Armies of Liberation

Update 8/11 SABA: Around 9,065 suspected dengue fever cases were registered in several provinces in the country, according to a report discussed on Tuesday by the cabinet.The report of the health minister confirmed 1,798 affected cases with the fever, recommending to continue the routine check up on mosquito that transmits the diseases.

Original Post: The Health Ministry routinely ignores or denies outbreaks of disease, too busy stealing donated medicine for sale in private pharmacies, I guess. Al Sahwa

Sahwa Net- Saudi doctors told Sahwa Net the measured followed up in Yemen to combat Dengue Fever are unproductive and merely a waste of money. They said awareness campaigns should be intensified about mosquito breeding grounds and nessessary procedures to early diagnoses of Dengue Fever must be taken. A Yemeni official medical report has revealed on Monday the increase of Dengue Fever inflicted cases in Shabwa governorate, pointing out that the cases discovered mounted to 131 and that more that there are more than 1100 suspected cases of Dengue fever. (Read on …)

Ah yes there are advantages to being in business with the president, despite being on the list of violators of UN sanctions on Somalia. al Sahwa

Sahwa Net- Yemeni authorities released on Tuesday night Sheikh Faris Mana’a, a weapon dealer who was arrested on January by Yemeni authorities, sheiks from Saada governorate told Marib Press.

They said that the release of Mana’a was astonishing; pointing out that he was welcomed by masses of Saada sheiks and citizens. (Read on …)

Huge losses to the Yemeni treasury, I wonder who got the graft? In 2006 the South Korean delegation came home crowing about the excellent deal with Yemen. After recently threatening to renegotiate the contracts, Yemen now says it will stand by them. This is a very interesting article, one of the contracts has a floor and ceiling price.

Businessweek

une 18 (Bloomberg) — Yemen LNG Co. will honor its liquefied natural gas contracts with buyers including Total SA, GDF Suez SA and Korea Gas Corp., an official said, after the Middle Eastern state proposed to review them. (Read on …)

In this statement, Al Qaeda also denied issuing the prior statement that claimed responsibility for Sheik al Shabwani’s death. So then who issued that statement, the government? Holy Moley Batman, could someone be issuing false statements on behalf of al-Qa’ida? Gee, then there was the other false statement on behalf of the Awlaki tribe threatening the US…

For more see the Yemen Post and the following from M&C

Cairo/Sana’a, Yemen – The al-Qaeda network on Friday urged tribal leaders in Yemen not to turn over its fighters – also known as the ‘mujahidin’ – to the government, according to a statement published on Islamist websites.

The statement accused the government of killing ‘the innocent people as well as children and women, under the pretext that some members of these tribes are wanted,’ referring to the death of the deputy governor of Yemen’s Marib province last month. (Read on …)

It was big news in 2006 when al Wasat published the list of scholarship recipients and they were the sons and daughters of the most powerful people in Yemen. Now its just old news.

Mareb Press: استعرض وزير التعليم العالي والبحث العلمي الدكتور صالح علي باصره اليوم في مدينة مرسيليا الفرنسية التطورات التي شهدها التعليم العالي في اليمن في مختلف المجالات. The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Dr. Saleh Ali Bazareth today in the French city of Marseille developments in higher education in Yemen in various fields. (Read on …)

Actual slaves: al Masdar

Aden: 11 killed and 12 wounded
AQAP suspects set free from Political Security in Yemen

by Abdullah A. Qaid- For Armies of Liberation

Sana’a- 16 June- At least 11 were killed and 12 wounded Saturday morning in Aden, southern of Yemen, as unidentified gunmen attacked the Political Security office. Most of the dead people were soldiers.

The initial fingerprint of the operation is pointing to the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), security sources said.

About five gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed the security building in Attwahi with fired bullets and bombs that led to clashes inside the building.

During the attack, unknown numbers of prisoners suspected of being members of Al-Qaeda were set free by the operators, security source affirmed.

Although, the clash lasted for nearly half an hour, all the assailants together with the released prisoners escaped successfully.

Three women including the secretary of the director of the Political Security, along with a child was far from the Political Security, were among the dead persons.

The operation comes a day after a release by al-Qaeda threatened to ignite a fire under the earth what it called retaliation for the killing of women and children in Wadi Ubeeda of Marib.

