Armies of Liberation

According to research, the American company which is partnering with Yemen to produce *five nuclear reactors* has no experience building nuclear reactors, very low operating capital, and is headed by a Yemeni-American who attended the same school at the same time as the Minister of Electricity who inked the deal. Its a USD 15 billion dollar deal. More to come.

Yemen’s nuclear partner: Powered Corp

Mr. Alghani is the Founder and Chairman of Adin Investment Company in Yemen . Mr. Alghani served as Vice Chairman and CFO of Adair International Oil & Gas Inc. from 1990 to 2002.

In 2002, Mr. Alghani was voted out of his position as Vice Chairman as a result of a hostile proxy contest led by a group of stockholders and former members of management, who called themselves the Score Group. Subsequent to the election, Mr. Alghani was terminated by Adair from his position as CFO by the newly-elected board.

During the course of the hostile proxy contest, the Score Group made numerous allegations that Mr. Alghani and other members of management had committed fraud, had mismanaged Adair and had misrepresented management’s ability to raise funds for Adair’s business plan. They also made numerous personal attacks against Mr. Alghani, including that he had misstated his academic credentials and that various governmental agencies were investigating Mr. Alghani for criminal activities. Subsequent to the proxy contest, Adair, renamed EnDevCo, filed charges against Mr. Alghani, the other members of management and various parties seeking to recover damages that Mr. Alghani and the other defendants had allegedly caused EnDevCo. Mr. Alghani and the other defendants denied the charges, and Mr. Alghani and certain members of management countersued for defamation, slander and libel.

The only allegation the Score Group made that Mr. Alghani agrees with was that he misstated his academic credentials. He did attend USC for approximately four years and would have needed to complete about eight to ten credits in order to graduate.

Just ten credits short, thats just like graduating.

Hat tip: The Empty Quarter.

Ok more on Alghani:

CFO magazine, 2002:

But it’s unlikely any will top the sob story that Chris A. Dittmar, CFO of Adair International Oil and Gas Inc., told in his deadline-extension request last quarter. According to the company’s explanation in its Form 12b-25, the newly appointed Dittmar arrived at work the day after Adair shareholders ousted the former CEO and CFO to find that the company’s financial records had all but vanished. “Key computers containing the financial records of the corporation had been stolen and all data on any other computer left behind had been deleted,” with backup tapes gone as well, the filing explains. Further, as a result of the theft, the entire staff had been dismissed.

What the filing didn’t say was that a corporate surveillance camera allegedly caught two direct reports of former CEO John Adair and former CFO Jalal Alghani carting off the computers. “These were evidently not the smartest crooks in the world,” says Dittmar. He claims the two took the information to cover up an alleged securities-fraud scheme.

After reconstructing its financials with information from one former accountant, along with documents gathered from its vendors, customers, and banks, Adair submitted its 10-Q within the extended deadline. It intends to press securities-fraud charges against the two former officers, while the shareholder group that overthrew them has submitted reports to the SEC, the Justice Department, and the IRS, among other federal agencies.

The company seems to have a lot of lawyers and the one guy with nuclear expertise seems to have been hired in 2007.

Actually Dominic Moran nailed it last week:

In a statement carried by Middle East Online, the minister said: “The overall cost of the project is estimated at $15 billion,” stressing that the new energy source would be “economically competitive, that is, cheaper than the electricity we produce today.”

Critics of nuclear generation debunk such claims, arguing that the costs of nuclear generation are invariably understated and underwritten by the state.

Bahran acknowledged that the government would not be paying for the reactors, saying “Powered Corporation will oversee efforts to secure the financing of the project.”

Perusal of Powered Corporation’s website gives no indications as to the company’s ability to raise the required US$15 billion, or of significant experience in Modular Helium Reactor (MHR) generation, which the company says it is moving into.

The company’s site also provides no details as to the potential or existing partnerships required to fund and conduct the massive undertaking of establishing reactors in Yemen.

It is clear that given the risks of tardy or non-existent government payments, the company will not be able to generate sufficient revenue for the fabrication of the reactors from the private sector and will likely be relying on the US government to bear the bulk of start-up funding and provide ongoing payment guarantees.

Yemen Times

Social Capital is a very new concept to Yemen, it stands alone as an isolated understanding of Yemen limited to several micro-developmental organizations, known also as charities. Although splendid in numbers, according to statistics by the Ministry of Social Affairs, little impact do the people of Yemen see as a result of over 3,000 registered charities, with an exception of a handful charities which have a contribution towards poverty reduction in the Country.

Although poverty in Yemen has been reduced from 41.8 percent in 1998 to 35.5 percent in 2005, according to the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation. Ironically, the key issue is that 41.8 percent of the population in 1998 was 7.5 million people, while 35.5 percent of the population in 2005 was 7.7 million people, considering the annual population growth rate of 3.4 percent.

The Holy month of Ramadhan is an excellent occasion to study the role of charities in building social capital and reducing poverty, Most recently Al-Islah Charitable Society for Social Welfare has proclaimed that its activities directly affect half a million people. Since its establishment in 1990 in Hodieda governorate, which is the most impoverished governorate in the country, Al-Islah charity has grown to become the country’s largest charitable organization, with operations ranging from Orphan care and vocational training to reproductive health and humanitarian assistance. (Read on …)

Yemen Observer:

Samir Rashad al-Yousefi, Editor-in-Chief of the al-Jomhoria newspaper has called for the prosecution of the opposition Islah Party for abandoning Islamic values, which call for unity, brotherhood, and non-discrimination.

Al-Yousefi’s comments come after Islah declared it would start legal proceedings against him and his newspaper after he wrote an opinion article under the title of the Separaist Pretext of Islah in which he said that the main aim of the Islah is to gain power, even if allied with the devil, at the expense of any religious principles or values, whether religious or secular.

“What I wrote in the article is just my viewpoint and Islah should accept that in the context of freedom of opinion and not resort to the courts,” al-Yousefi said. (Read on …)

This is rather comprehensive and the only detail missing is that Fawz al-Reibi was the subject of an FBI national alert in February 2002.

Jamestown:

In mid-September, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh issued a stern warning to the Wa’ilah tribe in northern Yemen: turn over the six al-Qaeda suspects you are sheltering or face serious repercussions (al-Wasat, September 12). The six men that Saleh believes have found refuge with the tribe near the Saudi border are the remnants of a group of 23 prisoners that escaped from a Yemeni political security prison on February 3, 2006. The prisoners escaped by tunneling out of their cell and into a neighboring mosque, which has since been detailed in a lengthy narrative written by one of the escapees and published by the Yemeni paper al-Ghad. The escapees included a number of prominent al-Qaeda militants, among whom were individuals convicted of carrying out attacks on the USS Cole in 2000 and on the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002.

Six of these suspects have since been killed in clashes with Yemeni or U.S. forces, 11 have either turned themselves back in to authorities or have been recaptured and six of the suspects remain at large. Many of these individuals have continued to fight for al-Qaeda since their escape, and one of them, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, has since been named the new head of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Despite differences of age and background, the 23 men who were being held in the cell were linked together through shared experiences. Nearly half of the escapees, 11, were born in Saudi Arabia to Yemeni parents. Several of the men were arrested in late 2002 after a series of bombings in Sanaa and Marib. Seven of these men were part of a 15-man cell that was later charged with planning to attack five foreign embassies as well as to assassinate the then U.S. Ambassador Edmund Hull. Three of the men were convicted of being part of an 11-man cell that was charged with plotting to carry out attacks in Yemen and abroad. Among the escapees, there are also two sets of brothers, Hizam and Arif Mujali and Mansur and Zakariya al-Bayhani, who are themselves brothers of Ghalib and Tawfiq al-Bayhani, who are currently in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay. Two other escapees, Qasim al-Raymi and Fawaz al-Rabay’I, also have brothers in Guantanamo.

This two-part series presents a biographical sketch of each escapee, along with his current status. (Read on …)

Oh no! Every time he amends the constitution, the clock goes back to zero? Two more terms for Saleh? It that what the reform is about? Nah, that’s just preposterous. Could he say it with a straight face?

http://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/view_snews.asp?sub_no=401_2007_09_30_58730
al-Sahwa: September 30, 2007 – A senior leader of the Joint Meeting Parties, Mohammad Qahtan, said that the president’s new declared initiative had come to only solve the president’s problems due to the wave of soaring prices, and not to solve the people’s problems.

“The ruling power aims to grant the president new two terms” added Qahtan in a political symposium in Dhamar province.” Qahtan said.

He labeled the authorities as narrow-minded ,affirming that they only think of tribe and family at the expense of the nation.

The Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh had announced a new imitative for constitutional reform .

According to Saleh’s imitative, the new amendments would cut the presidential term from seven to five years, and reduce the parliamentary term to four from six years.

He further said that the expected changes will shift the current parliamentary system into a presidential system in which he would hold the posts of head of state and head of cabinet.

Al-Sahwa:

September 27, 2007 -According to the annual survey prepared by the Berlin-based organization Transparency International, Yemen is ranked 132nd with a score of 2.5 .

The report said that Yemen fell 21 points compared with the last year’s repot when it was ranked 111th .

The report also revealed deterioration of many Arab states in anti-corruption indexes.

The scores range from ten (squeaky clean) to zero (highly corrupt). A score of 5.0 is the number Transparency International considers the borderline figure distinguishing countries that do and do not have a serious corruption problem.

More at the Yemen Times

Yemen Observer:

The September 6th 2007 by-elections in Aden and Ibb were conducted in a generally peaceful and orderly manner with only a few violations, said the national Democratic Institute for International Affairs in a press release after the elections.

The statement congratulated the SCER for successfully administering the elections and noted that although there were some minor violations, they were not enough to jeopardize the overall validity of the election results. (Read on …)

Yemen Observer

The cabinet has approved a budget extension of YR267.8 billion for the remainder of 2007, and referred it to Parliament for final approval. Ali al-Amrani, a member of the finance committee in Parliament, said the government was able to extend the budget without negative effects on the Yemeni economy, and without increasing the budget deficit.

“We had budgeted for oil to sell at around $50 per barrel but the current global price is more than $75 per barrel,” al-Amrani said.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet approved a package of development programs for the al-Dhale’ governorate after a report revealed the urgent need for assistance in the areas of agriculture, water, health, education, culture, electricity, roads, youth and sport, as well as justice and local administration. The assistance package is expected to take up a significant portion of the supplementary budget.

Dr. Mohammed al-Maitami, a professor of economics at Sana’a University said that the government was acting haphazardly in handing out money to development projects without any kind of strategy and said the government promised last year not to offer any supplementary budget.

“Mini-budgets are only normally used in exceptional cases or times of economic crisis,” said al-Maitami, economist at Sana’a University. “I would like to ask how the government proposes to spend this sum of money during the final two months of 2007.”

Lines restored after nine months of no communication, the last three of which have been under a cease fire. How is that not a punative action on the whole region?

almotamar.net – The official spokesman for the committee on implementing Saada agreement Yasser al-Awadhi said Sunday that all types of telephone lines, fixed, mobile, in all districts of Saada governorate have been operated again.

In a statement to almotamar.net al-Awadhi said the re-operation started from Saturday and that move comes within the framework of the state endeavour to restore situations in the governorate to their normal function in a way in harmony with creating atmospheres convenient for completing implementation the remaining articles of the agreement on ending the sedition.

Al-Awadhi also affirmed that the committee is continuing its work, pointing out it would go back to Saada to oversee the remaining points of the agreement after the holidays of Al-Fitr Eid.

Another story that fits in the communications catagory. Undoing the unexplained internet price hike from errrr August 2005 was it?

almotamar.net

– President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Saturday gave his directives for cutting the cost of subscription to internet services by 30% and 10% in cost of calls via Yemen mobile network.

In his inspection visit Saturday to the State Establishment for Cable and Wireless Communications President Saleh Emphasised the importance of the role played by communications and information technology sector in the economic development and increase of productivity and the necessity of providing the citizens with communications services for reduced price.

The president asked Yemen mobile company to search for alternatives to support services apparatuses and to make them available for the citizens with suitable price.

President Saleh got acquainted with the ministry’s leadership efforts for organising the communications sector and he instructed on speeding up completion of the executive measures on restructuring the ministry and development of the law of communications in Yemen in a way keeping pace with variables taking place in this impotent sector.

Yemen Observer

Dr. Mohammed Mohsen al-Dhaheri, chairman of the Political Sciences Department at Sana’a University, spoke with the Yemen Observer about the contemporary role of tribes in the governance of Yemen and the conflict between the traditional and modern authorities. He is the author of two books about the socio-political relationship between the tribes and the state in Yemen.

Yemen Observer: What do you think of the newly established National Solidarity Council, and what do you think prompted its establishment?
Dr. Mohammed al-Dhaheri: First, I would like to say that this is what we can call political meddling. Tribes in Yemen have certain mechanisms to demand their rights. For example, some tribes will block highways or kidnap foreigners to add urgency to their demands. I can not put this council in the frame of a tribal bloc. It is can not what I would call a tribal council nor is it a partisan council. You can see that politicians meet with the sheikhs and with the academics. The council represents a period in tribal meetings that Yemen has not witnessed before. You can not call it an opposition entity as it has many members from the GPC, and academics etc. As you see there is a sort of dichotomy that starts to prevail in Yemen. This council has encountered other gatherings from tribes led by Sheikh al-Shaif.
We as researchers can not judge this NSC until we see what it will do. We focus on behavior and we don’t really trust speeches in which everybody claims that they are moving towards positive change and that they are against corruption. The proof is in the behavior. This council also shows that when official authorities of the state fail to respond to the needs of citizens, they retreat to entities that existed before the state, namely tribes. Those who joined the NSC want to clear themselves from any responsibilities of what is happening in Yemen and they want to demonstrate that they are not to blame. That’s why they join and they also want to be ready to gain power 2013.

YO: Why do you think some academics, people from the GPC and oppositions have joined the NSC?
MD: Again, the establishment of this council is an indication of the failure of civil society. Organizations and parties that play a role in the council want to invest see membership as an investment in achieving particular interests. There is no partisan discipline from those members who left certain parties to join this entity. Some might be honest, but some also may exploit the council for their own interests.

YO: How will you define the ‘tribe’ in Yemen in this era of change in the country?
MD: Defining the tribe in Yemen has is tricky. Researchers in the West and in anthropological writings say that the tribe is a traditional structure that existed before the state. The peculiarity of the definition of the tribe in Yemen is that it is also part of the state and is in dialogue with the political and social sides of it. In one analysis I did in my PhD, I say that the state in Yemen embraces two political systems: an arbitrational system that is the official system in Yemen; and the political-tribal system. So, the tribe in Yemen is a group of people who inhabit a certain place and have shared conventions, customs, traditions and interests forming a political, economical and military system. This group also feels that they have a kinship connection whether this is real or not. I want to affirm here that the tribe in Yemen is political in nature and has a number of traits that make it close to politics. It is a closed structure but it resembles political parties and pressure groups in that they have some influence over political decision-makers. This is what makes the definition of the tribe in Yemen distinctive.

YO: What about the variety of tribes in Yemen and how do you classify them?
MD: There are a great variety of tribes in Yemen—it is not a solid mass. There are fighting tribes and there are peaceful tribes, there are tribes in fertile land and tribes in barren land, there are tribes with strong fanaticism and there are tribes who are less fanaticism. There are tribes that are loyal to the ruling system and those in opposition to it. So, nobody can conduct a case study on one tribe and generalize their findings, like the anthropologists do. There are places where tribes still cling to their tribal norms and on the other hand there are places where tribes have lost these norms. The core of these tribes is that each has its own leader—who we call Sheikh. These sheikhs now unfortunately pursue personal interests and pay less attention to their groups. We here in the Yemeni environment that show the worst in tribes and the worst in political parties.

YO: How would you describe the relations between tribes, the state and the society at large in Yemen?
MD: There is a direct relationship between the state and the tribe. When there is a weakness in the state, the tribe gets stronger and vice versa. What happens everywhere else in the world is that when there are modern institutions and organizations, the tribes fade. In Yemen there is coexistence between the tribes and modern organizations or civil society—coexistence between the tribe and politics.

YO: How would you describe Yemenis attitudes towards events in and outside of Yemen?
MD: Yemenis are greatly influenced by events that occur outside of Yemen. Cases in point are the reaction of Yemenis to the execution of Saddam Hussein; they were hanging up pictures of him in shops, cars and everywhere. The same thing was seen with Nasr Allah during last year’s war between Hezbollah and Israel. Nasr Allah pictures were also seen ubiquitously in Yemen. Unfortunately, Yemen is influenced by the outside world but does not interact with it. We also see this when some tribal individuals attempt to pressure the authorities by kidnapping foreigners. This is for several reasons the most important of which is a kind of absence of trust between society and authorities. Now in Yemen there is a kind of weakness in the state and also a weakness in the tribes. What happens is that there is a weakening of traditional structures—that is tribes, but also a weakness in its substitute—the modern institutions like parties and otherwise. I am not with the tribes as a political participant but with it as a social entity.

YO: What changes have occurred in some of the tribal concepts of this era? MD: The traditions and norms of the tribe are no longer as they were in the past; they are changing completely. For example, it was prohibited to take revenge in cities (places that tribes call majjar), and also in souqs. Now we see tribesmen taking their revenge in cities, markets wherever they find their opponents. Secondly, leaders of tribes are supposed to look out for the welfare of their people and to act in their interests. Sheikhs now look after their own interests alone. Sheikhdom has turned into a game of personal wants and self gains. There used to a great sense of belonging to a certain tribe and a belief that one’s interests could only be fulfilled through one’s tribe. There is also a relaxation in the use of all sorts of arms including jambias. There are severe punishments for brandishing arms or jambias in front of any one. The traditional entity tribe in Yemen is in its worst times. Honesty and dignity as the main qualities of tribalism are fading.

YO: Do you believe that there is a certain force that benefits from the weakness of tribes in Yemen?
MD: I would like to say that we are not living in an isolated place. We live in a world of globalization and under the influence of the internet, technology, and satellites. All this has weakened the traditional entity of the tribe. This weakness has not only affected tribal norms, but also the norms and values of modern civil society. There is no obvious strategy by the political regime to weaken the tribes and provide the modern organized society as its substitute.

