More than $ 15 m to Support the Electoral

Source: UNDP Press release ,26/5/2013


The new voters registry remains a major challenge for Yemen and its partners, said UNDP

SANA’A- The United Kingdom, Sweden and Japan announced today a contribution of US $15,200,000 in support of the coming voter registration, Referendum and electoral process in Yemen.

This support will be channeled through the Multi-donors Basket Fund, administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and will serve to bolster the implementation of the Support to the Elections during the Transitional Period (SETP) project in Yemen.

The SETP project aims to support the planning and administration of voter registration, the constitutional referendum, and remaining elections of the transitional period; to support inclusive electoral legal framework reform and to increase participation of civil society, political parties, women, youth and persons with disabilities in electoral processes.

The contributions of United Kingdom [US $9,200,000], Sweden [US $4,000,000] and Japan [US $2,000,000] were confirmed by their representatives in Yemen today at a press conference organized by the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) and UNDP.

The Chairman of the SCER, Mohammed Hussein Haidar Al-Hakimi, stated that “this support is integral in assisting the SCER in the implementation of the electoral events envisioned during the transitional process”.

Gustavo Gonzalez, UNDP Senior Country Director, highlighted that “these contributions not only demonstrate the commitment of international partners to support the Yemeni transition, but also their trust on the capacities of SCER to conduct the coming elections.

An important part of this financial support will be allocated to the preparation of the new voters registry, which remains a major challenge for Yemen and its partners”, he added.

The UNDP Multi-donors Basket Fund (MDBF) is a large donor’s platform to support the electoral cycle in Yemen, composed of the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, United Nations Peace Building Fund and UNDP.

This platform will shortly be reinforced by the participation of The Netherlands and Turkey.

Through the MDBF, UNDP will technically and financially assist the SCER in assessing, planning and fostering partnership in support of the elections, while also developing national capacities through obtaining knowledge from global experiences. Through the previously established Multi-Donor Basket Fund, UNDP will support the implementation of critical electoral operations as envisioned in the transitional period.

In addition to the MDBF, voter registration and the electoral processes in Yemen are also benefiting from bilateral contributions from USAID and the European Union.

Saudi Arabia feeds south Yemen IDPs with dates

Source: WFP press Release, 26/05/2013

SAUDI ARABIA SENDS 340 METRIC TONS OF DATES TO REFUGEES IN SOUTHERN YEMEN


SANA’A – The United Nations World Food Programme today welcomed a 340 metric ton donation of dates, worth more than US$680,000, from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The dates, destined for distributionamong refugees from the Horn of Africain southern Yemen, were officially handed over to WFP in a ceremony at the agency’s headquarters in Sana’a attended by officials from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Finance in Riyadh and the Saudi Embassy in Sana’a.

“This is a timely donation, and WFP is grateful for this example of Saudi generosity,” said WFP Country Director Bishow Parajuli. “We’ll begin delivering these dates in June, on the eve of Ramadan, when thousands of poor, unfortunate people, far from their homes and seeking shelter in Yemen, could use whatever small measure of comfort we can provide.”

WFP will distribute the Saudi dates in monthly rations between June and December. Almost 20,000 refugees will eventually be reached, most of them located in and around the sprawling Kharaz Camp, isolated in the desert outside Aden in Lahj governorate.

In 2013, WFP is providing food assistance to a total of 70,000 refugees from the Horn of Africa. The budget for the operation is US$4 million, of which all but US$600,000 has been provided. Aside from Saudi Arabia, major donors to WFP’s refugee activities are Denmark and Switzerland.

The majority of refugees are scattered across urban centres in Yemen, with a particularly heavy concentration in the Al Basateen district of Aden. More than 20,000 are housed in remote Kharaz Camp, where there are few prospects of employment, leaving the camp dwellers almost entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance.

In previous years, most refugees were from Somalia. But recent trends have seen heavy increases of refugees from Eritrea and, especially, Ethiopia. Since the beginning of 2013, almost 30,000 people have landed on Yemen’s coast, 25,000 of them from Ethiopia.