The BBC correspondent in Sana’a quoted as a security source asked anonymity that the incident may come after collusion of security members within the political security.

The Attwahi district of Aden witnessed over the past months two explosions near the building of the Political Security and Television Broadcasting, in which the Director of the Political Security Attwahi and Al-Muala was killed.

According to Yemen News Agency (SABA), the Supreme Security Committee confirmed its intention to pursue the terrorist perpetrators and bring them to justice for their punishment and commended the cooperation of citizens in all provinces with the security services in calling upon everyone to report any presence of these misguided terrorist elements wherever they.

Update, AFP: They brought a bus. Witnesses also said the assailants “were seen leaving the building in a bus, taking people who had been detained there with them,” in what appeared to be a coordinated and well-planned operation.

Oh it just gets flakier and flakier: They all escaped in two cars with no prisoners after an hour of gun battles and RPG attacks. Another update: The local council denies and calls al Jazeera a liar.

(Read on …)

Everything you need to know about the reality of Yemen but were afraid to ask:

I think calcified is a good word to describe “governance” in Yemen. Beyond the lack of transition of executive power for thirty years, the entire ruling class has also been in place for decades. At most, they trade positions now and then in an extremely profitable and deadly game of musical chairs.

Cheese Louise, ya think? The diesel subsides primarily benefit the qat growers and the oil smugglers, not the poor. One third of the national budget ($2.5 billion US) is diesel subsidies. The problem-when it comes to the water crisis, the oil depletion, the qat issue, the subsidies, and so on and so on-is it that there was never any long term strategic planning. Its like Saleh thought all these dire predictions were dark opposition propaganda, meanwhile the water table is dropping noticeably. And what long term planning there was wasn’t fully implemented. One minister’s reform is another minister’s financial crisis. The ministries are at odds with each other without clear lines of authority when reform measures cut across several fiefdoms at once. Things are going to get crunchy as the oil revenues dry up and the state begins to be unable to make payroll.

Bernama:
Yemen Becomes Oil Importer Due To Production Decline, Local Demand

SANA’A, June 16 (Bernama) — Yemen became an oil importer due to the decline in the country’s oil production and the increasing consumption in local market, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said Tuesday.

“The government should talk frankly to the people about the reality of its subsidy to support local selling prices of oil derivatives,” official Saba news agency quoted Saleh as saying to the cabinet in a weekly meeting.

“Government’s oil subsidy to local market costs the state budget an estimated sum of more than US$2.25 billion annually,” Saleh added.

“The subsidy encourages corruption and on behalf of the national interest, the government must abolish the subsidy to raise the wages of state employees and to support the welfare fund,” he added.

Saleh also suggested his government to raise contract prices for its liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

Considering changes in selling prices in global gas markets, Saleh ordered the government to reconsider, as soon as possible, the agreement prices of LNG exported from Belhaf port in Shabwa province, the news agency reported.

Taking a page from that ship to Gaza apparently, good! One important point here is that the convoy is coming from Taiz, the largest city in Yemen. If the police kill the Taiz protesters, it will inflame Taiz and get the city on its feet. I don’t mean to be cold, but deaths are a likely outcome. The Yemeni government has been killing southern protesters in cold blood for years. Neither is the blockade and shelling of Dhalie unexpected, its the same tactics of collective punishment of civilians used in the Saada Wars since 2005. The US is allied with and enabling a war criminal.

Yemen Post: A source at the public movement for justice and change in Taiz Province said on Tuesday that the movement in association with a number of activists, religious clerics, lawmakers and social figures is sending a humanitarian and peace convoy within efforts to lift the blockade on and condemn violence in Dhale Province in the south.

The convoy comes in protest at carnage, anonymous violence and vandalism the people are suffering in Dhale and bring the worsening situation and the months-long blockade to the media and human rights organizations, the source said.

The movement has been preparing the convoy for days and medics, lawyers and civil society organizations are participating in it, the source added.

MP Sultan Al-Sami’e, the spokesman for the convoy, said it comes as a symbol act in solidarity with the people in Dhale who have been under attacks and siege for months.

Furthermore, it comes to demonstrate our refusal to using force against the civilians and even in resolving problems, he said.