YO: What are the main obstacles for the presence and practice of real democracy and do you think the role played by tribes in this era hinders democracy?
MD: As I said earlier, we are living in a political environment that brings out the worst in tribalism and the worst and partisanship. Yemen is moving very slowly towards democracy. Some of the characteristics of a real democracy are the peaceful handing over of power, a strong opposition, the absolute independence of the justice system, effective law enforcement, and political pluralism with no legal ties. Yemen has a sort of democracy in the form of elections, but this democracy is painted with the traditions of Yemen. If you look at political participation in Yemen, you will find it very weak in the sense that there is very little awareness of politics and political rights. What happens in Yemen is political mobilization. Voters follow their tribal leaders and don’t pay much attention to the electoral agenda or program of candidates.

YO: How much do you think the culture of fear affects the political arena in Yemen, in particular the fear of change?
MD: This is one of the most important issues characterizing the culture of Yemen. We live in an avenging culture. When a foreigner visits Yemen and walks in the streets they will see many people and soldiers inside the main cities carrying firearms. To the foreigner these weapons are indicators of violence. However, for Yemenis these are a sort of reaction. Once I stopped a sheikh with his escorts and told him we people with pants are afraid of you and he said” look son I am afraid as someone may seek revenge against me, he may kill me any time or anywhere.” To go back to the question though, we have universities, civil society organizations and elections all of which are indicators of democracy, but if you look at the educational institutions, you find that they are still teaching in traditional ways. Students are not given a chance to think for themselves. Free elections need complete awareness from voters which is not seen in Yemen. To show or prove that a country has real democracy, there has to be strong institutions that help in policy making which is not the case in Yemen.

YO: How do you see the relationship between the state and society in Yemen?
MD: There is a mutual relationship. The best thing is to have a strong state and a strong society. The presence of a strong state implicitly means the presence of a strong society with modern institutions. In Yemen the state is not strong – strength and power lie in the hands of certain individuals and the interests of citizens are not taken care of greatly. Foreigners are getting much of the country’s riches as we have what I call an inferiority complex. In Yemen people are bullying towards each other and feel inferior in front of foreigners.

YO: What do you make of the demonstrations etc that have been taking place in Yemen over the last two months?
MD: There is a sort of political insecurity now due to the absence of basic needs. The rulers have to provide the ruled ones with their basic needs or it will cause insecurity. Any problems in Yemen have to be solved before they get too bad. The authorities do not have to wait until things are worse; they have to tackle issues in their early stages. The legitimacy of any political system comes from the satisfaction of its ruled ones. I am sure that there will be no revolutions or coups in Yemen just yet, but if what is happening continues, political insecurity will continue. As I said Yemenis confuse fate and the bad performance of the state. When prices increase some will not say it is because of a decline in economy but a test from God.

YO: How can we achieve political security in Yemen?
MD: For political security, there must be modern institutions that participate effectively in policy and decisions making and we need to get rid of political possession. The political system needs to enhance its legitimacy of power by making sure that ruled ones are satisfied. The system has to work towards providing the basic needs of citizens, improving living standards, and fighting corruption and unemployment. The society also needs to get rid of dichotomies.

YO: How do educational institutions such as schools and universities enhance the social structure in Yemen and improve the society at large? MD: Yemen needs real and effective political breeding that can help development and enhance political security. I want to say here that the Yemeni environment is expelling any talents; universities are the pillars of a developed, democratic and modern society. The educational system needs a drastic change. I find my students take things very easy; they take things for granted without questioning the way things are. Universities have also been negatively politicized. The educational shortfalls begin well before higher education; they begin from the primary education. Universities have become graveyards for talents. Professors of universities are also affected by students. When their students are mentally lazy, teachers will not prepare and this also deprives the very few students who are intelligent and want to learn.

YO: Do you think that the state modern organizations can co-exist with the strong presence of tribes?
MD: First, I want to say that the tribes are not hindering the presence of modern organizations. Some people and researchers seek to break down the traditional entity of the tribes without thinking about the substitute. I support modern establishments like political parties and civil society organizations. People that do not know Yemen have to understand that tribes are traditional structures that carry political characteristics. Tribes help the political system and also benefit from it. There is also a great deal of social and cultural variety in Yemen. When a foreigner sees people carrying arms this is not an indicator of violence, but a mixture of traditions and customs. They will also see the honesty and hospitality of the tribes and feel welcome. The danger is that Yemenis are talking more to the outside world than amongst themselves. You also see Yemenis seeking help from outside and not from the inside.
Dr. Mohammed al-Dhaheri

What a hardship on an already starving people.

Yemen Times: SANA’A, Sept. 26 — A recent report by the Arab Unity Economic Council has stated that inflation in Yemen was ranked the highest among all Arab countries, averaging 15.5 percent during 2006. The Report stated that Yemen is among ten Arab countries which has experienced rapid inflation. However, Yemen’s inflation of 15.5 percent is almost double that of UAE’s inflation of 7.7 percent, which was described as having the second-highest inflation after Yemen. (Read on …)

The good news is the 12 protesters charged with treason have been released.

Yemen Times: SANA’A, Sept. 26 — The pensioners association in Aden decided on an open protest, which started Wednesday at Freedom Square. They demand the release of all the protestors arrested during the previous demonstrations and to bring those security officials who arrested and harassed the protestors to justices. They also demanded the state to provide medical treatment of the protestors injured by the security.

On the same note, an opposition lead demonstration took place in Mukalla, Hadramout governorate on Tuesday evening. Thousands of protestors beckoned the call of six opposition political parties demanding the release of the remaining Yemenis imprisoned during previous protests a few weeks ago. Eighteen protestors were released Monday after about a month of imprisonment because of their participation in protests early September. Ba Ume, one of the fundamentalist socialist leaders and an influential figure in Hadramout and three of his sons were among the released, due to pressure from the opposition, protestors and through meditation from Hadramout governor. The protestors were charged with high treason a penalty to which could be the death sentence. However, the protestors were acquitted and now demands for releasing more of the detainees on similar grounds are being voiced around the republic.

The protest was attended by a number of lawyers to educated the public on the legal procedures that should have taken place during the arrest, interrogation and imprisonment of Yemenis, all of which according to the lawyers were violated by the state security.

In Dhale governorate, another congregation took place whereby the death of the two young protestors was condemned and support to their families was displayed. The two dead men were victims of the security police bullets who tried to disperse a demonstration over ten days ago in Al-Dhale. The authority cut electricity in the square where the congregation took place in order to dissuade the participants from demonstrating, however they remained until the early hours of Tuesday morning.

For the first time in Mareb a similar protest took place, only this was accompanied with a petition signing campaign aiming at one hundred thousand signatures from around the governorate. The petition and protest both lead by the Joint Meeting Parties, a coalition of opposition political parties, demanded 20 percent of the oil production coming from Mareb governorate to be reinvested in the city’s development. They also demanded clean water, sanitary system, power supply and other basic services to be available to the local citizens. The protestors also called for compensation for the local farmers whose crops had been damaged because of the extractive industries.

The demands also included employment opportunities to at least half of the unemployed youth in the governorate and increasing the number of social welfare beneficiaries keeping in mind that the governorate produces 400 thousand barrels of oil daily and is the source of over 65 percent of the state’s budget coming from oil industry.

500 ordered released, 67 actually released – either the executive branch is being duplicitous or it has no control over its security forces

The 2006 mediaiton agreement was never implemented by the state. The announcment of the 630 Houthi detainees released in 2006 was a) bogus and b) an incomplete tally

Regime mediators still in jail

Zaidi prisoners denied freedom of religion, punished for keeping to the Zaidi timeframe for breaking their fast

The conflict will likely re-erupt, like the last two times, for the same reasons as the last two times, and neither Iran nor Libya will be to blame.

Yemen Times:
SA’ADA, Sept 26 — Despite the meditation by the government of Qatari and demands from international human rights organisations, over 3000 members of Al-Houthi are still in prison. Some of the detainees have been in detention for more than 18 months.

The detainees, who are kept in political security prisons around the republic, are accused of anti-state acts and support of Al-Houthi insurgents in the northern governorate of Sa’ada.

However, sources in Sa’ada claimed last week that president Saleh had met with a number of political and religious figures involved in the Sa’ada conflict and promised to release 500 detainees during the holy month of Ramadan, before mid- November. Government officials refused to comment on this issue.

The Geneva- based Al-Karama Organization for Human Rights called on the United Nations to put pressure on Yemeni government to release 37 detainees in Hajja who had been charged with “Houthism”. Among the detainees two are 15 years old and another two less than 18 years of age. Security authorities in Hajja accused the 37 detainees in January of supporting Al-Houthi insurgents but had not been able to prove the charges yet.

The organization stated two particular cases (detainees number 36 and 37) who had been in prison over one and half a year.

“All of the detainees belong to the Zaidi sect and are from or reside in Hajja governorate. They have been arrested illegally because of the conflict in Sa’ada,” the organization said.

Relatives of the detainees said the arrests are based on flawed accusations or personal grudges. Relatives of Abdulrahman Saba one of the 37 detainees, had personal issues with a local sheikh who tipped the security on Saba and accused the later of rebelling against the state.

The organization feared for the life of those detainees especially that some of them have started a hunger strike, while many others are being abused during their detention. Some of the detainees managed to convey to their relatives outside prison about the inhumane conditions they are living in and the lack of medical conditions.

On Sept. 20, despite the president’s instruction to release 500 detainees, only 67 detainees who had been arrested on charges of supporting Al-Huothi were released.

And although the military action has officially been stopped in Sa’ada, for negotiation purposes, many locals reported that the attacks are still going on. Houthi rebels had ordered to surrender their weapons, and give up control of the towns they are basing their fight from.

However, clashes have reached the homes and livelihood of the locals. On Friday night, government militia attacked a village at Haidan district and killed two and seriously injured another villager.

Mediators still in detention

Abdulkarim Al-Houthi and his brother were part of the mediation committee to help settle the Sa’ada conflict in January 2007. However, their families reported their sudden disappearance after they had been arrested by the Ministry of Interior early 2007.

“Abdulkarim Al-Houthi had tried to assist the government in reaching a compromise with the Houthi rebles, and now he is the one missing. “Four months ago we heard he is in the political security prison but now we have no idea where he is,” complained a member of his family.

His family is concerned about his health especially that he has Asthma and had just undergone a stone removal operation from his kidney before he was arrested.

Three more members of the family had also been arrested and are missing despite rumours that they are detained at the political security detention.

Forty-seven detainees in Nasiriyah prison of Hajja governorate had been humiliated and chains were put on their legs inside the cells because of their refusal to break the fast in the same time with the prison security.

The fast breaking time difference, which is around 5 minutes, is based on a religious belief in the Shi’a sect. The religious difference caused dismay among the security and hence they lashed out on the detainees.

A guess a leopard doesn’t change its spots. Saleh speaks to the domestic audience.

Land theft is a lie:

describing those promoting the wicked and misleading call from those arousing tumult in the street, claiming there is seizure of others’ lands in the southern governorates by their brothers from northern governorates as null and void allegation and impudent as well as mere lies.

Protests are whims and fabricated:

political forces that escape from their internal problems to fabrication of a crisis, export it to the street and instigate it in an irresponsible manner through taking advantage of the wave of sit-ins and demonstrations by retired elements of army and security officers. They have ridden the wave in a manner impeding implementation of projects and hindering investment in addition to portraying not a good image of our great people. The president considered that as mere whims in the souls of some political forces that understood democracy wrongly

Opposition yearns for totalitarianism:

The president considered the opposition that previously stood against the local authority as yearning to authority with totalitarian system as it is their case or situation inside their parties,

USAID, 45% of Yemeni kids under age five are underweight.

Yemen is tied for the highest rate of underweight children globally with Afghanistan. In contrast, 3% of kids under five in the Palestinian Territories are underweight. Many people assume the highest child hunger rate rate is in sub-Saharan Africa, but no, Yemeni kids are the skinniest in the world. There’s 46% underweight and 53% stunted kids, per UNICEF-Yemen.
UNICEF shows kids in the Palestinian Territories are 5% underweight and 10% stunted. So things are five time worse in Yemen according to the statistics and there’s millions more Yemeni kids. The point I’m trying to make is Yemeni kids need to be seen in the correct context of global hunger and deserve proportionate international attention as well. The US administration is requesting 4.3 million from Congress in Child Survival Account funds in 2008, in addition to the USAID, food aid and other aid. But aid isn’t really the answer in the long term.

Yemen Observer

Iaqis staying in Yemen complain that they can no longer find jobs and their children cannot go to school or university, as they are unable to obtain passports under new conditions set by the Foreign Ministry of Iraq.

Two weeks ago, the Iraqi embassy in Sana’a announced that three kinds of Iraqi passports (called H, M, and N) have become null and void, and that Iraqis in Yemen who carry these passports must apply for new ones. (Read on …)

JP:

The US State Department issued a travel warning Monday for Yemen because of worries over terrorism.

A statement said US citizens should consider carefully the risks of traveling to the country.

“The security threat level remains high due to terrorist activities in Yemen, and US citizens in Yemen should exercise caution and take prudent measures to maintain their security,” the statement said.

A) a crackdown on Houthism and the broader Zaidi community not neo-Salafi JIhaddism

B) it may be politically motivated but it is percieved as discrimination

Asia News:

Sana (AsiaNews) – Unauthorised schools and religious centres closed, sermons of radical imam’s carefully monitored the celebration of certain feasts banned and mosque opening hours reduced. This is all taking place in Yemen, as part of a government clamp down to counter the activities of Islamic extremists.

In drawing a picture of the Yemeni government’s actions the Yemen Times reveals that the main targets are small Shiite groups, affiliated to al-Haq, who have been closed down because they were unauthorised.

Public tension re-emerged in January 2007, most notably in the media, as a result of government action against the al-Houthi group’s armed insurrection, liked to Twelver Shi’ism, an historic messianic variant of Shia Islam which follows the teachings of Hussein Badr Eddine al-Houthi, killed during a ten-week rebellion that he led in June 2004 against the Government in Saada. (Read on …)

This is a good idea, also micro-loans and anything that can jump start private enterprise:

SANA’A, NewsYemen

After three years of launching the first-ever project in Yemen “Cow for Each Family” to find some practical solution for poverty and helping poor families get income and live a more decent life, the Al-Tawasol Association for Human Development in Hodeidah has announced the project has attained good results over the three years.

The Association said in a press release that it had distributed, in cooperation with the al-Rahma Charity Organization of Kuwait, 344 cows for 344 families in different districts of Hodeidah including al-Zahra, al-Dhoha, al-Kanawes, al-Zidia, al-Sokhna, Beit al-Fakeeh, al-Doraihimi and al-Marawiah after conducting field surveys and studying the conditions of such families. (Read on …)

al-Motamar

almotamar.net – Secretary General of the General People’s Congress (GPC), the advisor to the president Abdulqader Bajammal on Thursday said the great implications of the presidential and local elections held in Yemen last year are in the categorical emphasis on the great correlation of unity and democracy as a basis for progress, prosperity and social peace.

On the first anniversary of the presidential and local elections Bajammal pledged renewal of loyalty to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and expressed great appreciation for the Yemeni people who a year ago have registered one of their greatest stands in the democratic march.

In a Ramadan evening in Hadramout governorate held on Thursday Bajammal pointed out the big importance of the governorate of Hadramout in the processes of liberation, unity and development.

Bajammal said,” The political leadership and the government understood some problems related to the retired rights and realized the danger of irresponsible behaviour of violation against lands and properties of the state as well as the citizens’ rights. Radical resolve of all those actions is currently going on so that everything returns to normal and the strict application of laws and legislations” (Read on …)

Yemen Times:

Wide areas of agricultural lands in Yemen are exposed to deterioration, said official report published last week.

According to the report, which was issued by the Centre of Natural Resources at the Ministry of Agriculture, 85 percent of the agricultural lands are subject to deterioration due to natural causes such as water shortage and desertification.

The report said that the percentage of deteriorating lands increases by 5 percent because of human expansion and 3 percent because of desertification annually.

These numbers are very significant especially that only 13.6 percent of Yemeni land (about 6.2 million hectares) is fertile. Moreover, only 1.2 to 1.6 hectares is actually used in agriculture. (Read on …)

Yemen Observer

World Bank Country Manager, Sana’a, Yemen
Qat (Catha edulis) plays a major economic role in the Yemeni economy. It accounts for around 6 percent of GDP, 10 percent of consumption, one-third of agricultural GDP, and provides employment for one in every seven working Yemeni. As the predominant cash crop, the income it generates plays a vital role in rural economies. But it also depletes scarce water resources and has crowded out production of essential food crops and agriculture exports.

Until the 1960s, qat chewing was an occasional pastime, mainly for the rich. Now, it is chewed several days a week by a large segment of Yemen’s population. Widespread qat consumption has grave consequences: its use is linked to widespread child malnutrition and household food insecurity since spending on it pre-empts expenditures on basic foods and essential medicines. The adverse health effects of qat are many and include high blood-pressure, under-weight children (when pregnant women chew qat), cancer (from consuming pesticide residues), and dental diseases. Consumers spend, on average, nearly 10 percent of their income on it, and the physical act of using the drug requires several hours in a day. The culture of spending extended afternoon hours chewing qat is inimical to the development of a productive work force, with as much as one-quarter of usable working hours allocated to qat chewing.
(Read on …)

A comprehensive article from ISN

Yemen nuke deal may not hold
As Yemen signs a reactor deal with a US company, doubts remain whether autonomous nuclear generation is feasible in this impoverished country racked with security problems.

by Dominic Moran in Tel Aviv for ISN Security Watch (26/09/07)

Yemen signed a five-reactor deal with a US nuclear company this week, but significant doubts remain concerning the future prospects for the nascent Yemeni atomic program.

The pact with Houston-based Powered Corporation envisages the establishment of a 1,000MW reactor by 2012, with four others to follow within a decade, bolstering Yemen’s total generation capacity by 5,000MW, according to Energy and Electricity Minister Mustafa Bahran.

A US$3 million feasibility study jointly funded by Powered Corporation and the government would be quickly followed by the initiation of work on the first reactor in early 2009, Bahran told Agence France Press. He added that all atomic activities would be conducted with full oversight from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The agreement appears to fit into a previously announced atomic generation strategy involving the establishment of privately owned, for-profit reactors on Yemeni soil, with the state buying electricity from the generating company for an indeterminate period before purchasing the facilities. (Read on …)

This is very good stuff.

