Armies of Liberation

Almotamar.net – The number of organisations applied for observing g the process of revising and amending voter tables 2008 in Yemen rose to 22 local civil organisations and the number of observers reached at 19 thousand.

Head of the sector of civil society organisations at the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) Mohammed al-Saqaf Balghaith confirmed to almotmar.net that the local civil organisations asked to take part in observing the process of revising and correcting voter tables reached 22 until the beginning of this week and offering 19 thousand observers.

The member of the SCER also told almotamar.net about preparedness of the SCER to dispense the documents of observers during the current week.

The director general of international Observation at the sector of Foreign Relations at the SCER Ahmed Saeed had clarified earlier that they received requests for supervision and observation in the upcoming elections for 19 international observers.

Cabinet approves adding over YR660 bln to 2008 state budget
Tuesday, 21-October-2008
Almotamar.net,Saba – In its weekly meeting, Cabinet approved on Tuesday a draft law proposed by Finance Ministry on opening an additional appropriation of the state general budget for the current financial year 2008 amounting to YR 660,448,032,000.

The meeting chaired by Prime Minister Ali Mujawar submitted the draft to the Parliament for discussion and approval.

Parliament has postponed discussions of additional credit draft law for the 2008 budget mounting to YR 660 billion after several MPs demanded the government to promptly decide the volume of money required for reconstructing the flood-affected areas in Hadramout and Al-Mahrah to be inset within the additional credit.

They also considered several government officials to be responsible for the immense extent of losses especially when the disaster was forecasted a week ago by media outlets; however, they gave no attention to such warnings.

MP Abdu Bishr threatened to reject the project of the additional credit unless relief costs are included within it, hinting that disasters and floods have become a season for officials to ask for aid from abroad.

Other MPs demanded a transparency as for the way through which aids are distributed so that these aid can reach all the affected people. Some MPs also asked for postponing the parliament sessions until the government officials are summoned to respond to the inquiries of MPs in matters relating to relief and reconstruction processes.

For his part, Head of Freedoms Committee at parliament Mohammed Naji Al-Shaif demanded summoning the officials at the General Authority for Civil Aviation and Metrology (GACAM) to investigate them into the reasons that prevented them from forecasting the disaster.

He also asked MPs and members of Shoura Council to donate one-month salary for the sake of the flood-affected people, together with removing the GACAM officials from their posts.

(Read on …)

Most of the arms dealers were released after signing a pledge

Almotamar.net – Interior Minister General Mutahar Rashad al-Misri revealed that security authorities on Tuesday seized 3 million and 700 thousand intoxicating pills and managed during the first half of this year 18 tons of drugs, saying it was a quantity enough to destroy the entire youth of the Arab homeland.

Minister al-Misri also said the security authorities also managed to capture the terrorist cell that was sending threatening messages to some embassies in Yemen. In addition, security authorities were able to carry out the campaign of prohibiting weapons and the closure of 230 shops for selling arms and munitions. They detained 270 arms dealers in a number of governorates.

News Yemen

SANA’A, NewsYemen

Deputy Interior Minister and head of the National Committee for Refugees Ali Mothana Hassan said Yemen is ready to give a refuge to only people who escape wars.

Official almotamar.net quoted Mothana as saying that Yemen is committed to international resolutions approve refugee status only for people who escape war-torn countries, like Somalia, so it directly gives asylum to Somalis.

Mothana said other nationals who come to Yemen due to bad economic situations in their countries or for other reasons could be considered migrants but not refugees.

The source said Mothana’s statement came in response to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) call on Yemeni government to clarify a orders by Interior Minister Mutahar al-Masri to security forces to deny the entry of Ethiopians and Eritreans to the country.

Yemen Observer: Yemeni security forces have closed the boarder crossings under the direction of Rashad Al-Masri, Minister of Interior in the face of the growing number of refugees the Yemeni coast has recently witnessed from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

Al-Masri ordered the military units in the areas hardest hit by the influx to block refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea, renewing his call for the international community to stand up to their commitments and support Yemen in receiving and hosting these refugees from the Horn of Africa.

