Armies of Liberation

Yemen Observer

Qat chewers are on a steady rise in Yemen, especially amongst young people, where qat chewers constitute 70 percent of men and more than 30 percent of women, said Mansour al-Hawshabi, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation.

Al-Hawshabi reported this rise during the opening of a workshop on policies for qat in Yemen, which took place in Sana’a on Sunday. “Qat occupies large areas of agricultural land at the expense of many crops, particularly important cereals,” he said.

The prevalence of qat is considered a significant obstacle to lifting the productivity of other crops. Qat plantations are expanding by 4-6 thousand hectares annually, which demand more than 30 percent of the total water resources allocated to agriculture.

Various surveys and studies show that 85 percent of qat cultivation is concentrated in five governorates: Amran, Dhamar, Sana’a, Hajja and Ibb. “Qat does not just pose agricultural and environmental problems, but it is a significant risk to the health of people especially when using pesticides indiscriminately,” said al-Hawshabi.

Qat has become a dilemma facing the expansion of food crops to provide food security, said Abdul-Karim al-Arhabi, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Minister of Planning and International Cooperation. “It is draining more than 30 percent of the water devoted to agriculture.”

“The spending on qat plants is a priority to people who put it above necessary expenses such as food, education and other important needs,” he said. “The risk indicators of qat have become clear and specific to all and we must sharpen our determination and efforts to address the problem of qat as a major challenge facing agriculture in Yemen.”

The cultivation of qat in Yemen rose from 136,138 hectares in 2006 to 141,163 hectares last year, and its production rose from 147, 444 tons to 156, 290 tons during the same period.

Qat’s popularity in Yemen has led to its excessive cultivation, depleting the country’s agricultural resources. It is estimated that production increases by about 10 to 15 percent every year. Water consumption is so high that groundwater levels in the Sana’a basins are diminishing and are expected to dry out in just a little over 10 years from now.

but lets just call them all terrorists:

Yemen Observer

220 out of 1045 terrorist suspects were arrested by the Yemeni police in the year of 2007, according to a recent report issued by the Yemeni Ministry of Interior.

According to the report the 220 detainees were arrested under accusations of being involved in terrorist cases or in other organized and drug crimes. The report also revealed that other thousands of criminals were detained in 2007 for being involved in other different crimes.

The report stated that the security authorities could handle 34,386 crimes out of 36,894 at a rate of 63.2 percent.

According to the same report the number of premeditated crimes dropped by 96 percent compared to the year 2006 due to the firm implementation of the law that banned weapon-carrying in the main cities.

The report also revealed that 812 stolen cars out of 1,173 were brought back to their owners.

In 2007 the Yemeni authorities deported 1,390 Arabs and foreigners living illegally in the country, while more than 27,900 illegal immigrants were caught by the coastguard. The coastguard also registered more than 1,418 cases of smuggling refugees and water pollution cases in 2007. The report also stated that Yemeni authorities have given more than 32,000 residence identity cards for refugees from Africa and other Arab and Asian countries.

The United Nations granted the Yemeni Ministry of Interior its shield for the year 2008 in recognition for the great success it achieved in fighting drugs.

Yemen Observer

Calling upon the government to pay particular attention to the social and political dangers of unemployment was the aim of a workshop held last week in Aden. It was conducted by the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) Developing Center for Childhood and Youth (DCCY) in cooperation with the Canadian Center for Development of Aden, titled ‘Unemployment among youths, reality and solutions.’

Participants asked the NGO to do surveys in order to give real statistics about unemployment in all governorates of Yemen. They asked only non-government sources because they will give real numbers and facts about unemployment which will not be done by government organization.

Unemployment in Yemen has reached 34 percent, according to a report in 2006 issued by the Ministry of Planning and International Corporation. The report stated that less than half of working age young people are unemployed. Unemployment is on the raise according to the same report. There were around 188,000 graduates of 2006 while the government can only employ 16,000. The reports said that the number of graduates will increase during the coming years – and unemployment along with it.

(Read on …)

26 Sept

Yemen said on Friday it faces difficulties in achieving the goals “Millennium Development” in 2015 despite poverty rate had declined from 40.1 percent to 34.8 percent of the 22 million population.

In its annual report, Social Affairs and Labour Ministry pointed out the high rate of population growth had kept the number of poor people at approximately seven million people, noting the decreased of poverty level is still simple comparing with the objectives of Millennium Development. Its first goal requires reducing the number
of poor people to half.

The report confirmed that Yemen needs $49.5 billion to be able to meet the objectives of Millennium Development. According to the report, the Yemeni government is currently working to find the base funds for many development programs and projects.

A poll of 75% men finds opposition to a woman as governor….

YPC: 53.8% of Yemenis refuse idea of electing woman as governor

http://www.sabanews.net/en/news153385.htm
[05 May 2008]
SANA’A, May 05 (Saba)- A poll showed on Monday that 78.3 percent of the respondents had expressed support to the upcoming elections of the mayor of the capital Sana’a and governors of the provinces, which to be held on 17 may, while 21.5 percent said that the elections have no significance.

