Armies of Liberation

Could be anything….
al-Sahwa

Government facilities targeted in Abyan

Sahwa Net- Security sources in Abyan governorate have affirmed that government facilities in Abyan governorate were targeted with two hand grenades on Saturday.

The sources added that one grenade was exploded at the government compound of Abyan leaving a soldier seriously wounded and the other at a military checkpoint, but there were no damages.

Incidents increased in Abyan lately, whereas the house of Abyan’s governor was targeted with RPG shell last Monday.

Thats absolutely pathetic.

In the recent governors’ “elections”, the local councils voted for Saleh’s choice, except in al-Jawf, where an independent was elected. So al-Jawf’s election was overturned, and Saleh did overtly what he did covertly in all the other governorates, appointed a governor.

al-Motamar

Presidential decree on appointing a province governor
Wednesday, 18-June-2008
Almotamar.net - A presidential decree was issued Wednesday on appointing a governor for the province of Aljawf after it has been unfeasible to elect one.
The decree mentioned that in response to presentation of the Minister of Local Administration regarding the reasons that led to unfeasibility of electing a governor to Aljawf province and after approval of the cabinet it has been decided to appoint Mr Naji Saleh naji Thawaba as governor to Aljawf province.

Yemen Post
Local sources told the Yemen Post that President Saleh has sought to force Al-Ezi bin Abadan to withdraw his candidacy as governor of Al-Jawf. The negotiations led Al-Jawf sheikhs and tribes supporting Abadan to lift their siege on the government complex in Al-Hazm, the capital city of Al-Jawf province.

Bin Abadan support amassed last week after a first-instance court rejected the results of elections and ordered conducting new elections, demanding the result to be approved and to announce their fellow as the winner.

(Read on …)

26 Sept

Candidates of General People’s Congress for governors’ post won in most Yemeni provinces, while independent candidates won in the provinces of Al baydha, Al Jawf and Marib. The election id Adalea province postponed due to lack of quorum.

The Election supervising committee in Marib province has announced the independent candidate for the province governor post Naji al-Zayedi to win.

He came ahead of the ruling party nominee Hussein Hazeb with 141 of 206 eligible voters against 36 for Hazeb.

The origin number of the eligible voters in the province electoral body reaches 268.

On the other hand, Ahmed al-Maisari won in the Abyan governor elections with 125 voters against 94 for his rival Muhammad Saleh Hadran.

In Hodiedah Ahmed Salim al-Jabali overwhelmingly won the elections.

The Nation

SANA’A // Yemen held its first vote for provincial governors yesterday, with the ruling party winning all but three of the 20 districts, while an opposition boycott in a fourth led to the vote being cancelled.

In Mareb, al Baidha and al Jawf, the winning ruling party members ran as independents after they opposed the party’s choice of candidate, while in al Dhale’, where the election was boycotted by the opposition, a governor will be appointed by Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president.

The election followed a decision by Mr Saleh last month to allow 7,498 local council members to elect the mayor of the capital, Sana’a, and the governors of 20 provinces. But the opposition said that the election was a farce, as candidates are not chosen by the party but by the party’s leadership.

(Read on …)

May 5, 2008

Alsahwa.net- Sources of the ruling party, GPC, have affirmed that severe disagreements intensified in the wake of declaring the ruling party’s candidates for governor elections which to be held on May 17.

The sources said that Robaizi tribes close down GPC headquarters in Shabwa governorates in protest at excluding three of their elected local councils from electing governors.

189 nomination requests for governor elections, among them 6 woman
Thursday, 08-May-2008

Almotamar.net - While the deadline for receiving application to nominations for governor elections in Yemen is the evening of Thursday, the number of applicants has until Wednesday evening reached 189 applications. Meanwhile, teams affiliate of civil society organisations have begun the process of observation of procedures progress after the supervising committees at the Ministry of Local Administration has given more than 42 observers from the organisations special cards for facilitating their work and that is in enhancement of the pursuit of transparency in the first elections of competitive elections of governors of provinces.

