ECHO provides € 7 million to help UNICEF combat child malnutrition in Yemen

ECHO provides € 7 million to help UNICEF combat child malnutrition in Yemen

Source: UNICEF Sanaa, 19/11/2012

The European Commission’s Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) is increasing its funding to UNICEF to help combat child malnutrition in Yemen.

 UNICEF announced today that ECHO has donated a further €3.8 million for this nutrition project in Yemen, bringing the total ECHO contribution in 2012 to €7 million.

Thanks to ECHO’s support, UNICEF will be able to identify and treat some 64,000 severely malnourished children under five. 

They will be identified through community volunteer screening and in health facilities, where they can receive treatment, medicines, therapeutic food and access to safe water. Actions will especially target children that are hardest to reach. 

Additionally, some 78,000 mothers, including pregnant and lactating women, are to receive counseling on feeding and caring practices and hygiene awareness.

Yemen has one of the highest undernutrition rates in the world. One in eight Yemeni children under five risks dying of common childhood illnesses because of malnutrition, and more than half of under-five children suffer from stunted growth and delayed mental development. 

One in ten children do not even reach the age of 5. Conflicts in Yemen during the last two years and an ensuing humanitarian crisis have only worsened the situation.

"Malnutrition can mark these children for life and rob them of a normal, healthy life", says UNICEF’s Representative in Yemen, Geert Cappelaere. "To tackle the nutrition crisis in Yemen, we need a concerted response to strengthen the health system in particular, promote good hygiene and nutrition practices, such as breastfeeding, and ensure access to a broad range of social services. ECHO is helping us to achieve this."

"The EU has for many years been spotlighting the dire situation of people in Yemen, which is largely ignored by the outside world", said Jean-Louis de Brouwer, ECHO’s director for Humanitarian and Civil Protection Operations. "This funding boost, channelled through our trusted partner, UNICEF, will provide vital assistance to the most vulnerable members of this suffering population."

Over the last year, ECHO has helped UNICEF to provide immediate and life-saving interventions in Yemen. The additional support announced today will make a vital difference in protecting the most vulnerable women and children in Yemen from malnutrition.

Ban Ki-moon in Sanaa after one year of transition

Ban Ki-moon in Sanaa after one year of transition 

By Nasser Arrabyee,19/11/2012

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi are to review the progress made in political and security situation in Yemen, said sources Sunday.

The UN official is expected to arrive in Sanaa early Monday.

The review meeting of Hadi and Ban Ki-moon comes exactly one year after the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh  signed a Saudi-sponsored and American-backed deal for solving the Yemeni crisis. 

The UN Security Council issued two resolutions to support the deal, officially called the Gulf  Cooperation Council  Initiative, GCCI.  Qatar refused the deal. 

The GCCI was signed by Saleh his opponents in the Saudi capital Riyadh in November 19, 2011.

The UN envoy Jamal Bin Omar, is already in Yemen. The GCC Secretary General Abdul Latif Al Zayani arrived in Sanaa late on Sunday November 18.

Bin Omar and Al Zayani both have permanent offices in Sanaa to monitor the transitional period which is supposed to end in February 2014.

Yemeni journalists have been told to attend a press conference in the Presidential House on Monday November 19, 2012. The organizers of the press conference did not say who exactly would hold the conference. 

Al Qaeda war escapees return homes, and UNHCR wants more support to help them

Source: UNHCR press release, 13/11/2012

80,000 IDPs Returned to Abyan:

Increased International Support for Sustainable Returns Urgently Needed

Aden, Yemen: Resolving the problems of the nearly 500,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Yemen is essential to promoting stability in the country. 

In recent months, developments in Abyan have opened up an important opportunity for some 200,000 IDPs to return to their homes and begin to rebuild their lives. Since July, more than 80,000 IDPs have done so, with additional returns ongoing.

“IDPs are eager to return to their homes and significant numbers of returns have been happening,” said Naveed Hussain, UNHCR’s Representative in Yemen, while visiting IDPs in a school in the Crater district in Aden on 11 November.

Most of the schools that had provided shelter for several thousand IDPs since May 2011 have been freed up from serving as IDP collective centres, enabling students to resume education in their normal classroom setting.

 

Over 93% of the IDPs who had been living in 78 schools (including two public buildings) in Aden have returned; of  some 25,000 persons living in schools in Aden, some 23,500 have returned and only around 1,500 still remain. In Lahj Governorate, 100% of the schools have been vacated by the IDPs following their return to Abyan.

