Armies of Liberation

You cant reach Sabaphone subscribers from a land line or via overseas calling.

The Yemeni DOD’s 26 Sept website is down, and mine and the dozens of Yemeni news sites blocked for years (including the newly blocked al Masdar) are accessible again from within Yemen. In 2008 everything was unblocked for a week while they upgraded and expanded the censorship software. I thought this was the precursor to the regime taking down twitter and facebook, as opposed to, you know, Saleh allowing more political space. Odd 26 Sept is down when the independent sites are are. But its lovely what ever it is, for as long as it lasts. Update: 26 Sept back up and I’ll probably be re-blocked soon. But Yemen has strong traditional communications methods as a result of the lack of electricity, roads and internet, so I don’t think it will impact the protest movement even if they cut the net entirely. Update 2: The www.26sep,net is wobbling as I’m reading it, losing parts and coming up again. Really bizarre. Also the sites that were open are now closing in Yemen. Gotta be an upgrade.

Regional: Syria is waking up a tad but there’s still a lot of understandable fear. The Omani protests seem to have petered out. Libya is not looking good with the murderous lunatic Qaddafi retaking many towns. The no-fly zone is not established. Hamas harassed protesters in Gaza and confiscated cameras. With Saudi sending a thousand troops into Bahrain, and the imposition of martial law there, the democracy dominoes are shifting in the other direction. It will be up to Yemeni protesters to keep going as external momentum diminishes if thats what it comes to. But they are taking down chunks of the regime daily.

The internet is having technical difficulties authorities say in response to widespread reports of outages. Report via Al Masdar which was blocked inside Yemen last week, for spreading too much accurate information: http://bit.ly/f8oiAA (ar)

Update: Good thing there is a plan in place. al Sahwa

Facebook strictly tightened in Yemen, 7/3/2011 – Sahwa Net

Sahwa Net- While Many of Internet subscribers in Yemen have expressed sorrow as the Tel-Yemen Company in Yemen imposes restrictions on Facebook users, a number of Yemeni civil society organizations condemned the attempts of the Yemeni Parliament tries to approve communication laws which could violate freedoms and allow surveillance on citizens.

Facebook groups which witnesses hot discussions abut Yemen’s political situations nowadays face difficulties on communication, particularly those groups which belong to opposition parties.

On Sunday and Monday, Internet service was blocked in Sana’a and some other Yemen governorates for several hours.

Many of these are internet cafes with multiple users. The population of Yemen is 24 million with half of those under 20 years old. Due to very high birthrates, the population is expected to double by 2034.

Yemen Post: The number of the internet subscribers increased in Yemen last year to 563299 people, up 107870 subscribers from 2009, a report by the Public Corporation for Wire and Wireless Telecommunication said. (Read on …)

The reason Yemen blocked al Masdar Online this week is because the news site was providing Yemenis with the facts about events occurring inside Yemen; its the same reason they blocked me in 2007. There are few quick fixes for the region’s myriad of issues, but free satellite internet access would be one. Luckily for humanity, Walid al Saqqaf devised a work around for governmental censorship of the internet, connecting Yemenis to each other, the world and reality. An article about Yemen Portal and Alkasir from Fast Co:

Yemeni Journalist Offers Facebook and Twitter Access, Piercing Government Blocks

Alkasir makes access to Facebook and Twitter possible in the face of oppressive regimes’ attempts to block them.

Walid Al-Saqaf’s Alkasir is an unsung hero in the recent political overhaul in Egypt and the Arab world. Alkasir–meaning “circumventor”–is what has allowed many ordinary citizens to access Facebook and Twitter and share vital information despite government blocks. (Read on …)

Nice round-up of Sanaa, Aden, Taiz and judges protests, also Feb 24 group.

Daily caller: SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Authorities flooded the streets of Yemen’s capital with 2,000 police Wednesday to try to halt six days of Egypt-style demonstrations against the president of 32 years, a key U.S. ally in battling al-Qaida. One person was killed when police and protesters clashed in the southern port of Aden in the first known death during Yemen’s political unrest.

The police, including plainclothes officers, fired in the air and blocked thousands of students at Sanaa University from joining thousands of other protesters in the capital of the Arab world’s most impoverished nation.

A call spread via Facebook and Twitter urging Yemenis to join a series of “One Million People” rallies on a so-called “Friday of Rage” in all Yemeni cities, seeking the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. (Read on …)

2/2/2011

http://yemenonline.info/news-1880.html

Al-Basha computer company has issued a new product which is linked to a wireless service in cooperation with Yemen Mobile company to surf the Internet on line anywhere..any time in Yemen. The estimated speed of the new internet service is Mbps 2.4 using a small device (Flash desk) with a program that installs automatically to your computer which makes you ready to start a great online speed service for the first time in Yemen.