President Saleh has forwarded a series of constitutional amendments to Parliament which include the following: local police ( very important), local control of revenues and expenditures, direct elections for the heads of the local councils (note: there has to be a clear delegation of authority between the governors and the local council heads), 15% female quota fixed by law for parliamentary seats.

Not good, the president appoints half of the SCER, but that’s better than all. Shorter terms for the President and Parliament, good. It would be nice if the governors were also directly elected from the local populations, whose needs they understand.

If implemented (a big if), this proposal could go a long way in a) reducing tensions in various governorates b) spurring local economies c) increasing popular participation and public accountability.

However the regime needs to lay off the journalists and let them do their job which is critical. This plan cannot succeed without a free press. Corruption cannot be controlled without a free press. Democracy cannot exist without a free press. Its just that simple. (Read on …)

How excellent is this?

American and Canadian of Yemeni origin in North America are submitting a letter to members of Congress in both countries about human rights violations and repression of peaceful demonstrations in Yemen

We are Americans and Canadians of Yemeni origin submitting this letter to our representatives in the Congress of the U.S.A. and the Canadian, to the government and the representatives of the major parties in the two countries, to the human rights protectors, to who it may concern about the freedom of expression and the press which violated in Yemen since the control of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the illegal President of Yemen, on the reins of the government by the gunpoint on July 17, 1978, to this day.

We believe it is our national, ethical and human duty to submit this letter to deliver the oppressed cries of the Yemeni people. Who are searching for salvation, emancipation, and liberation from the iron grip of the corrupt, terrorist, and dictatorial regime in Yemen . We put you in front of historical and human responsibilities to help the people of Yemen who need the help of the free world to make the changes possible. They do not have hope to see changes accept from outside sources because of the nature and brutal mentality of the Yemeni regime.

We have followed, with regret and concern, the bloody tragic events that are occurring in Yemen on daily basis. When the people of Yemen are almost out of a war even the dictatorial regime enters them into a new war, because the mentality of the regime, which relies on the wars and the instability to survival for the longest possible time in government, so the regime could loot more of the public money, as happening in this time. These wars are destroying the Yemeni economic, infrastructure, and building the military force that are no longer national troops, but it belongs to the ruling family of Yemen .

The interest of building a military force comes on the expense of education, health and social services of the Yemeni people. The result is obvious that a royal family controls the government by military force, looting and robbing the public money, violating the human rights, war crimes, crimes against the humanity. Uneducated people whom lack of health and social services are suffering from poverty that lead to product a hotbed of the frightening terrorism, which is what actually happened in Yemen in this time. This hotbed will remain a time-bomb. However, our governments have to dry up the source of the international terrorism that exists in the Yemen regime and his traditional allies before explosion.

Those traditional allies are the terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda, the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan, and the Wahhabi movement in Yemen which led by AbdullMajid Al-Zandani (spiritual father of Osama bin Laden). The UN Security Council ordered a decision to arrest AbdullMajid Al-Zandani, and to freeze his property for his financing and relationship with the international terrorism organizations. However, the Yemeni regime opposed this decision, and Ali Abdullah Saleh called to take off the name of the terrorist AbdullMajid Al-Zandani from the blacklist. As we know, AbdullMajid Al-Zandani issued a (Fatwa), a religious statement, against the regime opponents. Same fatwa took the lives of hundreds of human beings in Yemen , Iraq , Afghanistan , Chechnya and elsewhere.

If you ask AbdullMajid Al-Zandani about his view on the tragedy events of September 11, 2007, he will not hesitate to describe what happened as a holy struggle and a great victory against the enemies of God (Allah) in the U.S.A. that is are providing support and assistance to the Yemeni people from the taxpayer’s money.

We are the Americans and the Canadians of Yemeni origin caring about the security and safety of this country that gave us freedom, hope, dream, life of dignity, and human rights. However, because we are Yemeni origins we are aware that the Yemen regime has produced a scary hotbed of the international terrorism and export it internationally. In fact, more than one incident happened in Yemen that proves our knowledge towards the involvement of the Yemeni Regime that supports terrorism and trains the terrorists in the regime camps in order to send them to Somalia , Iraq , Lebanon and elsewhere. One is the terrorist attack on the warship USS COLE, and the killing of the Spanish tourist in the city of Marub . Also, the terrorist incident of killing the three Americans doctors who served in Yemen for more than thirty years, providing medication and treatment for free.

We look at the Congress valuable report that assessment the Yemeni regime and will proximately declare Yemen as a failure State . We believe that the proportions of the poor people who are living under the poverty line are 80% and it is not 40% as stated in the report. Also, we greatly appreciate the President of USA, George W. Bush, for his greetings to the Yemeni people for the democracy, but the question that raises our curiosity is there a real democratic regime in Yemen ? Or is Ali Abdullah Saleh claiming democracy to the world. But when he returns to Yemen , he orders his army to suppression and killing all the raising voices that demand legal rights. On top of that the Yemenis people go on strikes day after day to adopt the peaceful struggle, through sit-ins and demonstrations facing the military forces of Ali Abdullah Saleh and his family.

Today, we are witnessing how the regime is beating, arresting, and killing the Yemeni people with iron fist, here are some examples:

1. The Brigadier General Nasser Al-Noobh, the Board Chairman of the Associations Of Retired Military and Security Civilian and Forcibly Demobilized, and his friends were sent to prison. They will be charged for treason in front of the military court which may lead them to death penalty. Because they were demanding to regain their political and historical rights and to return to their jobs from which they were expelled by the Yemeni regime as a result of the war in 1994. They also were adopting

2. The journalist Abud Al-kareem Al-Kiwani was put in jail, because he said that Ali Abdullah Saleh will bequeath the power in Yemen . Al-Kiwani showed that the president and his family are the commanders of the army, security, air force, and marine. They also own the companies, banks, and trade in Yemen .

3. Dr. Ali al-Fakeeh, professor at the University of Sana’a , had been beaten with a brick that deformed his face, because he criticized the Yemeni regime.

4. The failure attempt to assassinate Fahd Al-Karni, because he criticized the regime by the satirical songs. He and his friend Aladrahi gained popularity fame, because they expressed the feelings of the people towards the terrorist and dictatorship regime.

5. The killing of the child Al-Qahoum and his colleagues in Hadramawt, because of their request to freedom and a better tomorrow, and the scene repeated itself in the Yemen Provinces such as: Taiz, Aldalla, Shabwa, Abyan, Aden , Al-bayda, Yafaa, Sa’dah and others.

So, where are the democracy and the human right; that Ali Abdullah Saleh is claiming, and receiving the international assistance for these commitments.

We ask our government to put an end to this regime and provide peace and safety for all, can you please take the following requests into considerations.

First: Drying the source of terrorism in Yemen , in assistant the Yemeni people to salvation, liberation, and emancipation of the dictatorial and terrorist regime, in the context of the international war on terrorism.

Second: Stop supporting the Yemen regime; financially or morally, but continue supporting the Yemeni people away from the hands of the Yemeni regime. However, it can not be a democratic regime that relies on military force and oppression to control over Yemen , nor can it fight the corruption and the terrorism, because it is corrupt and terrorism regime.

Third: Declare that the existing regime in Yemen is not a partner in the fight against the terrorism. Since we believe in the freedom of speech and press we can not put our hands and cooperate with the dictatorial and terrorist regimes.

Fourth: Pressure the dictatorship regime to extradite AbdullMajid Al-Zandani, and to freeze his property because of his relations to the terrorism organization.

Fifth: Pressure the regime to release the political prisoners, such as the Brigadier General, Nasser Al-Noobh, and his colleagues, and the journalists, Abud Al-kareem Al-Kiwani.

Sixth: Pressure the regime not to closure the opponent newspapers and websites, and not to prevent the legitimate peaceful demonstrations. That reflects the Yemeni citizens’ demands to their national and historical rights that were taken away by the ruling family in Yemen .

Thank you for your help to the international community and the new orientation towards a world free from dictatorship and terrorism.

Americans and Canadians of Yemeni origin:
1- Ahmed Hussein Ghalib
2- Ahmed Ali Saleh
3- Ameen Ali Al Houri
4- Ahmed Mohamed Aldkine
5- Idris Al-Darwish
6- Al-Din Ahmed Hussein
7- Borkan Al-Askari
8- Bakil Ahmed Ghalib
9- Hajaj Ali Al Houri
10- Hasinon Ahmed Ghaleb
11- Joshua Ahmed Ghalib
12- Daniel Al-Darwish
13-Wagdi Suleiman
14-Fawzi Omar
15-Abdullah Haider
16 – Saleh Mohamed Alriashi
17-Sanad Abdullah Haider
18-Muhammad Ali Al Houri
19-Abdullah Ba-abbad
20-Ali Abdulkhader
21-Abdul-Ghani Al-abbadi
22-Omar Saleh
23-Saleh Abdullah
24-Muhammad Aldkine
25-Ali Hussein Al Houri
26-Musaad Ali
27-Ghassan Ahmed Ghalib
28-Ali Musid Ali
29- Alliah Al-Darwish
30-Washington Ali
31 – Mohamed Ahmed Hussein
32-Ali Haider
33-Maher Ahmed Hussein
34-Mazen Ahmed Ghalib
35-Zeid Darwish
36-Abdullah Al-Rubaie
37-Hakim Almfulihy
38-Abd-Alallah Musaad Ali
39-Sharifah Ahmed Ghaleb
40-Safia Al-Darwish
41-Saleh Almfulihy
42-Muhsin Muthanna
43-Shallah Ahmed Hussien
44-Muhammad Ali Haider
45-Hammam Saleh Almfulihy
46-Nasr Ahmed Ghalib
47-Fahd Musid Ali
48-Zaid Ahmed
49-Faheem Saleh Almfulihy
50-Kathleen Ali
51-Chris Al-Darwish
52-Majed Ahmed Ghalib
53-Abdulfattah Musaad
54-Muhammad Al-Darwish
55-Yousra Ahmed Ghaleb
56-Moussa Ali
57-William Algabri
58-Ali Al-Derwish
59-Nagi Amer
60-Yousef Amer

SANA’A, News Yemen:

Yemeni women have stated they are angry with political parties after the later said they do not prefer the quota system that women are fighting to get it realized since four years to be able to occupy high posts.

A group of women, members of the so-called “The Country Alliance”, formed by lead Yemeni women, have stated that women were planning to organize protests against those parties’ anti-quota statements, but said the advent of the holy month of Ramadan has prevented them.

We will organize such protests to pressure parties to give women members chance to be found in decision-making positions, said Intesar Senan.

We were embarrassed to hear about the position of the Yemeni Socialist Party against quota despite it has assured before the latest presidential and local elections that it supports quota system, Senan added.

Last Saturday, the leader in the Yemeni Socialist Party Mohammad al-Makaleh announced at a meeting of Arab Sisters Forum that YSP does not agree with the quota system and that the party “will be against the system in case it is applied”, asking women to support an initiative by parties to apply the party-list proportional representation system as an alternative.

Women’s frustration came early before the Parliamentary elections scheduled in 2009 as they found themselves between two challenges. They are unable to achieve their goal, the quota system, without the help of parties and they are prevented by the constitution to form their own party. In addition, the Yemeni community still refuses the political power of women.

Thus, Yemeni women have to continue attempts to convince parties they affiliate with to agree to give women an appropriate quota before the coming elections.

Women see that “parties’ abrupt objection against quota means that parties do not admit women as partners in making decision”. (Read on …)

“No wonder that the biggest threats to the national unity are the acts of looting, land plundering, waste of public money and state’s property, political nepotism, destroying the national economy and discriminating among citizens. All these acts are exercised by the government officials.”

From the Yemen Times, a spot-on oped by Dr. Abdullah Al-Faqih

It is impossible for the National Unity Protection Law, which the government declared to present to Parliament for approval, to be discussed very soon. The law is a heavyweight joke coming from the black comedy.

If the government brought a group of horses, took them into a stable and named this stable “Parliament”, and then presented to it the draft National Unity Protection Law, it would be impossible for the horses to put their hoofs on this Law. So, how the situation will look like when the draft law is presented to a parliament made up of 301 members, among them sheikhs, scholars, patriots and strugglers. It is impossible for any Yemen citizen, irrespective of his circumstances, to accept the political paganism, nor will he accept the political slavery, which the Yemenis got rid of in 1962.

As there are many people who say that the law aims to prosecute some of the prominent symbols in the regime, a speech like this makes us reject the draft law twice and not once. Any laws or legislations that target certain individuals or groups usually turn to target everyone without an exception.

No wonder that the biggest threats to the national unity are the acts of looting, land plundering, waste of public money and state’s property, political nepotism, destroying the national economy and discriminating among citizens. All these acts are exercised by the government officials. But, it is true that these officials are over the Constitution and the Law. If they are not over the Constitution and the Law, they would have been prosecuted since a long time ago in conformity with the Constitution and the Law, particularly as they commit crimes known to everyone and tread the constitutional articles with their foots.

The problem of such a draft law that was cloned from the Egyptian Fault Law, which was enacted by the former Egyptian President Mohammed Anwar Al-Sadat in 1980, is that it has been designed in a loose manner. This manner gives the chance to anyone, having the desire to sentence the Yemeni people to death, to do so under the cover of the Constitution and the Law.

Under this law, Taiz locals may be named criminal regionalists if they claimed a water project, their share of government jobs and good living with no starvation, which Taiz suffered a lot more than any other Yemeni governorates.

When it comes to locals of the southern governorates, who claim the equal citizenship rights that were confiscated in the years following the 1994 Civil War, they may be prosecuted as secessionists and face a tribunal similar to that which their leaders faced earlier.

The sheikhs of Hashid and Bakil tribes will be necessarily sued on suspicion of fomenting tribal conflicts while the Hashemite people are convicted of provoking racism, and what will remain is merely a law formula that permits prosecuting anyone over his identity.

As the law exploits democracy and attempts to change democracy from a man-made system into divine religion, it is impossible for any judicious Yemeni, though madly fund of democracy he is, to accept such ‘Sadati Fool’, which the Egyptians have overcome while their students in Yemen in couldn’t, even it has been more than quarter a century since Al-Sadat passed away.

Yemen is not in need for a law to protect the national unity. What Yemen needs is a collective commitment and abidance by the Constitution and the Law. Such commitment must include President of the Republic, his retinue, influential persons and the ordinary citizens as well. And, any talk about the national unity, in the absence of senior government officials’ commitment to the Constitution and the Law, will only lead to increasing the national hemorrhage.

Thats good.

Maybe al-Zindani can patent his AIDS cure and share it with the world now.

23/9/2007 11:17 GMT
ag-IP-news
Implementing Regulations for Patents Issued in Yemen

SANA’A – Yemen’s Minister of Trade and Industry Yahya Al-Mutawakel issued Ministerial Decision No. 256 of 2007 in respect of issuing the regulations implementing the patent provisions of the Yemeni Intellectual Property Law No. 19 of 1994.

According to a Sunday press release by Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP), the regulations were published in the Altegara Gazette/August 2007 edition, but they have not yet entered into force.

In view of the above, the Patent Office in Yemen is still only accepting filing of patent applications; no further actions such as examination, publication, granting, or payment of annuities are applicable yet.

Since the issuance of the Law No. 19 of 1994, the Patent Office in Yemen has only been accepting filing of patent applications which were held in abeyance pending the issuance of the Implementing Regulations.

The salient features of the Implementing Regulations are as follows: patent applications are examined as to form, novelty, and industrial applicability; a patent shall be protected for 15 years from the date of filing the patent application; and an opposition to the patent application may be filed within 6 months from the publication date.

Any further developments in this respect will be reported to you in due course.

Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property provides an extensive range of intellectual property services from over 60 offices and through over 180 correspondents worldwide.

WB supports Yemen with $194 million
Monday, 24-September-2007
almotamar.net – Yemen’s Deputy Premier, the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Abdulkarim Ismael al-Arhabi on Sunday said the World Bank (WB) allocated 98 million SDR, equaling $194 million for the fiscal year 2008 with an increase of $59 million compared with what was allocated for Yemen in the programme of country assistance.

Al-Arhabi mentioned the increase came as a reflection of the present development Yemen is witnessing in carrying out programmes of reform and the noticeable improvement that happened to the institutional performance.

The deputy premier added that the Ministry of Planning, in accordance of the new allocation rules in the WB, Yemen will receive half of the allocation in the form of a grant and the other half as a very easy loan. He affirmed that that forms an additional privilege for Yemen for the alleviation of the burdens of foreign loan services in the final years.

September 23, 2007 , Al-Sahwa- Military personnel carriers besieged Saturday the house of the Retiree Coordination Council chairman ,the brigade Nasser al-Nowba, and prevented scores of former soldiers from protesting.

RCC had called in a statement all army retirees in Aden province to protest peacefully before al-Nowba’s house. RCC’s statement regarded the sit-in as a protest against arrest of al-Nowba and Hassan Ba-Oam , Ahmed al-Kama who were arrested by security forces last month.

Amnesty International

Yemen: Further information on Incommunicado detention/Fear of torture/Medical concern
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 31/017/2007
04 September 2007

Further Information on UA 198/07 (MDE 31/009/2007, 3 August 2007) and follow-up
(MDE 31/014/2007, 13 August 2007) – Incommunicado detention/Fear of
torture/Medical concern

YEMEN Brigadier Nasser al-Nouba (m), aged in his 50s
Nasser al-‘Awlaqi (m), aged about 40
‘Abbas al-‘Assal (m), aged 42

New names: Ahmed ‘Omar bin Farid (m)
Ahmed al-Qama’a (m)
Hassan Ba’oom (m)
Fadi Ba’oom (m), son of Hassan Ba’oom
Mohsin al-Yazidi (m)

Brigadier Nasser al-Nouba, Ahmed ‘Omar bin Farid and Ahmed al-Qama’a were
arrested on 2 September after taking part in a protest by retired soldiers in
Liberty Square, in central Aden, on 1 September. Hassan Ba’oom, his son Fadi Ba’
oom, and Mohsin al-Yazidi were arrested on 1 September following a related
protest in the city of al-Mukalla in south-east Yemen. According to information
received by Amnesty International, Hassan Ba’oom was beaten during his arrest,
though there is no further news on his health. The men are held incommunicado
and are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

The protests in Aden and al-Mukalla were staged by former soldiers, who were
complaining that their pension payments had not been made, or had been severely
delayed. Brigadier Nasser al-Nouba, Ahmed ‘Omar bin Farid and Ahmed al-Qama’a
were among scores of people arrested on 2 August after taking part in a similar
protest. They and most other detainees were released without charge after a few
days in detention. Nasser al-’Awlaqi and ‘Abbas al-’Assal are thought to remain
held incommunicado without charge after their arrest in August. (Read on …)

Poverty causes the high rate of child labor which keeps kids out of school.

