Yemenis rally in protest to US meddling, urge Sana’a to cut US ties

July 27, 2012

Yemenis have staged an anti-US demonstration in the northern city of Sa'ada to protest against Washington’s interference in their country’s internal affairs.

Thousands of Yemenis took to the streets in Sa’ada on Friday to show anger with US meddling and urged the government to sever all ties with Washington.

They also accused Saudi Arabia of interfering in Yemen’s affairs.

Meanwhile, thousands of Yemenis took to the streets in the capital, Sana'a and several other cities, to demand the removal of relatives of deposed leader Ali Abdullah Saleh from power positions in the government, the military and security apparatus.

They also called for the prosecution of Saleh and his aides over the killing of nearly 2,000 protesters during the country's revolution last year.

Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years, stepped down under a US-backed power transfer deal in February in return for immunity, after nearly a year of mass street protests against his rule.

He was replaced by his deputy Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in a single-candidate presidential election backed by the US and Saudi Arabia.

In a bid to end anti-Saleh protest rallies, Yemeni President Hadi in April replaced nearly 20 senior military generals, including air force commander General Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar, a half brother of Saleh, and the commander of Presidential Guard General Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, who is a nephew of Saleh.

Saleh's nephew Yahya, who commanded the Central Security Services, was also dismissed from his post in March shortly after more than 90 soldiers were killed and many others injured in a bomb blast targeting troops rehearsing for a military parade to celebrate Yemen's National Unity Day.

TSA Chief: Al Qaeda altered underwear bomb formula

ASSOCIATED PRESS

July 27, 2012

ASPEN, Colo. — Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole says the al Qaeda explosive device recently intercepted by a US intelligence operation in Yemen was a different formula than that used by the Yemeni offshoot to try to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas 2009.

Pistole told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum that the TSA has recalibrated its explosive detection devices accordingly, and that bomb-sniffing dogs have also been trained to detect it.

The newly designed explosive device intercepted by a double-agent in Yemen was an upgrade from the underwear bomb carried by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The new model also had a more sophisticated trigger mechanism, an apparent attempt to fix the defective trigger that burned the bomber but failed to ignite the bomb in the 2009 attack.

Yemen on track for WTO entry after Ukraine deal

GENEVA | Thu Jul 26, 2012

 (Reuters) - Yemen has resolved a months-long spat with Ukraine that had threatened to derail its bid to join the World Trade Organization, the WTO said on Thursday.

The agreement puts Yemen back on course to join the world trade body as early as the end of 2012. That would make it the 159th member after Russia and Vanuatu, which will both become members in August, and Laos, which is finalizing entry terms.

Every new WTO member has to bring its own laws into line with WTO standards and agree to open trade to satisfy every existing member. That gives every member an effective veto on new joiners.

WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said Ukraine had agreed terms with Yemen, enabling the WTO's working party on Yemen's accession to hold a final meeting in late September. The wider WTO membership will then approve Yemen's membership package and send it back to Yemen for ratification.

Ukraine's tough demands on Yemen had caused friction at the WTO, where some diplomats saw its stance as going against the grain of a new push to make it easier for poorer countries such as Yemen to join.

Three senior WTO diplomats were helping to facilitate the negotiations between Yemen and Ukraine, but Ukraine warned them earlier this month not to interfere in its sovereign right to negotiate with Yemen and to demand lower trade barriers.

Ukraine's insistence on wringing concessions out of Yemen had mystified many WTO diplomats, since it does very little trade with the Arab country.

It had also earlier held out against Laos' membership, but the two sides reached a deal at the start of June.

Political crisis over, Yemen now faces a lack of food

July 25, 2012

By Adam Baron — McClatchy Newspapers

BEIT AL FAQIH, Yemen — Life, Omar Abdullah Zaki says, has never been particularly easy. A day laborer who’s never had a truly reliable job, Zaki has seen two of his six children die before their first birthday, at least partially, he admits with shame, because of his inability to provide his family with enough to eat.

But while hard times are nothing new, he says, little had prepared him for the struggle he faces today. Work has all but dried up. Lacking a steady income, he’s borrowed money just to cover essential costs. And as debts have risen, his daily life has become a series of tragic dilemmas, leaving him sleepless as he debates whether to make debt payments, settle bills or buy food for his family.