Saudi Arabia has been a consistent contributor to WFP activities in Yemen. In 2012, the Kingdom contributed US$1.5 million to support WFP programmes, and this year the Saudis have donated US$5 million towards WFP’s Emergency Operation, a US$242 million programme that is the agency’s primary activity in Yemen in 2013. The operation is aimed at delivering food assistance to nearly 5 million people. As of mid-May, it still needed US$95 million to meet all of its objectives.

Obama would close Guantanamo and transfer Yemeni detainees to Yemen

Obama would close Guantanamo and transfer Yemeni detainees to Yemen

Source:  Press Release, 23/05/2013


Contact for interviews: Megan Lubin, Communications Manager, (202) 684-2552

BREAKING: Former Guantanamo Chief Prosecutor Responds to Obama’s Plan for Detention Center

Washington, DC--In a speech held this afternoon at the National Defense University in Washington, President Obama announced concrete steps to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, including appointing a senior envoy in the State Department tasked with closing the facility, and lifting the ban on detainee transfers to Yemen.

Col. Morris Davis, a former Chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who left his post in 2007 over the interrogation tactics used, provided the below response to the news.  His popular Change.org petition calling on President Obama to close the facility has drawn more than 200,000 supporters in a number of weeks:

“With the President’s announcement today, it seems years of rhetoric have finally turned into action. Since its beginning, Guantanamo has been costly, inefficient, morally wrong, and a stain on our human rights record.  Most people know this is an issue I’ve been personally invested in for years, and I am thrilled to see Obama take a real stand to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center.”

“I’d like to thank the countless groups and individuals who helped get us to this announcement.  I’m especially thankful for the hundreds of thousands of people who signed the Change.org campaign in the last three weeks.  When I launched it, I said we’d need help to do this.  And boy, did people step up.

“Americans know that real patriots don't abandon their principles or surrender their liberties for temporary security.  We’re ready for closure.  No more excuses, no more stalling, just get it done as quickly as possible.”

Col. Davis flew to Washington to attend the President’s speech this afternoon.

Link to Col. Davis’ Petition on Change.org: www.Change.org/CloseGitmo
Additional Background: As the Chief Prosecutor for Terrorism Trials at Guantanamo Bay. Col. Davis personally prosecuted Osama Bin Laden’s driver Salim Hamdan, David Hicks, and Omar Khadr. Davis stepped down from his post due to disagreement over the use of certain interrogation techniques. Since leaving his post at Guantanamo, Davis has become one of the prison’s most outspoken critics. In early May, he started a Change.org petition calling on Obama to fulfill past promises to close the detention facility and to transfer the 86 detainees cleared for release.

Is it Al Qaeda or users of Al Qaeda behind targeting Yemen Air Force?

Is it Al Qaeda or users of Al Qaeda behind targeting Yemen Air Force?

By Nasser Arrabyee, 21/05/2013

Yemen President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi and his commander of Air Force Rashid Al Janad finally admitted that "bad" people"  were behind the crash of military air planes  over Sanaa and killing of pilots cold-bloodedly.  

Three military airplanes crashed over Sanaa over the last few months, the last of which was that one crashed in street 50 south of Sanaa last week in which the pilot Hani Aghbari died.And three at least came back to base with bullets on them over the previous months according good sources in the base. 

Two  weeks earlier, three military pilots were assassinated by a motor-cycle riding gunman while in their way to their work in the second most important air base of Anad in Lahj province south of the country.

 The terrorist motor rider who killed the 3 pilots, all of them from south, was later allegedly arrested and identified by security authorities as the " missile" as he called him self according to investigators. 

"These repeated incidents happening with Air Force indicate that there are centers (of force) who want to destroy the Air Force," said President Hadi who was  speaking this week to thousands of officers and soldiers of Al Dailami Air Base in Sanaa, the country's most important base. 

One day earlier, the commander of Air Force brigadier Rashid Al Janad said in televised interview that the three military airplanes that crashed over Sanaa had been shot down. Brigadier Al Janad  was showing pieces of the stricken airplanes with bullets on them to prove that someone from Sanaa was shooting them down deliberately. " Now it's clear to us that there is conspiracy against Air Force," Al Janad said. 