Al-Masri expressed concern over the increasing number of the African Horn refugees which has increased to 200 – 300 a day, since last September. The ministry’s information center quotes al-Masri as saying that the ministry is extremely concerned over the influx which is not only restricted to Somalia, stating that there about 140 refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea who recently landed at Dhibab and Ras al-A’ra in bab-Mindab.

The ministry of Interior’s statistics revealed that the Yemeni coast received 2214 Somali refugees during the period from the first to mid October.

The interior ministry is worried over the social, economic, cultural and security challenges that Yemen is now facing due to the continuing African refugee influx.

The Sana’a UNHCR’s reports states that the smuggling process has resulted in hundreds and possibly a thousand deaths due to the unsafe human piracy practiced in the Red sea.

Ambassador Al-Aishi asked the international community and the refugee agreement parties to undertake their responsibilities pertaining to this humanitarian situation. He called on the international community and particularly relevant neighboring states to share Yemen’s burden and accept some of the refugees and asked for NGOs to cooperate with the UNCHR commissioner to take new measures to prevent any country or countries from becoming a permanent haven for refugees as is now the case in Yemen.

Al-Sahwa:

The UNHCR said the Yemeni Interior Ministry has announced that Ethiopians and Eritreans would be denied entry to the country, which still grants immediate refugee status to Somalis fleeing their war-torn homeland.

“While recognising the generosity already shown by Yemen to refugees and asylum seekers, we are seeking clarification from the government on any changes in policy,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva.

The agency also said that some 87 Ethiopians were known to have been detained in Yemen over the past two weeks, while Yemeni authorities removed a further 25 Ethiopians from a vehicle transporting them to the UNHCR reception centre of Ahwar on Monday.

“We don’t know where they are but fear they were arrested and are being detained somewhere,” UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen Stort told Reuters.

The UNHCR urged Yemen, a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention, to maintain access to asylum procedures for all those in need of international protection.

The poor Arab country is struggling to cope with an growing number of asylum seekers smuggled from the Horn of Africa in risk-filled voyages across the Gulf of Aden.

A total of 37,333 people have arrived in Yemen so far this year on smugglers’ boats, and 616 died or were reported missing, according to the UNHCR. The current total is already more than 50 percent higher than in 2007, when 23,000 made it to Yemen.

Yemen Times

SANA’A, Oct. 12 – In a statement released last Wednesday, Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) vowed not to deal with the Supreme Commission for Election and Referendum (SCER), which is currently preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections due to take place in April 2009.

Leaders of the opposition coalition described the commission as “lacking legitimacy and being coercively imposed on political life in Yemen”.

The statement reads, “Since an early time, JMP has been working for the sake of carrying out a comprehensive political reform and this includes reforming the current election system in the country,” adding, “JMP has been exerting hard efforts to suggest workable solutions through discussions and dialogue with the authority and the ruling party with the aim of conducting free and fair elections in Yemen.” (Read on …)

Yemen Times

Indefinite adjournment of sentence of Elbaneh gang case

The Appeals Penal Court, specialized in terror cases, has adjourned the hearing in which it will deliver its ruling on the case of 36 al-Qaeda suspects including Jaber A. Elbaneh, one of the most wanted criminals by the US.

The newsyemen.net reported that the adjournment of sentence is indefinite and came because the court head is traveling abroad.

The suspects are charged with forming an armed gang to carry out criminal acts including the attacks on oil facilities in Marib and Hadramout provinces in September, 2006. (Read on …)

The drop in oil prices will undermine the government budget and the system of payola. Yemen Post

Economy professor Abdullah Al-A’dhi told the Yemen Post that the current financial crisis across the world, especially in America, will directly affect the Yemeni economy which is directly tied to the U.S. Dollar.