The relatively few IDPs remaining in the Aden schools, who have not yet exercised their right to return due to security or other concerns, will be relocated into eight buildings (one in each district of Aden). 

UNHCR, with the agreement of the government, is rehabilitating these eight buildings to serve as temporary IDPs accommodation that meets basic minimum shelter standards.

For IDPs who have exercised their right to return to their home, UNHCR, together with the humanitarian agencies and the government, is providing them with assistance to begin rebuilding their lives. 

UNHCR is also the lead international agency responding to IDPs’ and returnees’ need for shelter. 

To date, UNHCR has distributed shelter repair kits to some 32,000 persons and non-food items (NFI) packages including mattresses, blankets, and kitchen sets to some 33,000 persons. 

UNHCR plans to help a total of some 180,000 persons in Abyan with shelter and NFI kits.

Much more must be done to support the sustainability of voluntary IDP returns. Many challenges remain, including: widespread damage to property and infrastructure (in some areas, 95% destruction of property and infrastructure) and still a fragile security situation in the areas of return.

The challenge now is to support the sustainability of IDPs’ return so that the significant achievements to date are not reversed. "UNHCR will continue playing a leading role to helping find durable solutions for IDPs,” said Mr. Hussain. “To achieve this, increased support from the international community is needed urgently.”

President Hadi mobilizing support from Gulf States for dialogue

Yemen NDI trains Yemenis on dialogue

By Nasser Arrabyee, 12/11/2012

TheYemeni  President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi visited three Gulf States  this week.  Apparently, he wanted UAE, Kuwait, and Oman, to help him implement the most important and final step of the transitional period. 

It is the national dialogue that is supposed to be held next week here in Sanaa. This dialogue can not be successful without participation of the separatist movement of the south. Some important leaders of this  movement are living in the Gulf States and Cairo.

The Yemen  UN envoy,  Jamal Bin Omar arrived in the capital Sanaa on Monday, Novmeber 12, 2012, after he had a meeting with the separatist leaders in Cairo. Bin Omar, who has a permanent office in Sanaa for closely monitoring transitional political process, is scheduled to present a report to the UN Security Council on Novmber 28th about the latest steps taken by Yemenis for holding the national dialogue.

Undoubtedly, some separatist leaders, outside and inside Yemen, have already agreed to participate in the dialogue but some refused. Hadi's visit to Gulf States would focus on having more support for Yemen unity as a factor of stability not only for Yemen but also for the whole region. Those leaders who demand separation should not be encouraged by Gulf leaders. 

The national dialogue is supposed to come out with a vision for a civil state which should start with presidential elections according to a new constitution in February 2014.  

Not holding this dialogue means simply failure of the Saudi-sponsored and American-backed  deal, known as the GCC Initiative, which was signed by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents in the Saudi capital Riyadh in November 2011. 

According to this deal, which gives Saleh and  all his senior aides immunity from prosecution,  early elections were held and Saleh handed the power to his deputy Hadi who won  non-competitive election approved by majority of Yemeni as a way out from a civil war. 

Furthermore, the United States hinted many times it would impose punishment like freezing assets, against spoilers of the GCC Initiative. Almost every day, you can see attempts to spoil the deal by sabotage acts against electricity transmission lines or gas and oil pipe lines.  

Accusations are exchanged between the conflicting parties, but no one can determine who is the spoiler exactly. Last month,  repeatedly, the  former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, in his capacity as head of his party that has 50 per cent of the ministers of the  current national government, called  on  UN and sponsors of the GCC Initiative to declare the names of the spoilers.

The spoilers are not necessarily in direct connection with this or that party. For Yemenis, it is easy to understand that conflicting parties ( tribal, religious, and military leaders of influence who still dominate political and social scenes) can easily use the spoilers from behind.

For instance, early morning Monday November 12, 2012, the main oil pipeline was bombed twice in two different places by tribesmen from two different tribes in the eastern province of Marib. 

The first bombing was in Wadi Abida east of Marib city, by tribesmen from Al Jameel tribe, who were demanding the release of their relative, Mansour Saleh Daleel who was sentenced to death last October for terror charges.

The second was bombed not far from that place by tribesmen from Al Hafreen tribe who were  demanding the release of their relative who was put in jail earlier this month after he kidnapped a Filipino national in the heart of Sanaa.

Although it seems that Al Qaeda is behind these two bombings, the two tribes are known to every one and they are publicly demanding the release of their relatives from the prisons  of the government. Loyalty of tribesmen almost everywhere especially in the north of Yemen is evenly split between the Islamist party, Islah, the semi-ruling party, and the party of Saleh which forms the opposition now. 