About 70 to 100 peace activists are taking part in the convoy carrying placards reading ‘ lift the blockade of Dhale’.

Almost two weeks ago, violence hit the blockaded Dhale killing and injuring more than a dozen people and destroying many homes.

The government blamed outlaws and separatists for the violence. But local sources said the city came under missile attacks from various directions by military camps around it.

The violence comes as the south can’t calm down amid an increasing wave of protest and rioting in the south with the people demanding resolving standing issues including injustices and sometimes seeking separation of the south.

Months ago, the government imposed a security cordon around the city in search for terrorists and outlaws.

Many protests and sit-inns have been staged to protest what the people said is militarizing the civil life in the city, one of the southern cities worst hit by rioting.

In 2006, I wrote an article called Yemen’s Natural Gas, Who Benefits? The answer was TOTAL, South Korea and whoever got the payola. It should be noted that TOTAL is in charge of the LNG project from development to sales, and TOTAL sold one third of the Liquefied Natural Gas to its subsidiary, TOTAL Gas.

My suggestion to counteract “the resource curse” was to adopt the Alaskan model for the oil and gas revenues and pay a dividend to every citizen, thwarting grand corruption, stimulating the economy and small business across a broad spectrum. But that was before the oil bottomed out entirely.

Yemen Post: President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered on Tuesday the Ministry of Oil and Minerals to reconsider contracts for selling liquefied natural gas LNG so that the prices cope with changes of global gas prices.

He also asked the government to conduct a comprehensive study on the policy of oil subsidies estimated at YR 510 billion annually.

The orders came when Saleh chaired the meeting of the Cabinet that focused on issues related to development and holding a national dialogue to address crucial national issues.

Moreover, Saleh urged to boost investment in oil, gas and minerals, fish and agriculture, rationalize the public spending and pay more attention to financial resources development.

After the meeting, Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi and Minister for Oil and Minerals Amir Salim Al-Aidrous met wit the South Korean ambassador to Yemen Won Ho Kwak and informed him of the decision.

Over two thirds of Yemen LNG goes to Europe, the United States and South Korea.

Yemen’s Natural Gas: Who Benefits? Jane Novak, Worldpress.org contributing editor, August 4, 2006

One way Yemen’s “resource curse” syndrome can be avoided, economists suggest, is to distribute the profits from the sales of natural resources directly to every citizen.

Freedom House recently noted Yemen as among the world’s most corrupt developing nations. With the personal interests of the ruling elite taking priority over national development, nearly half of Yemeni children are malnourished and out of school. Unemployment is high and medical services scarce. A looming water crisis threatens to destabilize the country. Claims of development are little more than government propaganda with the gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor widening and infant mortality remaining high year after year.

Atop the existing national crisis, experts predict Yemen’s oil reserves, which provide nearly 70 percent of governmental revenue, will substantially deplete within a decade. A natural gas project is under development. Yemen LNG (YLNG), the company responsible for producing and marketing Yemen’s natural gas, will produce 6.7 million tons of natural gas annually for 20 years. Although the gas liquefaction plant and pipeline is 23 percent complete, concerns exist about sales prices, domestic allocation, and the project’s local impact.

Sales Prices

France’s energy giant, Total SA is the major shareholder in YLNG with 39.6 percent and is in the lead on the project. Total SA has touted YLNG as “a giant gas project” and noted that it is a main component of Total SA’s future growth. (Read on …)

Lahj: 3 injured in clashes between soldiers and gunmen
by Abdullah A. Qaid, For Armies of Liberation

Sana’a, 15 June- Three persons were injured in clashes between Yemeni soldiers and gunmen on Monday in the Alhabaylain district of Lahj,

The clashes broke out after a number of military personnel swarmed the town market, raising the ire of citizens who opened fire in the air and at the soldiers. The soldiers fired indiscriminately using handguns and rifles. The shooting lasted nearly an hour. The three injured victims including a woman were innocent bystanders.

In a another incident in Lahj, hundreds of supporters of Southern Movement demonstrated in Almosaimeer to condemn the securities attacks against residents in Dhalie the last week, in which six were killed and dozens were wounded.