 “This is the worst it has ever been. I worry constantly, never ends,” he said, flinching with a mix of despair and humiliation. “For what, 20 days over the past two months, I’ve had to let my children go to bed hungry.”

Yemen has long suffered from chronic poverty, but the past year – filled with political turmoil amid a protest movement that ended the 30-year rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh and a determined offensive by al Qaida-linked insurgents – has pushed the country to what international aid agencies have called a dire humanitarian catastrophe. As the country’s fragile economy has been brought to the brink of collapse, unemployment has risen and prices of staples like rice and flour have skyrocketed, leaving huge number of Yemenis struggling to afford basics like food, fuel and electricity.

According to the United Nations, as many as 10 million people – more than 40 percent of Yemen’s population – don’t have enough to eat; 267,000 Yemeni children suffer from severe malnutrition. Yet the problem has received little attention in the outside world, where Yemen’s role in the battle against international terrorism dominates coverage of the country.

Doctors in western Hudayda province, one of the hardest-hit areas, say they are struggling to cope with the numbers of malnourished children coming to local hospitals for treatment. Simultaneously, many aid workers say that efforts to expand are restrained by financial concerns. In a joint statement last week, Oxfam and Islamic Relief warned that unless they receive a huge infusion of cash, they’ll be forced to delay new food programs that were set to start this month.

 “We have plans ready and are quite ready to scale up our operations,” said Lydia Tinka, the project manager of Oxfam’s Hudayda office. “While we had originally had plans to reach 300,000 people here, we’re limited to only being able to reach 100,000 due to a lack of funds.”

Even such assistance programs, however, reach only a fraction of the millions in desperate need of help. Many Yemenis in this impoverished region say they’ve almost given up hope for an improvement.

In al Hawak, a neighborhood of simple cinderblock homes in the inland market town of Beit al Faqih, the collective sense of desperation is obvious – even though Beit al Faqih has avoided the worst of Yemen’s turmoil and remains a rare bastion of relative calm. Still, even without the death and destruction of factional fighting, the fallout from the past year has left many here struggling to avoid starvation.

Mobbed by emaciated children in a two-room home she shares with her extended family, Ghana Fathi Hussein said it’s hard for her to imagine any way out of the crisis. Her husband, a motorcycle cab driver, averages less than $2 a day – barely enough to make payments on the family’s mounting debt, let alone feed their 11 children. Help, from the Yemeni government or the international community, has yet to arrive.

 “Life’s never been easy, but I swear, compared to this, we were living in paradise two years ago,” she said, gesturing to the pencil-thin arms of her 10-year-old daughter. “We seek refuge in God.”

Hussein’s aunt, Fatima Ahmed, interrupted her niece to complain that the family has been forced to subsist almost entirely on bread and water.

 “We can’t really worry about tomorrow,” she said. “We’re too busy dealing with the struggles of today.”

Baron is a McClatchy special correspondent.

Al Qaeda-tied militants attack south Yemen village

ADEN, July 25 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked militants attacked a village in south Yemen on Wednesday, fighting to regain control of territory for the first time since they were driven from their strongholds in a U.S.-backed army offensive last month.

The head of a local militia said his fighters had managed to repel the militants, killing two of them in clashes in the village of Batias in the province of Abyan, where armed Islamists established a foothold last year.

Wednesday's attack highlighted the enduring threat of Islamist militancy in Yemen and may alarm the United States and Saudi Arabia, who increasingly view the impoverished state as a front line in their war on al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Militants went on a rampage in Abyan last year, seizing several towns and imposing sharia (Islamic law) while then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh grappled with mass protests that that eventually toppled him.

Washington supported a Yemeni army campaign that was hailed as a major victory after the area was "liberated" from Islamist fighters in June. But residents and analysts say the militants are simply lying low and waiting for a chance to regroup.

Despite losing their territorial base, militants have since shown their clout remains formidable, assassinating a top southern military commander and killing 10 people in a suicide bombing at a police academy in the capital Sanaa.

On Tuesday, two militants were killed in the southeastern port city of Mukalla when an explosive device they were preparing to use against local security officials went off by accident, a local official said.