Armies of Liberation

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 wrote about this issue on October 14, 2005: the Yemeni government recently entered into a 30-year contract for the port of Aden with its largest competitor, Dubai Ports International (D.P.I.). World Bank documents state that Dubai is in direct competition for container transshipment business with Aden…The majority owners of D.P.I. also are the managers of the Jabal Ali free zone in Dubai. D.P.I. will pay $83.5 million as a rent over 30 years for the Aden free zone, an area of 32 million square meters, effectively paying less than one penny per square meter in monthly rent. A Kuwaiti firm’s substantially higher tender was rejected in favor of D.P.I. As expected, DPI is raising birthing costs in port Aden, making Dubai port much more attractive to international shippers. Today’s news, Yemen’s Parliament begins a probe of the issue:

Yemen Post: Parliament approved on Saturday forming a panel to probe what MPs said were plans of the Dubai Ports World aimed at striking Aden Port, excluding it from providing services for ships and shifting international navigation route to Djiboutian and Dubai Ports.

The panel will comprise members of the Oil and Development and Transport and Communication Committees.
MPs urged to seriously address the issue of the port, which has already lost its prestige and significance as one of the old and strategic ports in the world due to irresponsible acts by the DP World.

MP Muhammad Abdu Saeed revealed that he had received a complaint from an international navigation company saying the consistently increasing fees for ship anchorage forced ships to redirect to Djibouti Port. He considered increasing the fees was aimed at striking Aden Prot through forcing ships to abandon it.

For his part, MP Ali Al-Maamari said Dubai World Ports is seeking to exclude Aden Port from international navigation route and switching the route to Djiboutian Port because the latter boosts the importance of Dubai Port. While MP Sakhr Al-Jeeh requested to turn who brought about the agreement between the government and the DP World to investigation.

All the more egregious because people there are starving and without water. They are allocating money to buy diesel when the Red Crescent already donated the diesel as well as overcharging and providing phantom services.

Update: English: Yemen Observer:

Studies & Economic Media Center (SEMC) revealed corruption scandals at Local Water Institution in Sa’adah province costing the government YR 100 million. (Read on …)

We’re going to be seeing more of this as the budget crunch hits. There are hundreds of thousands of tribesmen who have military ranks and paychecks but never perform service. These protesters though were state employees in the literal sense. Also the YP confirms two were wounded (not killed) yesterday.

Yemen Post: Tens of the public security personnel closed on Monday the international transport link in Yemen’s Southern Province of Abyan in protest against salary cuts, informed sources said.

Central security forces could not break up the protest and convince them to leave reopen the route because the personnel were armed, the sources said.

Separately, two people were injured in the clashes that erupted when police dispersed rallies organized by the secessionist movement in the cities of Dhale and Lahj.

The rallies coincided with a large-scale strike paralyzing the life in a number of the districts in both cities. Stores were closed down in response to the strike call by the movement.

There are good plans to address many urgent issues in Yemen but they are not implemented fully. Power centers within the government thwart reforms to protect their profits. In other cases, coordination among semi-autonomous ministries is nearly impossible to achieve.
IRIN

SANAA, 10 August 2010 (IRIN) – Despite record rainfall in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and other areas this summer, very little is being done to harvest this water to mitigate water shortages, experts say. In May at least seven people were killed in what officials described as the worst flooding to hit Sanaa in a decade. Flooding has brought large parts of the city to a standstill on a number of occasions. Attempts by the government to harvest rainwater are very limited, according to Ramon Scoble, a consultant for Germany’s Technical Cooperation Committee (GTZ). (Read on …)

Yemen Post

Water scarcity, population growth and internal conflicts are major reasons for food insecurity in Yemen, a recent report has said, warning if immediate action is not taken, food security will remain at extremely low levels until 2010 and the country will be vulnerable for external shocks and disasters.
The report issued by the Institute of Food Research (IFR) noted that food insecurity is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. (Read on …)

This is from the 8th but I need to get it into the archives.

Arab News: SANAA: A third power station in southern Yemen caught fire on Thursday after two others were engulfed in flames earlier in the week in what the government said were attacks by secessionists. (Read on …)

Paperwork too much to tackle.

Yemen Post: The Ministry of Electricity and Energy has not yet drawn down all donor funds estimated at more than $ 1 billion allocated before and during the 2006 London Donor Conference for the power sector in Yemen, an official who asked not to be named told the News Yemen on Thursday. (Read on …)

The story that has everything: influential people deploying the army for political purposes, tribal conflict over water, the state bombing a village and utterly incompetent management. Water is another corrupt enterprise in Yemen. Also the Political Security director in Aden died of his wounds sustained in a bombing- actually a police officer. France 24

AFP – Two Yemenis, including a police officer, were killed and seven others wounded in clashes between security forces and locals over digging a well in a village south of Sanaa, local tribesmen said Friday.

Clashes erupted on Wednesday between the army and police, on one side, and locals on the other, in the village of Mikhlaf, in the province of Taiz. Sultan al-Mikhlafi, a local tribal chief told AFP the fighting was a result of a “military expedition sent by local authorities to the area to prevent the digging of a well for potable water…which has already been authorised” and is intended for public use.

