Armies of Liberation

This is from Munier’s article below (google translated) and this is an actual oversight committee, Faris al Sanabani and all… I checked to make sure he wasn’t being sarcastic and no, the president’s son and nephews are actually the officials entrusted with foreign investment oversight.

The advice given by the son of former President is still in my list, and are justified because the President’s son, headed a commission unconstitutional oversees all investments of the country, is the most prominent members of this Committee the following brothers:

Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh
Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh
Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Saleh
Yahya Abdullah Saleh Doid
Khalid Al-Akwaa
Fares Alsenbani
Salah Al-Attar
Hafez Maiad
Jalal Yacoub

A case of the fox guarding the hen house.

None of the fisheries numbers line up and they haven’t for years (the exports reported by businessess and the official reports-and the prices reported). Its among the most corrupt for sure, which is saying a lot. The question is where is the leakage going and is the connection to Zindani severed informally as well as officially? Thers’s all the deals with the foreign companies, the diversion of donor aid and the destruction of the marine ecosystem as additional concerns.

Yemen Post

The country has seen a fall in fish production over the last few years. Despite the conflicting statistics of the Ministry of Fish Wealth about Yemen’s exports of fish products, the contribution of this sector is still limited and does not exceed 1.7 percent of the total exports.
According to the ministry, fish production of 2008 dropped to 127,000 tons, from 256,000 tons in 2004 and 230,000 tons during in 2005 and 2006. It fell to 180,000 tons in 2007. (Read on …)

LM

New Delhi: India’s largest power generation company, NTPC Ltd, says its plans to set up power projects and a training centre for local engineers in Yemen—from where it wants to source gas for its fuel-starved plants back home—have run into trouble following a dispute over the cost of maintaining existing facilities in that country. (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 …)

They don’t name the son but it could be Ahmed Saleh, the son of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the heir apparent to Saleh’s throne. He is also the commander of the Special Forces and the Republican Guard which directs the mechanized units including artillary, the new tanks and rockets. Payments also went to the ministry of telecommunication and other Yemeni officials.

US Department of Justice

Latin Node Inc., Pleads Guilty to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violation and Agrees to Pay $2 Million Criminal Fine

WASHINGTON – Latin Node Inc. (Latinode), a privately held Florida corporation, pleaded guilty today to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in connection with improper payments in Honduras and Yemen, Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division announced.

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Paul Courtney Huck in the Southern District of Florida, Latinode pleaded guilty to a one-count information charging a criminal violation of the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions. As part of the plea agreement, Latinode agreed to pay a $2 million fine during a three-year period.

According to court documents, Latinode provided wholesale telecommunications services using Internet protocol technology countries throughout the world, including Honduras and Yemen…

In addition, from approximately July 2005 to April 2006, court documents show that Latinode made 17 payments totaling approximately $1,150,654 either directly to Yemeni officials or to a third-party consultant with the knowledge that some or all of the money would be passed on to Yemeni officials in exchange for favorable interconnection rates in Yemen. Each of those payments was made from Latinode’s Miami bank account. According to court documents, company e-mails indicate that the intended payment recipients included, but were not limited to, the son of the Yemeni president; the vice president of operations at TeleYemen, the Yemeni government-owned telecommunications company; other officials of TeleYemen; and officials from the Yemeni Ministry of Telecommunications.

This is bad news: al-Tagheer:

Four tourists in Shibam Hadramout killed this evening in a car bomb by a suicide bomber.

He said the correspondent of the “change” in a procession to Shibam for a group of tourists traveling in a vehicle belonging to one of the travel and tourism, one of the persons intercepted a car bomb has exploded cars and a number of dead and wounded.

The correspondent added that the operation took place near a mountain, “Bp” in the Sale of Shibam Hadramout and during the procession of tourists stopped to take pictures of the sunset from the top of the mountain.

The correspondent pointed out that he is still writing, even ambulances transported the injured to more bad in the hospital did not have definitive statistics on the victims of the accident, which, according to preliminary data, which left four tourists from the Korean nationality.

He stressed that the security forces in the region imposed a security cordon at the scene of the incident and prevented from approaching it.

South Korean tourists. This is very sad. Another article says it was remote a controlled device, which if true may indicate prior experience in Iraq or an unwillingness to martyrdom, like the ambush of the Belgians in January 2008.

Updated casualty figures: Four South Koreans, three Yemenis killed, brought to the morgue in Sayoon, four South Koreans wounded.

Yes well I guess after a decade you can presume they are just not going to get completed. Even free land grants wasn’t enough motivation.