South Yemen has seen growing public protests since 2007 calling for an end to institutionalized discrimination that arose after 1994’s civil war. State repression of the demonstrations included arbitrary arrests, indiscriminate violence and blockades, triggering more protests.

Aden: Mixing of drinking water with sewage

On Monday evening, Aden Security forces in Almuala’a disbursed dozens of protesters.

The angry demonstrators blocked streets and set garbage drums against the governorate building, protesting against contaminated drinking water.

The securities opened fire with live bullets and used batons against protesters. Police raided two houses in search of demonstrators, citizens said.

Residents of Aden complain their drinking water was contaminated by sewage, and water supplies suffer frequent interruptions.

Global Times

Yemen government says al-Qaida kills 37 officials

Yemen’s government said Sunday that al-Qaida group has killed 37 senior army and security officials during the past three years, state media reported. (Read on …)

Yemeni Political Leader exposed to drive by assassination attempt
by Abdullah A. Qaid, for Armies of Liberation

Sana’a, 14 June- Mr. Hassan Mohammed Zeid, the Secretary-General of Al-Haq, a Yemeni opposition party, said today he escaped an assassination attempt by 4 persons. The drive-by shooing occurred in the al-Jooraf quarter of Sana’a.

Zeid was targeted by a hail of bullets from two cars with official license plates. One was numbered 4760-Army and the other 212-Government, Zeid stated in a press release.

Earlier political violence against Mr. Zeid included an assault on his land in al-Jooraf. Police were forbidden from intervening in an attempt to prevent the abuse, the release added.

Zeid accused the Yemeni authorities of being responsible for the assassination attempt.

The al-Haq Party denounced the assassination attempt on its Secretary-General, confirmed the authorities’ responsibility for protecting Zeid’s life and demanded that perpetrators to be brought to the justice.

Militants blow up oil pipeline in Marib
By Abdullah A. Qaid for Armies of Liberation

Sana’a, June 12- Tribal militants blew up an oil pipeline in Wadi Abeeda, Marib governorate on Saturday morning. Marib, in eastern Yemen, has been experiencing ongoing clashes between security forces and tribal gunmen.

The sole pipeline which carries oil to the Ras Issa Refinery in Hodeidah on the Red Sea coast for export was extensively damaged and stopped pumping oil, sources in the Yemeni government said.

Al-Arabiya television quoted security sources as saying that the incident comes as part of the continuing confrontations between tribesmen loyal to al Qaeda and the army going since last Wednesday.

Tension between the government and the tribes in Marib escalated since the death of Sheik Jabir Al-Shabwani, the Vice-governor of Marib province, in May. Mr. al-Shabwani was killed in an air strike, along with three body guards, that the government said was targeting an al Qaeda leader. Al-Shabwani was traveling to negotiate for the surrender of several al-Qaeda operatives at the time of the errant missile strike.

They were protesting the five killed in the shelling Monday as well as the military blockade on the city.

AFP: SANAA — Ten people were wounded when security forces opened fire on demonstrators in the south Yemen town of Daleh on Thursday, security officials and sources from the Southern Movement told AFP… Southern Movement leader Yahya Ghalib al-Shuaybi said the demonstrators were protesting the deaths Monday of five civilians, whom witnesses said were killed in government shelling on the southern town of Daleh.

“Demonstrations of anger and solidarity with the victims of Daleh… were launched across several of the southern regions, especially in Daleh, Habilayn, Abyan, Shabwa, and Yafe,” Shuaybi told AFP.

“Military forces in the blockaded city (Daleh) fired from posts surrounding the city, using light weapons,” Shuaybi said.

The demonstrators were carrying flags of the formerly independent south along with pictures of prominent exiled south Yemeni leader Ali Salem al-Baid, Shuaybi said. On Tuesday Baid appealed to the international community to protect southerners “from the massacre committed against southerners in general and Daleh inhabitants specifically,” in a statement received by AFP in Dubai.

Also we learn that the recently surrendered al Zaidi is the cousin of the governor. Yemen has long had a habit of asking al Qaeda figures to go to prison for a while for the good of the country, i.e.- to take the US pressure off. Propaganda is a main stay of Yemen’s foreign policy. Click here for an earlier report on al Dhayani’s history and an interview where he accused the political security of concocting some terror attacks themselves for political purposes. He says he couldn’t be the driving instructor on the 2007 Marib attack because he doesn’t drive. Its hard to say who is the more credible source here…

AP

SAN’A, Yemen — Yemen said Monday that an al-Qaida operative turned himself in to authorities in the country’s northeastern province, the second such surrender in two days.