And the army is also split between two influential commanders one is Saleh's son, Ahmed, and the other is the defected general Ali Muhsen who is very close to Islah party even from before his defection in March 2011.

Islah party, every Friday still make rallies with its supporters to demand President Hadi to sack Ahmed Ali and keep Ali Muhsen and they call that "restructure of the army". 

They say dialogue should not start before restructuring of the army which obviously means to them sacking Ahmed Ali from the Republican guards, the best trained and highly qualified and equipped units of the army. 

President Hadi is in need for both commanders for balance at least for the transitional period which ends in February 2014, if transitional period went according to the deal. 

To make it clear to all what restructure of the army means, the Minister of Defense, Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, said on Monday in a military symposium on restructure that a strategic plan of  10 years is being made for genuine restructure of the army. The deal, GCC Initiative, stipulates that army should be restructured.

The Yemen-based American National Democratic Institute (NDI), held an event to train normal Yemeni on how to make dialogue and how to make use of it in solving problems. The NDI called its event, the second to be held in less than two months, the Council of City. 

Many Yemenis from Sanaa and other provinces were invited to listen and ask key speakers about economic problems facing Yemen and how they can be solved. 

Economically, donors and friends of Yemen pledged last September to give about 8 billion US dollars, half of it from the Gulf States, but they seem to be very reluctant to pay the money if chaos continues. 

"Without good administration this money would not work," said Abdullah Al Maktari, member of economic and financial committee  in the  Parliament.

"We need to have good administration based on competence, then we can absorb this money and use it for reforms," said Al Maktari, who was one of the key speakers in the NDI Council of City 

Many observers say if the economic problem is solved in Yemen, more than 70 per cent of the problems will be automatically solved. But this solution can not happen as long as there is no security and political stability.

"The economy can not be improved while politicians are fighting with each other," said Mohammed Afandi, chairman of the Yemeni center for statistic studies, who was also one of the NDI key speakers in the second Council of City held in Sanaa November 12,2012.

Why Yemen is the Scariest Challenge Facing Obama Abroad

Why Yemen is the Scariest Challenge Facing Obama Abroad

A new book written by American researcher 

Source: Brookings, 10/11/2012

Obama will have to face the growing menace of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the failing state in Yemen that it thrives on. The response must be nimble and careful because AQAP’s real goal is to drag America into another bleeding war in the Muslim world, this time hoping it will spread into the oil rich deserts of Saudi Arabia. Luckily, Gregory Johnson has written the best new book on al Qaeda in 2012 and the best book on Yemen in years.

The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda and America’s War in Arabia is a detailed narrative account of the development of AQAP.  It is also a great read; Johnson is a very good storyteller.  The story is fascinating, this is a group that was virtually destroyed in 2004 by drone attacks and effective counter terrorism operations, and then it recovered, helped immensely by the Arab world’s anger over the American invasion of Iraq. In 2009 it rebranded itself with new leadership composed of Saudis and Yemenis, several of whom had been prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. 

It’s number two, Saeed al Shihri, spent five years America’s Cuban prison before being released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 where he fled into Yemen. A drone had allegedly killed him last month, then he reappeared alive in a message threatening more attacks on America.

Since 2009 AQAP has tried to attack the American homeland at least three times. On Christmas Day 2009 it almost succeeded. I served as an expert witness to the trial of the suicide terrorist who successfully penetrated American security and got a bomb on a Detroit bound flight that day. President Obama was absolutely right when he said after the fact “we dodged a bullet, but just barely” because the bomb failed to detonate properly. Johnson reveals that AQAP’s master bomb maker, a Saudi named Ibrahim Asiri has now built a bomb with two detonators so it can’t fail.

The Arab Awakening came to Yemen in 2011 with a vengeance and has left the country completely fragmented. AQAP has thrived. Yemen has always been a difficult and inhospitable place. Its most desolate region, where Osama Ben Laden’s family comes from and Shihri was nearly killed, is the Hadramawt which means “death has come” in Arabic and is said to contain the gate to hell in one of its wadis. Today Yemen is running out of oil and water, more than half the population is under 18, half goes to bed every night hungry and the national government barely controls even parts of the capital.

For over a decade America has been trying to fight al Qaeda in Yemen without getting dragged deeper and deeper into its internal dysfunctional politics. Johnson’s book provides a gripping account of the American war and its key players. The US ambassadors on the scene are portrayed vividly and their counter terrorism bosses back in Washington. So are the tensions between them over how to deal with AQAP and the complex politics of Yemen.