Yemen Observer

The government’s investment authority announced Tuesday that it has cancelled 189 projects financed by Yemeni and Gulf investors, including projects that have not yet been implemented after ten years of planning.

The Manager of the Hadramout Investment Authority Khalid al-Sa’di explained that the 189 projects were cancelled as a result of investor negligence, following the grace period of four months given to them by the Hadramout governor. The governor’s actions came from directions issued by the President, which stipulated the cancellation of the licenses for projects after a designated expiry date. He highlighted that these measures were especially necessary for projects where no work has been done in the ten years since the issuance of the licenses.

Last year, the President ordered the cancellation of the land licenses of investors who had failed to begin their investment projects in Hadramout, despite the free land offered to them ten years ago. (Read on …)

The poor people. The state comes, knocks down your house and sells your land for a park, and there’s nothing to do about it because the authorities you would appeal to are the ones driving the backhoe.

The concentration of land “ownership” substantial and growing due to the daily confiscation of private property. Its not just political and commercial monopolies.

Yemen Post: Dozens of families in the western province of Hudaida have been left homeless after backhoes that were guarded by many troops destroyed their homes in a north area in the province. Websites said that the area was largely devastated as the backhoes eliminated everything; the people’s homes along with all properties at them.

The people in the area were shocked because they were not notified before that such measure would be taken.

As the backhoes were accompanied by many troops from the Central Security Forces, the appeals of the people were met by oppression.

Influential officials tried many times before to take over our lands in this area and displace us but they failed and now they came supported by government orders to do so, people in the area said. (Read on …)

Yemen Times

Yemen’s economy highly depends on oil resources, with the country’s oil exports accounting for around 85 percent of export revenues and 33 percent of the GDP, according to Oct. 2007 statistics.

These figures indicate how heavily Yemen depends on oil, although the depletion threatens the oil reserves which are estimated at 116,800,000 barrels per year and 320,000 barrels per day, on average in 2007.

Yemeni non-oil exports accounted for about 27 percent of export revenues in 2007, with little improvement from 22 percent in 2006. This information came from Yahya Al-Motwakel, Minister of Industry and Trade, who reported it in the latest National Exports Conference which was held in Sana’a between November 24th and 25th, 2008.

The total revenue of the non-oil exports rose from around twelve billion YR in 2000 to YR 123 billion in 2007, according to Noman Al-Mulsi, secretary general of the Yemeni Export Supreme Council. (Read on …)

If the projects came to completion, they would have employed 26,000 people

Nearly 78 percent of investment projects in Aden have stalled, says a recent study

Yemen Times: A recent study conducted by the government revealed that 1132 investment projects in the Aden governorate have stalled or are no longer active, accounting for 78 percent of the total projects registered by the General Investment Authority.

The study was undertaken by a team from the branch of the investment authority in Aden and was headed by Mohammed Hilbub, professor of investment and supply in Aden University. The report also received support from the Germen Organization for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). According to the study, between 1992 and 2008, 601 projects have stalled and 531 remain registered by the authority but have failed to proceed as investors were unable to find land and supplies for the projects. (Read on …)

following the lead of some commerical carriers that are re-routing

Cruise ship will evacuate to avoid pirate attack

BERLIN (AP) — A German cruise ship plans to evacuate passengers in Yemen and fly them to the next port of call Wednesday to avoid any possible encounters with pirates off the coast of lawless Somalia.

Several other cruise operators said Tuesday they were also shifting or canceling tours that would have taken clients past Somalia, as nations and companies around the world debated how to confront the piracy dominating the Gulf of Aden.

The European Union said its anti-piracy mission would station armed guards on vulnerable cargo ships — the first such deployment of military personnel during international anti-piracy operations in the crucial waterway. (Read on …)

Over 445000 containers unloaded at Aden seaport in 2008

[06 March 2009]

ADEN, March 06 (Saba) – The total number of containers which have been unloaded in the Aden seaport in 2008 were al last 445126 containers from different sizes.

According to statistics issued on Friday by Aden Port Corporation, the harbor of Aden received in 2008 more than 510 ships and supertankers coming from international ports.

The Free Zone Customs at the Aden seaport has achieved a record increase in the revenue in January 2009, through incomes, fees and other various returns, amounting to up YR 1 billion, an increase of YR 246 million over the revenues during the same month in 2008.

Yemeni exports through the Aden seaport during January reached more than YR 517 million, including fish, cotton, coffee, honey and other various national products.