Shortly after the crash of the last military airplane,Russian-made Sukhoi22 over Sanaa, the military intelligence in Anad air base arrested a soldier originally from Lahj. The soldier, who is now under investigations, was accused of having bombed the main  reservoirs of fuel of military airplanes in the Anad base.

Who is behind all these terrorist incidents? Is it the conflicting parties over power?  Is it those who lost their interests by reorganization of army and security? Or is it Al Qaeda who hates all as agents of American and as not good Muslims?

Both groups, Al Qaeda and conflicting influential figures whether those ruling now or those who were ruling, can be behind these terrorist acts. Because both of them have interests. 

The conflicting politicians exploits and uses Al Qaeda for settling accounts with their opponents and Al Qaeda, in turn, exploits and uses the chaos resulting from their conflicts for recruiting more and more and spreading wide and wide.  

Al Qaeda is growing more and more in the south where chaos is more than anywhere else. Al Qaeda knows very well that American trainers and some American special forces are based in Anad air base. So, this fortified bases has been always one of Al Qaeda targets. 

Al Qaeda is always complaining from US drones as ghosts coming down from the sky guided by agents from " bad Muslims", and Yemeni air planes as long arms of government betraying its religion or Kafir government. 

Al Qaeda justifies killing Yemeni Muslim soldiers by saying "we kill them because they are the first barrier between us and our enemy America". 

They also justify bombing any interest of both Yemeni and American or western government by saying "we are in a war and they ( Yemen and US gov) hit us with things that we do not have, and we hit them with things they do not have ( suicide bombers, and other terrorist means)."

"We kill pilots and destroy airplanes because Yemeni government who works under commandership of its master America, tries to kill us and destroy us with these things," said member of Al Qaeda via email.

Last US  drone attacks

On Friday 17 May,2013, the US drone hit a car carrying Al Qaeda operatives  killing at least seven of them in the most mountainous stronghold of Mahfad between Abyan and Shabwah  according to local source. The local top leader, previous top leader of Abyan State, Jallal Beleidi was allegedly killed by that drone attack. However, a relative of Beleidi denied that Jallal was saying he is not dead and he is no longer working with Al Qaeda.

"A deal was made by tribal leader from Marakisha between Beleidi and President Hadi, according to this deal, Beleidi gives up Al Qaeda and in return manhunting him will stop," said the relative who preferred not to be named. 

If Arabian leopards of Yemen live longer, then revolution wins, says Friedman

If Arabian leopards of Yemen live longer, then  revolution wins, says Friedman 

Source: New York Times, by Thomas Friedman, 16/05/2013

Arriving in Yemen last week, I had an experience I’d never had before. I drove from the airport into Sana, the capital, on the main thoroughfare, through a raging torrent of water. I was staying in the old city, a United Nations World Heritage site, which is accessed primarily by an ancient, moat-like road, known as the Sailah. It used to be made of dirt, shrub and pepper trees, which for generations absorbed water in the rainy season, although in downpours it would still flood. 

But, in 1995, at Yemen’s request, the United States paid to have it paved. Because Yemenis have largely deforested all the mountains around Sana, the lack of trees, vegetation and topsoil means the rainwater now rushes off the mountains, enters the paved city and finds its way to the paved Sailah, turning the road into a rushing aqueduct. Our S.U.V. eventually made it upstream to our hotel, giving a whole new meaning to the expression “we sailed into town.”

The other day, it hailed in Sana, piling up in some spots like a winter snow to a degree no one could remember. Meanwhile, up north, the most violent rainstorms in 25 years in Saudi Arabia just killed 13 Saudis in flooding and had Saudi television airing “footage of people clinging to trees and cars trapped by water,” the BBC reported.

It is impossible to say if these more powerful storms are the result of global warming, which is expected to make the hots hotter, the dries drier and the wets wetter in certain areas. What is not in doubt is that something is changing. Yemeni farmers traditionally divided their growing season into 13-day increments for each aspect of planting and harvesting. “That is how dependable the summer rains were — but not anymore,” said Abdul Rahman al-Eryani, Yemen’s former minister of water and environment. They have become both more erratic and more violent.