In plea documents, LatiNode admitted that from about March 2004 through June 2007, it paid $1.1 million to third parties, knowing that some or all of those funds would be passed on as bribes to officials of Hondutel. In addition, from about July 2005 to April 2006, the court records show LatiNode paid $1.2 million to a third-party consultant, knowing some or all of the money would be passed on to Yemeni officials in exchange for favorable interconnection rates in Yemen: Miami Herald

The Houthis in Yemen have no official website. Ansaralallah, Almempar, Saddahonline and others are all independent initiatives created by like minded persons, but the sites themselves are beyond the Houthis control and do not represent them officially. None of the websites are funded by the Houthis and editorial control is in the hands of their proprietors. The sites often reprint Adbelmalik al Houthi’s statements and other articles and analysis as well as report the news of Sadda, and they are quite a valuable window in that way.

As the Houthis stated during the sixth war, Mohammed Abdulsalem is their official spokesman and the Houthis media office communicates only by email. There is also no official Houthi facebook page or facebook group either. Its an important distinction to keep in mind going forward, especially now that they are under attack, apparently by al Qaeda. Many news organizations take statements from the Almenpar website and attribute them to the Houthis but unless its a statement attributed to Abdelmalik or Abdulsalem reprinted on the website, the rebels aren’t saying it, the webmaster is.

I didn’t realize Skype was illegal in Yemen. Previous reporting: 9/30/09, US owned VIOP smuggling phone calls. Arabic, SABA. The YObserver heavily redacted their original article, this is what’s left:

An international phone call trafficker was apprehended in his house in the south by the secretariat of the Criminal Investigative Department (CID). The detained, Ayman Ahmed al-Surmi, is being interrogated by the CID while the search for other suspects, including al-Surmi’s brother, continues…. The ease in using the Voice Over Internet Protocols (VoIP) tempted many local traffickers to cooperate with service providers outside Yemen to traffic calls. These outside providers traffic international phone calls through the internet without going through Yemen Telecommunication (TeleYemen) the local body responsible for regulating all international phone calls..International phone call trafficking goes through satellite connections or through broadband services, the traffickers receive it and then redistribute it through the local network by using local phone numbers (mobile and fixed phones) paying the tariff of local calls while receiving double this fee. (Read on …)

After it lost YR40 million

News Yemen calls press freedom advocates to support it against attack
News Yemen website has set up an old webpage for limited usage after the web experienced a horrible piracy last November 28th. The webpage will be available temporary.

News Yemen apologizes for being unable to post more news stories but coverage of the consequences of the piracy and robbery against the web and efforts the web staff and its partners are exerting to solve technical and material problems.
On Saturday, the website Editor-in-Chief, Nabil al-Sofi, received a promise from the Minister of Telecommunication, Kamal al-Jebri, in a meeting on Saturday to provide all necessary information on the web hacker and to ask for assistance of international experts. Al-Jebri confirmed that anyone from the ministry proved involved in the attack on News Yemen would be punished.

According to the hosting company, based in the United States, the ID of the hacker was for Yaser al-Emad, the director of the Internet Department in the Ministry of Telecommunication, but the minister al-Jebri said the government respects the performance of newsyemen. (Read on …)

oh well thats handy…

Yemen Post

The Supreme National Anti-Corruption Commission has turned over to the Attorney General a fraud case involving millions of dollars through voice over the internet protocol VoIP. (Read on …)

This is a very good report on Al Jawf. Similiarly, the Sa’ada War has roots in the overall failure by the central government to promote development due to massive corruption.

SABA Jawf, forgotten governorate 1-3

[20/August/2009] By: Faez al-Makhrafi, Translated by: Mahmoud Assamiee

JAWF, August 20- ( Saba)- A visitor of Jawf governorate, 170 kilometers northeast of the capital Sana’a, is surprised seeing women with a belt of bullets on their waists for the arms they carry. In this governorate you can see everybody, men, women and even children carry weapons on their backs.

Local officials say that Jawf is only a big building for the governorate affairs (without basic services and development) though 47 years have passed since realizing Yemeni revolution on 26 of September 1962. They said the governorate is only a “basket for concerns, and a tragic image of negligence.” (Read on …)

Just shutting down all forms of communications with the outside world.

Yemen Times SANA’A, June 24 – In an attempt to safeguard the morality of Yemen’s youth, the Ministry of Culture will step up its campaign to search internet cafes and CD sellers without warning. (Read on …)

As the government is shutting news sites and monitoring web cafes, it is also contracting for wireless internet in 4000 mosques.They want to attract youths. But I wonder why they didn’t start with the schools first? The Star

THE Yemen Government has engaged the services of a local company in Kulim, Kedah, to set up web portals and wireless lin-kage at 4,000 mosques in its country.