Al-A’dhi continued that the disengagement from the U.S. Dollar could reduce the direct effects on the country’s economy as the value of dollar is falling before European currencies, particularly the Euro, stressing that we should diversify our basket of currency.

“Yemen will get directly affected by the fall of the U.S. dollar because the country’s exports, mostly oil, are sold in this currency. Any forced devaluation of the U.S. Dollar will devalue the exports,” said Al-A’dhi. (Read on …)

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The French petroleum company Total has signed an agreement with the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) to farm into onshore exploration Block 70 (Attaq Area, Shabwa Province) in Yemen with an interest of 30.875 percent, a company statement said. This agreement has been approved by the Yemeni Ministry of Oil and Minerals.
Block 70, which covers an area of 1,367 square kilometers, is located in the south-eastern part of Central Yemen’s Marib Basin.
Already Yemen’s leading foreign investor, with this acquisition Total will increase its portfolio of exploration acreage in the country, beyond its recently acquired interests in Blocks 69 and 71, and will bring its technical expertise to the Block 70 consortium the statement said.
Present in Yemen for more than 20 years, Total is the operator of Block 10, East Shabwa and holds several other participations in oil exploration and production blocks, the statement said.

from Gary Swenchonis Sr., father of Gary Swenchonis Jr., killed in the terror attack on the USS Cole, October 12, 2000

October 10, 2008
President Saleh,

It’s that time of year again; yet another anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole in Port Aden, Yemen on October 12th, 2000. In that attack, our son and sixteen of his mates were brutally murdered, and 39 other sailors were wounded.

Since the last time I wrote you a year ago, many changes, some positive and some not, have occurred in relation to the attack on the Cole and the status of your corrupt regime. First and foremost, we wrote our Texas representative and members of Congress asking for a Congressional Hearing into why our government still supports your dictatorship after you gave the plotters and planners of the Cole attack reduced sentences and pardons for the murders of 17 American Sailors. The rest of the convicted killers conveniently escaped from your prisons. And some remain free to this day, eight years after the attack.

Our Senators have kept us informed as to our requests. We received word recently from them that next year Congress will hold Judiciary Committee hearings. We are extremely grateful to the politicians who have decided that its way past the time to review and hopefully take action against you and your regime. And to put an end to all your worthless and broken promises that you made to two American presidents and our government.

It can now be stated as fact, President Saleh, that FBI Agent John O’Neil and his team were correct in their suspicion that you and your government knew much more about the pending attack on the Cole than you admitted after the attack. Unfortunately, Ambassador Bodine and President Clinton refused to let the FBI follow up on their leads and question members of your government and family after the attack. Instead FBI agent O’Neil was kicked out of your country for wanting to conduct a proper investigation. How ironic that he would be killed in the 9/11 attack less than one year later; an attack that-if Presidents Clinton and Bush had heeded his requests-would not have happened in all probability. (Read on …)

In a most bizarre twist, Haaretz claims former Yemeni president al-Iryiani was Jewish, and the Yemeni media counters that the article was planted by the Mossad as revenge for its collusion with Islamic jihad being uncovered by President Saleh.

Haaretz
n advance of the period of the Jewish holidays, Dorit Mizrahi, a journalist at the ultra-Orthodox weekly Mishpaha, was asked to come up with a creative idea for an article. She decided that the time had come to write about her relative, Zekharia Hadad, the brother of Grandma Levana (“Kamar,” in Yemenite), who was kidnapped as a young boy, forced to convert to Islam, and given the name Abdul Rahman Yahya al-Iryani before being appointed the president of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen), in 1967….The new rebels deposed Sallal and in November 1967, Iryani was elected the second present of the Yemen Arab Republic.