What also is not in doubt is that these weather changes are adding to the stress on frail infrastructure across the Arab world. This, combined with continued high population growth, is helping to fuel the Arab uprisings against the old Arab regimes and adding to the challenges for the new ones. For instance, the water table here in Sana has fallen so low from overdrilling, and has dried out the bedrock sandstone so much that it appears to be triggering geological faults, said Eryani.

 Sana just built a new airport terminal, but, while it was under construction, a fault opened underneath it, extending for miles and requiring an injection of concrete to keep it stable.

Most of the old generation of Arab leaders never gave much thought to natural capital: the forests, shrubs and ecosystems that naturally store water, prevent runoff, flooding and silting. The new generation will have to be environmentalists, otherwise their new politics will be overwhelmed by environmental stresses.

Yemen is the leading edge of this trend. In 2009, Eryani encouraged then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh to name the endangered Arabian leopard as Yemen’s “national animal,” in hopes of preventing its extinction and promoting more environmental awareness. (Where the wildlife thrives, the people usually thrive.)

“The Arabian leopard is at the top of the food chain here,” explained Eryani, “so if we can keep it alive in the wild, it is a strong indicator that the ecosystem is still intact.” As the biggest predator, the Arabian leopard can survive only if the antelope, the rabbits, the partridges, gazelles, ibex and hyrax that it feeds on also survive. Those animals, in turn, need a healthy ecosystem of springs, shrub lands, topsoil and forests. Not surprisingly, since all of those are disappearing, so, too, are the leopards.

In 2009, an American teacher in Yemen, David Stanton, set up a foundation here to protect endangered wildlife, focusing on the leopards. We met the other day outside the leopard zone at the Sana Zoo to discuss their future, while one of these sleek animals lounged on a shelf in his cage — waiting for his daily diet of donkey meat.

“Generally speaking, the Arabian Peninsula is drying,” said Stanton, and while the Arabian leopard can roam wide areas for a long time without water, their prey cannot. “So when you destroy the habitat of the prey, you destroy the habitat of the predators.” 

 Stanton started his work before the democracy revolution here in 2011, and back then, he recalled, “people would come to me and say: ‘Why are you protecting leopards when we have leopards in the government?’ ”

Of course, they were right. Arab dictators were at the top of the food chain in their countries — the ultimate predators. Eventually, though, they and their cronies and families ate so much themselves — while also despoiling their natural capital — that there was too little left for the rest of their burgeoning populations, and their people revolted.

The governments experiencing Arab awakenings, though, will never sustainably rebuild their countries’ human capital if they don’t also rebuild their natural capital. If you visit Yemen in five years and hear that the Arabian leopards are extinct, you’ll know the revolution here failed. But if you hear that the leopard population is on the rise again, there is a high likelihood that its people will be as well. Watch the leopards. 

If Arabian leopards of Yemen live longer, then revolution wins, says Friedman

If Arabian leopards of Yemen live longer, then  revolution wins, says Friedman 

Source: New York Times, by Thomas Friedman, 16/05/2013

Arriving in Yemen last week, I had an experience I’d never had before. I drove from the airport into Sana, the capital, on the main thoroughfare, through a raging torrent of water. I was staying in the old city, a United Nations World Heritage site, which is accessed primarily by an ancient, moat-like road, known as the Sailah. It used to be made of dirt, shrub and pepper trees, which for generations absorbed water in the rainy season, although in downpours it would still flood. 

But, in 1995, at Yemen’s request, the United States paid to have it paved. Because Yemenis have largely deforested all the mountains around Sana, the lack of trees, vegetation and topsoil means the rainwater now rushes off the mountains, enters the paved city and finds its way to the paved Sailah, turning the road into a rushing aqueduct. Our S.U.V. eventually made it upstream to our hotel, giving a whole new meaning to the expression “we sailed into town.”

The other day, it hailed in Sana, piling up in some spots like a winter snow to a degree no one could remember. Meanwhile, up north, the most violent rainstorms in 25 years in Saudi Arabia just killed 13 Saudis in flooding and had Saudi television airing “footage of people clinging to trees and cars trapped by water,” the BBC reported.