The development came as Yemen intensified its campaign to drive al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across this impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.

According to a statement by Yemen’s Supreme Security Committee, the suspect gave himself up late Sunday in the province of Marib, surrendering to the local governor there.

The suspect was identified as Hamza Ali Saleh al-Dayan, who is believed to have trained suicide bombers and helped plan the July 2007 suicide attack that killed seven Spanish tourists and two Yemenis in the same province.

Al-Dayan was among 23 al-Qaida members who escaped from a Yemeni jail in Feb. 2006, through a tunnel dug under the prison. He was later accused of taking part in the 2008 mortar attack against the U.S. Embassy in San’a that killed a policeman and a young girl at an adjacent school. He and three accomplices fled in a car after that attack.

On Saturday, another suspected al-Qaida operative, Ghalib al-Zayedi, surrendered after lengthy mediation efforts to Marib’s Governor Naji bin Ali al-Zayedi, who is also his cousin.

Ghalib al-Zayedi was arrested in 2003 and spent the next three years in detention after being accused of hiding a man believed to be al-Qaida’s number two in Yemen.

The Society for Charitable Welfare does good work in Yemen, actually delivering services to the poor, unlike some others.

Intel Wire : A spokesman for the Yemen-based Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW) has denied an INTELWIRE report that the charity is linked to Al Qaeda figures Anwar Awlaki and Abdul Majid Zindani. INTELWIRE stands by the story.

“All information in this article is baseless and fabricated,” said Dr. Jamal Al-Haddi, the program manager of CSSW’s of ACCESS-Plus Program, wrote in an e-mail on Wednesday, June 2, 2010.

The program, intended to to fight child labor and child trafficking, is funded by a $3.5 million partner-grant from the U.S. Department of Labor starting in 2008 and slated to run for three years. The grant is shared by CHF International, a Maryland-based foundation. The funding was granted despite CSSW’s apparent links to extremism and terrorism financing. INTELWIRE is continuing to investigate the grant, and additional stories will follow.

According to Al-Haddi, “Abdulmajeed Al-Zendani or Anwar Al-Awlaki never have been part of CSSW either as founders, members of Managerial Boards, employees, consultants volunteers or any position in CSSW.”

But substantial documentation supports the reported claims. (Read on …)

CNN Yemen has detained a dozen Americans among a larger group of foreign students reportedly being held for security reasons, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

Citing “privacy issues,” P.J. Crowley would not provide details about the detentions nor would he confirm other media reports that the students may have had connections with the terror group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

“We have great cooperation with the government of Yemen,” Crowley said when pressed on the issue. “Together, we are doing our best to help Yemen, you know, reduce the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That’s a threat to Yemen. It’s a threat to the United States.”

Earlier media reports indicated the arrests of as many as 50 students suspected of having connections with the Yemeni-based terror organization were made last week. CNN has been unable to confirm those reports.

This strike has been going on for years. I have a copy of the employment contract for the port workers. It allows punitive transfers and termination without cause, among a number of other illegal provisions.

HOOD: About the suffering of the workers port of Aden container from abuse

Revealed by local authorities in the governorate of Aden and the ugly face biased to manage the company operating the port of Aden Container “DP World” in farsightedness, in violation of the Constitution and the law to prevent dock workers from exercising their constitutional and legal in the peaceful sit-in to claim their rights project, but proceeded to launch phase new use of cruelty and violence when dispersing the peaceful sit on Saturday 5/6/2010, which resulted in injuries to workers and the arrest of (9) after the port workers had gathered in the round of Caltex for going on strike, which started on 05/24/2010 after reversed (down) the company’s implementation of the commitments made in the minutes earlier with representatives of the workers of the equality of reward paid workers, the nearest port run by “DP”, a port of Djibouti, and following this record has been suspended a strike a year and a half, as well as the right of workers in health care and the demands of related, including the employer must provide the rights of the worker in accordance with the Labour Code. (Read on …)