During his term, the civil war came to an end. The Egyptian army left Yemen and the new president tried to mend the rifts and heal the scars of war. His term lasted for six and a half years, during which he participated in Arab summit conferences (in photographs, he is seen beside his colleagues among the Arab leaders). In June 1974, another military coup took place in Yemen. Iryani was deposed and found refuge in Syria, where he died in 1998 at the age of 88. His body was flown to Yemen, where he was buried.

Yemen Online notes the rumor started in 1967.

The Americans planted the drugs on the boat, they say.

13 Iranians stand trial on charges of smuggling drugs
Sunday, 12-October-2008
Almotamar.net – Yemen Specialised Criminal Court has on Sunday begun its first sittings for the trial of thirteen Iranian defendants on charge of bringing in and promoting drugs as well s entering the Yemeni regional waters in an illegal way.

In the sitting chaired by Judge Muhsin Alwan the prosecution accused the defendants of bringing drugs from Iran to Yemen via the Iranian port of kanar on board of a boat and entering the Yemeni regional waters illegally.

The attorney added that 20kg of hashish were caught in possession of the defendants. The prosecution related causes of the accusation and a list of evidence containing confessions of the defendants of being arrested by American forces and in their possession the narcotics on board of the launch they were boarding and then they were handed over to Yemeni forces and that they had no permission for entering the Yemeni regional waters an had signed the minutes of their capture, but they accused the Americans of putting drugs in the boat though they do not possess the evidence that the Americans were the ones that put the drugs on the boat. That cohesion was made by most of the defendants whereas some confessed of possessing o drugs.

The court decided postponement of the trial to next Sunday to enable the prosecution present evidence and address the lawyers union to retain lawyers to defend the defendants.

American international forces had caught the boat al-Hussein in the regional waters and on its board 13 Iranians and 3 tons of hashish which was destroyed by the international forces there and kept a sample of 20 kg in addition to capturing 22 empty sacks which were hashish package. The captured things were also 3 Thoraya telephone sets, a wireless set a set for spotting locations and a sum of 830 Iranian riyals and 10200 Pakistani rupees.

Penal court tries Iranians on charges of drugs trafficking

[12 October 2008]
SANA’A, Oct. 12 (Saba)- The specialized primary penal court started on Sunday trying a new group of thirteen Iranians accused of bringing drugs from Iran to Yemeni regional waters.

In the first session presided over by Judge Mohsen Alwan, the court conducted judicial investigations with accused for knowing their identities, their business and their personalities as well as it heard the accusation decision made by the prosecution against them.

The decision clarified that the accused brought last March 3100 pound of drugs of Hashish kind from Iran port of Kiran into Yemeni regional waters.

The prosecution showed the court that the international forces that arrested the boat, carrying Iranian banner and 13 Iranians on board, in the Indian Ocean had spoiled the quantities of Hashish and kept 20 kilos, then handed them over to Yemeni authorities with other plastic sacks.

The court then presented the case directed by the prosecution against the accused who denied knowledge of the drugs seized in their boat. They accused the American forces who arrested them of banding their eyes and laying down the drugs in their boat after they unloaded the fish they hunted into the sea.

The court asked the prosecution to provide the evidences for discussing them during the session to come and directed memo to Lawyers Syndicate for authorizing advocate for defending the accused Iranian.

Sahwa Net – The official spokesman of Military Retirees Association Abdul al-Matari has said that MRA would stand by the Joint Meeting Parties if it boycotted the up-coming parliamentary elections.

“We would stand by JMP if it boycotted the up-coming elections as we don’t pay attention to elections and only focus on the southern issue” he told Sahwa Net.

“If the southern issue was recognized, then we could talk about other issues such as elections” added he.

Yemen Observer:

However mature and well-educated they may be, women in Yemen still do not enjoy equality status with men. This is largely due to social traditions that still regard women as minors needing help and support, said a paper on women and tribal traditions in Yemen.

Women’s roles largely remain confined to giving birth, raising children and caring for the home and family, said the paper which was presented by researcher Dr. Afaf Al Haimi in a symposium held in Sana’a this week on the political role of tribes in Yemen, Jordan and Iraq.