(Read on …)

Yemen Times

According to a 2006 estimate by UNICEF, 60 million marriages occurred worldwide before the age of 18, while in the Middle East, which includes Yemen, there were 3.3 million marriages before age 18, said Naseem Al-Rahman, chief of communications and advocacy for UNICEF-Yemen.

He further noted that in Yemen, 365 out of 100,000 women annually die in childbirth, often because their bodies are too young and immature to endure labor.

“Parents believe that the earlier and sooner they marry off their daughters, the better off they’ll be and hence, they are rid of the responsibility, so this is forcing young girls to marry while they’re still immature and not ready to become mothers,” Al-Rahman added.

Regarding early marriage in Yemen, general health expert Dr. Abdullah Al-Kamil says some studies assure and focus that nearly 25 percent of girls under age 15 marry in Yemen, while the other 25 percent marry between ages 11 and 15, 70 percent of whom live in rural areas.

(Read on …)

YT

The skyrocketing prices of wheat, cereals, and other grains have had a tremendous impact on populations reliant on the international markets to supply the needed grains, and Yemen has been affected significantly where the price of a 50-kg sack of wheat has increased from 3300 in the end of 2007 to over 7200 today. This increase affects primarily families which spend most of their income on basic foods and necessities, and now having to stretch their budgets more in order to be able to continue to afford buying the same quantities of food.

In explaining the bigger picture, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) indicated that the growth in global demand for grains is increasing by 3 %, while production is at lower rates, and have increased to 2.6% this year as grain producing countries slightly increase their grain plantations. This indicates that the gap in supply will continue to push the prices of grain higher, forcing grain importing countries like Yemen to rather pay a bigger bill or start searching for other sources of grain, including reliance on domestic production.

(Read on …)

Not counting agricultural work

Mareb

A governmental study reveals that about 700 thousands Yemeni children between 4-14 years old are working in streets of main cities because the poverty.

The Central System for Counting in Yemen, International Labour Organization, Social Fund for Development, and UNICEF are preparing to launch a wide field survey for child labour.

The survey aims to create a database clarifying the size of this phenomenon in Yemen which reports say it is increasing during the last years because of the deterioration of living status and the spread of the poverty.

The recent study issued by Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour said that the rate of child labor in Yemen last year increased from 400 thousand working children in 2000 to 700 thousand children working in jobs that do not fit with ages.

The study reveals that about 2 million children drop out of schools.

YT

SANA’A, April 20 — More than six percent of Yemenis have dropped below the poverty line due to rising staple food prices, joining the 40 percent of Yemenis already living on less than $2 per day, Yemen’s country director for the World Food Program, or WFP, said at a press conference Saturday.

Additionally, there are few viable methods available to the average Yemeni family to help cope with the recent increased risk of starvation.

“Coping mechanisms are limited to skipping essential needs, so it either affects the food basket or health and education,” said Mohamed El-Kouhene, Yemen’s WFP country director, adding, “If we don’t do something now, Millennium Development Goals will be set back 70 years.”

In order to feed their families, those Yemenis living below the poverty line will have to either skip meals, decrease their intake of fruits, vegetables and meat, or discontinue medical visits and schooling for their children, he noted.

The state of the nation’s food instability, which has increased due to price hikes, has become more precarious as the $28 million gap between the WFP’s budget and Yemen’s need continues to grow.

Although the Yemeni government has been attempting reforms in water management and increasing agricultural output, these efforts aren’t enough to stave off hunger for the majority of the population, as both rural and urban residents are affected.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick urged developed nations to contribute the promised $500 million in emergency donations to the WFP in a press statement made on April 9. “This isn’t just a question of short-term needs, as important as they are,” Zoellick stated to the Associated Press. “This is about ensuring that future generations don’t pay a price too.”

Between June 2007 and March 2008, the price of basic cereals has increased 55 percent worldwide, according to El-Kouhene.

A major factor contributing to the global rise in grain prices are energy and oil prices, which affect everything from food production to processing to transportation.

With oil prices reaching new heights, El-Kouhene expects food prices to increase as well, climbing for several months before stabilizing.

While there have been reports of field workers bribing beneficiaries or stealing food, El-Kouhene says the WFP has a strong monitoring system, noting that when commodities disappeared from one WFP warehouse last year, they were restituted quickly.

Other problems, such as water shortage and using arable land for qat production, are under government review, but the 46 percent of Yemenis living in dire poverty don’t have the luxury of waiting for solutions.

April 23 (Bloomberg) — Nagy Ali Mohammed isn’t worried about a water shortage in Yemen. He says God will provide what’s needed for the craggy, volcanic land where he grows khat, a leaf chewed daily by most Yemeni men.

“There is Allah above,” the 50-year-old said as a red truck pumped water into his fields. “There always will be water.”

Yemen will need more than Nagy’s faith in the divine to avert a crisis. The Middle Eastern nation’s addiction to khat is sucking up scarce water resources. Cultivation of the mild stimulant has increased 13-fold in three decades and now uses 30 percent of the nation’s water, according to the World Bank.

Khat is consuming water needed to meet growing demands as the population increases by 3.5 percent annually and people desert the countryside for the city. The capital, Sanaa, won’t have enough water for its more than 2 million inhabitants within two decades, said Ramon Scoble, team leader for a water project run by German aid agency GTZ.