Committees supervising elections all over he governorates in Yemen have until Wednesday evening received 189 nomination applications for the posts of the capital mayor and governors of provinces, among them 6 women.

Eight Withdraw in Favor of GPC Candidate, in Dhalie no less

Almotamar.net - Eight candidates applied to nomination for elections of governors in al-Dhalie governorate have Thursday withdrawn their nomination in favour of the candidate of the General People’s Congress (GPC) Ali Qassem Talib. Chairman of the supervising committee told almotamar.net that a meeting convened the applicants to nomination and there they announced their withdrawal from nomination by their own will and out of conviction in favour of the GPC candidate as being among the efficient leading personalities that has been serving the governorate.

They considered the choice of the GPC of the candidate Talib as cutting the road to the overbidding as he is a personality entertaining unanimity of the population of the governorate.

Yemen Observer

The GPC Political Secretary, Abdullah Ahmed Ghanim, announced that their meeting which was held last Thursday changed the governors’ election timetable. Formerly scheduled for April 27, the election will now take place at a later date in May. The ruling GPC’s general committee member said the committee decided to delay the April 27 date since the president decided to call for the election of local council bodies for the governors to take place in May.

Ghanim said that the governors’ elections postponement will allow time for finishing the election procedures, giving ample time for submitting nomination forms. It will also provide the necessary time for examining forms and their competence with the nomination law terms. The postponement also provides time for the obtainment of consent because the nominee should have the consent of at least ten percent of the electoral body, on condition that the number of nominees does not exceed ten persons in each governorate. The final time for elections will then be determined, followed by the vote’s count and result declaration. “We are going to have the right time and procedures,” the source said.

Ghanim pointed out that the GPC will be running the governors’ elections in all governorates, even in the al-Dale governorate in which the GPC has no local council majority.

It does, however, have a large representation of governorates and directorates at local council level. Ghanim expected that the parliament will determine the formation of the supreme election committee in May.

As a first reaction to the opposition, the JMP spokesperson, Dr. Mohammed Saleh al-Qubati, said that the approval of the governors’ election draft law by the ruling party majority is no more that humorous comedy. Marking serious drawbacks of the GPC’s leading authorities and their commitments, the JMP declared that they will accept either local governments or a fully authorized local governance.

Al-Qubati said that the authority and its ruling party’s trend in tackling the law amendment will contribute to escalating present crises.

As spokesperson for the JMP, al-Qubati announced their refusal to accept the local authority’s draft to amend the law concerning governors’ elections, declaring that there is no point in joining such mock elections which are tailored to the ruling party.

Yemen Online

Sana’a, April 19, 2008 - Several government funded weeklies are launching a media campaign against Minister of local Administration, Abdulqader Hilal accusing him of corruption and leaking information to the opposition.

These newspapers reported that some government officials are working to prosecute minister Hilal for corruption charges and for leaking information to the opposition Joint Meeting Party (JMP).

The papers did not said what sort of information Hilal revealed to the opposition parties.

According to the newspapers Hilal is financing the so-called separation movement in the south.

Taiz-based A-Gomhoria government daily published an “alleged” interview with minister Hilal several days ago in which the paper “on behalf’s of Hilal” attacked political parties in the country.

The newspaper published and apology after Hilal denied that he did the interview and explained that the text of the interview was sent to the newspaper by a reporter working for the defense ministry-funded 26 September weekly.

A source close to minister Hilal expressed surprise over the media campaign government-funded media outlets are launching against Hilal. The source said that in protest minister Hilal is staying at home these days.

Minister Hilal enjoys good reputation and popularity mainly amidst people of the south. He served as southern Hadramawt governor before he assumes his current position as the minister of local administration.

26 September Net

Yemeni parliament approved on Wednesday with majority amendments of some articles of the local authority draft law concerning election of provinces governors.

