Appeal for help – Conflict and famine – Journalist sentenced to Death – UN: Lift blockade of Yemen – Houthi landmines – Never ending war – US moves towards major Yemen intervention – Delusions of interventionists – German arms for war in Yemen – Attack on Hodeida is prepared – and more
Schwerpunkte / Key aspects
Klassifizierung / Classification
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
cp2 Allgemein / General
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
cp4 Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
cp6 Südjemen und Hadi-Regierung / Southern Yemen and Hadi-government
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
cp9 USA
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
cp11 Deutschland / Germany
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms trade
cp13b Söldner / Mercenaries
cp13c Flüchtlinge / Refugees
cp13d Wirtschaft / Economy
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp15 Propaganda
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
Klassifizierung / Classification
***
**
*
(Kein Stern / No star)
A = Aktuell / Current news
B = Hintergrund / Background
C = Chronik / Chronicle
D = Details
E = Wirtschaft / Economy
H = Humanitäre Fragen / Humanitarian questions
K = Krieg / War
P = Politik / Politics
PH = Pro-Houthi
PS = Pro-Saudi
T = Terrorismus / Terrorism
cp1 Am wichtigsten / Most important
14.4.2017 - Jamila Hanan (** A H)
This is Batol, she is 5 years old, weighs 5 Kilos, should weigh 20 kilos. Family could not afford 1 day at clinic so took her home
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852979099962417154
She needs 1 month treatment, costs $1000. Family asked @AhmadAlgohbary why can't he help her too? But he has only money for Mohammad.
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852979531258499072
*If* we can raise another $1000 quick, then @AhmadAlgohbary will return to Saada for Batol to take her to clinic. Can anyone help? #Yemen
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852980822290440193
As before, if anyone can help, payment options are Western Union or Moneygram direct to @AhmadAlgohbary in #Yemen thank-you.
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852981076603613184
To contribute, WU or Moneygram to: Ahmed Abdulatef Hasan Al-ghabri, Yemen. Phone number: 00967772393839 Just let us know transaction number.
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852992596171423745
this is all info that is needed to make payment. We will keep you updated with total raised. If it is more,will go to next poorly child.
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852992864997060608
Last week, Ahmad helped save 4-yr-old Jamal. He inquired about the boy, travelled to Sa'adah, & made all arrangements for his treatment. (photos9
https://twitter.com/shireen818/status/851504891646414848
This is Jamal with his father in #Yemen following treatment arranged by @AhmadAlgohbary (photo)
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/853002818210365442
this was Jamal at the start of his treatment (photo)
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/853000734832570368
Video message from @AhmadAlgohbary in hospital with baby Mohammad in #Saada #Yemen will travel to #Sanaa tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwYKOheas8A
Ahmad is going to register an organisation as soon as he can, just these children need help first, and there is no time to delay.
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852993167758700545
13.4.2017 – The Crisis Group (*** B H K)
Instruments of Pain (I): Conflict and Famine in Yemen
War is denying Yemenis food to eat. This special briefing, the first of four examining the famine threats there and in South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia, urges the Saudi-led coalition not to assault Yemen’s most important port, Hodeida, and both sides to immediately resolve deadlock over the Central Bank.
Executive Summary
Yemenis are starving because of war. No natural disaster is responsible. No amount of humanitarian aid can solve the underlying problem. Without an immediate, significant course change, portions of the country, in the 21st century and under the watch of the Security Council, will likely tip into famine. The projected disaster is a direct consequence of decisions by all belligerents to weaponise the economy, coupled with indifference and at times a facilitating role played by the international community, including key members of the Security Council such as the U.S., UK and France.
Avoiding famine, if this is still possible, requires the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, supporting the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi against Huthi rebels and fighters aligned with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to halt what promises to be a bloody battle for Yemen’s most important port, Hodeida. It also requires immediate action by both sides to put aside differences and enable central bank technocrats to address the liquidity problem, pay public-sector salaries nationally and regulate the riyal. For this to be sustainable, Yemenis need a ceasefire and a durable political settlement to have a chance at rebuilding the shattered economy.
I.Famine and Conflict
The evolving hunger crisis has both a supply and demand side, with an underlying motif of combatants pursuing war by any means with little to no regard for the population. According to a prominent Yemeni entrepreneur, “the real story of the humanitarian crisis is that Huthi/Saleh forces and the corrupt people around President Hadi are all benefitting from the war economy while the people of Yemen suffer”.
Saudi-led coalition allies repeatedly have hindered the movement of aid and commercial goods to the population. Huthi/Saleh violations are most egregious in the city of Taiz, where their fighters have enforced a full or partial blockade since 2015.
The Saudi-led coalition has strangled the flow of commodities into the country’s largest and most important port, Hodeida, which is under Huthi/Saleh control.
The situation is about to become much worse, as the coalition appears determined to break a military stalemate that has largely held since September 2015 by attempting to capture the Red Sea coast, including Hodeida. It says that taking the port is necessary to stem the flow of weapons to Huthi/Saleh fighters and to bring them to the bargaining table. This reasoning is questionable, since the Saudi-backed Hadi government, not the Huthi/Saleh bloc, officially rejected the latest peace initiative of the UN special envoy, and the coalition’s navy and the UNVIM already monitor, albeit not perfectly, the port.
In any case, the campaign’s humanitarian risks are clear. Unlike Aden and areas in the south, coalition forces would not be greeted as liberators, and Huthi/Saleh fighters have had ample time to prepare defensive positions. The battle would likely be protracted and could close and further damage this vital entrepôt. Even if the coalition is able to secure the city, it is far from clear it would have the will or capacity to ensure imports cross battle lines into Huthi/Saleh-controlled areas of the north, where the bulk of Yemen’s population resides. Indeed, there is widespread agreement among Yemenis that the Hadi government would use control of the port to further squeeze Huthi/Saleh-controlled areas economically in an attempt to break that alliance or engender an internal uprising against it, an outcome the Saudi-led coalition has long predicted.
The costs of such a strategy would fall disproportionately on the civilian population, with Huthi/Saleh fighters being the last to starve.
Humanitarians argue that even at its reduced capacity, there is no alternative to using Hodeida in terms of location and infrastructure. If the city is attacked and the port closed, it will become the most important choke point in what already is a massive hunger challenge.