America’s key ally in this war is Yemen’s bigger and richer brother, Saudi Arabia, the real prize in the struggle. Bin Laden and his protégés in AQAP have always had their focus on the Kingdom and the House of Saud. Johnson details just how deeply the Saudis have become involved in the war in Yemen including how its intelligence service has foiled two AQAP plots against America and its Royal Saudi Air Force is now flying bombing strikes against AQAP targets deep inside the country.

AQAP entitled the video it produced about the Christmas Day plot “the Final Trap.” Shihri was one of the narrators. What the title meant was that al Qaeda hopes to draw America deeper and deeper into a quagmire with more and more boots on the ground in Yemen. It wants another Iraq, another Afghanistan. An attack in America that killed hundreds would force America to take on the challenge of rebuilding Yemen with our own hands, a final trap that would bled America’s military, our economy, and our morale.

President Obama has wisely avoided the trap for the last four years but the Yemeni threat has not gone away and the slow collapse of the Yemeni state offers little hope that it will. Washington has a long-term challenge in Arabia. Greg Johnson has written an excellent guide to the scary conundrum that we face.

Mysterious death of Yemeni?(

Mysterious death of Yemeni detainee in Guantanamo

Latif Autopsy Report Ready: Public Resolution to Gitmo Mystery Endures

Source: Friday, 09 November 2012 13:22 By Jason Leopold, Truthout

Long-awaited answers to the mysterious death of man detained for more than a decade at Guantanamo may reside in an autopsy report that apparently won't be made public anytime soon - if ever.

It's been two months since Yemeni prisoner Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif died at the US Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, but the cause and manner of his death remains shrouded in secrecy.

The US government plans to turn over a long-awaited and recently-completed autopsy report to Yemeni Embassy officials in Washington, DC as early as today, but no one will say when or if the results will be made public.

An official at the Yemen Embassy, who declined to be named, said the embassy will not comment on the autopsy report's conclusions or whether it determined how Latif died. Instead, the report will immediately be forwarded to government officials in Yemen's capital, Sana'a. Someone there will decide "what the next step" will be, the embassy official said.


Latif, who would have turned 37 in December, was detained in Guantanamo for more than a decade. He had been cleared for transfer back to Yemen by the Bush and Obama administrations four times between 2004 and 2010.


He died September 8, three months after the US Supreme Court declined to review his case. He suffered from neurological problems due to a severe head injury he sustained in a car accident in 1994.

State Department spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala said her office also would not comment on the matter and referred all questions to the Department of Defense (DOD).

Todd Breasseale, a Defense Department spokesman, told Truthout it's unlikely the US government will comment on the results of Latif's autopsy.


"It is the custom of the Department to respect the wishes of the concerned nation and to defer to that government to make statements about their own people," Breasseale said.


But that's not always the case. As Truthout reported last month in an expose on Latif's life and tragic death, Joint Task Force-

Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) has commented in the past on what it believed was the cause of death of eight other prisoners.

Indeed, last year, JTF-GTMO issued a news release announcing the death of a prisoner from apparent natural causes. In another death at the prison facility last year, JTF-GTMO issued a news release that said an Afghan prisoner apparently committed suicide.

 Similar news releases were issued for other prisoners who died, including one who died of cancer in 2007.


Although Latif had previously attempted suicide, there was no evidence of "self-harm," JTF-GTMO spokesman Capt. Robert Durand told Truthout last month.


Latif was found by Guantanamo guards "motionless and unresponsive" in his cell in Alpha Block at Camp 5, a punishment wing of the prison facility where he was monitored round-the-clock by guards and via closed circuit video.
Nor did Latif have a "known medical condition" that would have caused his death, Durand added.


The Yemeni official in Washington told Truthout that briefings the embassy received last month by the US officials indicated that suicide was ruled out as a manner of death.
That's why, given Latif's documented claims of the abuse and torture he said he suffered during his more than ten years of indefinite detention, the US "has an obligation to release the results of his autopsy so the American people can know the views of the US government's pathologist as to why and how he died," said Zachary Katznelson, a senior staff attorney at the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

"I think the US government should make those results public, particularly because of the numerous reports of abuse Adnan Latif suffered over the years," Katznelson said. At the very least, Katznelson added, "The US government could still release a statement about the cause of death."