News Yemen

The report, released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, has said that poverty is the key factor of child labor aggravation in Yemen. The report said that children of poor families continue compulsorily working to cover some of their families’ needs. It expected that the phenomenon will remain as long as poverty remains….

The report has also pointed that Yemen has five million illiterate children as the rate of illiteracy in the country is still high, 78 percent, according to the report. It has recommend the government’s education programs to give priority to children under 15 years.

Yemen Times: Al-Dhalie, Aden, Hajja, Taiz, Lahj

SANA’A, September 23 — Hundreds of military and civil pensioners staged a protest in Aden on Sunday, in solidarity with the head of the coordinating council for military pensioners associations Brig. Nasser Al-Nawbah, who is now in prison. The protest took place despite heavy security forces, who tried to disperse the protestors, in vain.

Al-Nawbah was arrested in his home because of his leadership role in the protests taking place in southern governorates since the beginning of this year. Because of his rank, he will be receiving a military trial.

In order to mitigate the situation, President Saleh met end of last week with around 850 officers reinstated recently in their military units. He directed concerned authorities to reinstate all officers suspended from work following 1994 war, while the absence period is calculated as part of service and they will be granted the deserved promotions, bonuses, etc. (Read on …)

Quite correct. Hundreds of men remain in jail on suspicion of having sympathy with the Houthis. Some are boys. None have been charged. Many have been in jail since prior to the resumption of hostilities in January 2007. Their continued detention violates the cease fire agreement negotiated by Qatar in June, and the terms of the prior mediation in 2006.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

The Dignity Organization for Human Rights has appealed to what it has identified as “field team in-charge of arbitrary arrests” to release 37 detainees including juveniles arbitrarily arrested and detained for a year in al-Noseirya central prison in Hajja.

The Geneva-based organization said in the appeal that the Political Security’s intelligence arrested the detainees and put them in prison without applying legal measures in such cases.

It said that all detainees, who are from Hajja or live there, belong to the Zaidi sect. It said they have been arrested after events in Saada.

“During miserable events in Saada, tens of people were killed in armed confrontations between the state army and followers of Badraddin al-Houthi, one of Zaidi religious figures, who led a rebellion against the Yemeni government and raised slogans against America and was killed in September 2004. according to some sources, one thousand people have been arrested before, during and after those events,” said the organization.

“Many are still in prison after the detention which violated approved legal measures. Some detainees have spent 18 months term like Abdul-Rahman Mohammad al-Abali, case number 36 years, Ali Jaber Ali Masheeb, case number 37,” it said.

Most impressive is that some juveniles, two at 15 years and others at 17 and 18 years, are among detainees at the same prison with adults and suffering the same conditions, said the organization’s appeal.
It said that detainees are accused of having links to al-Houthi or showing sympathy with him.
But their families confirm that the main reason behind the arrests is that they belong to al-Zaidi sect or to tribes that offered support to al-Houthi, it said.

It said that those arrested without a judicial order have not been subjected to any judicial measures so they are not legally charged. It said some of those detainees have been arrested after they responded to calls by security to surrender and some have been raided by Political Security. It said that some sheikhs in the region have eased the arrests due to personal disputes with those detainees.

Abdul-Rahman Abdullah Siba’a was handed over to security by a tribal sheikh called Meshhel, who had personal difference with Siba’a, under the pretext he belongs to al-Houthi, said the organization.

It said that detainees have been subjected to beating and torture during secret investigations. It said that detainees live bad conditions in prison and that some are suffering diseases like malaria and need for urgent medical check. It added that detainees could not get an access to lawyers until now and their families could not visit them.

This is violation of international legal measures, the civil and political rights convention Yemen signed in 9 February 1987 and the international anti-torture convention Yemen singed in 5 October 1991, said the organization.
The organization has urged the team of arbitrary detentions to reconsider the issue of those detainees and to immediately intervene with the Yemeni government to settle the issue and get them released or put under legal protection.

State Dept

Although relations among religious groups continued to contribute to religious freedom, there were some reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief or practice. There were isolated attacks on Jews and some prominent Zaydi Muslims felt targeted by government entities for their religious affiliation. Government military reengagement in the Saada governorate caused political, tribal, and religious tensions to reemerge in January 2007, following the third military clash with rebels associated with the al-Houthi family, who adhere to the Zaydi school of Shi’a Islam.

Not just prominent Zaidis

During the reporting period, the Government engaged in efforts to ease religious tension between it and some members of the Zaydi-Shi’a establishment; however, public tension reemerged in January 2007, most notably in the media, as a result of government action against the al-Houthi group’s armed insurrection. The Government maintains that the al-Houthis are adherents of Twelver Shi’ism, a variant of Shi’ism which differs from that of the country’s predominant Zaydi-Shi’a. The al-Houthis and the Shabab follow the teachings of the late rebel cleric Hussein Badr Eddine al-Houthi, who was killed during a ten-week rebellion that he led in June 2004 against the Government in Saada. Some Zaydis reported harassment and discrimination by the Government because they were suspected of sympathizing with the al-Houthis. However, it appears the Government’s actions against the group were probably politically, not religiously, motivated.

Government actions to counter an increase in political violence in Saada restricted some practice of religion. In January 2007, for the third year, the Government banned the celebration of Ghadeer Day (a holiday celebrated by Shi’a Muslims) in parts of the Saada governorate. During the reporting period, the Government also reportedly intensified its efforts to stop the growth of the al-Houthis’ popularity by limiting the hours that mosques were permitted to be open to the public. The Government closed down what it claimed to be extremist Shi’a religious institutes, reassigning imams who were thought to espouse radical doctrine, and increasing surveillance of mosque sermons. The Government abolished the Zaydi-affiliated al-Haq political party in March 2007, reportedly for not meeting political party law requirements. Many members of the party, however, believed the party was inappropriately dissolved because of its links to the al-Houthis and Shabab movement.

During the reporting period, the Government continued its efforts to prevent the politicization of mosques and schools, and to curb extremism, and increase tolerance. The Government’s efforts concentrated on monitoring mosques for sermons that incite violence or other political statements that it considered harmful to public security. Private Islamic organizations could maintain ties to international Islamic organizations; however, the Government sporadically monitored their activities through the police and intelligence authorities.

During the reporting period, the Government also continued efforts to close unlicensed schools and religious centers. By the end of the period covered by this report, more than 4,500 unlicensed religious schools and institutions were closed. The Government expressed concern that these schools deviated from formal educational requirements and promoted militant ideology. The Government also deported some foreign students found studying in unlicensed religious schools. The Government prohibited private and national schools from teaching courses outside of the officially approved curriculum. The purpose of these actions was to curb ideological and religious extremism in schools.

There were reports that both the Ministry of Culture and the Political Security Office (PSO) monitored and sometimes removed books that espoused Zaydi-Shi’a Islamic doctrine from store shelves after publication. There were also credible reports from Zaydi scholars and politicians that authorities banned the publishing of some materials that promoted Zaydi-Shi’a Islam. The Government denied that the media was subject to censorship by any security apparatus.

During the reporting period, security officials arbitrarily arrested and detained some individuals suspected of proselytizing. There was also a credible newspaper report that claimed security officials harassed and detained a Muslim carrying missionary publications in Taiz. Unconfirmed reports attributed such incidents to followers of conservative Salafi Islamic doctrine within the security apparatus.

Since 2001 the Government has detained several hundred Islamists who returned to Yemen from Afghanistan and/or Iraq “for questioning.” Although most persons were released within days, some reportedly continued to be detained beyond the maximum detention period as terrorist or security suspects.

In May 2006 President Saleh pardoned two imams, Yahia Hussein al-Dailami, who was sentenced to death, and Muhammed Ahmad Miftah, who was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. The two were originally convicted of establishing contacts with Iran for the purpose of harming the country. The two men publicly opposed the Government’s action in Saada and formed the Sana’a Youth Organization, a Zaydi religious-based group that supported the al-Houthis. Both men maintained that they only advocated peaceful dissent against government action in Saada.

During the same month, the Government released more than 200 al-Houthi rebel detainees in an amnesty. It was unclear how many of those detained participated in the renewed March 2005 rebellion against the Government. Although some of those detained were held for their support of the al-Houthis’ religious teachings, the arrests appeared to have been more politically than religiously motivated.

Religiously motivated violence was neither incited nor tolerated by the Islamic clergy, except for a small, politically motivated clerical minority, often with ties to foreign extremist elements.

During the reporting period, there were sporadic reports of violence initiated by Salafi elements attempting to take control of moderate and Sufi mosques around the country. There were also unconfirmed reports that followers of Ismaili Islamic teachings were occasionally harassed and forbidden entry to mosques affiliated with Salafi followers.

Yemen on the Brink of Civil War?

Tensions simmering since the Yemeni civil war in 1994 have flared into violence that may engulf the nation.

“We want equal rights,” retired Brigadier General Ali Moqbel stated. The simple declaration expressed the sentiment of tens of thousands of Yemenis who have repeatedly clashed with security forces in Aden, Makallah, Dahlie and other towns in southern Yemen since the spring.

General Moqbel organized and leads the Yemeni Retired Military Consultive Association (MCRA), an association of “retired” former Southern military officers. “The goal of the MCRA,” Muqbel said, “is to return all southerners to their previous employment in the same positions, both civilians and soldiers, who were referred to retirement after the war in 1994,”

The northern Yemeni Arab Republic (YAR) and southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) unified in 1990 to form the Republic of Yemen. After southern forces were vanquished in Yemen’s civil war in 1994, the ruling northern elite treated the south as the spoils of war. The following decade perceived by many Southerners as occupation not unity, and characterized by institutionalized discrimination, engineered poverty, widespread looting and political exclusion.

A Decade of Inequality?

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s victorious northern regime discharged well over 100,000 southern military and civil workers after the civil war. The southern protesters charge it was an illegal and punitive measure. Regime officials termed it as bureaucratic streamlining. The pensioners allege their pensions are lower than their northern counterparts, below a sustenance level and contravene national law.

“All of our achievements in the South were lost upon unity which was announced May 22, 1990. We demand compensation for all persons without exception who sustained material losses at the hands of the state during these years,” Moqbel explained

The MCRA began peaceful demonstrations in Aden last May. The movement spread to Makallah, Dhalie and other cities. In August, security forces arrested several hundred protesters in Aden, prompting more demonstrations, which were countered with live fire. Three people were killed, scores were injured and rioting ensued. Protesters blockaded roads and sympathetic tribesmen seized governmental oil tankers.

Twenty of the protesters will be charged with treason, a death penalty offense, the Defense Ministry announced. Movement leader Brigadier General Naser al-Noba and the head of the Nasserite Unionist Party in Hadrmout have both been arrested. Protests are ongoing throughout the southern governorates.

Dr. Abdullah Al-faqih, Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department of Sana’a University traced the unrest to the south’s political and social exclusion after the civil war. He noted that because of the former PDRY’s Marxist economic system, “Southern Yemenis were totally dependent on the state. The situation continued up to 1995 when economic reforms in the unified Republic of Yemen began,” Dr.Al-faqih explained.

“While the northerners accustomed to the dynamics of a free market economy were able to survive to some extent, the southerners found themselves living on the margins of the national economy. In fact, the economic system became something resembling a colonial economy where the purchasing power and the economic benefits follow one direction—from the south to the north.”

Heated Rhetoric

The exploitation of the PDRY after the civil war was a “red line” for years in Yemen, a known but unspeakable truth. However, some of the protesters are openly calling for the succession. In response, the head of Saleh’s dominant General People’s Congress Party, Abdel Kader Bajammal, said, “I will arm the people to face them (secessionists). For the sake of the state and its unity we will re-introduce weapons to confront those corrupt people,” to the Emirati paper Al-Khaleej. Yemeni governmental media have described the 1994 war as an “apostate” war.

Responding to the protests, President Saleh formed a committee which returned hundreds of former soldiers to their posts; however tens of thousands were not. Instead the government announced it will reinstate the draft. Saleh recently called the protests, “a tempest in a teapot.”

Yemeni officials have blamed the opposition parties for exploiting the pensioners issue for partisan ends. Yemen’s next parliamentary election is scheduled for 2009. Regime official have also warmed that external forces are encouraging the unres,t a charge not without merit. The Yemeni Southern Democratic Conference (TAJ), an opposition group in the UK, declared “(TAJ) is determined to confront these bloody crimes with further escalation of struggle towards the full civil disobedience until we inflict the overwhelming defeat to the criminal dictator and assassin, the Yemeni president Saleh.”

National Challenges

Perched at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations. Mountains, beaches, historical sites and unique architecture make Yemen one of the most world’s beautiful nations. It is also one the world’s poorest, outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Unemployment is high. Medical and educational facilities, where available, are largely dilapidated. Only half the nation receives intermittent electricity. Half have access to clean water.

Yemen is one of the most water scarce nations in the world, another trigger for instability. The two million residents of Taiz city get public water every forty days. Other days, residents pay for their drinking water from private vendors. An August protest against high prices and governmental corruption in Taiz drew ten thousand who held aloft water bottles and bread.

Oil revenues account for 70% of governmental funds. However, Yemen’s oil is expected to deplete within a decade and production is down 42% in 2007 from 2006 levels. Much of the government budget is dedicated to military spending. A significant portion is lost to corruption.

The word “kleptocracy” was invented to describe Yemen and is aptly defined as “government by, for and of thieves”. Yemen is firmly in the grip of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. His relatives lead the military and security forces, another trigger for instability. Giant posters of Saleh adorn the streets and shops of Yemen’s cities. Also omnipresent is a network of regime informants and security thugs who are believed to regularly target regime critics, activists and journalists.

A Yemeni editor described the key to Saleh’s longevity. “To preserve the loyalty of tribal leaders and senior military commanders, Saleh kept on ignoring many of their ill practices. Saleh has been busy pleasing his cronies with the country’s wealth and senior positions just to remain in power for as long as possible.”

The future of Yemen

Yemen’s use of using the courts, the media and the security forces to repress its citizens may trigger a civil war as the public loses hope in gaining equality through peaceful means. One Southern columnist wrote in the Yemen Times, “The use of force against protestors in Aden was not for the sake of protecting the National Unity. Instead, the force was used to protect and harbor the acts of lootings that have been so far exercised by influential persons in the southern governorates since the 1994 Civil War… Searching (for) rule of the law, the protestors faced rule of the tank standing in their way to claim their legal rights.”

At one extreme, President Saleh may declare a state of emergency and largely suspend civil rights. At the other is reform. “Only profound reforms can save Yemen from descending into a total chaos similar to that experienced by Somalia and Lebanon before that,” Dr. Al-faqih remarked. And several cabinet ministers and their staffs have undertaken authentic measures to combat corruption and increase government efficiency. However the lack of intra-governmental cooperation and the counter-veiling weight of the powerful corrupt limit the ability of even the earnest patriot.

Moreover, reform in Yemen is often a show of style over substance. An electoral reform measure decreed that the electoral commission overseeing elections would henceforth be selected by President Saleh; previously commission members were nominated by the parties to the election. Like other measures, the “reform” further concentrates authority in the executive and ruling party.

President Saleh recently announced that governors, whom he currently appoints, will in the future be elected by the (GPC dominated) local councils. However direct gubernatorial elections, with strict two year term limits, could go a long way in reducing tensions in Yemen, by enhancing political pluralism and enfranchising a vast portion of the Yemeni public who currently have little way to impact their political system and hold government officials accountable for their actions and inactions.

A related concern is the decentralization of security forces. Likewise direct control of local budgets and increased fiscal transparency would likely bring tangible benefits to each governorate. The Yemeni public has participated in numerous Parliamentary, Presidential and local elections, garnering praise from international and local observers for their political maturity. There is little reason to withhold direct gubernatorial elections, beyond fear of the results they may bring.

Thats good news.

7000 pieces of weapons seized and prevented in 20 days
Friday, 14-September-2007
almotamar.net – A security source at the interior ministry of Yemen affirmed Friday that the ongoing campaign on weapons in the capital Sana’a and provincial capitals had led to curb the acts of land illegal seizure by 80% since the beginning of the interior ministry application of its decision of preventing entrance of weapons to Sana’a and provincial capitals on 23 of last August. (Read on …)

First of all, several people have been killed and it is just unseemly for a president to be so dismissive.

Second of all, the regime’s inability to reconsile with its former opponants is an ongoing problem.

On the third hand, Saleh is correct in saying the events of today echo those before 1994 war, and now as then, the ruling party is facing legitimate grievences with force and propaganda. He says the problem is solved. Wow. Somebody needs to tell the security forces that.

‘No need for demonstration and marches’ as Yemeni president calls for unity
Gulf News

Sana’a: President Ali Abdullah Saleh urged all Yemenis to protect the national unity and stand up against any activities harmful to it.

In a speech on the occasion of Ramadan, Saleh said “fabricated crisis” would never harm the unity.

He said that the recent demonstrations are similar to the crisis that preceded the civil war in 1994.

“Fabrication of crisis similar to those of 1993 and 1994, with the same trend, mechanism and strength, do not serve the national interest and social tranquillity and national unity. The nation belongs to all of us and we all are responsible for it,” said Saleh in reference to protests in the south where demonstrators demanded better living conditions.

Saleh said the demonstrations were only “tempest in a teapot”.

“There is no need for demonstrations and marches which are not more than than a meaningless tempest in a teapot.

“There is no worry from them especially after the problem of retired people was solved and after issuance of instructions to treat unsolved problems of the 1994 war with regard to the retired people,” Saleh said.
(Read on …)

How totally absurd when every branch is headed by a close personal relative of President Saleh

Security:

Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, Special Forces and Republican Guards Commander, is the eldest Son of Saleh

Yahya Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, Commander Of Security Central Forces, is Saleh’s nephew.