The more acute current problem, however, is on the demand side. Notwithstanding mounting challenges, food is still widely available in the markets, including Sanaa. Yet, Yemenis throughout the country increasingly are unable to purchase it. After two years of ground fighting and air bombardment, the economy is in tatters. Families and communities are approaching a breaking point, having sold their assets, spent their savings and exhausted extended networks of support.
A critical component of the purchasing power crisis is the inability of the central bank to consistently pay public-sector salaries since August 2016. This is a product of shrinking state finances, an acute liquidity crisis and the bank’s inability to move financial resources between areas controlled by conflict parties. The issue has become deeply politicised. Prior to President Hadi’s 19 September decision to move the central bank from Sanaa to Aden, there had been a tacit agreement between the warring sides to allow the institution to function relatively free of interference. Diplomats and economists widely agreed that the bank had remained largely impartial, facilitating the import of an increasingly limited list of basic commodities, protecting the value of the riyal and paying public-sector salaries nationally under increasingly difficult economic circumstances. But this did not last. Without revenues from hydrocarbons, which accounted for approximately half the government’s budget in 2014, or donor support, both solvency and immediate liquidity came under immense strain.
By moving the bank, the government argued, it could prevent the Huthi/Saleh bloc from using central bank funds for its war effort, while allowing the bank to dispense public-sector salaries nationally and stabilise the economy. The bank in Aden has printed much-needed currency to address the liquidity crisis (a move that was blocked by the Hadi government when the bank was in Sanaa); at least 160 billion Yemeni riyals (approximately $640 million) have been delivered to Aden as part of a 400-billion riyal ($1.6 billion) order from a printing company in Russia. However, there is little transparency as to how the money has been disbursed. Moreover, since the relocation, some salaries have been paid in the south but far fewer in the north, and the banking system has all but collapsed, putting additional pressures on the supply side, as commodity importers can no longer access letters of credit.
More worrying yet, the government has not received a much-needed injection of foreign currency Hadi supporters expected would come from Gulf backers once the bank moved.
II.What Is Needed
13.4.2017 – ITV (** B H)
Film: Britain sells arms to Saudi Arabia - then gives aid to its targets in Yemen
Yahir's trauma is too much.
His father tries to comfort him but his tears don't stop.
An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition has left shrapnel embedded in his head. In the next hospital room Mohammed stands looking dazed at his injured family. Two of his children were killed in the attack which destroyed two houses.
Civilians continue to pay a high price as Yemen's war enters it's third year.
As we drive across the country the human cost of this war is clear. At least 5,000 civilians have been killed - the majority of them by airstrikes from the Saudi-led campaign.
The anger of those who blame nations like the UK for arming and supporting Saudi Arabia is never far away.
On the road to Hajjah a group of men come to talk to us as we're filming. One says he was a pharmacist but the war means he now has no job and no future. I ask him what he thinks of countries like Britain which last year sold £3.3 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia.
"We are very angry at countries that help the Saudis because a lot of people are dying in this war," he says.
In a remote clinic, Zahir lies weakened from hunger. The nine-month-old weighs half of what he should do. Another casualty of a war which has bred the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
The doctors treating him say the blockade of Yemen claims lives. "If medicines don't reach children like Zahir then they will die," says Dr. Ahmed Ali
means the two-and-a-half-year-old is now too weak to walk.
The future of a generation born into this war is being cruelly stolen – by Neil Connery (with film)
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-04-13/britain-arms-saudia-arabia-aid-to-yemen-neil-connery/
13.4.2017 – Afrah Nasser’s Blog (** A P)
Yemeni Journalist Sentenced to Death for Being a "Saudi Spy"
A Houthi-affiliated Yemeni court in Sana'a, Yemen sentenced today Yemeni journalist and academic, Yahya al-Joubaihy to death for treason, Houthi-owned news agency Saba'a News Agency reported. "The criminal court issued a death sentence against Yahya al-Joubaihy, 61, for treason and spying with the enemy state {Saudi Arabia}, as correspondence documents between him and the enemy proved his treason," Saba'a News Agency claimed, "Yahya contacted Saudia Arabia illegally, communicated with its ambassador and secretary and delivered reports that harm the republic of Yemen. Yahya also received 4500 Saudi riyals monthly starting from 2010."Yahya's house was stormed by Houthi forces on the 6th of September in 2016 and he was detained along confiscating his personal belongings, mobile, computer and documents, according to a statement of condemning issued by Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate today. Just before Yahya's arrest, his son was also arrested by Houthi forces, until today.
Journalists and writers have always been subjected to a great risk in Yemen along Saleh's rule, but the deteriorating condition for journalists under Houthis' rule is unprecedented. This is probably the very first time a journalist is sentenced to death. Yahya is one face of many journalists and young men abducted and forcibly detained by the Houthis since they overtook Sana'a city in Septemeber 2014. Reporters without borders have ranked the Houthis for two years in a row as the second top abuser of press freedom in the world after the Islamic State.
"Statistics show until the end of 2016 that more than 3,000 men have been abducted by the Houthis", on a phone call a spokesperson of "Mothers of the Abductees," told me. The coalition is compromised of mothers, daughters and sisters and female relatives of abducted and forcibly disappeared men in Houthis' prisons in Sana'a and few other Yemeni cities. The spokesperson who asked to hide its name for security reasons also added, "a great deal of the abducted group has been hidden for two years now without granting them any contact with their families. Let alone that they have been in jail with no trial, whatsoever."
A couple days ago, Islahi-owned TV channel, al-Suhail aired a video report of the Houthi-affiliated court's trail of 36 people in accusation of supporting Saudi Arabia. One of the jailed men pleaded loudly that this is the first time he and the imprisoned people see light and that he has been tortured and he demanded to have a fair trail – by Afrah Nasser
http://afrahnasser.blogspot.de/2017/04/yemeni-journalist-sentenced-to-death.html and film mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFeivILoSkI
Remark: More articles in cp5.
12.4.2017 – The American Conservative (** A H)
The People of Yemen Are Being Starved to Death
The world’s worst humanitarian crisis keeps getting worse:
With Yemen close to “breaking point” and nine million people on the brink of starvation, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday said it was scaling up its food aid to tackle one of the world’s worst hunger crises.
In order to do this, the WFP immediately needs more funding, and to date the efforts to combat famine in the country have been woefully underfunded. The coalition and Western governments that bear a large share of responsibility for creating this crisis have ample resources to fund relief efforts, but have chosen not to. Famine in Yemen has been brought about in large part by the U.S.-backed war and the coalition’s blockade of the country, and withdrawing U.S. support for the war and insisting on a lifting of the blockade would at least help make it possible to prevent more deaths from starvation and preventable disease.