What's still unclear is whether the handoff of the autopsy report will satisfy the Yemeni government and result in its acceptance of Latif's remains, which, as Truthout exclusively reported, have been held since mid-September at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

The Yemen official previously told Truthout that the Yemeni government declined to accept Latif's remains until it received a copy of the autopsy report and an explanation into how he died.


In a telephone interview earlier this week, Latif's brother, Muhammed, said his family is distraught because they have been unable to properly mourn his older sibling and they are desperate to learn about the details of his death.


He questioned whether the delay was due to the presidential election.
"When will America apply the principles it claims to uphold?" Muhammed asked.

"When will the American people demand the US government uphold the law? America is playing politics with a dead person. America doesn't care about our rights, my brother's rights or human rights. Yet, America claims they are favoring human rights all over the world. It's hypocrisy."

Muhammed told Truthout he wants details of the autopsy report to be released publicly after the family has had a chance to review it.
Muhammed authorized his brother's habeas corpus attorney, David Remes, to accept the autopsy report on behalf of his family and email it to him.

Remes articulated Muhammed's wishes in an email he sent this week to Asmaa Katah, a political officer at the Yemen Embassy responsible for Latif's case, and Adal Al-Suneini, the embassy's chargé d'affaires.

"The family would like to receive his remains and a copy of the autopsy report right away, but if that is not possible, they will accept them separately," Remes wrote. "They are anxious to get the report as soon as possible."

The embassy has not indicated whether they will comply with the family's instructions.

Remes said the secrecy surrounding the circumstances into Latif's death leads him to believe the US government must believe the truth behind Adnan's death is a "ticking time bomb."

Meanwhile, an investigation being conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) to determine the cause and manner surrounding Latif's death could take as long as a year, said Ed Buice, an NCIS spokesman.

"The investigation is still underway," he said. "A typical case takes about 8 to 12 months at least. That includes fact-finding, evidence collection and analysis, interviews, follow-ups, review panels at the field office and headquarters.

Add in the complexity of investigations at Gitmo and the fact that classified information will need to be reviewed before it could even be potentially released. So, it will be a while."

According to two US officials familiar with the probe, NCIS investigators want to review Latif's poetry and "piles of other papers" he kept in at least two of the cells. It's unclear what they are looking for.

Investigators will also examine "whether the guard force broke SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) protocols" prior to his death when they supposed to "walk the block" and check on the prisoners "to make sure they are alive."

Neither Durand nor Cpt. Jennifer Palmieri, another JTF-GTMO spokesperson, would respond to specific questions about Latif's last hours. Durand said the Commander of US Southern Command, is still conducting a separate commander's inquiry into Latif's death.

It's unknown when it will be complete.

The drone- killed Al Qadi was general in Yemeni army

The drone- killed Al Qadi was general in Yemeni army

By Nasser Arrabyee,07/11/2012

Adnan Al Qadi, Al Qaeda operative killed by US drone Wednesday, was a lieutenant colonel    in the Yemeni army before he joined Al Qaeda, said sources Thursday. 

Adnan Al Qadi was working as a commander of brigade in Al Makha under the leadership of Saleh Al Dani, a retired general who is now working with the defected general Ali Muhsen. All of them are from one village called Sanahan, the same village of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Adnan Al Qadi and Aref Al Qadi, were arrested after the bombing of the US embassy in Sanaa late 2008 for being involved. Aref is a nephew of brigadier Abdullah Al Qadi, retired general from Sanhan. Both of them were released secretly because of influence of their fathers and sympathy of general Muhsen.

Recently, Aref Al Qadi, raised the flag of Al Qaeda over his house in village of Bait Al Ahmar, the village of all conflicting guys, according to local sources. 

The slain Adnan Al Qadi was   one of the mediators between the Yemeni government and  slain Sheikh Tarik Al Dhahab, Al Qaeda leader in Radaa last year  according to Al Qaeda specialist journalist, Abdul Razak Al Jamal who met Al Qadi and most of the Al Qaeda leaders.

Al Jamal also said that Adnan Al Qadi would always say that United States is supporting separation of the south of Yemen. " Because America realizes that problems of the north can not be solved," Al Jamal said. 

" American wants to establish a Shiite state in the north of the north, and let controlled chaos continue."

The journalist, Al Jamal recently injured while arranging interviews with Al Qaeda in Shabwah, said the American forces in the south is for protecting "separation".

On Wednesday November 6th, 2012, a US drone hit a car in the area of Al Nasrin in Sanahan, 30km south east of the capital Sanaa, killing Adnan Al Qadi and two others identified as Rabee Laheb, and Redwan Al Hashidi. Some sources said that the latter two were only injured.