Colonel Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, Commander of the Special Guards, nephew

Colonel Amar Mohammed Abdullah Saleh , Chairman of the National Security Organisation, nephew

Military:

Brigadier General Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar, commander of the north western military zone, is the cousin of President Saleh.

Brigadier General Mohamed Saleh Al-Ahmar, commander of the Air Force, is President Saleh’s half brother.

Colonel Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, commander of the Republican Guards and commander of the Special Forces, is the son of Saleh.

Brigadier General Ali Saleh Al-Ahmar, chief of staff of the general command is the half brother of President Saleh.

Brigadier General Mehdi Makwala, commander of the southern military zone, is from Saleh’s village, Sanhan, as is Brigadier General Mohammed Ali Mohsen, Commander of the Eastern Military Zone.

Who heads the Air Force?

Nepotism in the leadership of the military and security forces is perhaps the most destabilizing factor in Yemen bacause they are partisan and have little command and control.

Abdulmalik al-Fohidy Almotamar.net – Statements and stands of the parties of the Joint Meeting (JMP) and their leaderships towards the military and security establishment arouse fears of the political vision those parties bear for this national establishment.

Fears increase alongside with escalation of hostile campaign the JMP launch against this establishment, a campaign which began even before the presidential and local elections held in Yemen last year and has been highly escalated in the recent months.

The JMP hostile stances towards the military and security establishment reached an extent that it leaderships decline from attending military and security activities as happened last week when they did not attend a graduation ceremony batches from the military academy. They have taken that stance despite the fact that the law prohibits party action inside the military and security establishment as well as statements and stands of the political leadership that repeatedly affirm that the military and security establishment is the homeland party. (Read on …)

The Public Works Ministry had a re-shuffle in July and implemented some measures to thwart contractor corruption. Which of course is excellent and shows how some of the Cabinet Ministers are really trying to make a positive change. However their efforts are often diminished by the lack of cooperation from other ministries and of couse, ye old influential persons.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Minister of Public Works Omar al-Korshomi has stated his ministry is preparing to set up 2500 housing units and 298 blocks with a cost estimated over USD 16 billion.

He said the project, to be implemented in five years, targets the needy and limited-income people and solving the housing problem in the country.

The Al-Ekariya magazine said that the ministry is planning to construct 298 buildings in the capital Sana’a, Hadramout, Aden, Hodeidah and Taiz with a total cost as much as $12 billion for 4768 limited income families. Every building will be consisted of four floors containing four apartments in each, said the magazine.

The magazine said the families could own the apartments and pay back for the apartments during 15 to 20 years.

According to al-Korshomi, the 2500 housing units, of more than $3 billion, will be distributed for needy families in Haradh and Abs cities of Hajjah governorate, Bajil city in Hodeidah, in addition to Aden, Sana’a, Taiz and Hadramout.

The General Corporation for Social Insurances said it has prepared plans and proposals to invest the insurances surplus in establishing housing units in Aden, Sana’a, Taiz, Hodeidah and Hadramout after directions of president Saleh and a decision by the cabinet in this regard.

These unemployment figures seem a tad understated, bringing into question all the official figures, like the fisheries.

Under-employment is also an issue in Yemen.

Yemen Observer

Officials from the Ministry of Planning estimate that the unemployment rate in Yemen has risen to around 17 percent, up slightly from the 16.3 percent recorded in the 2004 census results of the total labor force. It is highest among women, at 39.5 percent compared to 13.1 percent among men.

Yemen’s labor force is estimated at around 4.1 million people. The large unemployment rate is one of the main challenges to development, according to the Ministry of Planning. Particularly, when taking into account that the population is growing by 3.5 percent per year and that Yemen is rapidly depleting its limited natural resources.

“In Yemen, as in many other developing countries, unemployment is synonymous with poverty. The unemployed are poor because they don’t get a penny from the government las is the case in developed countries,” said Executive Director of the General Union of the Chamber of Commerce Dr. Mohammed al-Maitami….. (Read on …)

Saudi Arabia and Yemen have prisoner exchanges all the time because there is a legal framework for that. There is no treaty with the US. And if they want Moyaad back, there needs to be one. I dont know if the US would exhange Moyaad, but I think they are unable to even consider it until there is a treaty. However, I thought no extradictions of Muslims (even American citizens) to the US was one of al-Qaeda’s ongoing conditions going back to the 2003 negotiations.

Yemen Observer:The families of Sheikh Mohammed Ali al-Mu’aid and his companion Mohammed Zayed and their supporters have asked the Yemeni Government to sign an extradition treaty with the United States as a means of ensuring the return of al-Mu’aid and Zayed. They are also calling for the immediate abolition of the treatment they have been enduring in the American prison where they are being held for allegedly supporting terrorist activity.

That treatment is known as “SAM” and involves keeping the arms and legs of prisoners continually bound, keeping prisoners in solitary confinement, and forbidding interaction and entertainment inside the prison. A prisoner subject to this regime is forbidden access to newspapers and magazines, and is not allowed to call his family.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs has promised that the Yemeni embassy in Washington will prepare a draft convention on this matter, said Hammoud al-Tharehi, the chairman of the National Committee, who met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs last week.

Ibrahim al-Mu’aid, Sheikh Mohammed al-Mu’aid’s son said that he and al-Tharehi appreciate the Yemeni Government’s efforts to pressure the U.S., which has led to the dropping of some of the charges against al-Mu’aid and Zayed. He expressed his optimism that his father’s release is near and that he will be back in Yemen very soon.

Mu’aid’s supporters sent letters to the Arab League and to the Organization of the Islamic Conference requesting their intercession to help release al-Mu’aid. They also called upon human rights organizations throughout the world to put pressure on the American Government to release al-Mu’aid. Soures in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Yemen will continue its efforts with the Americans in order to secure the release al-Mu’aid and Zayed and to ensure their return to Yemen.

The American’s stopped SAM treatment of the two prisoners after pressure from the Yemeni Embassy in Washington. President Saleh also brought the case up during his last visit to Washington
The U.S. cannot extradite the pair to Yemen because there is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Yemen.

Ahmed going to jail? Wow! Now that would certainly send a good signal to the protesters in the South that justice exists in Yemen and their rights are protected by the state no matter who the criminal is.

26 Septemper News

The cabinet gave orders on Tuesday to refer people who are responsible for occupying state and people lands to prosecution to take legal punitive actions against them.

The decision came after listening to a report presented by Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, head of the committee to tackle issues of lands in the governorates.

The cabinet ordered to hand over all lands to beneficiaries who could not get their granted lands in the previous period because of domination of influential people over these lands.

It asked the General Authority of Lands, Survey and Urban Planning to prepare a plan to tackle issues of the agricultural lands which have been granted to the agricultural societies and people to be approved by the cabinet soon.

cabinet also directed local councils in Lahj and Abyan governorates to terminate acts of occupying state lands within one month.

Land registration is an excellent concept, however they should establish numerous specialized non-corrupt courts to hash out all the competing claims of ownership that are going to arise. Unless all the land will be registered to “influential persons”. I think the following article is from al-Motamar

The Cabinet approved a draft land registry law last Tuesday, referring it to the Ministry of Legal Affairs and the General Authority for Lands and Construction Planning for finalization, before being submitted to Parliament for approval.

The bill will regulate property rights and provide for the registration of land ownership. The aim of the bill is to shore up existing title deeds, provide legal clarity in the event of property disputes, and encourage investment by enhancing economic and social stability. (Read on …)

Response to death of a Sheik at the hands of security forces

Al-Sahwa

September 18, 2007 – Provincial sources told “Alsahwa.net” that gunmen have dominated a security centre at Sharab al-Salam district, Taiz, and seized all its medium weapons in the wake of killing Sheikh Abdul-Salam al-Kaisi during clashes between citizens and security members.

Meanwhile , there were conflicting news of the killed numbers .

Sources said that a soldier was killed and a citizen was wounded in armed confrontation after citizens carrying weapons were prevented from entering into Taiz city .

It is worth reclaiming that the Yemeni government recently banned carrying weapons in the main towns

No jihaddis? No tribesmen?

Al-Motamar, the website of the GPC, criticizes Islah’s militia’s participation in the 1994 civil war. Al-Motar fails to mention the Islamists fought on behalf of Saleh. Does this mean the regime will not deploy the Aden Abyan Islamic Army and the tribal irregulars in the South? I mean redeploy them from Sa’ada to Aden? Its an interesting angle of denounciation of the JMP, considering the former PM BaJammal threatened to re-arm the northern citizens in order to battle the southerners, and the military needed the tribesmen to fight in Sa’ada.

I was expecting to see the Sa’ada pattern emerge in the South if things continued to escalate: food and medicine embargo, random bombardment, jihaddis and tribesmen deployed, media incitement, arbitrary arrests, communications disrupted. But there’s several thousand Houthis and several million Southerners. And the military couldn’t win against the Houthis. Hopefully, there will be a good faith settlement from the regime, but it is currently breaking its promises in Sa’ada. Its hard to imagine it will keep them in Aden.

Al-Motamar: The reasons of the enmity of the Islah and the YSP towards the army and the security can be explained through remembering the historical past of those parties grouping inside the JMP especially the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) and the Socialist Party.

The Islah, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, does not differ in its foundation and ideology from the rest of Islamic parties in the Arab and Islamic world which derived the concepts of jihad and building militias as ways in their endeavours to take power. And the Islah party is no different from the rest of Islamic parties. It possesses armed militias trained on resort to armed violence and the participation of the Islah militias in the secessionist war is considered an evidence of the approach followed by the Islah in its political pursuit. Most of its higher leaderships, if not all, have military and security history.

The Islah stand of refusing the decision of banning weapons perhaps reflexes the truth that it is not different from the rest of the Islamic movement that considers the armed militias as a means for its seizure of power in case it attained it,

The Yemeni Socialist Party is no different in its dependence on armed militias for taking power and rather the socialist parties in the world, including the YSP, depended on incorporating the army and the security into the party structure to an extent that the party, the army and the state formed one structure which is the party structure that depends on the armed force in controlling and running the country.

All here remember the tragedies the southern part of the country had seen before the unity as a result of armed conflicts that governed the work of the YSP. The vents of 13 January 1986 still represent the strongest evidence of the ideology that the YSP adopted in settling the disputes inside the party organisations.

On the other hand the Yemeni official newspaper Al-Thawra last Tuesday assailed in its editorial the wrong partisan mobilization against the armed forces and the security as well as boycotting by the JMP leaderships of any activities concerning the military and security establishment the latest of which was the ceremony held last Monday for the graduation of a number new military batches.

The editorial said it was not the first time such narrow-minded persons disappear on such occasions despite their full knowledge that the military and security establishment is that of the people and the homeland and its loyalty is to Yemen and it is not a party establishment.

The newspaper added that what arouses astonishment and surprise is that those party leaderships harbour enmity to the armed forces and security while this national establishment has being providing them and preparing for them climates of political emergence and to practice political and party action openly amid secure and stable atmospheres throughout the past years.

Just for the halibut. (It’s Howie’s fault. He got everybody in a Clash mood.)

I live by the river.

(For the seriously intellectually challenged: it’s just a song that I like.)

A message from the Youth of Mukalla, Yemen to the Free World

MUKALLA IS UNDER SIEGE

WE are citizens of the city of Mukalla, Hadramout Yemen. We would like to draw your attention to what is happening in Hadramout and the southern provinces of Yemen known in the past as South Yemen or South Arabia.

Hadramout have been witnessing demonstrations and sits-in in opposition to the worse situations in the southern governorates i.e.: mistreatment, taking our lands by force, stealing our oil and fish wealth by military forces, and big officials coming from the north taking our jobs, forcing others to retire very early with a very tiny salaries, others without salaries especially soldiers, corruption, absence of security and safety, and killing in the midday.

The demonstrations have been taking place almost every other day in Mukalla and other southern provinces. Military forces open fire at the demonstrators, killing two persons in Mukalla ,two in Dhala and one Aden and many have been injuried in different areas of the south, including kidnapping of politicians and journalists.

Dozens of politicians and young men have been detained due to their participation in the demonstrations. Others have been chasing after, which forces them to leave their cities as they feel their lives is in danger should they stay with their families .

WE are the people of Mukalla as well as our brothers in the other governorates feel disappointed because the international media and press as well as the Arabic ignore their case (what is happening in the South).

WE are the youth of Hadramout claim the national and international human rights organizations, International community as well as security council to intervene to protect us from the police regime of president Salah in Sanaa to bring international teams and observers and human rights organizations to search facts and to defend the people here whose life is in danger

Youth of the city of Mukalla
18/9/2007

(Read on …)

Will re-arm the citizenry and turn them against each other, oh my, what a brilliant plan.

Yahoo News

A senior Yemeni lawmaker reportedly said he was ready to reverse recent anti-gun legislation and arm people to combat secesionists demanding the separation of north and south Yemen.

Head of the ruling General People’s Congress party Abdel Kader Bajammal, who is also a former Yemeni prime minister, told the Emirati paper Al-Khaleej:

“I will arm the people to face them (secesionists). For the sake of the state and its unity we will re-introduce weapons to confront those corrupt people.” (Read on …)

Exclusive statement from General Ali Moqbel

In an effort to enlighten our readership on the true nature of the growing civil unrest in Southern Yemen, Armies of Liberation obtained an exclusive statement from Brigadier General Ali Moqbel, organizer and member of the Yemeni Retired Military Consultive Association (MCRA). In the statement, General Moqbel clarified the goal of the protests, “We demand equality in citizenship and the return of all our officers to their positions.”

General Moqbel explained the goal and purpose of the protests, “The goal of the MCRA is to return all southerners to their previous employment in the same positions, both civilians and soldiers, who were referred to retirement after the war in 1994, many of whom were termed as in excess positions.”

The statement continues, “All of our achievements in the South were lost upon unity which was announced May 22, 1990. We demand compensation for all persons without exception who sustained material losses at the hands of the state during these years.

Our demands are not arising from the air as indicated when President Saleh himself frankly admitted mistakes. We have the right to these demands and to equal citizenship. If the ruling party does not correct these mistakes, then the world will know who refused the unity of May 22, 1990.”

Context and timeline:

North and South Yemen unified in 1990. After Yemen’s civil war in 1994, the ruling northern elite failed to reconcile with the South as a whole. The decade that followed was perceived by many Southerners as characterized by institutionalized discrimination, engineered poverty, widespread looting and political exclusion. These long simmering tensions came to a head beginning May 22, 2007 when a series of popular protests lead by the MCRA began in several governorates. The Yemeni regime responded with increasingly repressive measures, provoking greater popular outrage.

As a result of the protests, President Saleh has returned hundreds of former soldiers to their posts; however tens of thousands were not. Instead the government announced it will reinstate the draft. The well over 100,000 forcibly retired Southern military and civil workers charge that they were illegally discharged as a punitive measure after the war. The pensions they receive are lower than their northern counterparts, below a sustenance level and contravene national law, they maintain.

Governmental media rhetoric has heightened tensions, for example labeling the 1994 civil war “a secessionist and apostate war”. Protests around the former PRDY resulted in the deaths of several protesters and hundreds of arrests and injuries as security forces broke up the demonstrations with live fire, tear gas, water cannons and batons. Riots ensued.

Movement leader, retired Brigadier General Naser al-Noba will stand trial in a military court, officials announced. The Defense Ministry announced early in September that 20 protesters arrested would be charged with treason, a death penalty offense. Increasingly repressive measures by the Yemeni regime against its citizenry will certainly foster increasing frustration as the public loses hope in gaining equality through peaceful means. The inability of the Yemeni government to honestly reconcile legitimate grievances has created instability throughout the nation and over time. Meanwhile President Saleh recently dubbed the protests “a tempest in a teapot”.

Yemen Observer

Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani accused security officers of kidnapping him last Monday and denied in a press conference in Sana’a on Wednesday that the kidnappers were tribesmen. “What happened to me indicates that they are thugs hired by the state “ he said.

Al-Khaiwani added that he expects that “there is something worse coming, they chose me as a model to the others,” he said. Al-Khaiwani claims that while he was attending a wedding in the village of Beni Saham in Khawlan, along with a group of other journalists, he was kidnapped. (Read on …)

Arab Monitor

Social and political turmoil in Yemen

Sanaa, 13 September – The Sanaa-Aden highway was blocked by protest demonstrations that are paralyzing this main traffic artery since the beginning of the week. Protesters demand the release or an orderly trial for dozens of people detained in security jails after the riots that took place two weeks ago in al-Dhale, Aden, Mukalla, Taiz and Shabwa. While the demonstrations that had led to these riots, regard the social and economic rehabilitation of members of the former South Yemenite armed forces, in Taiz the parents of some three thousand students staged sit-ins and manifestations of protest against the closure of five schools. (Read on …)

Politicized education. Yemen Times

TAIZ, Sept. 9 — Over three thousand students studying in five schools in Taiz started their academic year at home. Their schools were closed down causing their parents, over 200 individuals to hold sit-in in front of the governorate building in Taiz earlier this month. They protested against the decision made by the chairman of the local council in Al-Caherah district regarding closing these schools. These schools are O’mar Al-Mukhtar, Nusaibah, Al-Noor, Amar Bin Yasir, and Al-Ez Bin Abdull-Sallam.

The closure behind five schools in Taiz was explained by the overall closure of schools that had not been originally established as schools for formal education affiliated with the Ministry of Education.

The protest was resolved when the members of the parents’ council reached to an agreement with the local council in the governorate as well as the district’s local council. They agreed on investigating the problem along with its causes, forwarding a report on the results as well as the suggested solutions to be implemented so as not to deprive 3000 male and female students from receiving education this year.

However, some of the parents said that the main purpose behind closing these schools is that they are named (Scientific Institutes) and controlled by Islah party since then. They are closed to reduce the partisan exploitation practiced by some members of the Islah party. (Read on …)

errrr, I dont think he’s in Yemen. But if you see this guy in Sa’ada, let me know. But then again, you couldn’t because there’s no phones or internet in Sa’ada.

Washington, Sept 14: The Bush Administration’s former chief counter-terrorism adviser, Richard Clark, has claimed that Osama bin Laden is either in Yemen or Somalia, and not in Pakistan.