In some parts of Yemen, it may already be too late. According to one report, the WFP states that famine already exists in some parts of Yemen:
Parts of Yemen are now in famine, according to a United Nations World Food Programme report seen by ITV News.
Doctors and aid workers here confirmed the assessment and told us there is no doubt the official statistics are lagging behind the reality on the ground.
There is still time to prevent famine from claiming more lives in Yemen, but that requires emergency funding of relief efforts, an end to the blockade, and at least a temporary halt to the fighting. The first is something that the U.S. and Britain and other governments responsible for this horror could easily do, and they could pressure the coalition on the other two if they were willing to try. The starvation of Yemen was avoidable, and the famine that is happening now is a result of deliberate policy choices made by coalition and Western governments to wage an unnecessary war on Yemen – by Daniel Larison
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-people-of-yemen-are-being-starved-to-death/
12.4.2017 – UN Human Rights Council (** A H K)
Lift blockade of Yemen to stop “catastrophe” of millions facing starvation, says UN expert
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and international sanctions, Idriss Jazairy, says the plight of people in the country is becoming increasingly desperate.
UN figures suggest that more than 21 million people - about 82% of the population - are in need of humanitarian assistance. Seven million of them are facing famine.
Thousands of civilians have also been killed in airstrikes which have been continuing since the conflict deepened more than two years ago with the military intervention of a Saudi-led coalition.
“The unwarranted restrictions on the flow of commercial and humanitarian goods and services into Yemen and impeding distribution within the country are paralyzing a nation that for far too long has been a victim of war,” the UN expert says.
Mr. Jazairy stressed that the aerial and naval blockade imposed on Yemen by the coalition forces since March 2015 was one of the main causes of the humanitarian catastrophe. It has restricted and disrupted the import and export of food, fuel and medical supplies as well as humanitarian aid
The blockade involves a variety of regulatory, mostly arbitrary, restrictions enforced by the coalition forces – including an unreasonable delay and/or denial of entry to vessels in Yemeni ports. Mr. Jazairy says it amounts to an unlawful unilateral coercive measure (UCM) under international law.
The UN Special Rapporteur pointed to the dramatic situation of Al Hudaydah Port, the major lifeline for imports into Yemen, a country that is 80–90% dependent on imported food, medicines and fuel for its survival.
Following airstrikes in August 2015, the port now operates at reduced capacity. Mr. Jazairy deplored in particular that new cranes which could replace those destroyed by the airstrikes and help restore Al Hudaydah to its full capacity, cannot be unloaded because long clearance procedures have the effect of disabling port facilities and slow to a trickle humanitarian imports, causing vital supplies to be wasted.
“Despite assurances from the coalition forces, the situation on the ground remains desperate,” Mr. Jazairy says. “The blockade involves grave breaches of the most basic norms of human rights law, as well as of the law of armed conflict, which cannot be left unanswered.”
He expressed his “deep concern at this man-made famine which is generated by the conflict.”
“I call on all parties to the fighting to spare the basic rights to life, food and decent living of innocent civilians and to pursue the settlement of their differences through negotiation while restoring unhindered access to the port of Al Hudaydah immediately, especially for humanitarian supplies,” the expert concluded.
Mr. Jazairy’s appeal has been endorsed by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Ms. Hilal Elver, and the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Mr. Alfred de Zayas.
Mr. Idriss Jazairy was appointed by the Human Rights Council as the first Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. He took office in May 2015
http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21496&LangID=E = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/lift-blockade-yemen-stop-catastrophe-millions-facing-starvation-says-un-expert = http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=21496&LangID=E and see emphasizing by Hisham Al-Omeisy: https://twitter.com/omeisy/status/852161793090875392
12.4.2017 – Al Araby (** B H K)
Planting death: Yemen's landmine crisis
Yemen is in the grip of a landmine crisis which has claimed more than 900 civilian lives.
Landmines are responsible for the deaths of 615 people in Yemen, and the injury of a further 924, since the government started recording mine-related casualties in 2015.
Between March and September 2016, more than 2,000 mines were extracted from previously rebel-held areas in some 16 governorates, reportedly amounting to a total of six tons of metal - according to Colonel Taher Hamid, head of the government's demining program in Taiz.
"Mines have been laid in schools, hospitals, at the entrance of villages, in wells to poison the water, and in fields to spoil any food supplies," said Hamid.
"They are planting death."
And the number of mines removed is just a drop in the ocean compared with the vast amount of mines still out there. According to Mohamed Askar, Yemen's human rights minister, there are an estimated 250,000 mines in Yemen - 100,000 of them in Taiz alone.
A recent report by the Mwatana Organization for Human Rights, a Yemeni NGO, claims that Houthi rebels and forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh are targeting civilians with mines upon their retreat.
The targeting of civilians is a war crime, as is the use of anti-personnel landmines.
Around 200 of the extracted mines that Hamid's team found in the field were part of old stock controlled by Saleh's Presidential Guard. Some were of German origin, dating back to the Second World War - but the majority of mines were produced in Yemen.
Houthi rebels have been trained by Iran to convert old shells into mines, said Colonel Hamid. These Yemeni-made mines range between 10 and 250 kilograms.
Weam AbdulMalik, a journalist at Post, an online Yemeni publication, said the internationally recognized government was focusing on central areas and major cities such as Taiz and Sanaa - but that equally mine-plagued zones elsewhere were not receiving the same attention.
Retreating Houthis and pro-Saleh forces planted marine mines along 200km of Red Sea coastline to target ships from the Saudi-led coalition, but innocent fishermen are the ones detonating them.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2017/4/12/planting-death-yemens-landmine-crisis
13.4.2017 – Washington’s Blog (** B K P)
Never-Ending War in the Time of Trump and How to Stop It
The Mother of All Lies is this: you can fix things by blowing them up. Alcoholics should not drink, and people who cannot watch TV and distinguish it from reality should not watch TV. Donald Trump watches a lot of TV and may very well believe what it teaches, namely that blowing things up solves problems. He certainly has figured out, as I knew he would, that the way to get love from the U.S. corporate media is to blow stuff up.