The number of local consumption goods’ containers locally marketed during the month amounted to 4,626 containers, an increase of 854 containers over the number of such containers during the same month last year.

The increase in the volume of exports and revenues followed growth in maritime activity and cargo ship movement at the port.

Since ancient time, Aden has played an important role as an economic and commercial port in the southern part of Yemen and as a destination that serves as a meeting point in world trade.

Over 19000 foreigners worked in Yemen in 2007
SABA

[06 March 2009]
SANA’A, March 06 (Saba) – Newly-issued statistics have showed the number of foreigners who worked in 2007 in Yemen had reached 19155, including 15734 males and 3421 females, while they were 14111 workers in 2006.

The official statistic, issued by the government-run Central Statistical Organisation, explained that Yemen absorbed by the end of 2007 at last 400 Omani workers, 220 Saudi workers, ten UAE workers, seven Kuwaitis and ten workers from both Qatar and Bahrain.

“There were more than 16000 Arabs worked in Yemen in 2007, including 4947 Iraqis, 3082 Egyptians, 1398 Jordanians, 1976 Palestinians, 1506 Sudanese workers, 1125 Somali workers, 947 Syrians, 281 Libyans, 280 Lebanese workers, 160 Moroccans and 80 workers were from both Tunisia and Algeria”, numbered the statistics.

“About 6862 foreigners worked in scientific and caring areas, while 4534 were technicians as the same fields. Meanwhile, 2027 foreigners operated as directors of public and business administrations, followed by more than 1847 workers were engineers. More than 3885 foreigners worked in the fields of sales, services, agriculture, breeding birds and handcrafts”.

The statistics mentioned that the local private sectors embraced 10417 workers and oil companies employed 3613 workers, while universities and education sectors engaged 1611 foreigners, up 1200 were in investment sector and over 2307 foreigners worked for other bodies.

Global crises, natural disaster shake Yemen’s economy
—————————————————–

Jane Novak For the Yemen Times

SANA’A, Nov. 29 — Yemen’s oil-reliant economy is in trouble. Known oil reserves are depleting. Low global oil prices make economic diversification and budgetary rationalization urgent concerns. The outbreak of piracy in the Gulf of Aden harms potential growth sectors including Aden port, off-shore oil blocks and Yemen’s LNG project. Swelling numbers of Somali refugees, as well as Somali pirates, burden the economy. The struggling non-oil economy was dealt a blow from devastating floods in October. These factors combine to create an economic storm brewing on the horizon of 2009.

Dwindling oil supports irrational spending

Oil revenues fund over seventy per cent of state spending. Confirmed deposits are dwindling and will be largely exhausted within a decade. Production decreased from the 2002 high of 460,000 bbd to about 300,000 bbd in 2008 as blocks 14 and 35 begin to bottom out. High oil prices previously offset production declines, but oil prices dropped from over USD 120 in July to under USD 50 in November. The 2009 state budget is based on the expectation of higher sale prices and includes a deficit of seven percent of GDP.

Efforts at fiscal rationalization and budgetary restraint have been weak and inconsistent. Oil subsidies account for a third of spending and benefit large scale oil smugglers as well as the poor. About a quarter of the budget is lost to corruption, but few high officials face legal proceedings. In November, the Al-Saleh Mosque opened in Sana’a at a cost of USD 60 million amid concerns development programs are underfunded.

Yemen is in a water crisis; 2007 spending on the water sector was 1.1% of GDP. With unemployment estimated at 40%, social security funding totaled 1.1%. Health care services cover only half the nation. Health sector spending was 3.1%. Military spending consumes about 7% of GDP, among the highest in the world.

Expenditures for the Sa’ada war (2004-2008) are estimated at over YR one billion. Although a truce has been reached with the rebels, the state is in negotiations with the Chinese firm Chin Shida on new weapons purchases. It also contracted with the Ukrainian defense ministry (Odesaremservis) to upgrade Yemen’s fleet of 47 RSK Mig-21’s at a cost of several million dollars each. The work will enable the Migs and Yemen’s L-39 trainers to deploy precision guided weapons. With the anticipated drop in oil revenue, unabated high military spending will undermine already meager basic services. Transition to a non-oil economy is another urgent concern that faces an array of challenges.

Somalia launches pirates and refugees

Yemen’s coastal location is a foundation of its economic growth strategy. However, instability in Somalia triggered a spike in piracy that is disrupting maritime shipping in the Gulf of Aden. The fourth bidding round for Yemen’s eleven off shore oil blocks was postponed in August in part due to international concerns about security and sky rocketing insurance rates.