Clark, who was also the chief counter-terrorism adviser to the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration, said that bin Laden was propagating a kind of propaganda to lure Washington into a sense of neutrality to enable it to strengthen itself.

“Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, ‘America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country.’ He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda,” the Daily Times quoted Clark, as saying.
“In other words, we stepped right into bin Laden’s propaganda. And, the result of that is that al Qaeda and organisations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened,” he added.
In another interview to the CBS weekly show, 60 Minutes, in addition to a write-up in Newsweek, Clark said that after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, he told his colleagues at the White House, “We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda,” but Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, “No, no, no. We don’t have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.”

Photo courtesy of Hot Air

Note to the readers: This is not the position of the Bush adminstration or the US, and it doesn’t signal anything about US policy. Richard Clark is an outspoken critic of Bush. He used to work at the White House; now he is a private citizen with no claim to fame beyond trashing Bush. He doesn’t provide any basis for his analysis. He wanted the headlines, so he made this statement.

during Ramadan no less, how mean

It was probably these two who did the same thing last year and there was no penality then: “We cannot force them to market the discovered flour without the cooperation of the other concerned authorities, especially the Ministry of The Interior, the public prosecutors, and judiciary authorities,” said al-Kumaim.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

The daily report of Operations Room in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, issued Wednesday, said that the field committees to supervise prices stability had found that two merchants monopolize a huge quantity of wheat and flour.

It said the two businessmen Al-Kaboos and Fahim had closed their stores, which are full of wheat and flour, against citizens while the local markets are witnessing a sharp shortage of these two food materials and an awful price increase.

The report, NewsYemen got a copy, said the committees could also during its field inspection to seize some violations in Hamadan district of Sana’a included decreasing the size of wheat and flour bags and selling pesticides in some public shops, in addition to 40 infringements related prices of some commodities.

The report said such breaches had been raised to the governor of Sana’a province to take the penal measures against those monopolize foods and make crises.

The report said that three trucks belong to the Yemeni Economic Corporation has unloaded tons of wheat and sold it to people in Shamlan and Al-Lakmah in Sana’a with the official price YR 3700.

The carrot and the stick. I hope they put the funds to good use. The failure in Yemen is related to a near total absence of functioning impartial institutions. Nice they mentioned the journalists. Maybe correct is a better word.

WASHINGTON,

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has approved a $20.6 million grant to help Yemen fight corruption and improve the rule of law, political rights, fiscal policy and government effectiveness through institution building and improved systems there.

I would like to congratulate Yemen on the approval of its threshold program, which will help to accelerate many positive reforms already underway, said ambassador John Danilovich, MCC’s CEO, after a meeting for MCC’s board Wednesday.

Danilovich said that Yemen has undertaken significant reforms since 2005, but confirmed that the success of Yemen’s threshold program “will depend on the continued commitment of the Yemeni government.”

I must express my deep concern at recent reports of intimidation and harassment of Yemeni journalists,” he said.

Freedom of expression is of great concern to MCC, and I urge the government of Yemen to work to protect all journalists from intimidation and violence.

MCC had suspended Yemen from eligibility for Threshold Program assistance in 2005 but reinstated the country earlier this year after Yemen had achieved ambitious reforms, according to MCC.

Sa’ada

1- Immediate assistance for the 50,000 to 100,000 displaced persons: no

2- Release the hundreds if not thousands of men imprisoned without charges (including children), suspected of sympathy: no

3- End media incitement: no

4- Withdraw the soldiers and tribesmen (who are now looting again): no

This is the third mediation that sooner or later will fail in part because the government is unwilling or unable to execute its end of the agreement. Not to mention addressing the underlying issues. There was a fuzzy speech however about allocating development funds.

Update: The regime reneges on its promises of military posts to the tribal irregulars who then set up check-points. Along with the state’s right to a monopoly on the use of force comes the obligation to exercise command and control. Communications still cut off, doctors may be coming, artillery just to be annoying. (Read on …)

Zawya

The World BankWorld Bank has announced it will raise annual developmental support for Yemen from $90 million to $135 million for 2007 and 2008.

Abdul-Karim al-Arhabi, the deputy PM and Minister of Economic Affairs, Planning, and International Cooperation, met the World BankWorld Bank delegation in charge of preparing the second phase of developing Yemeni port cities on Saturday.

Al-Arhabi expressed the government’s appreciation for the active role the World BankWorld Bank plays to support Yemen’s economy in general and its plans to develop Yemen’s ports.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

The US newly appointed ambassador to Yemen Stephen Seche said that security cooperation, fighting terrorism and social, political and economic reforms are the most priorities for his country in Yemen.

We will continue cooperation with Yemen in terms of fighting terror, developing education, especially girls education and supporting the Yemeni government to fight poverty, said Seche, who described himself as “president Bush’s representative in Yemen for the coming period”. “We wish Yemeni overcome the current situations.

The US diplomat was very careful in his first meeting with reporters not to talk about the nature of his talks with president Ali Abdullah Saleh in the first meeting last Wednesday as well as with Yemeni officials.

“My talk with president Saleh is private and because I respect the president and our relations with Yemen that talk will remain private, said Seche.

He said that reforms in Yemen are going ahead, but warned of events happening in Yemen and said “they need earnest treatment”.

We are seriously following protests in Yemen and wish they do not develop to violent actions. We hope that all issues caused protests to be solved without violence and in a democratic atmosphere, he said. He urged the government and protestors “to respect dialogue and find solutions, not to exchange accusations”.

He told reporters that tackling the issue of press and journalists in Yemen is one of the requirements of the Millennium Challenge Corporation which is awaiting a Yemeni request to join it after MCC had reinstated Yemen to its threshold. (Read on …)

al-Sahwa
September 11, 2007-09-11- Al-azab, senior leader of the main opposition party, the Islah, said that the ruling party must relinquish power, stressing that its return to power would be a catastrophe.

He called for holding early parliamentary and presidential elections, expressing surprise at the ruling party’s calls regarding handover power to the opposition.

“It fought bitterly and puttered public money in the last elections in order to monopolize power” he said emphasizing that those calls unrealistic.

He further demanded the ruling party to stop repressing peaceful protests and sit-ins, stressing that they are in accordance with the state constitution and laws.

Also call for early elections

Al-Sahwa

September 8, 2007- The Member of Parliament, Abdul-Karim Shaiban, called upon the ruling General People Conference party to abandon power and hold early elections, accusing it of failing in managing the state’s economy.

“The current Yemeni government has no strategies, policies” he accused the government after commodities prices extremely soared.

“The government could not keep stability of wheat prices without having clear strategies; it does not know how wheat much Yemen needs? If you ask the Commerce and Industry ministry the last question, indeed, it can’t indeed answer” added Shaiban.

He further said that the government could not control prices when some officials are the merchants themselves.

Cereal production declined dramatically in the last decades. Agricultural land dedicated to qat and water allocation are relevent issues as well.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Mansour al-Hoshabi said that the food gap in Yemen is very wide and the rate of wheat imports is still high, 92.7 percent.

Dr. al-Hoshabi expected that Yemen could fill only 15 to 20 percent of the gap in the coming 10 or 15 years. (Read on …)

Yemen Times

Journalists in Iraq and Palestine are the most violated journalists in the Arab world according to a recent report by the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies. Amman Center for Human Rights Studies monitored the violations and abuse against press freedom and journalists in 18 Arab countries during the first six months of this year. These countries are: Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, Algeria, Djibouti-, KSA, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, and Mauritania. The report took into consideration the type of violations with relevance to the political and geographical environment of each country.

The aim of this report is to document the status of media freedoms in the Arab world in order to provide an authentic foundation for projects and programs working on developing media laws and professional journalism in the region.

General over view of Yemeni press freedom in the first half of 2007

It seems Yemen is going through yet another bad year in terms of press freedom. During the first half of this year Yemeni journalists underwent difficult times because of legislations allowing the imprisonment of journalists and because of the personal threats they keep facing.

Cases of assault and threat have reached the highest this year. Moreover, there are a number of pending cases in courts, which prove the judiciary system is not adequate in protecting journalists.
(Read on …)

Yikes. Repent, the end is near.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Reliable source said that the US Oxy Petroleum Company and Oil Search Compnay working in Yemen have suspended digging new oil wells.

The US Oxy stopped its activity last July 2007 and the Oil Search stopped last Monday, the source told NewsYemen.

The source expected that the Hungarian Mol company might stop its activity two weeks later.

Yemen and some donors like the World Bank have talked since four years about dangers of oil running out in Yemeni oil blocks.

Earnings from oil exports account for a substantial portion of the government’s budget revenue and Yemen’s export earnings. Yemen’s average output rose from 10,000 barrels/day (b/d) in 1987 to 465,000 b/d in 2003, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) data (which vary slightly from Yemeni production breakdowns by field).

Some officials in the government have criticized minister of oil and minerals for his refusal to admit fears of oil running out despite official reports have assure oil production dropped as low as 15%.

The regime has a predictable pattern in responding to civil unrest: blaming the opposition and foreign forces, increasing violence and judicial repression, a hostile media campaign, avoiding addressing the issue honesty, rejecting any responsibility or any acknowledgment of legitimacy of popular grievences.

almotamar.net – The secretary general of the General People’s Congress (GPC) Abdulqader Bajammal has said the Yemeni unity is not just red line but a line drawn with blood too, emphasizing this is an essential issue. He said,” The GPC members will fight in the streets in defence of it (the unity)”.Bajammal added,” I hope if others can understand that who plays with fire he will get burnt with it.”

The GPC secretary general warned the Yemeni socialist Party (YSP) not to fall in the trap in which the Irish army had fallen. He criticised the role of YSP in supporting demonstrations and sit-ins that took place in a number of southern and eastern governorates and changing them from demands for rights of the retired into acts of riots and calls and slogans hostile to the national unity and social peace. (Read on …)

Yemen Observer

The latest study on AIDS awareness in Yemen, conducted by the Ministry of Health, concluded that only 34 percent of females in rural parts of the country are aware of AIDS, compared to 95 percent of urban women.

The high level of awareness among urban women shows that public awareness campaigns have been effective, but the government’s efforts to spread awareness in rural areas are still too little.

Also, the increase in AIDS victims in Yemen shows the government is not doing enough to prevent the spread of the disease. The Minister of Public Health and Population, Abdul-Karim Rasee, said the government is committed to fighting AIDS and stop it’s spread. “The National Anti-AIDS Program achieved much during the 2002-2006 period and many centers for fighting AIDS have been established,” he said.
(Read on …)

I actually need to know this. Right now. How handy.

26 Sept

Then Minister of Technical Education and Vocational Training Ibrahim Hojari talked about improvements in technical education and that technical and vocational institutes have increased from six, distributed in six governorates in 1990s to 65 training and educational institutions across the country.

He said that there are 45 institutes under construction with a total cost estimated at YR17,7 billion funded by the government.

He indicating that there are also 18 other institutes under construction with the cost of $ 50 million granted by the Saudi Development Fund, in addition to a Poly-technical institute in
Sana’a Secretariat being constructed by a loan from the Islamic Development Bank worth as much as $ 9 million.

Meanwhile, the President had opened a show of different applied samples by some students covering electricity, computers, programs, medical and engineering equipments, handiworks by female students and others samples.

The president praised these creative works of students that reflect the level of good qualification they got during their study, confirming that future is for technical and vocational training that
help the government limit the number of jobless youth.

He said that 500 graduates of technical institutes will join the armed forces units to help in maintenance works.

Yemen has almost 64 technical institutes across the country.

Saba

TajAden is the Yemeni Southern opposition in exile and advocates the seperation of North and South Yemen. The following statement prompted by the civilian deaths in Dhalie requests the UN to supervise the withdrawal of “Yemeni forces from occupied South Yemen.”

TajAden 10th September 2007

Oh masses of our proud people in the occupied South Arabia.

On the 10th of September 2007, the large masses of our people in the capital Aden and in Dhala city as well have got out protesting peacefully against the Yemeni authorities’ forces that have arrested and abducted the southern liberal struggler leaders. The protest was for an immediate release of prisoners unconditionally in all cities of the occupied South Arabia.

In a hooligan frivolous action the Yemeni occupation forces have fired on the peaceful demonstrators in the city of Dhala, which led to the fall of 3 dead and wounded more than 10 people. Also they have prevented a peaceful strike in the city of Aden, the capital of the South. They besieged the city neighbourhoods with tens of military vehicles and tens of thousands of the Yemeni occupation’s criminals and murderers soldiers.

The Yemeni Security forces has already killed and wounded a number of demonstrators in the city of Mukalla and put many innocent people in jails without charge as they did in Aden. Also thousands of soldiers were deployed in several cities such as in Mahfad, Loader and Moodiah in Abyan governorate and cut off roads and set up barricades in the governorate of Lahj. The Authority also deployed tanks and thousands of criminal soldiers in the city of Alhabeelain and in the districts of Radfan province. This exercise of military tyranny continued in a number of cities in the governorate of Shabwah which is now under a comprehensive military siege.

The Southern Democratic Assembly (TAJ) highly salutes the courageous sacrifices of our people and our martyrs who were shot dead this morning by the occupying military forces in the city of Dhala as well as those who were killed and arrested during the past weeks in the cities of Aden and Hadhramout. “TAJ” admires the wounded who faced with their bare chests the criminal, bloody armed machines of the dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh and calls all sons of the South Arabia for conjunction and solidarity in the face of the occupation’s forces and continues the struggle for the restoration of full rights of freedom, independence and self-determination. (Read on …)

Oh, trade Moyaad for Elbaneh? No, can’t, sorry, no extradiction treaty.

Al-Sahwa
September 11, 2007-09-11- Yemen has applauded U.S.’s decisions to cancel procedures had imposed on Sheikh Mohammad al-Moayad and his aide, Mohammad Zayed ,the tow Yemeni citizens imprisoned in U.S. under charges of terrorism support.

An official source affirmed that Yemen would continue its efforts with U.S. officials to ensure release of the two detainees.

Those measures known colloquially as” BASAM” provided to fasten their arms and legs and prevented them form mixing with others or any recreational meetings inside the jail as the other prisoners do.

“Moreover, U.S apologized as it could not extradite al-Moayed and Zayed at this time, because there is no an a convention signed between the two countries to exchange detainees, pointing out that such measure is not usual step according to the American law toward prisoners, and it just applied due to the American-Yemeni advanced relations and Yemen’s role in combating terrorism.” said the source.

(Read on …)

Guest Post:

The protests in Dali’ started peacefully at 9 am but when live ammunition killed 3 & wounded 8 then some of the peaceful protesters went home to fetch rifles and wounded 11 armed police and destroyed a restaurant frequented by the armed police.This could be the start of civil strife. 3 soldiers were also shot in Mahfad as they left barracks which they undertook not to leave.

-Gov.of Aden, Kohlani, promised the UK ambassador last week to release detainees but when the Minister of Interior decided upon military trials punishable by death the situation became turbulent in many parts including Marib and al-Jawf in the Zaidi north.

From the Yemen Observer.

Riot police fired bullets and used tear gas and water cannons Tuesday to disperse thousands of protesters demanding the release of more than 200 veterans and their sympathizers detained for protesting earlier this month, a police official said.

The protesters are mostly southern Yemeni veterans who lost their jobs after a defeat by northern forces in a civil war 13 years ago.

Yemen’s top security body warned that “any party, movement, group or individual who stages or carries slogans that put national unity in peril, or calls for destruction of national unity, will be tried as a traitor.” (Read on …)

A tad nervous aye?

So instead of re-instating the forcibly retired, they are going to draft new soldiers.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

President Ali Abdullah Saleh has announced that the state will resume the compulsory national military service after suspending it for years in order to absorb unemployment.

President Saleh affirmed in the graduation of new military batches from different military institutes and academics that the army and security forces “do not belong to any party”.

The responsibility of the state’s army and security forces is to protect legitimacy, constitution, security and stability in the country, he said.

He said those forces would pursue all terrorists, of different forms.

The army, with its strength, bravery, awareness and culture, will thwart all forms of conspiracy, said Saleh.

We do not take this decision because we need soldiers. We are a peaceful country. We have not problems with anyone.

Referring to protests in different places of the country, President Saleh admitted the country faces economic challenges and some problems, but called protestors and opposition parties to adopt certain problems and to reasonably discuss them with the government.

Meanwhile, Al-Dalei and Aden provinces witnessed Monday new protests as thousands of protesters marched asking for the release of over 200 detainees whom authorities detained in past protests in southern provinces.

Two Yemenis were killed in Al-Dalei and some were injured in the clashes with riot police. The demonstrators set fire to tires and threw stones at the police, prompting police to open fire to disperse them.

Yemen Observer

70 thousands male graduates to camps, 30 thousands females to educational and health sectors

High schools graduates are again required to do security and military service after it was suspended in 2002, President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced last Monday. Saleh announced the decision in a speech given during the graduation of some military batches. This year around 70,000 male high school graduates will be sent to military and security camps and 30,000 female graduates will be contained in the health and educational sectors in order to advance the public interest. “The activating of this law is to help those young unemployed and part of the solution is to have them in the military [which is] better than staying unemployed,” said Saleh. “This is also going to help polish their skills, and will teach them to become great leaders,” said Saleh. “Security and military forces are independent and are the party of the country that defends the constitution and protects the country’s security and safety,” said Saleh who also indicated the important role they played in preventing terrorism. In a periodical meeting, the Cabinet approved the formation of a committee to be headed by deputy PM, Minister of Interior, Dr Rashad al-Alimi, which will study the requirement for high school graduates to do national defense service. The committee will also study any amendments in the National Defense Service Law and update it to meet new developments in the army and security forces.

The decision to re-activate the national defense service law will take effect from the beginning of November this year, said Chief of general staff, staff general-brigadier, Ahmed Ali al-Ashwal. “Offices of compulsory recruitment are to be re-activated again in all governorates and high school graduates from 2006-2007 will be informed by a call through all media means, said al-Ashwal. Graduates will be distributed on all training centers, institutes of military and security forces to be trained and qualified according to the specialties they will have,” he added. “The main objective for the reactivation of national defense service is to alleviate unemployment among the youth and build them professionally and patriotically,” said al-Ashwal.

good

Al-Motamar
almotamar.net – Yemen’s Minister of Justice Dr Ghazi Shaif al-Aghbari said Sunday network linking of courts currently implemented in five major governorates as a first phase comes as part of reforms the ministry is carrying out in 2007 in implementation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh election platform, affirming that the project will be finished in the next few months.