For many of us who are not believers in myths about good wars and just wars and defensive and humanitarian wars, war may have initially struck us as evil because it so directly does harm. Driving a gas-burning car helps render the earth uninhabitable, but only very slowly and only in combination with larger factors. Building a nuclear power plant risks horrible disaster, but it doesn’t intentionally and immediately create it. War, on the other hand, when looked at clearly, consists of mass murder described with other words. It’s direct and immediate and fatal and large-scale violence. What could be more evil?
It’s ironic, then, that the bulk of the damage that war does, and the vast majority of the deaths it causes are caused indirectly. The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees put out a statement this week that warned of mass starvation in Yemen without mentioning that there is a war there. The Washington Post yesterday published a shockingly honest article that described the famines in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria, and noted that they would be unimaginable without the wars in those countries. At least 20 million people are at risk of starving to death there, a number that dwarfs the number killed directly in wars in a given year — and that is true even using credible numbers, not the super low estimates of which the U.S. media is so fond.
People all over the United States will naturally be eager to help hungry men, women, and children at risk of starvation in the impoverished nation of Yemen, where the greatest number are at risk, and where the U.S. government has the greatest ability to quickly reverse destructive policies, if we can inform them that this catastrophe is happening. This is one of many possible paths to enlarging the peace movement. We can build a movement against starving people to death.
To reverse the policies responsible in Yemen will require admitting who is behind them, namely the governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia, and — perhaps even harder to admit — that chief among those policies is war making. While an estimated 10,000 people in Yemen have died directly from Saudi/U.S. bombing, estimates place the death toll from war-induced starvation already much higher. UN agencies estimate that 462,000 Yemeni children under five years of age are currently suffering severe acute malnutrition, meaning that they are at serious risk of dying. Many more are approaching that status.
Contributing to the crisis in Yemen have been:
- S. drone murders in Yemen;
- S. weapons sales to Saudi Arabia;
- S. purchasing of fossil fuels from Saudi Arabia;
- S. and European allies’ defense of Saudi Arabia from sanctions by the United Nations;
- S. identification of targets for Saudi bombing;
- S. mid-air refueling of the bombers;
- S./Saudi targeting of agricultural, health, and transportation infrastructure;
- The bombing of August 17, 2015, that destroyed all of the cranes used to unload container ships at the main port of Hodeidah, as well as a World Food Program warehouse;
- Newly escalated targeting of Hodeidah and the Red Sea coast;
- S. “special forces” raids on Yemeni families;
- S./Saudi propaganda falsely implicating Iran in the war in Yemen;
- Saudi takeover of the Central Bank of Yemen.
Two nations helping to lead the destruction of the earth’s climate, joined at the hip by fossil fuel and weapons sales, and both invested in supporting terrorists in Syria, have been collaborating for years on the creation of this other tragedy as well. It is time for us to put an end to it, to send in food and medicine rather than missiles and guns.
However, the largest way in which war indirectly causes deaths by starvation, as well as indirectly causing many other types of deaths, is something else entirely, something you may want to keep in mind as tax day approaches. The United Nations is trying to raise $4.4 billion for emergency hunger relief, and has raised a tiny fraction of it. The United States and Saudi Arabia are spending vastly higher sums inflicting starvation than are needed to alleviate it. The United States spends close to a trillion dollars a year, every year, on militarism, while $30 billion, or 3%, could end starvation on earth, $11 billion, or just over 1%, could end the lack of clean drinking water. And so on through countless massive projects that are not massive in comparison with military spending — are, in fact, literally too small to be noticed in the never-audited Pentagon budget, significantly smaller than sums the Pentagon often fails to account for.
The financial cost of war skyrockets if one considers the lost economic opportunities. It was of course economists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who found that military spending produces fewer jobs than other spending or even than never taxing the money in the first place. While it strikes me as sociopathic to defend war spending as a jobs program, it is in fact a job destruction program. The unfathomable amount of money lost by investing in war balloons further when we consider that war literally destroys trillions of dollars worth of goods every year — primarily in the nations where the wars are fought.
The machinery of war extends its horrific destruction far beyond the damage created by one government, even the greatest purveyor of violence on earth, through weapons sales. The war-torn nations facing famines do not manufacture weapons of war. The vast majority of those weapons come from 6 wealthy nations, first among them the United States. The major wars now happening in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya all have major involvement by the U.S. military. Other wars across Northeast Africa are being exacerbated by U.S. drone murders, special forces, and weapons sales. It is incumbent upon us in the United States to address this, as those best capable of addressing it. It doesn’t change the fact that numerous other governments and groups also deserve infinite blame for their roles in these slaughters.
It does, however, mean that even those who are believers in good wars and just wars and so forth have to make an impossible argument. They have to claim that the chance of their fantasized just war occurring outweighs all the harm done by the investment in war preparations and by all the obviously unjust wars that this preparation produces.
And that’s all before considering that war generates terrorism, that war is the justification for government secrecy and the erosion of our civil liberties, that war militarizes local police, that war is fueled by and fuels in its turn racism and sexism and violence, that those who survive war can suffer and cause others to suffer for the rest of their lives, and — perhaps most significantly — that the institution of war creates the nuclear weapons that will kill us all, sooner or later, unless they are abolished.
Someone I do not know posted this comment on our website at World Beyond War:
“Dear United States of America,
“You are terrifying the rest of us. We had no say whatsoever in bringing your current political administration into power. And yet the actions of your leader, who some have called unstable, have the potential to annihilate all people, all life on the planet. It is horrifying to think that the person you have elected as your president could be goaded into pushing the nuclear button for the sake of proving himself or personally saving face. As you search for some way forward please remember all that is at stake and that the lives of over 7 billion who are essentially hapless bystanders to the choice you made in November now hang in the balance.”
Reasons to focus on U.S. crimes at the moment include: we can have the most influence on the U.S., if we do not resist we are complicit, the U.S. media focuses on everything else, a U.S.-Russian confrontation risks nuclear holocaust, and it is a recent U.S. bombing that has changed the conversation and the politics regarding Syria. So, here are the top 10 lies: – by David Swanson
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/04/never-ending-war-time-trump-stop.html = https://www.globalvillagespace.com/u-s-foreign-policy-yemen-mother-lies/
13.4.2017 – American Herald Tribune (** B K P)
USA Moves Toward Major Yemen Intervention
The USA, according to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, he who ordered the use of chemical weapons in Fallujah, Iraq, is about to take a major step towards direct intervention in support of the Saudi Arabia war on the Yemeni people.