“It is not a matter of if it happens anymore, but a matter of when,” he said.

The water shortage risks exacerbating other challenges faced by the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, which doesn’t have the oil and gas resources of neighboring Saudi Arabia and Oman. A surge in al-Qaeda attacks is driving away tourists. On April 11, the U.S. State Department ordered non-essential embassy employees to leave Sanaa.

Rising commodity prices will accelerate the annual inflation rate to 15 percent this year, the highest in the region, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report.

Arabia Felix

Called Arabia Felix, or happy Arabia, by the Romans for its abundant natural resources, Yemen now imports as much as 95 percent of its wheat.

“The water shortage is an acute problem,” said Selva Ramachandran of the United Nations Development Program in Sanaa.

The lack of water is likely to change the landscape of the Islamic nation of 19.3 million. Scoble estimated that as much 40 percent of Sanaa residents will have to relocate within 25 years.

Yemeni farmers pump five times more water than is returned to underground basins each year, according to the Ministry of Water and Environment.

Khat, which Yemenis say brings them clarity of thought and humor, is engrained in the local culture. More than 50 percent of Yemeni men chew the leaf every day, according to a World Bank report published last June. Some spend as much as 6 hours a day chewing baseball-sized wads jammed into their cheeks.

One in seven working Yemeni produce and distribute khat, making it the second-largest source of jobs in the country, the World Bank says. It employs more people than the public sector.

Subsidized Fuel

Khat farmer Nagy Ali Mohammed says he isn’t naive enough to say there’s no problem, though there’s little he can do but pray.

“We get our money from khat,” he said.

To irrigate khat, farmers have dug tube wells powered by state-subsidized fuel.

The government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in a bind. While cheap fuel encourages the over-use of water, reducing the subsidies would make it too expensive for farmers to irrigate their fields, said Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hamdi, deputy minister of water and environment.

“The government talks about conserving water, but indirectly the government subsidizes water extraction through fuel subsidies,” al-Hamdi said.

In the past, the government tried to prohibit khat use in public offices and excluded khat farmers from receiving loans for irrigation projects. While police are barred from chewing khat on duty, men in green uniforms smile with wads in their cheeks and guns slung over their shoulders as they search for al-Qaeda members on the roads around Sanaa.

“It is a losing battle,” al-Hamdi said, adding that the government doesn’t have the manpower, training or money to fight the drug.

Wells and Water Jars

In As-Sowdah, a village north of Sanaa that has no electricity, Hindia Ahmed treks 500 meters across the parched earth five or six times a day to reach the local well. When the well runs dry, she must descend into the Amran basin by foot or donkey to collect water trucked in by the government.

“It is difficult and hard work carrying water,” said the 50-year-old woman, with a metal pot balanced on her head. Her black headscarf and green-flowered skirt stand out against the barren landscape. “I always have a backache.”

Households of 8 to 15 people in villages such as As-Sowdah use as little as 40 to 100 liters a day for cooking, drinking and washing, Scoble said. The World Health Organization says each person should have access to 180 liters of water daily.

Inside Bab al-Yemen, the historical gateway to the Old City of Sanaa and along alleys bordered by stone and baked-brick houses, buying khat is a daily ritual. Men wearing pin-striped suit jackets and skirts, with ornate daggers strapped around their waists, haggle over price and quality.

“Khat is the whiskey of Yemen,” said Saleh Amid Qalan, a 32-year-old government employee, standing in a passage next to the seventh century Great Mosque, the country’s oldest.

Three million kids working

Al-Sahwa

Alsahwa.net

March 31, 2008 – A recent statistic prepared by Child Labor Office in 6 Yemeni governorates estimated child labor about 189000 children.

The study made clear that most children work in farming;38,000 in Ibb, 29,000 in Sana’a, 27,000 in Dhamar, 28,000 in Amran, 20,000 in Hodaida.

An official report issued recently by the Shoura Council pointed out that the child labor growth in Yemen is 3 percent.

,indicating that child labor extensively centers in the field of agriculture by 92%, while 4.8% work in services , 2.5% of them are non-professional employment.

The report also explained that children work for over 17 hours a day and receive low wages.

According to a statistics prepared in 2003, the number of child labor reached 3,2 million children. Law prohibits child labor in some occupations.

According to Yemen’s law, the established minimum age for employment is 15 years in contrary to the international law which identifies that with 18 years.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor estimated in 2000 that 400,000 children work in occupations which do not fit their ages and about 2,000,000

Yemen Observer

Yemeni children under one year of age are especially prone to malnutrition, according to a Sana’a University study conducted by a group of researchers at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science.

The study was conducted on child patients younger than ten years of age from a number of governmental hospitals in Sana’a. “This research was aimed to assess and quantify the magnitude of inequalities in under-ten child malnutrition, particularly those ascribable to socio-economic status and gastroenteritis, to consider the policy implications of these findings,” said Dr. Ubada Jum’a, one of the researchers involved in the study.

About 53 percent of Yemen’s population,with more than 24,000 Yemeni children under the age of five, are estimated to suffer from malnutrition, according to officials of the Country Program, run by the United Nations World Food Programme in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Health and Population and the Ministry of Education. The Country Program is expected to be implemented in Yemen during the next five years.