“Education for women is not regarded as essential, especially in rural areas where women generally work about 16 hours per day on farms, in houses and gathering water,” said Al Haimi.

The rate of illiteracy among women in rural areas is as high as 75.7 percent and 40.5 percent in the urban areas, she said.

The gap between male and female education is 76 girls for every 100 boys, but in the high classes the number of girl’s decreases. At this level, there are only 44 female students for every 100 male students, she said.

The researcher also noted that there is a high drop out rate for girls at nearly every level of education. Girls generally drop out of schools because of early marriage, and because the prevailing culture does not stress female education. Also, housework, especially in rural areas and family traditions, often prevent women from leaving the home, the researcher said.

In government institutions, the researcher said, the number of female employees is around 90,464 compared to 440,061 men.

The researcher also criticized Yemen’s educational curriculum, saying it discriminates against women by focusing solely on what are typically regarded as male virtues- heroism and success, and it stresses the power of men.

She said the country’s political parties do nothing to help women. These parties are strongly affected by the country’s tribal culture which looks at women as inferior, the researcher concluded.

Journalists denied access to trial of national spies

SANA’A, Oct 11 (Saba) – In a hearing to which journalists and businessmen were denied access, the Specialized Penal Court started on Saturday the trial of three nationals convicted of spying for foreign countries.

The state-run 26sep.net reported the three were identified as Abdul Karim Ali Abdul Karim al-Alaji, 33, Hani Ahmed Deen Muhammad, 31, Skandar Abdullah Yousuf Abdu, 57.

They were arrested in Aden and referred to the judicial authorities under convictions of spying for foreign states through disclosing information on the national defense systems and documents containing information on the country’s political, economic and security conditions.

The authorities claim the men acts harmed Yemen’s position.

Now the trial has been adjourned for next Saturday.

In February, the court sentenced two locals to death after they were found guilty of spying for an Arab state.

Hamad Ali Al-Dhahouk and Abdulaziz Al-Hatbani were convicted of spying for Egypt by supplying information to Egyptian diplomats in Sana’a.

The information Dhahouk gave to the Egyptian embassy was that was that the Yemeni government knew about a terror plot targeting tourists in Egypt. He was charged with revealing state secrets. Its a bizarre case. Two guys go to the Egyptian embassy with information on a terror plot orchestrated by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia with the knowledge of Yemeni authorities and ask for money. Egypt tells Yemen’s National Security. The guys, one of whom is a Yemeni military officer get sentenced to death for harming relations with a brotherly country. More at Calcutta News.Net, the AFP and at the YT

(CNN) — One hundred people are missing in the Gulf of Aden after smugglers forced them overboard off the coast of Yemen, a U.N. spokesman said Friday.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Yemen is taking care of 47 survivors, the spokesman said.

The U.N. offered no additional details on the type of vessel or its route.

Meanwhile, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond told The Associated Press in Geneva that about 32,000 people have arrived in Yemen on boats since the start of the year.

Many of them are fleeing violence and hardship in Somalia and other countries in the Horn of Africa, he said.

UNHCR estimates at least 230 people have died and 365 remain missing, including 100 from the latest incident

FT: Soco International on Monday announced the sale of its operation in Yemen to Sinochem, China’s state-run oil trader, $465m…..

The Yemen assets sold by Soco to the Chinese group comprise a 16.8 per cent stake in the East Shabwa area. The licence is operated by Total. Net proven reserves attributable to Soco’s stake are put at 18.7m barrels with a working interest of over 6,300 b/d. In 2006 the asset generated pre-tax profit of $55m on turnover of $76m.

One ship captured, another released- the Iranian ship suspected of transaporting CW. (Saleh is worried about the internationalization of the waters off Yemen and is scrambling for an Arab initiative.) :

BOSASSO, Somalia, Oct 10 (Reuters) – Pirates in the commercially strategic waters between Somalia and Yemen hijacked one ship and released another on Friday, a government official and a shipping line said.