One airstrike is a big deal, for it involves the use of several thousand kilograms of high explosives, enough to incinerate an entire village. And then there are the cluster bombs in their thousands, and the hundreds of markets bombed…so if only 2 Yemenis have been killed per air strike then we are talking upwards of 180,000 dead Yemenis and counting.
Doesn't this match the toll for the first two years of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and isn't just going to get worse with US involvement? There is a huge crime being committed in Yemen and the UN and its cronies in the so called “human rights movement” are helping cover it up with their ridiculous death statistics.
Never mind the tens of thousands of Yemeni children already dead and buried from the US backed Saudi enforced starvation blockade of food and medicine to the Houthi homeland.
The US has to protect its national interests in controlling the Bab Al Mandab chokepoint between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean through which passes the trade of the two biggest international partners, Europe and Asia.
The US may have become a second tier trading partner but militarily “Mad Dog” Mattis is not going to sit by and lose control of the region. The US has a airbase in near by Djibouti and most likely planning permanent bases in Yemen to aid the incoming onslaught of US military might.
Already moves are underway to increase direct US military involvement in Somalia, the other key link in controlling the “Gate of Tears”. First comes Mad Dog Mattis calling for an increase in airstrikes, then on the ground coordinators, “training officers” and in the end, direct military intervention by the US, as Somalia itself continues to be rocked by insurgency and famine. What possible good can come from an aerial onslaught on the Somali people by the American Luftwaffe, who so called “smart bombs” seem to inevitably find targets containing Somali women and children.
Famine to the left of Bad Al Mandab, famine to the right of Bad Al Mandab, it seems a famine policy is being enacted by Pax Americana and its lackeys at the UN when it comes to the Horn of Africa.
So expect no mercy when it comes to the US military directly involving itself in Yemen.
And always off shore lurks the the US Navy’s Indian Ocean Fleet and its base at Diego Garcia, striking without warning anywhere they choose in Yemen, never mind the dead women and children by now in the hundreds of thousands.
Saudi Arabia is stuck in a quagmire in Yemen, easy to get into and very difficult to get out of.
The so called “Government” of Yemen, if you can call a government based in a foreign country any such thing, is little more that a mouthpiece, with no effective fighting forces on the ground in southern Yemen thanks to the Saudis failing to provide the salaries of its fighters. No pay, no way, their families have to eat so its back to doing whatever it takes to buy food for their wives and kids and that was the end of “Governments” army.
So its South American mercenaries guarding the UAE facilities, Saudi troops and a handful of Sudanese troops caught between the battle hardened Houthi fighters and their allies in the Yemeni army loyal to former President Saleh and Al Qaeda and ISIS with all hell to pay.
What is the US going to do, sit back and watch their strategic partner in West Asia, or asset really, the Saudi’s, stuck in a swamp of their own making with no apparent way out?
The USA seems intent on going where history has proven only catastrophe awaits, into the tribal conflict in Yemen. As a result the world should expect half a million or more dead Yemenis in this war against the Houthi tribes and their supporters as well as untold starvation deaths of Yemeni children – BY THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN
12.4.2017 – The American Conservative (** B K P)
The Delusions of Interventionists
Damon Linker comments on the “war madness” in D.C.:
The past week has been an immensely clarifying — and profoundly demoralizing — one in American politics. It has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the country’s foreign policy establishment, along with its leading center-right and center-left politicians and pundits, are hopelessly, perhaps irredeemably, deluded about the role of the United States in the world.
Linker is right that many of these people are hopelessly deluded about America’s role in the world, and this has been confirmed once again, but I don’t know how there could have been any doubts about this, especially after the last four years.
The conceit that Syria was Obama’s biggest foreign policy failure captured everything wrong with the way these people view America’s role in the world. They took for granted that the U.S. had “allowed” the war in Syria to progress, because they assumed that it was within our government’s power to stop it and Obama just lacked the will to do it, and they blamed him not for the things he did to make the war worse but instead faulted him for refusing to do more. These are people that seem to value meddling for its own sake, and they are also bizarrely confident that U.S. interventions make things in a given country better despite multiple examples and decades of experience that say otherwise. Interventionists of various stripes not only believe in inherent benevolence of our government when it “acts” (i.e., kills people and destroys things in other countries), but they credit it with competence for stabilizing other countries and halting foreign wars that it plainly lacks.
Linker goes on to express his amazement that many pundits and professionals won’t call acts of war what they are, but it is typical for interventionists to minimize the costs and risks of their preferred policies. They naturally shy away from admitting that they are demanding war against other countries, and prefer to use the more generic “action” or “muscular response” language that many news outlets are only too willing to echo. Linker says “their thinking is really a form of ideological propaganda that places the United States in a different category from every other country in the world,” and he’s right about that, too. Of course, that arrogance is baked into the self-serving idea that the U.S. should act as an enforcer of “world order.” The rules that limit the behavior of other states aren’t applied to the U.S. (and only rarely to states aligned with us), and when our government brazenly violates them as it has in Kosovo, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria the response from interventionists is to cheer because our government is “leading.” – By Daniel Larison
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-delusions-of-interventionists-2/
13.4.2017 – Zeit Online (** B K P)
„Die Profiteure des Terrors": Gewehre aus Deutschland für den Krieg
Die Vertreter der Sicherheits- und Wehrtechnikbranche können über ausbleibende Abschlüsse nicht klagen. Einzel-Exportgenehmigungen im Wert von 6,88 Milliarden Euro erteilte die Bundesregierung 2016 deutschen Rüstungsunternehmen – fast 3 Milliarden mehr als zwei Jahre zuvor.
Unter den Top Ten der Empfängerländer deutscher Kriegs- und Rüstungsgüter fanden sich in den vergangenen Jahren drei Staaten, die in der neben Afrika konfliktreichsten Region der Welt direkt in Kampfhandlungen verwickelt sind. Katar lag 2015 auf Platz 1, Saudi-Arabien 2016 auf Platz 3, gefolgt von den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten (VAE) auf Rang 9.
Dabei sehen die politischen Grundsätze der Bundesregierung beim Export von Waffen in Drittstaaten ausdrücklich vor, der "Beachtung der Menschenrechte im Bestimmungs- und Endverbleibsland" bei ihren Entscheidungen "besonderes Gewicht" beizumessen. Ganz explizit gegen eine Genehmigung sprechen sich die Richtlinien zudem in Staaten aus, die nicht der Nato oder der EU angehören oder diesen gleichgestellt sind.