The World Health Organization defines malnutrition as the cellular imbalance between supply of nutrients and energy and the body’s demand for them to ensure proper growth, maintenance and specific bodily functions.

A child becomes malnourished because of illness in combination with inadequate food intake. Insufficient access to food, poor health services, the lack of safe water and sanitation and inadequate child and maternal care are underlying causes.

More than 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water and some 2.9 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. This results in the spread of infectious diseases, including childhood diarrhea, which in turn are major causes of malnutrition.

Malnutrition contributes to over 6 million deaths of children each year of the nearly 12 million deaths among children under five in developing countries. Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.

Poor eating habits or lack of available food may lead to malnutrition. Malnutrition occurs in children who are either undernourished or overnourished. Children who are overnourished may become overweight or obese, which may lead to long-term health problems and social stress. Malnutrition can occur because of the lack of a single vitamin in the diet, or it can be because a person isn’t getting enough food.

Malnutrition also occurs when adequate nutrients are consumed in the diet, but one or more nutrients are not digested or absorbed properly.

The Yemeni study found that most cases of malnourishment, 44 percent are found in children less than six months of age with about 33 percent of children between 7 months and one year old are suffering from malnutrition. Children between one to five years of age suffer less from malnutrition than other age groups, with a rate of 22 percent, the study found.

According to the study, most of the malnourished children, 76 percent, come from various rural areas, while just 25 percent are found to be living in cities. Since the highest rate of malnourished children is found in rural areas, this can be interpreted and being caused by the parents’ lack of education. It was found that 89 percent of the mothers were not educated, while just 3 percent of the fathers were highly educated.

The family’ socioeconomic condition plays an important role in affecting children’s nutrition, as about 33 percent of affected children were living in a low socioeconomic state.

The study noted that about 23 percent of malnourished children suffered from respiratory problems after delivery and 29 percent of them had gastrointestinal tract (GIT) troubles. Moreover, it is important to note that just 45 percent of the children were breast feeding, while 33 percent were fed with artificial milk and 22 percent were fed with both, the study said.

“It’s also interesting to know that more than 40 percent of malnourished children had stopped breast feeding before reaching one year of age. This may be the main cause of malnutrition and inadequate nutrient intake,” said Dr. Jum’a.

Vaccination is very important for protecting children from many diseases. The study also found that 50 percent of the children did not receive regular vaccinations.

Gastroenteritis was found to be the most prevalent cause of malnutrition in Yemen as about 64 percent of cases were found to be due to gastroenteritis and 22 percent were due to abnormal dietary intake. These causes have a correlation with breast feeding and the family’s low education and poor socioeconomic conditions.

Yemen is one of the least developed countries in the world. Its widespread nutritional deficit is likely the result of Yemen’s extremely low national income, as well as the poor state of education in the country. The fact that roughly 50 percent of families’ income goes towards qat is also a factor. In 2005 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ranked Yemen 151st out of 177 in the list of countries on the Human Development Index.

According to the UN World Food Programme, almost half the people in Yemen do not have enough to eat. About 40 percent of Yemen’s population of 22 million lives below the poverty line on less than $2 per day. Moreover, opportunities to receive education and health care are limited, especially in rural areas, where 88 percent of women and 36 percent of men are illiterate, the report shows.

The World Bank has noted that the average annual income was only $450 in 2003, and Yemen’s unemployment rate was close to 40 percent in that same year. “Malnutrition is one of the main challenges in Yemen, where 46 percent - almost half - of the children are underweight,” said Naseem Ur-Rehman, communications coordinator at UNICEF’s Sana’a office. “The magnitude of the problem is huge, as underweight children are particularly vulnerable to diseases, compounding the issue.”

Health indicators also reveal other serious problems. The number of mothers who die during childbirth is increasing faster than in the world’s most underdeveloped countries. In 2005, the infant mortality rate (for babies under 1 year of age) was 76 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to UNICEF. The rate for children under five was 102.

The study’s researchers think that prevention of malnutrition in children starts with an emphasis on prenatal nutrition and good prenatal care. Health care providers should emphasize the importance of breastfeeding in the first year of life.

In addition to the promotion of breastfeeding, health care providers should counsel parents on the appropriate introduction of nutritious supplemental foods, the researchers said.

The study, supervised by Dr. Mohammed al-Naeb who is an assistant professor in the Community Medicine Department, recommended paying more attention to those children who are at risk of nutritional deficiency. According to the study, they should be referred to a registered dietitian or other nutritional professional for a complete nutritional assessment and dietary counseling.

The study was conducted by Ubada Jum’a, Qutaiba Lutfi, and Amer Attia.

Source: IRIN

SANAA, 17 February 2008 (IRIN) - A technical committee of Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights recently finished drafting a 17-article parliamentary bill which, if ratified by parliament, aims to clarify the country’s asylum law and give the government more control over asylum seekers and refugees in the country.

Officials could not say when the draft law will be presented before the legislature.

Sulaiman Tabrizi, head of the rights ministry’s International Organisations Department, told IRIN that the driving motivation behind the draft law was to clarify the status of the continuous stream of Africans fleeing to Yemen. “Their legal status is not clear. Should all of them be regarded as refugees or migrants? Is the Refugee Convention applicable to them? Does Yemen have the capacity to deal with all of them?” he said.