The MPs backed down from amending the phrase that the government asked on Tuesday to be debated again on Wednesday. The phrase stipulates the candidate to the post of governor should be registered in the elector record of the province and the parliament voted with majority on the text as presented by the government, stipulating that the candidate must be resident in the governorate or his work place is there or it is the place of residency of his family.

(Read on …)

The GPC dominated local councils will nominate and elect the govs. There’s no residency requirement. Current governors can be nominated, but the GPC is not using its power to get the appointed current governors formally installed by the vote, Shamy sez. The governor of Aden really needs to go.

al-Motamar

Almotamar.net - Head of the Information Office at the General People’s Congress (GPC) Treq al-Shamy on Monday said the door to nomination for the post of a governor is open but as a transitional stage the electing body would be from members of governorate and district local councils and are amounting to more than 7200 members.

On the right of governors who are at present heads of local councils and if they are also meant for nomination al-Shamy said , ” They have the right and it is not a condition that the candidate to be from the sons of the governorate especially if that governor was successful in his job and offered much to the governorate, ” but al-Shamy affirmed that on condition of the recommendation he is entitled to get and estimated at 10% of the total members of local councils in the governorate for nomination to the post.

Al-Shamy in a statement to altaghyeer.net website has ruled out that the GPC ruling party would use its majority in the councils for reproduction of the present reality through the re-election of the present governors and their continuation vial balloting boxes.

Mareb Press

The political leaders of the opposition Join Meeting Parties (JMPs) described the electing of governors as ‘play’. They said the governor elections contradict the principle of free and direct elections.

They demanded to issue a law allowing all people to elect the governors and district directors.

The chairman of the political circle of Yemen Congregation for Reform party (Islah) said in a press conference for the JMPs, “we are with the decision of governors and district directors elections, if the elections are open and public, but the government has confined the candidacy for governor post on the members of governorate and district local councils.”

Earlier, the National Defense Council (NDC) chaired by President Ali Abdullah Saleh decided on Wednesday to amend some articles of the Local Authority Law concerning elections of governors.

The NDC decided to transfer all financial allowances for development projects in governorates to the local councils and to give local councils the authority of electing governors from members of the local councils in the governorates.

IRIN

I didnt realize al-Jasheen freed itself. I thought they were still being tormented. The villages are a state within a state not subject to any laws but the whims of the sheik, showing the abject failure of many institutions of the Yemen government to function as a national entity.

SANAA, 4 March 2008 (IRIN) - Around 120 people from a village in Ibb Province have fled to the capital, Saana, in fear of their lives after their local sheikh (tribal leader and alleged landowner) expelled them from their homes.

The displaced persons, including children, from al-Ansiyaen village have been camping in the yard of local non-government organisation (NGO) Yemeni Female Media Forum, in Sanaa, for over a week. They said their sheikh, Mohammed Mansour, was not allowing them to stay in their houses because they had not paid him `zakat’ (annual alms payment).

The villagers said they went to Ibb town to pay `zakat’ to the government, but the sheikh threatened them, beat them and put them in two private prisons he runs. They escaped and fled to Sanaa, and have said they will not leave their current abode until the government steps in.

Villager Abdullah Ghaleb, aged 27, told IRIN that everyone in the village had to pay 30,000-40,000 riyals (US$150-200) a year to the sheikh as `zakat’. “He claims the land we live and work on belongs to him, which is not true,” he said, adding that the sheikh could imprison and attack anyone who disobeyed his orders. “He can even loot our property (animals, farms, belongings) if we do not obey his orders,” the villager said.

Village cordoned off
According to Ghaleb, the sheikh has cordoned off the village to stop other villagers going to Sanaa. “The sheikh’s soldiers have surrounded the area and do not allow anyone to leave or enter the village,” he said.

Abdul-Rahman Barman, a lawyer at the National Organisation for Defending Freedoms and Rights (a local NGO known as HOOD), told IRIN: “They [the villagers] requested the assistance of the local authorities there to no avail. The sheikh ordered 100 of his soldiers to loot the villagers’ property and kill their animals after they staged sit-ins in Sanaa.”