Was sich wie die Blaupause für eine an Menschenrechten orientierte Rüstungsexportpolitik liest, bedeutet für Sigmar Gabriel ein Dilemma.
Die Praxis: Waffen für Staaten, die Krieg führen
Vehement kritisiert van Aken, der einst als Biowaffenkontrolleur für die Vereinten Nationen im Irak gearbeitet hat, Gabriel für dessen gescheiterte Abrüstungsbemühungen. Sämtliche Versuche, die Exporte einzudämmen, seien missglückt. Statt weniger hätten deutsche Rüstungsunternehmen auch 2015 wieder mehr Waffen in alle Welt verkauft – allen voran in Drittstaaten, auf die 86 Prozent der Ausfuhrgenehmigungen für Kriegswaffen entfielen, in Höhe von 2,48 Milliarden Euro.
Als die Abgeordneten im Bundestag über die Waffenexporte debattieren, fällt Joachim Pfeiffer, wirtschaftspolitischer Sprecher der CDU-Fraktion, van Aken während dessen Rede mehrmals ins Wort. Dem Konservativen gehen die Forderungen nach strengerer Kontrolle gehörig gegen den Strich. Der Hauptmann der Reserve fühlt sich dem Militär eng verbunden. Als er schließlich selbst am Rednerpult steht, fordert Pfeiffer: "Wir müssen die in der Tat viel zu restriktive Handhabung hier in Deutschland überdenken, und zwar aus politischen Gründen."
Hinweise darauf, dass die arabische Anti-Huthi-Allianz Munition und Gewehre aus deutscher Produktion einsetzt, gab es bereits unmittelbar nach Beginn der Luftschläge im März 2015. Fernsehaufnahmen arabischer Sender zeigten: Ganze Kisten voller Waffen warfen saudische Militärflugzeuge damals über dem Flughafen von Aden ab, um den Gegnern der von Iran unterstützten Huthi-Milizen zu helfen. Militärexperten stellten fest, dass es sich bei dem Inhalt um Sturmgewehre G3 des deutschen Herstellers Heckler & Koch handelte.
Insbesondere die arabischen Aufstände haben gezeigt, wie schnell sich die politischen Verhältnisse wandeln können. Im Fall Saudi-Arabiens bedeutete das nicht nur die Gefahr, aus Deutschland importiertes Kriegsgerät zur Repression im Inneren einzusetzen, sondern auch im benachbarten Jemen. Im Sommer 2015 musste Gabriels Wirtschaftsministerium schließlich einräumen, dass es nicht halten konnte, was es Kritikern der deutschen Rüstungsexportkontrolle immer versichert hatte: "Eine physische Endverbleibskontrolle der in Saudi-Arabien gefertigten G3 und G36 ist auf Basis der zugrundeliegenden Genehmigungen nicht möglich." Von Markus Bickel
Der Text ist ein Auszug aus dem Buch "Die Profiteure des Terrors" von Markus Bickel, erschienen im Westend Verlag
14.4.2017 - Yamanyoon (** B H K)
Yemeni Babies Deformed Because of the Forbidden Weapons
The emergence of deformed Yemeni babies now and then as documented by media outlets indicate the usage of chemical weapons, such as cluster bombs and white phosphorus by the Saudi regime.Recently, a mother gave birth to a disfigured baby in the central province of Taiz, one of the most affected locations by the Saudi bombardment (photos)
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=71189&lang=en
My comment: The great photo shows a natural disease.
14.4.2017 – Afrah Ateiq (** B H K)
Congenital defects.... Deformity...
The number of cases increased all over #Yemen since the beginning of #Saudi War .... This case in alhooban.... Heartbreaking (horrible photos)
https://www.facebook.com/Classy.Yemeni/posts/1036895433107304
29.7.2016 – Yemen Under Siege (** B K)
Film: Yemen under siege
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP_leatAQDk
cp2 Allgemein / General
14.4.2017 – MbKS15 (A K P)
#GCC countries to form the 81st Naval Security Group
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/852858489106030592
My comment: LOL. “Insecurity Group” would fit better.
14.4.2017 – DANDC-EU (* B K P)
Saudi-Arabien zerstört den Jemen
Ende März 2015 begann Saudi-Arabien zusammen mit neun Alliierten eine Militäroffensive gegen seinen südlichen Nachbarn Jemen. Die Invasion hat seinen offiziellen Grund, den abgesetzten jemenitischen Präsidenten Abed Rabbo Mansur Hadi wieder an die Macht zu bringen, nicht erfüllt. Stattdessen hat es das ärmste arabische Land an den Rand einer Hungersnot getrieben.
Es ist die Frage, warum Riad vor diesem Hintergrund unvermindert an der Militäroffensive im Jemen festhält? Grundsätzlich ist es ein emotionaler Krieg, den das Königreich im Affekt aus Frust über seinen regionalen Abstieg führt, während der Erzrivale Iran eine aufsteigende Macht ist und an Einfluss gewinnt. Die Militäroperation begann im Zuge der multilateralen Atomverhandlungen zwischen dem Iran und den Weltmächten während der zweiten Amtszeit des ehemaligen US-Präsidenten Barack Obama. Die Saudis beschuldigten die USA, sie zugunsten einer Annäherung an den wiedererstarkenden Iran fallenzulassen.
Auch wenn die Huthis eine potenzielle Gefahr für die nationale Sicherheit Saudi-Arabiens darstellen, haben sie Riad weder den Krieg erklärt, noch gibt es irgendeinen Hinweis darauf, dass sie den jemenitischen Bürgerkrieg nach Saudi-Arabien tragen wollen. Die saudische Intervention ist also kein Akt von Selbstverteidigung. Sie dient lediglich dazu, Stärke zu demonstrieren und zeigt Wut und Frustration mit der aktuellen Lage im Nahen Osten. Es ist sehr zynisch, dass die Saudis laut Augenzeugen absichtlich auch zivile Ziele wie Fabriken und sogar Beerdigungen und Krankenhäuser bombardieren. Riad folgt nicht dem Beispiel Israels, Bedrohungen aus dem Gazastreifen durch Land- und Seeblockaden in Schach zu halten.
Außerdem sollte die Invasion Jemens den saudischen Nationalismus und die Popularität des Königshauses Saud stärken, das durch die großen wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Probleme im Land angekratzt ist.