Yemen is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula that has signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its related 1967 Protocol, which removed a deadline and geographical restrictions from the Convention.

Tabrizi said if passed the new law would spell out the Yemeni government’s responsibilities towards would-be refugees. “There is a need to show how someone who has been persecuted in his country should be treated. In some cases, refugees [in Yemen] are not treated in accordance with the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol,” he said, adding that the new law would rectify this.

“The 1991 Yemeni Migration Law is the only law that is applied to refugees, but that does not comply with the Refugee Convention,” Tabrizi said.

New law defines refugees

Yemen’s draft law defines a refugee as anyone who has left his country of origin for fear of prosecution as a result of his race, religion, nationality, political views or social class; or as a result of foreign assault on, or occupation of, his country, riots or unrest.

The new law seeks to give the government more control over who is given refugee status, what they are entitled to and where they live.

At present in Yemen, the government gives Somalis, who make up the vast majority of African asylum seekers, automatic refugee status once they apply for it, while non-Somali Africans (mostly Ethiopians and Eritreans) must apply to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for refugee status.

New restrictions

Under the new law, a governmental committee would be formed to consider asylum applications from all nationalities and decide whether or not to grant applicants refugee status. The committee would be chaired by an elected official from the rights ministry and its membership would consist of officials from the interior and foreign affairs ministries among others. The committee would work in coordination with UNHCR.

Yemen’s government currently allows African refugees to move freely in the country and work in non-government jobs. Under the draft law, refugees would only be allowed to live in areas assigned by the rights ministry.

According to Yemeni security authorities, many African migrants enter Yemen illegally and many do not register at any of the country’s seven government/UNHCR-run reception centres. Under the new law, the rights ministry would have the authority to expel any asylum seeker or refugee in Yemen, after consulting with security authorities and UNHCR, if it is deemed necessary to protect national or public security.

Ahmed Hayel, an official at the interior ministry, told IRIN that by the end of 2007 the number of Africans (both legal and illegal migrants) in Yemen had reached about 800,000 out of a total population of 21 million. Most were Somalis.

The UNHCR office in Yemen put the total number of African registered (legal) migrants at over 100,000, mostly from Somalia, although, Abdul-Malik Aboud, a UNHCR official, recently conceded that the number of Africans in Yemen was more than the number registered.

This is a very important survey.

Mareb Press

SANAA, Aid workers say children and adolescents in Saada Governorate, northern Yemen, have experienced high levels of psychological trauma as a result of prolonged fighting between government forces and a Shia rebel group.

Their assertion is based in part on the results of a UN Children’s Fund-funded survey carried out by the Medical Charitable Association (MCA), a local non-governmental organisation. The psycho-social assessment survey covered all 15 of Saada’s districts in August-October 2007.

Some 1,400 respondents were selected, 630 of whom were children and adolescents. Some 92.4 percent of the sampled children and adolescents had been exposed to armed conflict; 5.7 percent were evacuated temporarily from their villages during armed conflict; 44 percent were forced to hide to save their lives; 43.4 percent saw the destruction of their or their friends’ houses; 28 percent felt they were about to die during the conflict; 15 percent were injured; 13.8 percent had at least one family member killed; and 10 percent had one family member missing.

Mohammed al-Maqrami, technical coordinator of the Psychosocial Support Project, told IRIN that 53.2 percent of respondents ranked high on major depressive symptoms, and 49.2 percent on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Saada locals, according to the findings, had high levels of PTSD symptoms - on a par with traumatised populations in post-conflict areas like Nepal, Palestine and Iran,” he said.

According to al-Maqrami, symptoms included depression, anxiety, behavioural and aggression problems, and physical symptoms (like nausea, headaches and tremors).

The Saada Governorate has only seven health facilities, and a population of some 700,000. There is no specialist facility for psychological cases.

Training

On 16 February MCA started a two-week training workshop in Saada city, targeting 70 local people. The trainees include health and education workers, civil society organisations, and community leaders. Mahfoud al-Kadam, an MCA information officer, said the trainees would learn how to deal with psychologically affected people, and also be given manuals.

Once trained, Al-Kadam said, trainees would be sent to the field to deal with traumatised people and also train locals on dealing with them.

According to MCA, delayed onset disorder cases or those with persistent psychological distress, despite receiving psychological first aid and group interventions locally, will need to be referred to regional and central teams for more specialised treatment.

source: IRIN

YT

The general inflation rate rose to 19.4 percent in the past year, while foodstuff inflation jumped to 36.6 percent, with the former recording a nine percent increase and the latter 30.7 percent, as compared to 2004, according to an official quarterly report.

The economic development report issued by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation attributed the high inflation rate to fuel price hikes and national currency decline. It confirmed that transportation and agriculture were the most affected sectors due to increasing prices of fuel products, as the transportation inflation rate spiked from one percent in June 2005 to 31.6 percent in September of that same year.

According to the report, skyrocketing transportation fares helped raise inflation rates in all production and handicraft sectors, as well as increase agricultural production costs, as plant irrigation depends on diesel pumps.