NFAB Holdings Services (M) Sdn Bhd’s proposal has been submitted to the Grand Mufti Council of Yemen and it has, in principle, agreed to implement it.

NFAB managing director Dr Nurul Faisal Abu Bakar said the programme could benefit the mosques in the northern African country as it could attract youths to participate in religious activities organised by its respective mosques. (Read on …)

If the Houthis are looking to build their own missiles, it indicates that they are not recieving significant funding or importing mass quantities of rockets from Iran, North Korea or Syria. The individual is also charged with looking at Google Maps and making a website. Radiant elements- never a good thing. Also on trial Fadi Baoum and the former ambassador- both on charges of opposing the dictatorship.

Man who provided rebels with information about missiles to be tried
SANA’A, June 12 (Saba) – A Yemeni national is due in court next week on charges of supporting the Houthi rebels. (Read on …)

What used to be the al Wasat website is here. Actually al Wasat moderated a lot since a few years ago when Jamal Amer got some pretty serious threats, and the paper was in no way promoting seperatism, just reporting the news of the unrest. But the Yemeni government can’t bear the truth, in any area.

The hackers wrote: “Unity is a Red Line.” It also says “Unity or Death”:

Idiots.

This is amazing stuff right here and could change the Middle East quicker, more cheaply and with a better outcome than anything else going on.

Yemen Times

CAIRO, May 16 — A new tool to circumvent website censorship named “Alkasir” was released today in its BETA version 1.0 and is now in the public domain. The release comes after the software was publicly revealed for the first time in Cairo yesterday during the first day of the “Blogging the Future” summit organized by the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research.

The software, whose name originates from the Arabic word ‘alkasir’, meaning ‘the circumventer’, is now accessible and according to its developer, Walid Al-Saqaf, an be downloaded directly from the web at http://alkasir.com/download. (Read on …)

This is really old, but I need it. al Motamar July 2007

NewsYemen – While the HitsUNiTEL company is preparing to launch the GSM service as the third operator in Yemen, under the sponsorship of Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology, the Yemeni UNiTEL company says such behavior is a belittlement of laws and judicial orders. (Read on …)

Update: Now thats funny right there. The Telecommunication Ministry says that what the article actually means is that the fine (which is payable to the US government) is what was paid to the ministry’s officials in exchange for the favorable rates. Nothing to see, just move along…

Yemen Post: Informed sources from the Ministry of Telecommunications told news web site that such report by media outlets is groundless. “Latinode agreed to pay a $2 million fine during a three-year period to officials in Yemen in exchange for favorable interconnection rates,” the source said, calling on all media outlets to be accurate and objective when reporting news.

Al-Tagheer says a government official said in a phone interview that the information was “incorrect” and “false” and designed to harm the reputation of Yemen, and some symbols in the forefront of the son of the president.

Mareb Press: مصدر مسئول في الاتصالات ينفي تورط شخصيات رفيعة في عملية رشوة لشركة أمريكية An official source in communication denies involvement in the process of eminent persons to bribe a U.S. company
الخميس 09 إبريل-نيسان 2009 الساعة 02 صباحاً / مأرب برس – خاص Thursday, April 09 – April 2009 at 02 am / Marib Press – private

نفي مصدر مسئول في وزارة الاتصالات اليمنية ما ذكره موقع التغيير نت Denied official source at the Yemeni Ministry of Communications with the site change Net من تورط مسئول كبير في الوزارة ونجل الرئيس علي عبد الله صالح في عملية رشوة قيل انها قدمت من قبل شركة ” لاتين نود ” الأميركية والمتخصصة The involvement of a senior official in the Ministry and the son of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the process it was a bribe offered by the company, “We wish to Latin American” and specialized في خدمات الاتصالات. Communications services.

وقال المصدر المسئول لـ” مأرب برس ” ان ما ورد عبارة عن تلفيقات من قبل جهات لها دوافعها الخاص ولا اساس له من الصحة، مؤكد ان الوزارة ستكلف عدد من القانونيين للرد على تلك الاتهامات الزائفة ومقاضاة من ويقف وراء تلك الإخبار الكيدية. The official source of the “Marib Press that” as a fabrication by the private actors motivated and unfounded, confirmed that the ministry will be a number of lawyers to respond to the accusations false and the prosecution of the stands behind the news that malicious.

Miami Internet phone firm pleads guilty to paying bribes
BY PATRICK DANNER
pdanner@MiamiHerald.com
A Miami-based Internet phone company has agreed to pay a $2 million fine after pleading guilty to paying bribes to officials in Honduras and Yemen in exchange for favorable interconnection rates.

Latin Node paid more than $2.2 million in bribes that company e-mails indicate were intended for, among others, the son of the Yemeni president and officials of the Yemeni Ministry of Telecommunications, court documents show. (Read on …)