

However, more recently these groups started spreading back to Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and selected locations. While other groups remained in the protection of Yemeni tribes until the 9/11 events, However, Yemen is trying to expel these groups out of the country as a part of its war against terror commitments.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by an apparent government at