The report added that the Yemeni Riyal fell 3.5 percent in January 2005 compared to the dollar, which helped raise commodities prices, particularly imported items. This fact coincided with monetary supply growth, which mounted to YR 975 billion, accounting for 42.2 percent of gross domestic product.

UN:

Yemen must address a dire shortage of both schools and professional teachers, according to a recent report from UN Children’s Fund UNICEF.

“The lack of teachers is one of the main challenges facing education, mainly among rural women,” said Naseem Ur-Rehman, communications coordinator at the fund’s Sana’a office. “There’s also a lack of schools – students in some areas have to walk long distances to get to school.”

A UNICEF statement issued on Wednesday noted that a whopping 46 percent of eligible school children “are not given basic education”, with primary school enrolment for boys and girls countrywide standing at about 65 percent and 41 percent respectively. “The task before the educationists is formidable,” the statement noted, “and makes it obligatory on the national leadership to mobilise the support of all partners for realising the child’s right to education.”

The situation is far worse in rural areas, where only 30 percent of girls are enrolled in school, the statement noted. Moreover, a full half of the Yemeni girls who begin primary school drop out before they reach the sixth grade.

The lack of education is reflected in national illiteracy rates. Almost half of the Yemeni population, of 19.7 million people, between the ages of 10 and 45 is illiterate, according to government statistics. While the figure hovers at about 30 percent for men, it exceeds 67 percent for women.

In 2001, Yemen developed the Basic Education Development Strategy (BEDS) project with the help of the World Bank and donor countries and agencies. “Yemen prepared a suitable education strategy which has been reviewed and endorsed by the international community,” said BEDS Director Dr Abdulateef al-Munaifi. “BEDS is targeting education quality, building schools and encouraging child enrolment.”

Al-Munaifi said that the problem wasn’t necessarily with the numbers of available teachers, but with how they were distributed throughout the country. “We have around 170,000 teachers, but they aren’t well-distributed,” he said. “They’re focused mainly in the cities.” He added that there were currently around 14,000 schools countrywide, accommodating five million students at the basic and secondary levels.

The education problem is not unique to Yemen. UNESCO estimates that Arab states in general will need to create 450,000 new teaching posts to cope with incoming students, particularly in Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

The UNICEF statement was issued on the occasion of the international “Education for All” week, celebrated annually to promote the UN millennium development goal of putting every child in school by 2015.

IMF: Yemen

Projected % Change 2006 2007
Real GDP……………….. 3.9….. 3.0
Consumer Prices……..15.5….12.0

Source: World Economic Outlook (April 2006)
Please refer to more recent PIN/Staff reports on this country for possible revisions.

I dont think this report factors in the population growth.

hmmmm, from the YO:

The Executive Manager of the Tourism Promotion Board (TPB) has been referred by Ministry of Tourism to the Prosecutor of Public Money charged with fraud.

The executive manager was charged with transferring YR15 million to a false account for the purpose of taking part in an exhibition in the British city of Manchester, but that the organization never took part.

The minister, Nabil Al-Faqih said that it was a ‘precautionary procedure’, and that they would wait for prosecution team to complete their investigation.

A letter was sent to the finance ministry requesting changing the executive and financial managers of the TPB, but the ministry turned the request down, insisting they stay in their position.

However, Al-Faqih added that he would be forced to suspend then if they Ministry of Finance did not respond to his demand.

In a meeting on Sunday in the TPB, Al-Faqih confirmed that the organization would b restructured based on legal measures.

A vice-chairman of the board was elected from the private sector for the first time. The board of the fund was also elected in a secret vote.

He said it was agreed to establish a tourism investment company to encourage investment in important tourist sites that are currently rarely visited.

Earlier, the Ministries of Media, Culture and Tourism had promised before Parliament to refer all those suspected of corruption to the prosecution of public money.

This came in discussions of the report presented by the Media, Culture and Tourism committee in their study of the reports of Central Organization of Control and Audit (COCA).

The COCA reports showed that total violations in the Ministry of Media and other institutions under its umbrella reached YR 2.64 billion until 2003, while in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism it reached YR 733 million.

The two ministers of Media and Tourism Hassan Al-Lowzi and Nabil Al-Faqih, demanded specific names of those accused of corruption so that they could be questioned.

They repeated their desire to stand beside Parliament in the fight against corruption.

The Deputy Minister of Culture stressed the necessity to tackle violations starting from as far back as 1990.

Parliament demanded additional recommendations to the Media Committee to inform Parliament of the names and positions of those involved in corruption, estimated to be as high as YR3billion.

This recommendation was proposed by MP Sakhr Al-Wajeeh from the ruling PGC party. This procedure must be done within a week to refer them all to prosecution of public money for investigation, and then for trial at a specialized court.

MP Sakhr Al-Wajeeh and MP Abdul-Karim Shaiban asked why the report had been delayed for more than a year before it reached the agenda of Parliament.

Abdul-Razaq Al-Hajari said that the most widely read newspapers in Yemen and liked by many people were the most corrupted, according to the COCA report.