The panama-flagged Wail, carrying cement, was the latest in a long list of ships that have been boarded by pirates in recent months. Several have been released on payment of a ransom and one luxury yacht was liberated by French commandos.

“A Panama-flagged ship, Wail, was hijacked on Thursday night between Socotra Island and Bosasso,” said Ali Abdi Aware, state minister for northern Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.

He told Reuters the crew of 11 consisted of nine Syrians and two Somalis.

Also on Friday pirates freed an Iranian bulk carrier and its 29 crew after seven weeks of negotiations, Iran’s official IRNA news agency said, quoting the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRSL). (Read on …)

Bizarro world, does anyone anywhere believe this? (Besides the leftards I mean.)

SANA’A, Oct 09 (Saba) – Investigations continue with the members of a terrorist cell recently held and that as the police say affiliated with the Islamic Jihad Group and has ties with Israeli intelligence systems.

Initial investigations confirmed that the Israeli intelligence system provided support to the cell to carry out terrorist acts in the country.

Detailed information on the dismantled cell would be announced as investigations are completed.

The security forces announced two days ago they had seized a six-member terror cell backed by Israel and led by Emad Ali Said al-Rowni” Abul Ghaith” and that threatened to target foreign targets in the country including British, Saudi and Emirates embassies.

A security source noted that during the raid on the cell hide-out, the security forces found some of its equipments among them a laptop with which the security forces found out the deputy head of the cell Basam Abdullah Fadhl al-Haidari was corresponding with an Israeli intelligence authority asking support to carry out terrorist attacks in Yemen.

The source added the case would be referred to prosecution once investigations with the cell members are completed.

On the other hand, a judicial source revealed that almost 60 al-Qaeda suspects would be sent to the Specialized Penal Court before they stand trial on terrorism-related charges.

Yemen has recently rounded up al-Qaeda suspects across the republic amid increasing al-Qaeda claimed attacks on foreign and local targets.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for all the recent attacks in Yemen, the latest was a double car bomb attack on the US embassy which killed at list 16.

Those 31 downed jihaddi websites are creating a bit of inconvenience all over. But this is rather extra odd. The Islamic Jihad statement (Mossad at work????) went straight to the National Security, so is the NSO involved in the Zionist conspiracy??? Oh yes, al-Ansi is a Zionist! Now it all makes sense.

Yemen Times:

Yemeni journalistic colleague says that he investigated a statement in which Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a on September 17. Having worked harder and harder, the journalist couldn’t find out any militia website that may be attributed to Al-Qaeda Organization.

I suspect that it is the website of the Islamic Emirate of Falluja in Iraq since it is the only website that displayed Al-Qaeda tape on the 7th Anniversary of September 11 Terrorist Attack on the U.S. Consequently, our colleague may be able to find less important data from the website, and he therefore said, “I couldn’t find the website.”

Another colleague says , “The statement seems to have been delivered to the Imposed News Agency in Sana’a (implying Yemen News Agency, Saba) from the Office of Col. Dirham, friend of correspondents and reporters in the National Security. Nothing from the Al-Qaeda or any militant organization was delivered to the news agency. (Read on …)

SANA’A,
NewsYemen

Yemeni Ministry of Information reportedly closed 21 private FM radio stations in Hadramout October 1st and confiscated equipments and said they are not licensed by the ministry to work.

The Women Journalists Without Chains has condemned the closure and expressed solidarity with stations that it said were working according to constitution. The ministry restricts right of Yemeni people to get information, said the organization.

Head of the Information Ministry’s office in Hadramout, Ibrahim al-Junaid, said the closure came out of fears that such stations might broadcast ideas that encourage violence and terror. “Every group want to have radio stations…this violates constitution and law as such stations are unlicensed”, said al-Junaid.