President Hadi receives USAID's Director

June 20, 2012

SANA'A- President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi received delegation of the USAID headed by the USAID's Director, Rajiv Shah, who is visiting Yemen to express American's support for the political settlement based on the Gulf initiative and its executive mechanism backed by the UN Security Council resolution 2014.

During the meeting, President Hadi reviewed with the American official urgent issues related to the Gulf initiative and what have been achieved on the ground, saying, "What has been achieved to date represents an important achievement by all standards."

The president alluded to the vital and important role of the U.S. in this regard throughout the mutual cooperation between the two countries.

"The comprehensive national dialogue conference will be a quantum leap in changing the system of governance, the Constitution and the electoral system,'' Hadi said.

Hadi noted that the war waged by the army units, especially in the Yemeni province of Abyan has achieved great and unprecedented victories, pointing that the losses in the infrastructures and agriculture were large.

Hadi added that about 500,000 people displaced from Abyan province and there are over 1.2 million African refugees, as well as the big losses in the infrastructures due to the war against al-Qaeda in the province, renewing the call on the international community to help Yemen to face the challenges.

For his part, Director of the USAID stressed the importance of giving Yemen a series of assistance programs and commitments in order to enable it to overcome the challenges in various fields, especially at this juncture.

The American official said that there is an increase in the volume of aid to Yemen worth $ 52 million this year to reach $ 175 million, including various areas of development.

Yemen says kills militant who planned bombings

June 20, 2012

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's government says it has killed a militant Islamist who directed suicide bombers for an al Qaeda-linked group that has carried out a string of deadly attacks in the country.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for several attacks in the impoverished country, including a bombing at a military parade rehearsal in the capital Sanaa last month which killed about 100 people.

Yemen is several weeks into a U.S.-backed military offensive against militants who seized territory in the restive south last year during an uprising that forced former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who took office in February in a power transfer brokered by Saudi Arabia and blessed by Washington, has sworn to stamp out the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda, which has plotted attacks abroad.

The state news agency Saba said late on Tuesday that security forces had killed militant Salah al-Jawhari in the southern al-Bayda province, but did not elaborate.

However residents of the province's al-Yafea district gave a different version of events, saying a drone had fired missiles at al-Jawhari's vehicle - indicating it was a U.S. attack.

The United States has escalated its use of drones to kill suspected al Qaeda militants in the impoverished country.

Yemen said on Tuesday it had foiled a plot to attack foreign diplomatic missions in the capital. Saba quoted an official from Yemen's top security body as saying that security forces had arrested a man who was involved in that plot and also the attack on the parade rehearsal in Sanaa.

Yemeni troops last week regained control of several towns in the southern province of Abyan, which Islamist militants had seized last year.

But the assassination of a top southern military commander in the port city of Aden on Monday showed the militants are still capable of carrying out attacks and highlighted the tenuous grip of Yemen's central authorities on the south.

DP World rejects Yemen port allegations

By Reuters

    Wednesday, 20 June 2012

DP World, the Dubai-government owned port operator, said allegations it had failed to meet its obligations in running Yemen's Aden container port were "misleading and unfounded."

The impoverished country's anti-corruption body said on Tuesday it would ask parliament to cancel the deal with the world's third largest port operator, saying it had failed to carry out investment projects on time.

"DP World rejects such unfounded and misleading accusations. We have met all contractual commitments with respect to the Aden port operations," the company, one of the profitable units of indebted state-owned conglomerate Dubai World, said in a brief emailed statement on Wednesday.

Yemen signed a contract with DP World in 2008 to develop and run the port, whose strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea once made it a vital stop for ships bound for the Suez Canal.

The agreement between DP World and the Yemen Gulf of Aden Port Corp stipulates $220 million of investment to develop the port.

Earlier this year, Yemeni transport minister Waaed Bazeeb told Reuters the company had missed a target of raising container capacity to 900,000 20-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) by the end of 2011, and failed to build and provide infrastructure as specified in the 2008 agreement.

Yemen: 9 killed in fighting in south

By AHMED AL-HAJ

Associated Press

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

SANAA, YEMEN - Yemeni military officials say fighting in the country's south has killed six al-Qaida fighters and three soldiers as the government presses an offensive that has retaken several militant strongholds..

The officials say the fighting that continued until early Wednesday took place about 15 kilometers (10 miles) from Azan in Shabwa province. The army seized the town earlier this week and militants fled to mountainous areas. One soldier was also wounded.

In another recently recaptured town, Zinjibar, demining teams found the bodies of seven militants including three Egyptians killed in earlier fighting. The team spotted another Egyptian militant but he killed himself with a hand grenade before being arrested.

Three civilians were killed Tuesday in Zinjibar by landmines planted by the militants, the officials said, speaking anonymously according to regulations.