The minister said the network connection will enable the judicial monitoring committee to watch work of courts and judges and follow up the case under consideration and the case decided for spelling out verdict.

The system, the minister said, would make it easier to follow up judicial procedures taken with regard to each case and to know the ones that are delayed and the reasons behind that and that will solve part of the problem of inability of the judicial cadre at the judicial inspection body.

During his visit on Sunday to the Appeals court at the capital, the first instance commercial court and the two sections of commercial appeal sections and the western capital court the minister inspected the work of judges on duty during the judicial vacation, urging them to commit to instructions regarding urgent cases that must be decided during the judicial vacation.

Shura chairman: Ex-Parliamentarians Organization embodies Yemen democratic move

[10 September 2007]

SANA’A, (Saba)- Chairman of the Shura Council Abdul-Aziz Abdul-Ghani described Monday the Ex-Parliamentarians Organization (EPO)as one of the core pillars of democratic system in Yemen as it represents a public pluralism and an active participation in decision making.

In the foundation ceremony of the EPO on Monday, Abdul-Ghani expressed his pleasure to attend this important event, wishing the organization to have positive contributions to building the modern Yemen and reinforcing basics of the democratic pluralism system.

He called on the organization to present a good example for the civil and national activity which accords with principles and goals of the Yemeni Revolution and values.

Members of the EPO should first prioritize reinforcing trust of people in a more prosperous future, Abdul-Ghani said, wishing them success in their task.

there ya go

Quotas or Closed Constituencies, either way

Yemen Times Political Parties rejected the Quota System as a solution to ensure women’s representation in the elections. As a consequence female activists threatened to retaliate by withdrawing from coming elections as candidates, but most importantly as voters.

SANA’A, September 9 — Yemeni women should not be influenced by western concepts, such as the quota system, and want to change their lives accordingly. This was the reaction of political parties to female activists demanding a quota of 30% in the coming parliamentary elections 2009. The debate was part of the Second Democracy Forum organized by Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights in cooperation with National Endowment Development. NGOs representatives and members of the Democracy Forum challenged the political parties’ that as they used women as voters, they must allow them a chance through positive discrimination as candidates.

“Resolving women issues should not be based on a Western concept instead it should be based on Islamic values stemming from the Islamic history,” said Abdulwahab Al-Anisi, Secretary General of the Al-Islah conservative party. He stressed on rejecting the ideas coming from the west as they create ethical ciaos and referred to how the situation for western women is miserable supporting his argument with the statistics of harassment and rape in the western countries.

Frustrated by this attitude, Intisar Sinan, director of the political component of the Woman National Committee said: “This is not acceptable at all. Let us try the quota system and if it does not work we’ll try something else.” She added that democracy as many other concepts have been adopted through western influence so why should the Quota System be any different. (Read on …)

Yemen Times SANA’A, Sept. 9 – In a statement to Yemen Times, the head of the Islah Party at the Faculty of Trading and Commerce, Belal Al-Nehari demanded civil guards for the university instead of the military ones.

Al-Nehari accused the military guards at the university of attacking students in the University yard while they were defending their rights in registering at the University peacefully. He, also, refuted the accusation of the GPC head Abdulmaleq Al-Sayaghi at the Faculty that the students shot fires towards the military guards. “We absolutely refuted the accusation of Abdulmaleq Al-Sayaghi that we shot fires towards the soldiers or even used sticks against them. we are sorry that the ruling party defends the crimes of security soldiers. Therefore, we ask for civil guards fit the message that the University presents.” Al-Nehari said.

This deny comes as a reply to the statement released by Al-Sayaghi in Yemen Times on the August 19th in which he accused the Islahi students at the University of shooting fires towards the soldiers and spread riot at the University yard.

Sana’a University witnessed riot and strong clashes between new students and security soldiers during the enroll period in the middle of August. The clashed lead to injuring the student Ameen Al-Shubati on head when one of the soldiers beat him by the back of his pistol. The security administration at Sana’a University refused to give information about the reaction of the administration towards the incident or about the number of the security soldiers at the University.

The Sana’a University witnessed clashes between the Students of GPC and Islah in 2005 during the elections of the General Union of the Yemeni Students. The head of GPC Abdulmaleq Al-Sayaghi stated that the Islahi students by this demand just wants to attract the sympathy of the new students in order to attract them to the Islah party . Al-Sayaghi added that the Islahi students want to get rid of the military security because they can’t attack them since it is a crime according to the law while it is easier for them to attck the civil guards and to spread riot in the University. “ the one who doesn’t want security, is the one who wants mass.” Al-Sayaghi stated.

Al-Sayaghi stated that the law prevents any political activities in the worship places and the public places such as the University.

update: 20 protesters to be tried for treason

they must have been chanting slogans

Yemen Observer

About 20 Yemenis from Aden and Mukalla will be put on trial for treason soon after two were killed and dozens injured in the recent riots in southern provinces, official sources said on Thursday.

“Investigations into about 20 people, who were have been arrested during the last few days over the riots that occurred in Aden and Mukalla, are complete, and they will be referred to the courts very soon,” said an unidentified source in the Ministry of Defense.

Earlier in the week, the country’s highest security committee said it would charge “any individual or organization calling for separation” with high treason. Some of the demonstrators in Aden and Mukalla chanted slogans against the unification of North and South Yemen.

“Any political party, group or individual repeating slogans against national unity or calling for the division of the nation will be put on trial for high treason according to the constitution and the laws currently in force,” said a statement issued by the Supreme Security Committee. (Read on …)

How does he say this stuff with a straight face?

26sep.net

SANA’A.(26sep.net)- HE President Saleh said that “the military and security institution is non-partisan but the party of all nation which defends constitutional legality and the security and stability of the homeland. It pursues all terrorist elements in various forms and colors, whoever they are both in the backward retroactive framework or under the other names. ”

“This institution will face heroically all kinds of conspiracies and we congratulate our Yemeni people on this brave institution and I want to note that the restoration of activating the National Defense Service Law is not because we need to the army, we are a peaceful state and we have no problems with anyone and the small bubbles here or there end by other means,” he added.

HE President Saleh along with Vice President, Abdurabu Mansour Hadi have witnessed in the framework of celebrations of the Yemeni revolutions, the graduation ceremony of a number of new batches of the military and security colleges and institutes from military academy, Police College, Faculty of aviation, air defense and Technical Institute of Air Force and Air Defense and the graduates of the School of Interior police.

AP: The prosecutor general also said that a recently captured Fatah al-Islam militant told authorities that al-Absi fled the camp the night of September 1, a few hours before the remaining militants inside Nahr al-Bared attempted to escape. He has possibly fled to another refugee camp.

Mirza said that two days ago a Yemeni citizen identified as Nasser Mohammed Yahya Shiba, 24, was arrested in the Minyeh region north of the camp and testified that he and three other militants had fled with al-Absi.

News Yemen notes:

Special sources told NewsYemen that three Yemenis, one of them was killed, have left Aden to join fighting in Iraq, but they have immediately changed their destination to Lebanon where they have joined Fatah al-Islam.

Yes, but I thought it was six who left Aden and were told in Syria to divert to Lebanon. Some refused, and there were varying outcomes for the others. Anyway this leads to the question, who in Syria turned them to Lebanon instead of Iraq? After the last sweep, Saudi security noted terror cells (including suiciders) utilized both safe houses in Syria and permanent training camps in North Yemen (Sa’ada).

Three killed and eight wounded in Al-Dahalie.

Authorities prevent a sit-in in Liberation Square, I’m assuming that’s the one in Aden not Sana’a.

That’a a total of eleven demonstrators killed within the last month.

Earthtimes Sana’a, Yemen – At least two people were killed and 10 injured when a protest against price hikes turned violent in southern Yemen Monday, witnesses said. They said the two men were killed during clashes between police and protesters in the provincial capital of al-Daleaa, some 240 kilometres south of the capital Sana’a.

Thousands of protesters took part in the demonstration that started peacefully but ended with riots when protesters began throwing stones at buildings of the local government, local sources said. (Read on …)

That’s true.

I agree with this assessment except for the chanting. There’s people all over the US chaniting against Bush, so chanting against Saleh doesn’t seem even slightly odd.

But its interesting that this guy, whoever he is, is disputing the statements of the security officials that protests in Aden and other places around the former PDRY are illegal. And clearly they are not according to the Yemeni constitution and common sense. Public protests are a basic civil right and mechanism of participation in the political system.

almotamar.net – Chairman of the parliamentary committee of defence and security general Yahya al-Haweri affirmed Sunday that protests carried out in the framework of democracy, pluralism, the constitution and the laws, whether they were unprompted or organised by any party are legitimate. But, he added, it is refused that during such activities to carry out riot acts, sabotage, blocking roads and chanting slogans against the national constants. He said, “This is a matter disagreeing with the homeland interest and the state has the right to and the duty to use its legal powers to preserve stability and the national interest.”

On the question of the retired al-Haweri said ,” We are with them and with their demands for rights,” reminding that the parliamentary committee of defence and security studied their subject and prepared detailed report in which it urged the concerned authorities in the government to tackle their cases and settle their dues.

He said the government worked on solving their problems and republican decrees were issued for promoting military ranks and forming government committees to receive grievances in various governorates. The committees considered tens of thousands of those complaints and solved them in line with the president’s directives.

In an interview with almotamar.net al-Haweri affirmed that what happened is that there are parties seeking to take advantage of the democratic space and sentiments of the retired respecting the issues related to their rights to deviate them to serve external sides. He advised those who are after foreign agendas to search for themselves roles far from impinging upon the unity.

Yet another lovely US ally, its Egypt today. To follow is a Press Release from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information , known as HRInfo, quite an important portal in the region which has a substantial and informative English page.

What happened is the Egyptian Association of Human Rights and Legal Aid (AHRLA) publicly exposed the state’s torture of prisoners (and its not blasting Madonna at them, its real torture). AHRLA got shut down on bogus charges, and civil society organizations decided to demonstrate in a show of support. HRInfo will share their offices with AHRLA so they can keep operating.

Press Release: Representatives of Human rights organization in Egypt decided to fight back against these flagrant police practices by using all the available legitimate measures e.g. labor strike, demonstrations, closing-down their websites and exposing the practices of the Egyptian government before international organizations and regional unions… The Egyptian government instead of working to improve its human rights records has shown a relentless desire to silence one of the most outspoken voices against these practices which are rife under the emergency laws and include unfair trails and gagged press.

Read the whole thing and check out the list of signatories.

I guess all these thug regimes deploy the same practices to hide their crimes from their own people and the international community.

Torture in Egypt is a widespread and brutal policy. From the website:

The previous weeks have witnessed an escalation of police brutality and torture in a number of police stations, known for their long record of breaking the law, torture and violation of human rights of citizens. The situation this time was characterized by heavy presence of police sergeants who seem to be competing with their seniors in the infliction of torture, as if promotion within the Ministry of Interior has become dependent on the number of citizens they kill under torture….

Some of those examples include Ahmed Badie Khafaga (May 2007, Damanhour police station), Saad Risk Allah Khalil (May 2007, Abou Hommos police station) and Tarek Foutouh El Imam (May 2005, Port Said police station) who the police claims have hanged themselves in their prison cells. It is noteworthy that Tarek had completed his prison sentence and had called his family, one day before his death, reminding them of his discharge from prison after 48 hours.

During this epidemic of death under torture, sergeants at Al Omraneyya police station psyched Nasser Sedik Gadallah from the third floor of his house. His wife and children watched as their father was thrown from the window, head down, which resulted in his immediate death. The same scenario happened before in March 2007 with Mohamed Nabawi Abdel Hafiz who was also thrown out of the window at Osim police station. The police claimed he had committed suicide.

Its a lengthy and disturbing statement that details a number of children killed in police custody and prisoners set on fire.

Update: Key witness in Nour case found hanged in his cell.

“I confessed to forgery under pressure from officers from state security,” Hassan told reporters on June 30, 2005, after his lawyer told the court he had changed his plea to not guilty.

The court disregarded his retraction and went on to sentence both Ayman Nour and Ayman Hassan to five years in prison. Nour, who came a distant second to President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt’s first multi-candidate presidential elections in September 2005, says the authorities fabricated the case against him to exclude him from politics. The charge against Nour was that the endorsements he submitted to the authorities when he set up his liberal Ghad (Tomorrow) Party in 2004 contained forged signatures.

The guy lead a demonstration – protesting discriminatory practices against Southern retired military. So they arrest him.

Al-Sahwa:

September 8, 2007- Yemeni security authorities have transferred the retired brigadier, Naser al-Nawba, and other 8 retried military officials from Aden into Sana’a in order to try them in military courts.

It is worth reclaiming that al-Nowba was arrested with other former retired officials due to involving in protests aiming to extract southern former officials’ and soldiers’ rights.

The State Department comments on Al-Khaiwani.

Press Statement
Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman
Washington, DC
September 7, 2007

Yemeni Journalists Abducted

The recent abduction of independent Yemeni journalist Abdulkarim Al-Khaiwani points to a disturbing trend of intimidation and harassment of Yemen’s journalist community. Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are cornerstones of democracy, and a plurality of voices strengthens democratic societies.

The United States urges the government of Yemen to take steps to protect all journalists from becoming victims of violence and intimidation. We further call on the government of Yemen to fully investigate this most recent abduction, as well as past abductions of journalists in Yemen, and to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

2007/738

Released on September 7, 2007

A) Yay! They noticed.
B) They don’t do this often from DC with regard to Yemen. Not in years actually. The MCC funding has got to be in jeopardy as well.
C) Obviously they are not buying the “terrorist” moniker. Good, because its garbage.

Update: So of course the unnamed official denounces the statement as relying on opposition propaganda and says that attacks on journalists are always investigated, which is blatantly untrue considering the vast majority are perpetrated by security forces.

SANA’A, NewsYemen, 26sep.net

A Yemeni official source denounced a statement by deputy spokesman of the US Department of State that journalists in Yemen are offended.

The military-run 26 September quoted the official source, who it did not identify, as saying that “the US speaker was not accurate about the issue of journalists he has remarked”.

The US official might have depended upon untrue information from the opposition, the source said.
The source confirmed that Yemeni journalists are defended by law and constitution and that security apparatuses have always investigated the cases of individual assaults against some journalists. It said those cases were rare and measures to bring the offenders to justice were taken. (Read on …)

IHT

SAN’A, Yemen: Riot police fired bullets, unleashed tear gas and water cannons Tuesday to disperse thousands of protesters demanding the release of more than 200 disaffected southern Yemeni veterans and their sympathizers detained in daily protests this month, a police official said.

Tuesday’s demonstrations took place in several cities in Yemen’s southern province of Hadramawt, with protests burning tires and carrying red and black banners in a sign of mourning over the death of two demonstrators reported killed by security forces in similar protest Sunday.

No one was reported killed during the protests Tuesday.

The government deployed hundreds of riot police and sealed off several roads in the city of al-Mukalla, 560 kilometers (350 miles) southeast of the capital, San’a, where the biggest protest was held, said the police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. (Read on …)

IRIN: Gender gap

The government says the gender gap with regard to education is “considerable”. While national illiteracy rates stand at about 30 percent for men, they exceed 67 percent for women, it says.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says access to education is one of the biggest challenges facing children in Yemen today, especially girls. Nearly half of primary school age girls do not go to school.

According to the most recent Arab Human Development Report (AHDR), the gender gap in education in Yemen is among the highest in the world. Girls’ education is a highly gender-sensitive issue, the 2005 report said, citing cultural factors like gender specific roles, early marriage, segregation between the sexes, and poverty as the primary barriers.

This results in gender inequality in education, with human development indicators for female literacy and the net enrolment ratio for females amongst the lowest worldwide, it said.

In addition to the gender gap in education, urban-rural differences were significant: 84.8 percent of urban and 68.9 percent of rural males aged 10 and above are literate, compared to only 59.5 percent of urban and 24 percent of rural females, respectively, the National Document to Promote Girls’ Education in Yemen, said in 2005.

UNDP reports that in Yemen, in primary education, females account for just 52.8 percent of the number of males that are enrolled, and in secondary education 35.3 percent of males that are enrolled – making female enrolment rates in Yemen amongst the lowest in the Arab world.

Socio-cultural versus economic factors

“The gender-disparity in Yemen is the worst in the world,” Dr Arwa Yahya Al-Deram, executive director of Soul, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) currently working to promote female enrolment in two of the country’s 19 governorates, told IRIN in Sanaa.

Low female participation in education was attributed to several socio-cultural factors, she said: the tradition of early marriage in rural areas hindered girls’ schooling and resulted in high drop out rates; the high importance of a girl’s chastity in rural areas; the reluctance of many parents to send girls to mixed gender schools; and the negative social attitudes towards girls’ education.

Al-Deram, however, placed more emphasis on the economic factors than on people’s perceptions of education, saying that attitudes were not as bad as people thought. She said available financial resources were a crucial determinant of a parent’s decision on their daughter’s education, as was the local availability of schools.

“We don’t have enough schools just for girls,” she said. “The classes are mixed, and that’s not acceptable in Yemeni culture,” Al-Deram said.

“Non-availability of female teachers is a major factor often cited by parents for keeping girls away from school,” Nasim-ur-Rehman, a UNICEF spokesman in Sanaa said. Even if the schools exist, they often lacked basic amenities like a toilet, he added.

Stalinism anyone? You may only speak praise. This subversion of the judiciary and security forces to negate civil liberties rather clearly demostrates the regime’s will to democratize, reform and clamp down on corruption is a show, a joke and a tragedy.

Sana’a: About 20 Yemenis will be put on trial following recent riots that killed two people and wounded dozens in southern provinces.

“Investigations [of] about 20 people arrested in the riots … in Aden and Mukalla … are [over] and they will be referred to courts very soon,” the Defence Ministry website quoted an unidentified official as saying.

Earlier in the week, the country’s highest security committee said it would put on trial for charges of “major treason” any individual or organisation calling for separation. Some of the demonstrators in the southern cities of Aden and Mukalla used slogans against greater unity between south and north.