High insurance costs also negatively impact Yemen’s USD 4 billion liquefied natural gas project scheduled to come on line in May 2009. Yemen LNG, a consortium led by TOTAL, will have a capacity of 6.7 million tons per year and ship from Bal Haf Harbor, about 75 km from the epicenter of piracy. Likewise the renovation of Port Aden by Dubai Ports World is a linchpin of Yemen’s economic diversification efforts. Security concerns led Norwegian shipping group Odfjell to discontinue sailing through the Gulf of Aden, and others may follow suit.

Chaos in Somalia means Yemen has to deal with refugees as well as pirates. A signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, Yemen provides automatic refugee status to those fleeing war. About 38,000 Somali migrants crossed the Bab al Mendab this year, and Somali refugees in Yemen are estimated to exceed a quarter million. Already burdened with a 43% poverty rate and 46% child malnutrition, the state has little to offer refugees in terms of immediate assistance or economic opportunities. Concrete international aid for Somalis in Yemen is slight.

Floods wash away non-oil industries

In Yemen’s worst natural disaster in recent history, flash floods in October killed 90, damaged over 3000 houses and affected over 650,000 people according to international estimates. The massive flooding in Hadramout and al-Mahara left 30,000 in need of permanent shelter.

Infrastructure damage includes roads, schools, telephone pylons, bridges, health centers and water facilities. Relief efforts focused on humanitarian concerns of food and shelter. Environmental issues were largely unaddressed the first weeks. Consequently, the region is at risk for the outbreak of contagious diseases.

The natural disaster hit the fledgling non-oil sector of the economy. Thousands of farmers, bee-keepers and fishermen lost their livelihood and need both immediate and long term assistance. International agencies estimate damages and loss of income will exceed USD one billion.

The financial shock of the floods by itself would be difficult to absorb, even with generous international aid. The simultaneous occurrences of three shocks – the global financial crisis, piracy and the floods – magnifies their impact, and combined, threaten fiscal sustainability. Immediate and robust action on the part of the state is required to address the looming economic challenge.

HT: Eagle Speak, the best maritime themed blog out there on 1) Iranian mystery ship, clean of CW, docks in Rotterdam and 2) shipping patterns re-routing to avoid Gulf, just as DPI takes over Aden port.

III: OSLO, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Norwegian shipping group Odfjell will stop sailing through the Gulf of Aden to avoid pirates and will reroute its vessels around the Cape of Good Hope despite the higher costs, the company said on Monday.
Piracy off Somalia has plagued the shipping lane linking the Middle East Gulf and Asia to Europe and beyond through the Suez Canal. On Monday the U.S. Navy said pirates seized control of a large Saudi-owned oil tanker off east Africa — the first oil tanker to be taken by pirates in the area.
“We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden,” Odfjell Chief Executive Terje Storeng said in a statement.

“The re-routing will entail extra sailing days and later cargo deliveries,” he said. “This will incur significant extra cost, but we expect our customers’ support and contribution.”
Odfjell, which specialises in chemical tankers and has a fleet of 92 vessels, is one of a handful of companies which, according to experts, have already decided to reroute around the Cape, while several others are thinking of following suit.
The moves reflect the escalation of attacks from one every couple of weeks to as much as four in one day. Last week Somali pirates captured three ships including a chemical tanker chartered by another Norwegian shipping group, Stolt-Neilsen .
Odfjell said it was frustrated that governments and other authorities were taking a “limited interest” in the problem.
“Several chemical tankers have been hijacked at gunpoint, and although hostages up to now reportedly have been released seemingly unharmed, we do not know if this will be so in the future,” it said.
“The efforts that are being made do not seem to put an effective end to what can best be described as ruthless, high level organised crime,” Storeng added.
The company said it would resume sailing through the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal once sufficient protection is in place or action is taken to prevent pirate attacks in the area.

al-Motamar

Yemen surpassed 25 countries in reforms: WB
Thursday, 11-September-2008
Almotamar.net – A report on practice of business activities for 2009 issued lately by International Foundation for Financing and the World Bank (WB) classified Yemen among 9 countries in the world that created reforms in establishment of companies.

The report mentioned that Yemen carried out one of the most radical reforms, which is the reduction of the condition of minimum limit of the capital necessary for the establishment of companies. That condition was considered the second biggest limit in the world, in addition to inauguration of the one-stop shop system for facilitation of completion of companies establishment procedures. (Read on …)

Yemeni exports through Aden reach YR 18 billion

[28 August 2008]

ADEN, Aug. 28 (Saba)- Yemeni exports via Aden International Airport and Container Port raised from last July to reach YR 18 billion with the increase of 4 billion on the same period for the past year.