Auf nationaler Ebene hat die Intervention Saudi-Arabiens geholfen, seine Führungsstellung in der arabischen Welt zu stärken, vor allen in Ländern mit sunnitischer Mehrheit. In Ländern mit einem großen Anteil von Schiiten wie Syrien, Irak und Jemen will die saudische Regierung den Einfluss von Iran begrenzen. Die Erfolge der Huthi im Jemen haben die Wahrnehmung Riads von seiner Stellung in der Welt angegriffen und eine „ontologische Unsicherheit“ und Angst vor Identitäts- und Statusverlust hervorgerufen.
Der Saudi-geführte Krieg im Jemen scheint dazu zu dienen, die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Expansionspolitik des Erzrivalen Iran zu lenken. Saudische Diplomaten haben rund um die Welt große Anstrengungen unternommen, zu zeigen, dass Teheran und seine nichtstaatlichen Alliierten weiterhin eine Quelle internationaler Unsicherheit und Instabilität sind und deshalb in ihre Schranken verwiesen werden müssen.
Mit diesem Wissen im Hinterkopf hängt ein Ende des Krieges und die Lösung der Jemenkrise zu einem Großteil von einer Entspannung der saudisch-iranischen Beziehungen ab. Eine Politik der Anerkennung der saudischen Regionalstellung könnte den Weg dafür ebnen – von Maysam Behravesh
Mein Kommentar: Die Einschätzung der saudischen Position und der begrenzten Gefährlichkeit der Huthis ist richtig. Nicht dazu passt, wenn der Autor das Propaganda-Etikett „vom Iran unterstützt“ ffür die Huthis nachplappert und die viel weitergehende Unterstützung der USA und ihrer Verbündeten für die Saudis nicht einmal erwähnt.
and English version:
14.4.2017 – DANDC-EU (* B K P)
Saudi Arabia destroys Yemen
In late March 2015, Saudi Arabia, supported by nine allies, launched a military campaign in its southern neighbour Yemen. The invasion has not fulfilled its official purpose of bringing the ousted Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power. Instead, it has pushed the poorest Arab nation to the brink of famine.
Against this backdrop, the question is why Riyadh persists unabated with the military campaign in Yemen. For starters, it is fundamentally an "affective" or emotional war driven by the Kingdom’s frustration about its regional decline, while its archrival Iran is a rising power with growing influence. The military action was launched in the thick of multilateral nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers during the second term of former US President Barack Obama. The Saudis accused the USA of letting them down in favour of achieving a rapprochement with a resurgent Iran.
While the Houthis may pose a potential threat to the Saudi national security, they had neither declared war on Riyadh, nor did they have any evident intention of taking Yemen's civil strife to Saudi territory. The Saudi intervention is thus not an act of self-defense. It serves to display strength, fury and frustration with the existing state of affairs in the wider Middle East. It is also deeply cynical, as Saudis are seen to deliberately bomb civilian targets such as factories and even funerals and hospitals. Riyadh is not following Israel’s example of containing threats from the Gaza Strip through aerial and naval blockage.
Moreover, the invasion of Yemen was meant to boost the sense of Saudi nationalism and the popularity of the Royal House of Saud in view of vast economic, social and political problems at home.
On an international level, the intervention has helped to reaffirm Saudi leadership in the Arab world, particularly in Sunni-majority countries. In countries that have large shares of Shias, such as Syria, Iraq and Yemen, however, the Saudi government wants to stem the influence of Iran. Houthi advances in Yemen damaged Riyadh’s perception of its position in the world, producing a sense of “ontological insecurity”: uncertainty and anxiety about its identity and status.
The Saudi-led coalition’s persisting war in Yemen seems to be intended to draw attention to their nemesis Iran's “expansionist” activities. Saudi diplomats around the world have taken great pains to demonstrate that Tehran and its non-state allies continue to remain a source of international insecurity and instability and therefore need to be confronted head-on.
With these factors in mind, the end of the war and the resolution of the Yemeni crisis depend to a considerable extent on a thaw in relations between the Iran and Saudi Arabia. The adoption of policies to recognise the latter’s regional status might pave the way for it – by Maysam Behravesh
My comment: The author is right in many points, but he should not repeat propaganda labeling of the Houthis as “Iran-backed”, while not even mentioning the much greater backing of Saudi Arabia by the US and its allies.
13.4.2017 – Oxford Analytica (not rated B H K)
Riyadh’s new Yemen offensive could be bloody
Pro-government forces have diverted their advance up the Red Sea coast away from a sensitive port target (subscribers only)
https://dailybrief.oxan.com/Analysis/ES220272/Riyadhs-new-Yemen-offensive-could-be-bloody
13.4.2017 – The Economist (* A H K)
Yemen’s worsening humanitarian crisis
An assault on the country’s main trading port is expected soon
AFTER two years of war, a quarter of Yemen’s 28m people are on the brink of starvation. Attention is now turning to Hodeida (pictured), the country’s biggest port, through which the majority of food passes, especially to the rebel-held north where the bulk of the population lives. A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by Western nations, which sides with the president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, is finalising plans to invade and take the port. An attack is imminent, say UN observers. A successful raid could push rebel forces—a combination of Shia revivalists, Houthis and soldiers loyal to the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh—into the mountains and Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. But aid agencies and UN officials warn that fighting over the port would aggravate Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. Aid agencies fear that a major assult on Hodeida would cut supply lines to the rebel-held north, including Sana’a. That would be devastating for the two-thirds of Yemenis dependent on food aid. The coalition argues that supplies could instead pass through ports under their control in the south, particularly Aden. Indeed, since Yemen’s southern ports remain under the control of coalition-backed forces and operate freely, that is already beginning to happen. But aid agencies protest that Aden’s current capacity is insufficient to feed the entire country. The road north is also dotted with checkpoints, where armed groups, including al-Qaeda, demand heavy bribes. For the poor, the prices of staples are increasingly beyond reach.
The consequences of a raid on Hodeida will be far-reaching. If the attack fails, the Saudi-led coalition will be humiliated, perhaps to the point of unravelling. A successful assault might see the coalition wrest control of the western coast but it would worsen Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. All sides have already tried to starve their foes into submission, so far to little advantage. Moreover, the loss of Hodeida would deprive the rebels of their main source of income. An assault on Hodeida might not end the fighting, but whatever the outcome it could shift a prolonged stalemate and determine the rest of the war’s trajectory.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/04/economist-explains-3
13.4.2017 – Fars News (* B H P)
Mass Starvation: Time to Stop Saudi War on Yemen Is Now
Let’s face it, the Saudis’ closest allies in this horrible affair are Britain and the United States. They are complicit in Saudi war crimes in Yemen.