It is impossible to say if these more powerful storms are the result of global warming, which is expected to make the hots hotter, the dries drier and the wets wetter in certain areas. What is not in doubt is that something is changing. Yemeni farmers traditionally divided their growing season into 13-day increments for each aspect of planting and harvesting. “That is how dependable the summer rains were — but not anymore,” said Abdul Rahman al-Eryani, Yemen’s former minister of water and environment. They have become both more erratic and more violent.

What also is not in doubt is that these weather changes are adding to the stress on frail infrastructure across the Arab world. This, combined with continued high population growth, is helping to fuel the Arab uprisings against the old Arab regimes and adding to the challenges for the new ones. For instance, the water table here in Sana has fallen so low from overdrilling, and has dried out the bedrock sandstone so much that it appears to be triggering geological faults, said Eryani.

 Sana just built a new airport terminal, but, while it was under construction, a fault opened underneath it, extending for miles and requiring an injection of concrete to keep it stable.

Most of the old generation of Arab leaders never gave much thought to natural capital: the forests, shrubs and ecosystems that naturally store water, prevent runoff, flooding and silting. The new generation will have to be environmentalists, otherwise their new politics will be overwhelmed by environmental stresses.

Yemen is the leading edge of this trend. In 2009, Eryani encouraged then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh to name the endangered Arabian leopard as Yemen’s “national animal,” in hopes of preventing its extinction and promoting more environmental awareness. (Where the wildlife thrives, the people usually thrive.)

“The Arabian leopard is at the top of the food chain here,” explained Eryani, “so if we can keep it alive in the wild, it is a strong indicator that the ecosystem is still intact.” As the biggest predator, the Arabian leopard can survive only if the antelope, the rabbits, the partridges, gazelles, ibex and hyrax that it feeds on also survive. Those animals, in turn, need a healthy ecosystem of springs, shrub lands, topsoil and forests. Not surprisingly, since all of those are disappearing, so, too, are the leopards.

In 2009, an American teacher in Yemen, David Stanton, set up a foundation here to protect endangered wildlife, focusing on the leopards. We met the other day outside the leopard zone at the Sana Zoo to discuss their future, while one of these sleek animals lounged on a shelf in his cage — waiting for his daily diet of donkey meat.

“Generally speaking, the Arabian Peninsula is drying,” said Stanton, and while the Arabian leopard can roam wide areas for a long time without water, their prey cannot. “So when you destroy the habitat of the prey, you destroy the habitat of the predators.” 

 Stanton started his work before the democracy revolution here in 2011, and back then, he recalled, “people would come to me and say: ‘Why are you protecting leopards when we have leopards in the government?’ ”

Of course, they were right. Arab dictators were at the top of the food chain in their countries — the ultimate predators. Eventually, though, they and their cronies and families ate so much themselves — while also despoiling their natural capital — that there was too little left for the rest of their burgeoning populations, and their people revolted.

The governments experiencing Arab awakenings, though, will never sustainably rebuild their countries’ human capital if they don’t also rebuild their natural capital. If you visit Yemen in five years and hear that the Arabian leopards are extinct, you’ll know the revolution here failed. But if you hear that the leopard population is on the rise again, there is a high likelihood that its people will be as well. Watch the leopards. 

5 hostages freed inYemen,all hostages freed now, but the Saudi diplomat, the most expensive one!

5 hostages freed inYemen,all hostages freed now, but the Saudi diplomat, the most expensive one!

Source: AFP, 16/05/2013

ADEN-Kidnappers in Yemen have freed three International Red Cross employees, including a Swiss and a Kenyan, along with two Egyptian hostages, following tribal mediation, a local official said Thursday.

"We have managed to obtain the release of the five hostages kidnapped by the Al-Marakisha tribe," who released them overnight Wednesday, said Abdellatif Sayed, a local commander with the military-linked Popular Resistance Committees.

The Kenyan and Swiss hostages were seized on Monday with their Yemeni interpreter in the southern city of Jaar, which was held by loyalists of Al-Qaeda for 12 months until it was recaptured by the army in June last year.

A week earlier members of the same Al-Marakisha tribe kidnapped two Egyptian technicians working at a cement factory in southern Yemen.