Starting the New Year off with a bang:

(YT) Opposition MPs released a statement accusing government of playing with public spending and recording large sums of money, included in 2006 budget items, amounting to 320 billion Yemeni Riyals that went to the unknown. The statement also blamed government for the spread of corruption, lack of human development and failure to improve citizens’ living standards….

The committee’s remarks exposed that spending on some services like education and health is not encouraging, emphasizing that education expenditures decreased from 21.2 percent in the 2005 budget to 15.5 percent in the 2006 budget.

How do you decrease educational spending in a country with an illiteracy rate of over 50% and over a million kids not in school, while increasing the military budget? Easily if the parliament is packed with GCP party members. I read a book that called the GPC “the party of government employees.” And that’s a fair assessment, because if you want a government job in Yemen, its best to belong to the GPC. And if you want to keep that job, its best not to make waves.

Some quotes from the Yemeni papers with links

Buying good media coverage, not an unusual occurance:

As for chairman of the board of directors of the Watani Bank Dr Ahmed Al-Hamdani, and according to media sources, has allocated around YR one million for journalists who would stand by him against dealing with the attack on him, saying it was targeted against him from among the other banks operating in the country.

Why the Houthis?

Politicians differed in their explanations of the reasons that led the authorities to uproot the activities of Al-Houthi followers. Some say that the reasons are political; others describe them as ethnical while the third group relates the authorities’ attempt to exterminate Al-Houthi as a response to U.S. and Israeli demands. Majority of politicians, however, believe that Saudis, through their strong influence in Yemen, have a hand in plans for eliminating the Shiite movement of Al-Houthi, which according to their belief, limits the expansion of the Wahabi movement in Yemeni territory.

Why the kidnapping?

The kidnappers told the mediators that ‘they resorted to kidnapping because they failed to convince the security authorities to release their relatives and refer them to judiciary”….Security authorities claim the three detainees have been accused of fighting the US-led coalition in the Iraqi territories. They also accuse them of having connection with one of the organizations facilitating the transportation of Yemeni fighters to Iraq.

Agriculture:, a main stay of the economy.

They said they aimed at achieving a high rate of productivity this season but insecticides spread in their farms destroyed the crops. A vast area was destroyed because of these bad insecticides making the 2005 product less than the planed rate by far….Consequent to their deteriorating conditions, many farmers were compelled to abandon their farms.

Women agricultrual workers:

The study, published by the Labor Market Information System (LMIS) program, added that the majority of working women are concentrated in the agricultural sector as unpaid family workers. It is estimated that approximately 61.9% of women workers in Yemen are unpaid.

Business:

The report pointed out that Yemen had captured the highest figure in the cost of building a legal entity for businesses. While in Kuwait it is 24% of the average income of the individual, it reaches at 269.2% of the average of income of the individual in Yemen.

Criminal enterprises: of the powerful negatively impact society.

Considering the strategic location of Yemen, drugs are usually shipped from Southeast Asia through the Gulf of Aden and other coasts around the country. From there, it is shipped to numerous gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and other countries in the region. Not surprisingly, many of these illegal drugs are left behind and used in Yemen. New markets for these drugs have been created in places like Aden, Hodieda, and other cities across the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf shores.

Traffic police:

Traffic police only get paid the equivalent of $5 for a day’s work, which is the reason for this widespread problem….A traffic police officer who preferred to remain anonymous said, “People don’t understand that we are living through this dark age as well. With salaries like the equivalent of $150 monthly, we can’t even guarantee ourselves a future.” It is hard to imagine who is right when you hear the story from both sides. Citizens complain of traffic police oppression, while traffic police complain of government oppression.

Yet Another Journalist Targeted:

“They called me an al-Houthi associate and accused me of acting against the regime and the state, which is the same accusation used by security officials in the area against any citizen rejecting their brutal and illegal actions,” he said. He added, “other calls were made by those officials to my relatives asking about my home in Sanaa and where I go.”

He said he fears retaliation by the police, who could attack his family living in the Al-Shahil district because of what he has written in the report.

The cultural heritage:

I think the governmental sector failed in protecting antiquities. It is very difficult to convince the authorities with the importance of antiquities and to make them realize what antiquities are….Confronted with a question about the security of archeological sites many of which are believed to have been left to looters and robbers, Prof. Yosuf replied that this is the duty of the locals themselves and the local government.

GCC:

Other political analysts described the summit results as below expectations, some going so far as to say that even the pro-Yemen GCC attitudes were below what the people of the Gulf states aspire to. Other analysts believe that any steps taken by the GCC countries are useful to Yemen and should be welcomed. Nasserite leader Mohammed Al-Sabri believed Yemen required further reforms in all sectors to avoid lagging behind the Gulf states.

On the other hand, theres a few saved posts and links lists I can throw together:

Transparency Yemen offices corrupted per this oped:

People start working and then receive their payment, not to exceed 50,000 Yemeni Riyals. The receiver is to sign the receipt, leaving the rest for the organization’s official who enters the date, spending purpose and beneficiary’s name. However, the corrupt official then writes the sum as $900 (180,000YR). Invoices and purchase receipts often are handled this way. Finally, the donor receives a file with all documentation proving funds were spent on the project. Of course, also included are published news items about the project.