Barman said women and children were beaten by the soldiers. “The area is not subject to the rule of law and the sheikh is acting with impunity…” He has private prisons, he tramples on their rights and attacks their properties illegally,” the rights activist said.

Najib Saleh, one of the displaced villagers, said the sheikh controlled everything in the area. “He can send people to his prison, and scrutinise their activities. He is lawmaker and ruler at the same time. We were brought up under his tyranny,” he said, adding that the sheikh had all kinds of weapons, including medium-sized missiles.

On 3 March, after a protest organised by the villagers and rights groups in front of the ministry, Minister of Local Administration Abdul-Qader Hilal promised to form a fact-finding committee to visit the area and investigate the allegations, but he did not say when the committee would be set up.

Al-Ansiyaen is one of five villages controlled by Sheikh Mansour. In March 2007 two villages previously under his dominion became free after locals staged sit-ins in Sanaa.

HOOD

Hodeidah Hood team members: Decry the attack on the journalists in Hodeidah
Wednesday 06 February 2008 / Hood online

Hood team in Hodeidah governorate condemned the attack on the journalists who covered the protest of the workers in health sector yesterday. The doctors and the other employees demanded the government for better conditions.

The journalists were Mansour Abu Ali, the correspondent of Al-Ayyam newspaper, Mustfa Badr, al-Gumhuriah newspaper, and Mansoor al-Dubai’I, Saba News Agency. Soldiers of the governorate attacked the journalists by orders from Colonel Hassan al-Haij, the General Secretary of the Hodeidah local council.

Hodeidah Hood team members demanded an investigation for the attack and apologizing to the attacked journalists. In addition, people working in the health sector have every right to protest peacefully to take back their rights, said Hood members in Hodeidah.

Yemen Times

- Khab Forum in Jawf province denounces involvement of armed forces in political conflicts

The Khab Forum, made up of citizens from Al-Jawf governorate, urged the authority to review the administrative division of their district, which turned to have one local council instead of two in the past, the weekly reported. It went on to say that the forum released a statement, of which it obtained a copy, denouncing behavior of the employment committee in the governorate that sold their district’s share of job opportunities to other areas although the district has qualified applicants for such job vacancies.

The forum insisted that the governorate authorities must investigate the officials who sold their district’s share of job opportunities to other areas and give the district’s locals a top priority in recruitment, particularly as Khab is the largest and most populous district in the governorate. Participants also urged the government to provide their district with more projects and public services for its being the largest and most populous in the remote province.

According to Al-Sahwa weekly, locals of Khab and Shaghaf districts appealed to Al-Jawf governor to immediately finish implementation of Al-Buqe’- Hazm Road, as well as connect the district villages with the public highway and set up a deadline for finishing the work. The forum denounced involvement of government troops in political conflicts between locals and the government, urging the relevant authorities to do justice in the distribution of service and social insurance projects.

Sana’a, NewsYemen

The former governor of Sana’a Hamoud Hashim al-Darehi called the government to allocate 5-10 percent of oil revenues for local authority and controlling resources
of local councils and protecting them from corruption.

Giving local councils 5-10 % of oil resources will enable them to develop its performance, he said, pointing that the amount of Yemeni rials 15 billion
the government has allocated for local authority can only operate blocked projects.

The local councils should be given authorities to manage the local affairs and governors and directors of districts should be directly elected, al-Darehi told NewsYemen.

Ahmad Al-Majeedi, the rival of president Saleh in the latest presidential elections, said the government is responsible for collecting resources for local councils and controlling such resources not to go in incorrect direction. He said the government should also supervise the decisions of the local authority and to correct mistakes.

The government has recently approved YR15 billion as a support for local councils and establishing independent accountancy units in all governorates to manage the accounts of local councils.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Local Administration intends to organize debates in Aden, Hadramout and Hodeidah to get views and notes of local councils about a draft strategy to develop decentralization to be discussed in a workshop in the capital Sana’a before being completely approved at a conference on local authority experience to be held in Sana’a by the end of September.