The exports included fisheries, coffee, honey, cotton, sweets, ghee, soup, perfumes, liquid milk and wheat waste.

Vice Director of Aden Customs Hussein Roudan told Saba that the governorate’s custom has realized in the same period financial revenues reached YR 9,2 billion with an increase of 1,11 billion for the equivalent period of 2007.

very sad, its a beautiful country in need of revenue

The National

Yemen, which has historically been one of the lowest earners of tourism revenue in the Middle East and North Africa region, was predicted to generate US$44 billion (Dh160.6bn) from tourism by 2020, in a report released in June by Fast Future, a UK-based tourism consultancy. By 2015, the tourism ministry, according to Mr Bail, aims to attract one million tourists.

However, the attacks and kidnappings and subsequent travel warnings have dented the country’s earning potential. According to the ministry’s statistics, there was a slight drop in the number of tourists in 2007 to 379,390 from 382,332 in 2006.

Yemen earned $424 million last year in tourism revenue, but Mr Bail said a hoped for 10 per cent growth set for 2008 would have to be reviewed after the warnings. (Read on …)

from The Economist:

A fantastic plan to span the Red Sea’s troubled waters is raising eyebrows

ONE OF Osama bin Laden’s many half-brothers, Tarek bin Laden, this week signed a deal with tiny Djibouti which may—or may not—mark the start of one of the world’s boldest engineering projects. Djibouti’s president, Ismael Omar Guelleh, promised Mr bin Laden 500 sq km (193 sq miles) of land to start building Noor City, the first of a hundred “Cities of Light” the vast Saudi Binladen Group plans around the world. “A hope for all humanity, the first environmental city of the 21st century,” gushed the promotional video at the signing. The audience, mostly American military contractors near retirement age, clapped enthusiastically. Engineers elsewhere say the scheme is a fantasy. (Read on …)

News Yemen

DJIBOUTI, NewsYemen

Chairman of the Middle East Development Company, Tarek Mohammed Bin Laden, half-bother of Osama bin Laden, said that “competition on building a bridge across the Red Sea to link Africa with the Arabian Peninsula is going on”.

In a press conference held on Monday in Djibouti on launching the project and attended by Djibouti’s Prime Minister Deleita Mohammed Deleita, Bin Laden said the project, to be implemented in five years, will absorb one million Yemeni workers and 500,000 Djiboutian.

Bin Laden talked about contacts with international investors who will join the project and said the bridge would be “a historical engineering design that will help revive for economics in Africa and Middle East.”

Executive engineer in the Annor Holding Company Mohammed Ahmad al-Ahmad said the plan for establishing two cities, to be called Madinat An Nor, one in the Yemeni side and the other will be in the Djiboutian side, and linking them by the bridge was implemented.

“International investors used to invest in markets of Brazil, Russia, India and China, but now they have to know the emerging markets are in Middle East and Africa. The two cities to be linked with the bridge will support economic growth in such markets for the upcoming generations”, said al-Ahmad.

Djibouti Prime Minister Deleita said at the conference that the project of linking Djibouti to Yemen by a hanging bridge “will change traditional ways of traveling between Asia and Africa”. He said that million of Muslims in Africa will be able to get to the holy places easily through the bridge.

Known as “the bridge of the century”, the project will start in 2009.

It would include a motorway and rail links, and two luxury cities would be built on either side of the Red Sea.

Sheikh Tarek Mohammed bin Laden, 60, has so far won backing and pledges of land from the presidents of both countries after shuttling between the capitals in his private jet in recent weeks, outlining his plans.

In an interview posted on the project’s website, he talked of his vision, saying the city to be built on the Djibouti coast and called Madinat An Nor (City of Light) would create 100,000 jobs and stretch more than 970sqkm.

The bridge, spanning the strait of Bab el Mandeb (Gate of Tears), which owes its name to its perilous waters, would take nine years to build and cost $23.4billion.

Designs show a 3.2km viaduct from the Yemeni coast to the island of Perim, where it passes for another 3.2km before a final 21km stretch to Ras Siyyan in Djibouti. This will have as its centrepiece a 12.8km suspension bridge towering above the sea. Up to 100,000 cars and 50,000 train passengers a day would be able to cross one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

More than 200 businessmen and 60 journalists from Yemen and other Arab countries attended the conference.