“Any political party or group or individual [that] uses slogans against the national unity or calls for splitting the nation will be put on trial for charges of major treason according to constitution and laws in effect,” said a statement issued by supreme security committee.

The committee said it will take all necessary procedures to refer those elements to the prosecution and courts, the statement added.

It called upon all citizens, organisations and political parties to cooperate with the local authorities to stand against elements who work against the unity.

The opposition, however, considered the step as a return to the era of “tyranny and muzzling”.

‘Hating injustice’

“I wonder if slogans against corruption and injustice and plundering the lands and properties and also calling for equal citizenship … are against the unity,” said Aidarous Al Naqeeb, chairman of the parliamentary bloc of the Yemen Socialist Party, which used to rule the south before unity in 1990.

“Those who call for separation are very few and they are put in the demonstrations either by the security or they are a group of naive people. But the government should know the reasons why they use such slogans and it should treat these reasons.”

The socialist official, who is from the south, said the people in the south do not hate unity but they hate injustice.

“All Yemenis, especially the southerners, cheered for the unity … during and after the war of ‘94. So what caused them to be against the unity now, we should know the reasons, because they don’t hate unity but they hate the injustice and corruption and bad conditions,” Al Naqeeb said.

Teachers Demand: Obey the wages law

Yemen Times

Despite the bloody clashes and four deaths caused by the demonstrations in Aden and Muklla last week, sit-ins and protests are still being organized in many governments across Yemen. Demonstrators protest against government corruption and overbearing price hikes, demanding the authority to stop its “policy of starvation” as well as applying reforms

SANA’A, Sept. 5 –– Thousands of protestors in Al-Dale’ governorate, south of Yemen, called on Yemenis around the republic to subvert the existing regime. They announced this during a massive march which took place in Al-Dale’, on Tuesday Sept. 4. They demanded a serious dialogue to redraft the unification terms, ones that would be acceptable for the two parts of Yemen (Read on …)

Stealing the Qat trees, rather Grinch-ish

Yemen Times
SA’ADA, September 5 –– A number of people were killed and injured yesterday, Wednesday Sept 5, during the fighting taking place for three days in Al-Malaheet area located within Al-Dhaher district in Sa’ada governorate.

Fighting is taking place between Al-Malaheet locals and army forces because the army imposed money taxes on Qat farmers who are advocating Al-Houthi. The army forces picked up Qat trees and sold them for their own pocket.

Wednesday’s injuries are a follow up to the Monday causalities when more than four were killed and six injured from the both sides. Army is taking a Health Unit in the area as a shelter, and base for their operations. (Read on …)

This morning military forces stopped crowds who were seting up their sit-in in Liberation Square in Khormaksar City. Since early morning many military check points were erected and prevented all vehicles to go forward toward the square from 6 to 11:30am. Reliable sources from Aden said that more then 30 protesters are arrested in Khormaksar, and no news is available about their current location.

Khaleej Times

MUSCAT — Top border officials in Oman and Yemen began a meeting here on Monday, with the Sultanate’s delegation led by Major-General Salim bin Musallam bin Qatan, Assistant Inspector-General for Police and Customs and the Yemeni team by Major-General Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Qosi, Under-Secretary for Security at the Ministry of Interior.

The talks will last for three days.

Meanwhile, key civil aviation officials of the two neighbouring countries are in talks in Sanaa to discuss increasing flights by their national carriers between their cities. According to a bilateral agreement signed in April 1997, the number of services that their airlines can operate is 14 a week. The Omani team is led by Mohammed bin Sakhr Al Amri, Under-Secretary for Civil Aviation Affairs at the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

Al-Sahwa:

September 3, 2007-Gunmen kidnapped Monday the Yemeni writer and journalist Ahmed Bin Frid .

Meanwhile, a source of Retiree Coordination Council accused the security authorities of snatching Bin Frid because he used to support former retired soldiers in his articles.

On the other hand, members of Political Security apparatus raided the house of the retired general and the head of RCC, Nasser al-Nowba and took him to unknown place.

Moreover, the senior leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party, Ali Monasar was seized in Aden while he was heading to Lahj province to prepare to a meeting between YSP former members .

Sana’a, NewsYemen

The former governor of Sana’a Hamoud Hashim al-Darehi called the government to allocate 5-10 percent of oil revenues for local authority and controlling resources
of local councils and protecting them from corruption.

Giving local councils 5-10 % of oil resources will enable them to develop its performance, he said, pointing that the amount of Yemeni rials 15 billion
the government has allocated for local authority can only operate blocked projects.

The local councils should be given authorities to manage the local affairs and governors and directors of districts should be directly elected, al-Darehi told NewsYemen.

Ahmad Al-Majeedi, the rival of president Saleh in the latest presidential elections, said the government is responsible for collecting resources for local councils and controlling such resources not to go in incorrect direction. He said the government should also supervise the decisions of the local authority and to correct mistakes.

The government has recently approved YR15 billion as a support for local councils and establishing independent accountancy units in all governorates to manage the accounts of local councils.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Local Administration intends to organize debates in Aden, Hadramout and Hodeidah to get views and notes of local councils about a draft strategy to develop decentralization to be discussed in a workshop in the capital Sana’a before being completely approved at a conference on local authority experience to be held in Sana’a by the end of September.

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Security forces are noticed clearly deployed in the capital Sana’a after the three teachers’ syndicates have decided to organize a protest rally at al-Tahreer Square instead of Al-Horiya Area outside of the cabinet building.

Security sources told NewsYemen the security forces are on alert to prevent any riots. It said the security apparatuses have agreed with the syndicates to make a peaceful protest at al-Tahreer Square.

Sources in the teachers syndicates said they would continue peaceful protests to demand their legal rights.
The syndicates have called all teachers and workers in educational field in Sana’a and Amran to commit to “civilian ways of defending rights” and to be careless about any warnings or threats may be practiced against them by school administrations or officials.

They have called journalists belong to different media outlets to cover the event and to advocate law, rights and freedoms.

Faisel Abu Rais is the GPC Member of Parliament who resigned in 2006, I think it was, protesting corruption. Now he’s the Ambassador to Lebanon:

almotamar.net – Ali Hamid Sharaf and Mansour Ahmed Saif have on Wednesday taken constitutional oath before President Ali Abdullah Saleh on the occasion of their appointment members of the Shoura Council.

Taking constitutional oath also before the president on Wednesday on their appointment as ambassadors were Faisal Amin Abu Ras, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Yemen to Lebanon, Dr Ali Mansour Bin Saffaa, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Bahrain, Dr Khalid Rajih Sheikh, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Kuwait, and Abdulrahman Khamis Ubaid, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the sultanate of Oman. (Read on …)

IFEX, such a good organization

MIDDLE EAST

2. YEMEN: PRESS FREEDOM THREATENED IN NAME OF WAR ON TERROR

A Yemeni journalist kidnapped and assaulted by suspected government
security forces is the latest casualty of the government’s fight against
terrorism amid claims of protecting “national security”, report the Arabic
Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo), ARTICLE 19, the Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ), the International Federation for Human Rights
(FIDH) and other rights groups.

Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, editor of the online newspaper “Al-Shoura”, was
abducted on 27 August in Sana’a by six gunmen wearing civilian clothing and
taken to a remote area 15 kilometres outside of the city.

In a press conference two days later, al-Khaiwani described how he was
blindfolded and badly beaten by those whom he called “national security
apparatus officers”, and then abandoned without his mobile phone,
identification or money. He was eventually able to get a lift to a hospital
where he was treated.

During his abduction, al-Khaiwani was told that if he continues writing
against his “masters”, he and his family will be killed. The abductors
specifically mentioned an article he wrote for “al-Needa’a” newspaper, in
which he described violations against prisoners and the conditions in the
country’s jails.

As an outspoken critic of the government, al-Khaiwani has been imprisoned a
number of times and has had his website blocked and family threatened.

In June, his house was raided and he was arrested for his alleged ties with
a “terrorist cell” fighting government forces in Sa’ada, northwest Yemen.
Recently al-Khaiwani was released for health reasons, but the state is
appealing that decision, and he still faces charges in front of the State
Security Court. If found guilty, al-Khaiwani could face the death penalty.

Al-Khaiwani’s case is one of a recent series of condemnation and trials
that appear to form part of an orchestrated clampdown on freedom of
expression and opinion, under the government’s guise of protecting
“national security”, FIDH says.

In July, a group of armed men driving military vehicles attacked the small,
independent weekly “Al-Sharaa” in the capital, threatening to kill the
editor and searching the offices, reports CPJ. Journalists at the paper
suspected it was connected to terrorism charges launched by the Yemeni
Ministry of Defence earlier in the month against the newspaper, which
called for its closure and the death penalty for three of its journalists.
The paper was accused of interfering with national security for its reports
on alleged links between the government and tribal gunmen in Sa’ada.
Fighting in the region has already displaced approximately 100,000
civilians.

The case has been referred to the State Security Court rather than the
designated Court of Publications, the first case against a newspaper in
front of the counter-terrorism court “where the rights of defendants are
not properly ensured,” FIDH argues.

Also in July, FIDH reports that journalists who were documenting and
reporting a sit-in in central Sana’a demanding respect for freedom
expression were severely beaten by government authorities, who also broke
and stole much of their equipment.

FIDH is urging the Yemeni authorities to release all journalists that are
being held in the name of terrorism.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the government to withdraw its proposals to introduce a
new law which would make it a serious crime to incite others to demonstrate
against the government. Earlier this year, ARTICLE 19 and the Yemeni group
Media Women Forum (MWF) create the Media Law Working Group to discuss ways
to reform Yemen’s laws that affect the media.

Since 2005, CPJ has identified at least six Yemeni journalists who have
been the targets of assaults that were believed to be politically
motivated. In all but one instance the perpetrators have not been
identified by the authorities.

Visit these links:
- ARTICLE 19: http://tinyurl.com/39mme8
- CPJ: http://tinyurl.com/2o3xc5
- HRinfo Yemen alerts: http://www.hrinfo.net/ifex/alerts/yemen/
- FIDH: http://www.fidh.org/article.php3?id_article=4521
- International Federation of Journalists: http://tinyurl.com/34apw4
- Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières):

http://tinyurl.com/2v4hqu

- MWF: http://www.yfmf.org/english/
- “Yemen Observer”: http://www.yobserver.com/front-page/10012648.html

News Yemen

SANA’A, NewsYemen

An American delegation from the US Center for Civic Education in California is expected to arrive in Yemen Thursday for talks with officials in the Ministry of Education and lead academicians in Sana’a and Taiz on reasons of blocking a project of civic education in some schools of Taiz.

An informed source in the Yemeni Women Forum for Studies and Training said that the program of civic education in some schools of Taiz was suspended by Minister of Education Abdul-Salam al-Jawfi who was angry with the first festival of civic education in Taiz last May 21 after some female students shouted against price hikes.

The minister warned to suspend the program of civil education after what he said “wrong mobilization of students” which contains “the project of citizenship and the project of democracy fundamentals” after students criticized the price hikes in the country, said the source.

After the festival the ministry has cancelled the students’ participation in citizenship projects in the United States, the TOT programs, training courses for male and female teachers, closed the Civic Education Department in the Education Office in Taiz and suspended also any social activity of students they used to practice under the civic education programs.

The US Center for Civic Education is specialized in civic and citizenship education, law-related education, and international educational exchange programs for developing democracies.

And everybody everywhere is still pissed off about Al-Khaiwani:

Al-DAlEI, NewsYemen

Raising the flag of former Yemeni Democratic Republic in southern Yemen, protesters in a new protest in al-Shaeeb area of al-Dalei shouted slogans against “the government of crises” and denounced the arrest of pensioners in Aden and Hadramout and the journalist Abdul-Karim al-Khiwani, affirming requests should be met.

We strongly condemn shooting at unarmed protesters and assaulting them in Aden and Mukalla last Saturday as they were peacefully demonstrating their legal rights, said the Yemeni Socialist Party’s secretary and member of local council in al-Dalei Qasem Saleh.

We can see now that Hadramout and Aden, the cities of civilization and history has become full of military camps and checking points and completely blocked, said Saleh.

Head of Youth Without Jobs Society Ali Abdul-Rab supported the rally and said in his speech that the government has “double standards” and confirmed that the requests of retired soldiers and civilians are legal. He encouraged the protests that he said could refuse “wrong policies based upon confiscating the personal rights and properties, increasing hunger, oppressing people and damaging the country’s resources.”
The protesters warned the government to release detainees and to stop the policy of domination and its attempts to make rights advocates voiceless, according to the statement of the rally in al-Shaeeb.

The movement of change is going ahead everywhere in the country and it is now disintegrating the strongholds of corrupts who will meet the requests by hook or by crook, said the statement.

Governors, not that the people can elect them.

Al-Motamar

Almotamar.net – A presidential decree issued Wednesday stipulated the appointment of the following personalities as governors of some Yemeni governorates;

Sadiq Amin Abu Ras governor of Taiz, Ahmed Abdullah al-Hajri governor of Hudeidah, Farid Ahmed Mujawar governor of Hajah, Mohammed Abdullah al-Harazi governor of Al-Mahara, Ali Mohammed al-Maqdashi governor of Sana’a, Faisal Yahya al-Qawsi governor of Al-Jawf, Mohammed Ahmed al-Ansi governor of Al-Dhalie and Mohammed Ali al-Rowaishan governor of Shabwa.

A second presidential decree issued on the same day on appointing the following personalities as deputy governors:
Mohammed Hussein al-Dahbali deputy governor of Abyan, Saleh Ahmed Saleh al-Shaeri deputy governor of Taiz, Hussein Mohammed Qahtan Diyan deputy governor of Al-Baidhaa, Yahya Abdullah al-Shaef deputy governor of Thamar Akram Mohammed

Shura Council

Almotamar.net – A presidential decree issued on Wednesday stipulated the appointment of the following personalities as members of the Shoura Council:

Abdeh Ai Qubati, Ali Hamid Sharaf, Khalid Abdullah al-Rowaishan, Abdulwahid al-Bakhiti, Abdulwahid al-Rabeeie, Mansour Ahmed Saif, Naji Ali al-Dhalimi, Salem Abdullah Naimar and Mohammed Hussein Ashaaal.

Yemen to take part in annual non-alliance meeting in Tehran

[02 September 2007]
SANA’A, (Saba)- Yemen is to take part in the annual meeting of the Non-Alliance Movement which will be held in the Iranian capital, Tehran, of from 3 to 4 September.

First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohi-al-Deen al-Dhani, head
of the Yemeni delegation to the meeting, stated to Saba, upon departure, that the
meeting would discuss issues associated with human rights, culture,
women empowerment and expatriates.

He added that Yemen would present a paper on local achievements in
human rights and democracy as well as women empowerment.

Yemen Times

SANA’A, Sept. 2 — Thousands of military and civil retirees poured into the streets of different southern and eastern governorates on Saturday in angry protests, imploring the government to listen to their demands and not to ignore their problems. The fiercest of them was staged in the city of Mukalla in Hadramout in which bloody clashes took place between policemen and protestors.

The security forces attempted to disperse the crowds by force and in fact arrested many of them. It has been learned that at least two people were killed and tens of protestors, along with policemen were injured in the clashes that drove rioters to damage cars and destroy trade stores.

The clashes broke out at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday following a peaceful demonstration that was organized by the Political and Public Function Coordination Committee and Military and Civil Retirees Coordination Council in Hadramout, as well as other social forums.

Furthermore, on the same day, Aden city experienced heavy deployment of security personnel in most of the city’s intersections after clashes between protestors and policemen broke out in the Sheikh Othman and Khor Maksar neighborhoods. During the clashes, 3 protestors were killed and 400 others injured. Most of those arrested, however, were released on the same day. Also, security forces prevented the crowd from holding a sit-in in Aden and vehemently dispersed those who started to gather with sticks and rubber bullets. (Read on …)

Chanting slogans is illegal, just like the Houthis

Soon the regime will be calling the pensioners “terrorists”

Whoever promotes slogans against unity faces trial
Tuesday, 04-September-2007
almotamar.net – The Higher Security Committee (HSC) on Tuesday affirmed that any practice harms the national unity to threaten unity of the national rank, whether issued by a party, organisation or a group or an individual will be faced with resolution and perpetrators would be sent to court on charge of high treason pursuant to the constitution and the law.

A statement issued by the security committee mentioned that the HSC considered some practices violating the constitution and the law and noticed that some elements that are rancorous to the revolution and the republic and unity repeating in demonstrations and sit-ins of slogans against the national unity and practices threatening the unity of the national rank.

The statement added that out of its constitutional, legal and national responsibility the HSC appeals to the citizens and all political parties and organisations to cooperate with local and security authorities all over the republic of Yemen governorates and to stand with all resolution against those elements that raise or chant slogans against the national unity or impinge upon the Yemeni republic and national constants.

The committee affirmed that those acts constitute a crime punishable by the law and thus committing them would be sent to the general prosecution and to court.

well thats a tidy little summary

NATIONAL SECURITY

Armed Forces Overview: The armed forces of the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen were officially merged in May 1990, but in May 1994 civil war broke out between the forces of the two former states, culminating in victory for the North. In October 1994, President Salih announced plans for the modernization of the armed forces, which would include the banning of party affiliation in the security services and armed forces, and in March 1995 the full merger of the armed forces was completed. The number of military personnel in Yemen is relatively high; in sum, Yemen has the second largest military force on the Arabian Peninsula after Saudi Arabia. Yemen’s military consists of an army, navy, air force, and reserves. In 2004–5 total active troops were estimated as follows: army, 60,000; navy, 1,700; air force, 40,000; and reserves, 40,000. Despite these troop levels, Yemen’s military equipment is considered to be light, outdated, and poorly maintained, particularly when compared with neighboring Gulf states. (Read on …)

Yemen Times

Squid catches have declined by 60 percent

Al-Mahra, Sept. 1 — Squid catches have dropped by 60% in Al-Mahra in the current fishing season alone. According to sources, this may be due to the random shoveling works performed by industrial fishing ships in areas specified for traditional fishing. Nashtoon Association for Squid Production has marked that it stands at 340 tons for the period from July,13 to Augus,27- an incredible decline from the intake during last years period. Subsequently, the government has taken action to prevent the exposure of these valuable fishing areas to shoveling with the passing of the 2006 Law No.2.