Governors, not that the people can elect them.

Al-Motamar

Almotamar.net - A presidential decree issued Wednesday stipulated the appointment of the following personalities as governors of some Yemeni governorates;

Sadiq Amin Abu Ras governor of Taiz, Ahmed Abdullah al-Hajri governor of Hudeidah, Farid Ahmed Mujawar governor of Hajah, Mohammed Abdullah al-Harazi governor of Al-Mahara, Ali Mohammed al-Maqdashi governor of Sana’a, Faisal Yahya al-Qawsi governor of Al-Jawf, Mohammed Ahmed al-Ansi governor of Al-Dhalie and Mohammed Ali al-Rowaishan governor of Shabwa.

A second presidential decree issued on the same day on appointing the following personalities as deputy governors:
Mohammed Hussein al-Dahbali deputy governor of Abyan, Saleh Ahmed Saleh al-Shaeri deputy governor of Taiz, Hussein Mohammed Qahtan Diyan deputy governor of Al-Baidhaa, Yahya Abdullah al-Shaef deputy governor of Thamar Akram Mohammed

Shura Council

Almotamar.net - A presidential decree issued on Wednesday stipulated the appointment of the following personalities as members of the Shoura Council:

Abdeh Ai Qubati, Ali Hamid Sharaf, Khalid Abdullah al-Rowaishan, Abdulwahid al-Bakhiti, Abdulwahid al-Rabeeie, Mansour Ahmed Saif, Naji Ali al-Dhalimi, Salem Abdullah Naimar and Mohammed Hussein Ashaaal.

Al-Sahwa

Release of 50 gas tankers in Shabwa

September 4, 2007- Provisional government sources in Shabwa province told “Alsahaw.net” that security forces controlled a blockade which had been installed by tribes were demanding to release the retired general ,Nasser al-Nowba, who had been held on Monday in Aden.

They affirmed that government forces attacked the blockade and released the 50 held gas tankers which had been seized by tribes.

Moreover, several barriers were installed in Shawa province to protest the kidnapping of the general Nasser al-Nowba .

For its part, the Islah party renewed its call for the Shabawa people to adopt peaceful struggle, not armed struggle.

September 5, 2007- Provincial sources in Shabwa governorate told “Alsahwa.net” that two soldiers were wounded on Wednesday in shootout between security forces and tribes protesting arrests of demonstrators who were protesting Saturday against price hikes in Aden and Hadramout provinces.

The sources added that a tribal mediation led to ceasefire, but they did not explain whether that mediation managed to release gas tankers had been seized by the tribes.

Its wonderful the local councils are asserting some authority and holding executives to account. However, enforcement of judicial penalties is still lacking.

AM

Almotamar.net - Local council of Thamar governorate approved in its extraordinary meeting Saturday withdrawing confidence from heads of executive departments in the governorate included health, electricity and population after listening to their replies to question put forward by members of the council and demanded withdrawal of confidence from four heads of executive departments in the governorate.

Member of the local council Ali Hamoud Mayas told almotamar.net the council approved its measure against Dr Fadhil al-Akwaa, director of health and population office, Engineer Ahmed Silan director of electricity office for their involvement in cases of corruption and misuse of their duties.

The council decided completion of discussing withdrawal of confidence from director of public works and roads, director of taxation and postponed them to the meeting on Sunday.

These measures are in line with carrying out contents of the president’s election platform and the election platform of the General People’s Congress in the local elections with regard to fighting corruption.

Update: Maybe not, they are planning to bring them to trial

Sana’a: In an unprecedented step, the local authority appointed late this week three executive officials after ousting their predecessors on charges of corruption in Dhammar province, 100km south of Sana’a.

Director General of Taxes, Hussain Ali Al Ameer, Director General of Public Health and Population, Fadhl Mohammad Al Akwa’a, and Director General of Electricity, Ahmad Sailan, were sacked in a step which comes within the programme of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to combat corruption, according local council officials.