A good report from the YO on corruption in the embassies:

In Yemeni Embassy of the United Kingdom it has been found that Yemeni nationals and foreigners are asked to pay one hundred pounds sterling for approval of a single document, whether personal or commercial. “You have to deposit the total amount for the number of documents you need approved in a private company account,” a Yemeni-British businessman told the Yemen Observer. “I discovered from the bank receipt that the account is under the name of the financial officer of the embassy.”

The article details also the practices in the Yemeni embassies in Saudi Arabia and Beruit.

An analysis of the very high rates of female mortality, also from the YO:

A recent study found that for every 100,000 baby delivered, an estimated 366 women die due to birth-related complications…The corresponding number of these maternal deaths in neighboring countries is just 10.

While 51% of women in the developing countries deliver babies with the aid of one skilled attendant, then in Yemen, a very broad section of women have no access to any obstetric medicine at all.

Lack of access to obstetric services remains a pivotal reason behind high maternal mortality rates.”

whew, now this guy really didn’t like Finkel’s articles: The problem, for those who think reality is worth knowing, is with the distorted vision of a hotel-based journalist on a limited assignment published via dismissive rhetoric and translated quotes scattered about in tepid newspaperspeak like shrapnel after a cluster bomb explodes. And some more: Yemen is more than an embryonic democracy. Unlike Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, where most of the perpetrators of the September 11 bombing came from, Yemen is already a democracy with several successful elections as supporting evidence. I guess that depends on your definition of success and democracy. Its a long analysis, with some valid points, that I have to read again. But I heard positive reaction from Yemenis about Finkles articles. I think Finkle did a good job, considering the country is so unknown, playing out the relation between Saleh and the tribes was a major accomplishment. Describing the administration as a kleptocracy is spot on.

Now this is odd. An article in the Arab News notes a Swiss court’s decision to acquit Yassin Abdullah Al-Qadia (also Kadi Qadi Quadi), a Saudi national who donated to Zindani’s al-Iman university. The article says, “The charges alleged that Al-Qadi gave money in 1998 ostensibly to construct student housing at Al-Iman University in Yemen while knowing that the funds may have ended up supporting Al-Qaeda’s plan to attack New York City.” The suit was brought by 9/11 families, not the USG.

The odd thing is that The 9/11 Report and other analysis ties all the financing directly to bin Laden. The article states, “And on Dec. 12 the Swiss concurred, stating that no evidence ever linked Al-Qadi to any knowledge of the possibility that his money could have ended up in the hands of a known terrorist organization.” So did the Swiss court find that this guy just didnt know? Or that the money that went to al-Iman did not end up in the hands of a terrorist organization?

The US Treasury Dept classified Zindani as a “major terrorist” in 2004 as a contact and I think also a financier. But this is the first time I ever saw anything published that linked Zindani to 9/11, other then the fact that he was bin Laden’s mentor and spiritual advisor.

Analysis of the GPC conference from the Daily Star:

Yemen’s ruling party on Friday re-elected the country’s long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh as its head, in a move widely interpreted to mean that he was likely to seek a new term. President Saleh has served his country honorably, and long - but perhaps long enough, because he embodies two of the chronic, structural problems in Arab political governance systems during the past 40 years.

One problem is that too many Arab heads of state have been former armed forces commanders who have tended to run their countries in the same top-down way they used to run their militaries….The second problem that plagues much of this region is that of presidents-for-life. Saleh has run the former North Yemen and then the united Yemen for a total of 27 years - a full generation. Rulers who stay in power for so long tend to rule badly after the first 25 years, because they allow systems to develop around them that slowly atrophy and succumb to mismanagement, insularity, corruption and general mediocrity.

And the presidential term is seven years, that’s a long time.

This is also strange for several reasons: Al-Sahwa.net – (12/20)

Yemeni official sources revealed that
the United States of America asked Yemen to open US
prisons in Yemen.

Chairman of the Political Circle of the Nasserite
Unionist party Mohammad al-Sabri said that US
requested Yemen to open special American prisons
during the latest visit of president Ali Abdullah
Saleh to the United States last November.

Al-Sabri confirmed the US request in a paper offered
in a debate session held by the Yemeni Center for
Strategic Studies on Tuesday on the reforms initiative
of the Joint Meeting Parties.

Saleh told al-Sabri this?
And an official denial via 26 Sept.

more links
(Read on …)

ADNKI: Yemen pushes for entry into the GCC.

At the Gulf summit in Muscat, Oman, in 2001, Yemen was admitted to the council of ministers of education, health and social affairs and to the Gulf Football Cup. Yemen now hopes to join the economic groups and other institutions of the GCC, and offers its recent World Bank-backed economic reforms as proof that it deserves to get full membership, the Yemen Observer reports.

Was this the same soccer league that recently suspended the team because of governmental interference? Economic reforms, where-decreasing the oil subsidies while increasing military spending 50%?

World Bank statistics put Yemen’s Gross National Income (GNI) at 570 US dollars per capita. The GNI of the other GCC members ranges from Oman at 7,890 dollars to Kuwait at 17,970 dollars and the United Arab Emirates at around 20,000 dollars. Life expectancy in Yemen is also significantly lower than that of the Gulf countries.

Child mortality is significantly higher.