The hostage-takers called for the release of a fellow tribesman being held by the Yemeni authorities.

Sayed said all five hostages had been handed over by their kidnappers and that he had promise to put their demand to the highest authorities in Sanaa.

Hundreds of people have been abducted in Yemen over the past 15 years, almost all of who have been freed unharmed.

Most kidnappings of foreigners are carried out by members of Yemen's powerful tribes who use them as bargaining chips in disputes with the central government. – AFP

In Yemen and everywhere, no hope if fighting over dead ideologies not stop

In Yemen and everywhere,  no hope if fighting over dead ideologies not stop

Source: New York Times, 14/05/2013

If people do not stop fighting with each other over dead ideologies and sectarian differences and focus instead on overcoming their deficits of knowledge, freedom and women’s empowerment — as the U.N. Arab Human Development Report urged — there is no hope

Water problem 

I am in the Yemen International Hospital in Taiz, the Yemeni city in the central highlands that is suffering from such an acute water shortage that people get to run their taps for only 36 hours every 30 days or so. They have to fill up as much as they can and then rely on water trucks that come through neighborhoods and sell water like a precious commodity. I am visiting Mohamed Qaid, a 25-year-old laborer from the nearby village of Qaradh who was struck the night before in the hand and chest by three bullets fired by a sniper from Marzouh, the village next door. The two villages have been fighting over the rapidly dwindling water supply from their shared mountain springs. Six people have been killed and many more wounded in clashes since 2000 that have heated up of late. One was killed a night ago. Qaid is in pain, but he wanted to tell people about what is happening here. I have one question: “Were you really shot in a fight over water?” He winces out his answer: “It wasn’t about politics. It wasn’t about the Muslim Brotherhood. It was about water.”

There is a message in this bottle. Yemen, a country of breathtaking beauty, with wonderful people, is a human development disaster. You see here what a half-century of political mismanagement, coupled with natural resource mismanagement, oil distortions and a population explosion has led to. But Yemen is just a decade or so ahead of Syria and Egypt in terms of the kind of human development crisis this whole region will face.

The great American environmentalist Dana Meadows, when asked if it was too late to do anything about climate change, used to say, “We have exactly enough time — starting now.” The Arab world has exactly enough time — starting now. If people do not stop fighting with each other over dead ideologies and sectarian differences and focus instead on overcoming their deficits of knowledge, freedom and women’s empowerment — as the U.N. Arab Human Development Report urged — there is no hope. As Qaid suggested, in Yemen those old ideologies are luxuries now. It is just about water.

I came to Taiz to write my column and film a Showtime documentary on climate and the Arab awakening. We flew down on a Yemeni Air Force helicopter with Abdul Rahman al-Eryani, Yemen’s former minister of water and environment, who minces no words. “In Sana, the capital, in the 1980s, you had to drill about 60 meters to find water. Today, you have to drill 850 to 1,000 meters to find water. Yemen has 15 aquifers, and only two today are self-sustaining; all the others are being steadily depleted. And wherever in Yemen you see aquifers depleting, you have the worst conflicts.”

One of the most threatened aquifers in Yemen is the Radaa Basin, he added, “and it is one of the strongholds of Al Qaeda.” In the north, on the border with Saudi Arabia, the Sadah region used to be one of the richest areas for growing grapes, pomegranates and oranges. “But they depleted their aquifer so badly that many farms went dry,” said Eryani, and this created the environment for the pro-Iranian Houthi sect to recruit young, unemployed farm laborers to start a separatist movement.

This environmental disaster was born in the 1970s when the oil/construction boom exploded in the Persian Gulf, and some two million to three million unskilled Yemeni men left their villages to build Saudi Arabia. “As a result,” said Eryani, “the countryside was depopulated of manpower.” Women resorted to cutting trees for fuel and the terraces eroded because of lack of maintenance. That led to widespread erosion of hillsides and the massive silting of the wadis — seasonal riverbeds — whose rich soil used to support three crops a year, including Yemen’s famed coffee. The silting up of the wadis crushed the coffee business and led Yemenis to grow other cash crops that needed less fertile soil. The best was qat, the narcotic leaf to which this country is addicted. But qat requires a lot of water, and that led to overdrafting of groundwater.