Mujahed Shaif Al Ansi, Secretary General of the Local Council in Dhammar, confirmed that the next step was to put the three men on trial.

“We have withdrawn the confidence from the three officials and sacked them … after we discovered financial and administrative corruption in their offices,” Al Ansi told Gulf News yesterday.

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The Local Council also summoned the Director General of Public Works in the province this week but it gave him an ultimatum for correcting “mistakes” and answering charges of financial and administrative corruption.

Yemen had its first ever election of local councils in 2001. Observers feel such councils are still feeble because their heads are not elected. Heads of the councils are appointed by the government.

Warning

After his re-election last September, President Saleh promised that heads of local councils would be elected directly.

The local authority says the sacking comes on the basis of reports of the monitoring committees and the Central Organisation for Controlling and Auditing, the country’s highest authority of monitoring.

Officials accused of corruption were warned three months ago but they did not correct their mistakes, said the local authority.

“We discovered the corruption in January and we gave them three months’ ultimatum … then we summoned them and met with them in closed sessions but they did not answer our questions about the corruption, so we decided to withdraw the confidence reposed in them,” Local Council Secretary General Mujahid Al Ansi said. “We followed up all the legal steps according to the law.”

One of the executive officials accused of corruption said the steps taken were not legal and he would sue the local authority for “defamation”.

Al Akwa’a told Gulf News over phone: “The step was not legal and it reflected the bad treatment of the local authority and its failed policy and also [that] the members of the local council misused their powers … I will sue them.”

“They did not give me an ultimatum as they said. I was surprised by their summons hours before the meeting in which they raised 35 questions to me. They judged me before getting any evidence; it was an unfair trial, not a meeting,” he said.

The two other executive officials refused to comment to Gulf News.

Only three days after the decision of withdrawing confidence in the three officials, the Local Council chaired by the governor of the province appointed three new officials to replace them, in one of the quickest implementations of such decisions.

“President Saleh welcomed our step and he told us to go ahead, and we are in the framework of implementing his election programme for reform and fighting corruption,” said Al Ansi.

How sad.

Al-Sahwa

June 6 ,2007- Hundreds of al-Marawa citizens, located in the coastal province, Hodaida, rushed out to streets on Tuesday, protesting price hikes of water in a new water project.

They said that the new prices of the new project water reached to tens of thousands, labeling it as a catastrophe.

For its part, JMP issued a statement in which it demanded the local council in the district to reconsider its mistaken policies towards the poor citizens.

It is worth reclaiming that Hodaida is considered the poorest province in Yemen.

Encouraging

DHAMAR:

Local council insists on firing officials

May 29 — In a Tuesday’s meeting, the local Council of Dhamar governorate demanded that confidence should be withdrawn from four general managers of executive offices for failing to perform their duties and neglecting issues that are part of their job, Al-Motamar.net quoted local sources as saying. More than 60 percent of the Dhamar local council members insisted on the governor to fire the general managers of health, public works, roads, electricity, and tax offices. The sources indicated that the local council representatives began a campaign this year to monitor and evaluate performance of executive offices.

Almotamar.net - Local sources in Thamar governorate said Tuesday that the local council of the governorate demanded in a meeting today to withdraw trust from four directors general of executive offices for failing in performing their duties and negligence of issues that are part of their specializations.

Sources told almotamar.net correspondent in Thamar that two thirds of the local council members presented a demand to the governor of Thamar calling for the necessity of firing directors general of the offices of health, public works and roads, electricity and taxes.

The sources said the 24-member local council began from the begging of this year a campaign of following up activities of executive offices in the governorate and monitor failures in their performance.