“The forces shelled more than six houses,” he said, adding that the civilian Abdul Qawi Ali Hamid was killed by a shell that hit his house on Thursday. Mikhlafi accused “powerful people in the area with links to the governor” of being behind the military campaign to stop the work on digging the well.

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 …)

As I noted earlier, corruption triggers media repression in Yemen. Often when journalists are kidnapped, beaten, imprisoned or, as in this case, murdered, it comes back to their investigative reporting on crime or corruption. While the extent of dire and growing water shortage is becoming clear, less obvious is the extensive black market on water, tied to powerful officials, sheiks and businessmen that impedes the implementation of water regulations and reforms. Al Rabue was murdered for exposing the dangerous quality of water sold by the water barons in Hajja. His family was attacked and injured a week earlier. In the climate of impunity established by the Saleh regime, a fair trial is unlikely.

Yemen Times: HAJJA, Feb. 17 — Journalist Mohammad Al-Rabue’, who wrote for Al-Sahwa and Al-Qahira newspapers, was murdered on his way to work, on Sunday, February 13, in Bani Qais district, Hajja governorate. The journalist, who wrote about the violations committed in the governorate was said to be killed by Ahmad Awoni and his four sons. (Read on …)

WaPo LONDON — Britain suspended direct flights with Yemen on Wednesday and the prime minister said the U.K. will introduce new no-fly lists as it seeks to tighten airport security following the failed Detroit airliner attack.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons the measures are in response to a growing threat from al-Qaida affiliated terrorists based in Yemen.

A government that operates so far above the law that it doesnt pay its own electric bills is going to have difficulty with reforms. Yemen Observer

YEMEN – The Ministry of Electricity, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Justice, has a plan to reduce its debts, collecting more than YR20 billion from individuals and institutions, said Awad al-Socatri, Minister of Electricity and Power at a press conference in Sana’a Sunday evening. (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 …)

A nice article extolling the beauty and unique nature of Yemen, I’m quite happy to see it:

New York Times — It has been almost 800 years since Saleh Qaid Othaim’s house in the heart of the Old City was built from hand-cut stones and traditional alabaster decorations.

Yet on a recent morning, Mr. Othaim watched contentedly as a group of men renovated the place using exactly the same ancient methods and materials. Workers mixed the moist chocolate-brown masonry known as teen while a master builder supervised, a dagger hanging from his belt. There was no scaffolding, no helmets, no whine of machines: only the scraping of trowels and masonry, interrupted at last by the call to prayer in the high desert air.

“I don’t care how long it takes,” said Mr. Othaim, a government worker. “The most important thing is that it be done in a traditional way.” (Read on …)

Normal militaries have discipline, a chain of command and standard operating protocols. Its extremely difficult to believe that a French warship shot down a passenger airplane. The Yemeni military is fractured, chaotic, and makes it up as they go along, but not France, all joking aside. This scenario also implies a massive cover-up by France in the aftermath. Earlier the plane’s black box was described as containing no retrivable data. Its not beyond Yemen’s authorities to make up a wild lie, they do it all the time. This is the al Motamar article which quotes reliable sources stating the investigation concluded a French warship launched a missile at the Airbus, and says Yemen will ask for reimbursement of funds paid to victims families. Here is another article from Arab Monitor.

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 …)

There’s no water in Aden, there hasn’t been for several weeks.

Demonstrations for water are turning violent. There was one casualty today. Children and the elderly are most vulnerable to dehydration and are bearing the brunt of the “water shortage.” In the current highly charged political environment, residents believe turning off the water is a deliberate targeting of citizens there in retaliation for prior civil unrest.

aha, a link: ADEN, Yemen, Aug 24 (Reuters) – At least one Yemeni was shot dead and three wounded when protesters clashed with police on Sunday in Aden in southern Yemen where several districts have gone days without water, police and witnesses said. At least two of the wounded were police, the sources said.

and a detailed background at the Yemen Times:

ADEN, Aug, 23 — Hundreds of Aden city residents protested yesterday, demanding relief from the sharp water shortage that has left three districts without water.

Seventy-five percent of the Aden water supply was re-directed to cities of Zunjubar and Ja’ar three months ago because of water crises in those cities. Now, residents of Al-Muala, Khower Makser and Alqlw’a have no running water.

Masses of people from the southern governorates of Aden, Lahj and Abyan rallied last week, demanding water and that corrupt officials be held accountable for their actions. Security officials met demonstrators with teargas and arrests.

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 …)

The water has been off in Zanjabar since July 27, and they are taking it personally. IRIN

SANAA, 16 August 2009 (IRIN) – Water and sanitation companies in Yemen are adopting unprecedented water rationing in major cities including the capital Sanaa, Taiz, Mukalla, al-Beidha, al-Dhalea and Lahj, local council officials said.

Urgent action is needed to halt depletion of the country’s water resources, Abdulqader Hanash, deputy minister for water affairs, told IRIN. Some 90 percent of available water is used for agriculture, leaving just 10 percent for industrial and household use, he said. Specialists have said before that 40 percent of Yemen’s agricultural water consumption can be attributed to the cultivation of Qat – a mild narcotic plant. (Read on …)