I interviewed the leaders of the two warring villages: Abdul Moimen of Qaradh, 42, and Ahmed Qaid of Marzouh, 40. They had two things in common: both had 10 children, and when I asked both what would happen to the water supply when their 10 children each had 10 children, they each first said some version of “Allah will provide for us,” and then they each said “desalination.” But that costs much more money than Yemen can afford now.

“Yemen suffered from two drugs: qat and easy oil money,” says Eryani. Qat drank all the water, and the easy oil money seduced the rural manpower into leaving for unskilled jobs. But now that most of the Yemeni workers have been sent home from Saudi Arabia, they are finding a country running out of water, with few jobs, and a broken public school system that teaches more religion than science. As a result, what Yemen needs most — an educated class not tied to an increasingly water-deprived agriculture — it cannot get, not without much better leadership and a new political consensus.

There is a ray of hope, though. Yemenis are engaged in a unique and peaceful national dialogue — very different from Syria and Egypt and with about a third of the input coming from women — to produce a new leadership. They may be starting at the bottom. But, of all the Arab awakening states, they do have the best chance to start over — now — if they seize it.

No victor no vanquished in Yemen's unique change, says Friedman

No victor no vanquished in Yemen's unique change, says Friedman

Source : New York Times, by Thomas Friedman, 12/05/2013

IF you want to know how bad things can go in Syria, study Iraq. If you want to know how much better things could have gone, study Yemen. Say what? Yemen?

Yes, Yemen. Maybe the most unique postrevolutionary political process happening in any country experiencing an Arab awakening is in poor, fractured, water-starved Yemen. In its own messy way, Yemen is doing what all the other Arab awakening countries failed to do: have a serious, broad-based national dialogue, where the different political factions, new parties, young people, women, Islamists, tribes, northerners and southerners are literally introducing themselves to one another in six months of talks — before they write a new constitution and hold presidential elections. (After decades of autocracy, people in these countries did not know each other.)

It is what Egypt certainly failed to do in any serious way before rushing ahead with presidential elections that have left many people feeling disenfranchised and Islamists running away with the politics. One of the most important things President Obama could do to advance the Arab awakening is give a shout-out to Yemen’s approach. Yes, the odds of success here are still really, really long — the effects of 50 years of overexploiting Yemen’s water and soil could overwhelm even the most heroic politics — but what Yemen is doing is the only way any Arab awakening state can hope to make a stable transition to democracy.

Kicked off on March 18, the 565 delegates to Yemen’s national dialogue are tasked with developing recommendations on how to address nine issues ranging from future relations between the feuding north and south to state-building to the future role of the Army to rights and freedoms — all of which will go into the writing of a new constitution and holding of elections in February 2014.

“In the beginning, it was very tough,” said Yahia Al-Shaibi, a former education minister participating in the dialogue, but, “after a while, things started getting calm, people were sitting together and eating together and we see our different views. Now we can hear what each other says. We are starting to listen to each other and try to come to consensus.”

The official dialogue has stimulated an even bigger unofficial one. Yemeni Facebook pages and Twitter feeds have exploded with debates about politics, women’s rights and the Army. After decades of being silenced, everyone wants to talk now. Women are one-third of the dialogue delegates, and the men are having to adapt. An American democracy adviser here told me this story: “We find that the women members of the dialogue usually come prepared and show up on time. It’s open seating, so sometimes they sit in the front row. The other day a tribal leader came late and went to the front seat, which was already occupied by a woman, and he said, ‘That’s my seat.’ And she said, ‘No, it’s not.’ ”

The dialogue is possible because of the gradual (and messy) way Yemen’s awakening played out. It started in 2011 with youth-led protests that escalated into near civil war and a government breakdown until then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh handed power to a transitional government. Saleh’s party and his followers, along with the biggest opposition bloc, Islah, Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood, still retained influence. There was no “de-Baathification” or “de-Mubarakization” in Yemen — but much more of a “no-victor-no-vanquished.”