Then there’s the Thomas Paine effect:

(YT) ADEN

Power institutions enraged over anonymous brochures

May 29 — Brochures of unidentified sources lashed out at the Aden Electricity Corporation and Al-Haswa Power Station’s administration and accused them of exercising corruption. This enraged both institutions. Al-Sahwa.net reported that tens of workers at the station distributed the brochures in and outside their worksite, and this led the station’s management to investigate some workers in order to identify the brochures’ sources. The brochures accused the Electricity Corporation of establishing an illumination project for its fence at a cost of YR 50 million.

Taiz,Ibb, NewsYemen

The secretary-general of the Taiz Local Council has urged the government to increase the central support from 5% to at least 15% so that local councils can cover the local development projects according to local authority law.

Ahmad al-Haaj said that Taiz gets only Yr 210 million and that the sum is not enough to carry out even one project of the giant projects in the province. “We have hope that the government will take into account the shortage of resources and potentials which the local councils suffer,” said al-Haaj.

The secretary-general of the local council of al-Odein district of Ibb province has also complained the weakness of the central financial support to local councils. He said that the low central support is the main obstacle against the local councils to implement projects.

Abdul-Rahman al-Mutlaq said to NewsYemen there were educational, health and public service projects which his local council announced in 2002, “but they are still blocked due to low central support and the increase of building materials price, as he said.
He said that al-Odein suffers paucity of local resources as it gets only Yr 35 million per a year. He said this amount does not cover the needs of development in the district.

The ministry is planning to increase the central support for local councils across the country from Yr 3 billion to Yr 9 billion and it will consider the criteria of distributing the central support for local administrative units, the undersecretary of the Local Administration for local development sector, Omer al-Okbori, told NewsYemen, but he did not explain what criteria to be applied.

What is the criteria for recieiving land?

Almotamar.net - President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced Monday the availability of 2800 job opportunities for health cadres this year to be distributed on all health centres in different governorates and districts.

Inaugurating Al-Saleh project for curbing unemployment in Yemen organised by the Cooperative Bank for Agricultural Credit the president also announced that there are two thousand projects able to employ 20 thousand citizens in the agricultural field. The president urged the ministry of agriculture and the general authority of land to speed up the distribution of agricultural and residential lands among the youth and to make a timetable for that in the next months.

He has also urged for reclamation of agricultural lands in Hadramout, Shabwa, Mareb, al-Jawf, al-Hudeida ad the rest of governorates to be distributed via the local authority. He also thanked the Agricultural Bank administration for the arrangements concerning implementation of al-Saleh Establishment for fighting poverty. President Saleh said it is a good and great beginning and “we support all the good and reformists and we stand by them for combating poverty and limiting unemployment.”
The president said the local authority is the real responsible side and real eye helping the affected people suffering from poverty and it should pay attention to girls and provide jobs for them through supplying them with machines, computers and small factories with easy prices and limited interests. President Saleh added no girl should be unemployed because they are more productive and that has been proved in many governorates.

The president called joining official and people efforts for ending poverty/ he said “We must not be just looking at the state or the government but efforts of all the sincere in the private, mixed and public sectors should join. We have warmly welcomed investments of sisterly countries especially the Gulf States and we will offer land facilities in Aden, Hadramout, Hudeida, Sana’a and other governorates with token prices and duties encouraging investment in 99 years system and success in this regard will absorb many of workforce and unemp0loyment. ” the president added that ” We have defined with the government the investment through a single window system, that is the General Authority for Investment for carrying out all facilities according to the investment law for a period not exceeding six months otherwise the privileges are to be withdrawn from owner of the project.”

(Read on …)

a recurring problem

Taiz, NewsYemen:

The secretary-general of the Local Council in Taiz criticized the absence of members of the council causing the meetings delay many times.

The council could not put plans and policies for the province due to the members ignorance of their duties, said Mohammad Ahmad al-Haj.

Al-Haj, who was addressing a group of people in the province office, said the office “is not a police station” to solve daily disputes and problems. “This is the function of local councils in districts according to law”, said al-Haj.

He criticized the officials “who work form their homes”. He said the government offices are for checking people’s issues not homes.