No party was absolutely “defeated,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Mohy al-Dhabbi. It gave everyone a stake in the democracy transition and “allowed for everyone to give concessions.”

It also allowed time for women and the youths who started the revolution “to all get involved politically before the elections,” added Aidrous Bazara, a businessman in the dialogue. Now no one party “can steal” the revolution, he said. That has been reinforced by the recent decision by Yemen’s new president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to professionalize the Army, starting by purging Saleh’s relatives from the intelligence agency and the elite Republican Guard.

Yemen is a National Rifle Association paradise. It seems as if every Yemeni man owns a gun and many walk around with daggers in their belts. Yet this country may end up having the most extensive Arab awakening dialogue, with relatively few casualties — so far. It is a reminder for Syria’s rebels that better guns may be needed to topple their dictator. But, without a culture of inclusion, it will all be for naught.

Jamila Rajaa, a woman participating in the dialogue, told me she still worries that some old parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are happy to let the dialogue distract the country, while they are feverishly working the streets to cultivate votes to win the election in order dominate the next government. Some modern Yemeni women see how the Muslim Brotherhood is ruling in Egypt, when it comes to women, and they want their own Islamists to go through a mind-set shift before assuming any power.

It’s all part of the dialogue — why it is really hard and why it has to succeed, otherwise, as a recent United States Institute of Peace report warned: “Yemen risks falling backward into open conflict.” The good news is that — for now — a lot of Yemenis really want to give politics a chance. You’ve got to root for them.

More attacks, legal threats against Yemeni journalists

More attacks, legal threats against Yemeni journalists

Source: CPJ, 08/05/2013

New York--Yemeni journalists are facing continued physical and legal jeopardy, with one journalist receiving death threats and two others facing politicized defamation charges.

Fathi Bin Lazrak, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Aden al-Ghad, received a death threat sent via text message on Sunday, the newspaper reported. The sender threatened to "physically liquidate" him and burn down his newspaper if the paper continued its work, the report said. Aden Al-Ghad , an independent daily based in the southern city of Aden, is known for its critical reporting of the federal government based in the north.

Bin Lazrak told CPJ it is not clear who sent the message, or if the threat originated with the same assailants who fired on a newspaper distribution truck recently. The editor told CPJ he had filed a report with police, although police had yet not provided protection. The paper reported the threatening text message came from the local phone number 713953417. 

"Authorities must not stand by while Fathi Bin Lazrak and Aden al-Ghad are being targeted with attacks and threats," said CPJ's Middle East and North Africa Coordinator Sherif Mansour. "Police need to apprehend the assailants and halt these politically motivated attacks."

In a separate case, a prosecutor in the Specialized Press and Publications Court has filed defamation charges against Mohammed al-Absi, a reporter, and Mohammed Ayesh, editor-in-chief of the daily Al-Oula , in connection with a November 2012 article in Al-Oula thataccused the local humanitarian group Charitable Society for Social Welfare of mismanagement, news reports said. The article alleged that the society had not properly managed funds that were allocated to treat Yemenis injured in the uprising that ousted Ali Abdullah Saleh. The article was part of a series by al-Absi on the situation of those injured in the uprising.

The society, whose president is the current minister of justice, said its reputation was damaged by the article and asked for an apology and compensation of 100 million rials (about US$500,000), according Al-Oula. The group did not immediately respond to CPJ's requests for comment on the article's assertions. 

Al-Oula reported  that the Specialized Press and Publications Court of First Instance convened on April 22 and April 29 to consider the case, and the next session will be held on May 13. CPJ has called on the Yemeni government to abolish this exceptional court for the media, which has effectively acted as a tool of the executive branch by selectively applying the Press and Publications Law and penal code to crack down on journalists. 

"The Specialized Press and Publications Court is a forum for politicized prosecutions designed to silence government critics," said CPJ's Middle East and North Africa Coordinator Sherif Mansour. "This complaint should be withdrawn immediately."

CPJ has documented a disturbing rise in violations against the Yemeni press in the past two months, as journalists faced physical and legal threats from all sides. 

 - For more data and analysis on Yemen, visit CPJ's Yemen page here .

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CPJ is an independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.

Contact:

Sherif Mansour