Taken together, this conflict cannot be solved with arms. This is a war against illegal sanctions and blockade as well. Lifting the Western-backed economic sanctions and blockade is the only way to avoid further escalation of the serious humanitarian crisis. After three years of violence and mass murder, this worsening humanitarian crisis can no longer be left unattended.
This must be avoided at all costs. It is now urgent that the Saudi-led, US-backed war on Yemen be addressed at the United Nations. Because of their regional designs, the regime changers have turned life upside down for millions, intentionally blocking emergency food.
It is time for the international civil society to see the people behind these numbers. If the war is not stopped now, we are going to be looking back on this and millions of children will have starved to death. That will shame us all as an international community for years to come.
The international civil society must understand that the real enemy of the Yemeni people are those who started this unnecessary conflict in the first place - Saudi Arabia and the United States.
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960124001025
Remark: Overview article and appeal, Iranian media.
13.4.2017 – Human Rights Watch (* A K P)
UAE: Clarify Role in Deadly Attack on Refugee Boat
Support Impartial Inquiry into Yemen Abuses
The United Arab Emirates should clarify its role in the apparent Saudi-led coalition attack on a boat carrying Somali civilians off the western coast of Yemen, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the prime minister and defense minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. The UAE should also provide information on the role of its forces in other unlawful coalition attacks, and endorse an impartial, international inquiry into laws-of-war violations by all parties to the conflict in Yemen. “The concerns expressed by the UAE armed forces for the attack on the refugee boat should be promptly translated into action,” Whitson said. “The UAE should be pressing other coalition members to accept an impartial, international investigation into this and other allegedly unlawful attacks by all sides in the Yemeni conflict.”
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/13/uae-clarify-role-deadly-attack-refugee-boat = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/uae-clarify-role-deadly-attack-refugee-boat
12.4.2017 – New News (* A K)
ISIS Fighters Arrive to Aden Port
A local source clarified that three small ships have arrived from Syria today at the early morning to Aden port carried 400 fighters from different nationalities .
According to the source , the fighters were moved by buses of 26 riders with thick hangings and with hidden guarding to Aden city. As the source indicate the fighters belong to the Takfiri terror groups “ISIS” so that the bus’s windows were covered . He says that its a habit to take the fighters who arrive to Aden from UAE by Emarits’ buses with strong guarding. The source think they will be taken to fight at the west coast of Yemen.
As well, four military cargo planes ” C130″ arrive today to Aden International airport carry large mounts of weapons and munitions . The source expect ,these American munitions are going to be used at the aggression’s operations against Alhodieda port led by the Alliance’s forces.
and
12.4.2017 – Living in Yemen on the edge (A K)
Hundreds of ISIS fighters from various nationalities arrive to Aden port . The fighters are going to be taken to the battle-fronts to fight with the aggression forces
On Wednesday hundreds of foreign fighters arrived to the Port of Aden in preparation to join the ranks of loyal forces to the Alliance in Yemen (Saudi-led coalition).
A source revealed that three small ships reached the Port of Aden carrying 400 fighters (most likely former fighters in Syria).
The arrivals, of different nationalities, will be transferred to the West Coast of Yemen
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1336817176371309 and by Al Masirah in Arabic: http://almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=6435&cat_id=3
12.4.2017 – Defense One (* B K P)
There’s a New Player in the Horn of Africa
UAE is funding ports and military bases in an area already frequented by forces of the United States, Japan, France, Germany, China, and others.
The semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia signed a 30-year concession agreement with the Dubai-owned P&O Ports firm in early April, to develop and manage a multipurpose port in Bosaso city. The development of the seaport will take place in two phases, and is expected to cost $336 million.
The landmark deal was signed several weeks after the self-declared republic of Somaliland allowed the United Arab Emirates to also set up a military base in the port of Berbera. Last year, Somaliland also announced a $442 million deal with the Dubai-based DP World to upgrade the port in Berbera, and create a world-class regional trading hub along the Red Sea coast.
The UAE’s foray into Somalia has proved controversial, with the country’s auditor general accusing Somali officials of taking bribes to enable the deal. But in many ways, the port concessions underpin the geopolitical face-off looming in the Horn of Africa. As Somalia regains a semblance of peace, its over-3300 kilometer coastline could prove the next frontier for global powers looking to deepen their presence across this strategic waterway.
In neighboring Djibouti, military forces from the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and soon China, are already based there, conducting counter-terrorism or anti-piracy efforts along the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. For Sunni Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are concerned about the expanding influence of Iran in the region, the port of Assab in Eritrea has also become a base to prosecute the war in Yemen and tighten the noose on Houthi rebels. Observers now say that with these new port deals, Somalia could unwittingly be dragged into a war that far exceeds its own strategic purview and military capacity.
“Contrary to the commercial façade of these projects, the main objective is one of geopolitical and geoeconomics,” says Abukar Arman, a political analyst and a former Somalia envoy to the US. Arman says the UAE’s ambition is also underpinned by Turkey’s growing presence in the region, which is seen as a strategic threat to its British and American allies. “It is the ideal gambit to secure the deals.” – BY ABDI LATIF DAHIR
http://www.defenseone.com/news/2017/04/theres-new-player-horn-africa/136962/
12.4.2017 – Sputnik News (* A P)
Russland und USA prallen im Jemen aufeinander – Zeitung
Der Jemen könnte zu einem weiteren Kriegsherd werden, in dem Russland und die Vereinigten Staaten miteinander kollidieren, mahnt die Nesawissimaja Gaseta. Saudi-Arabien führt in jenem Land Krieg gegen die Huthi-Rebellen und verdächtigt Russland sowie den Iran, die Aufständischen zu unterstützen.
Die Trump-Administration ist fest entschlossen, sich der Ausweitung des iranischem Einflusses im Jemen in den Weg zu stellen und damit massiv die Saudis zu stärken. Dafür bereiten die US-Amerikaner laut dem Blatt einen Angriff auf die jemenitische Hafenstadt Hudaida vor.
Eine direkte Intervention der US-Streitkräfte im Jemen könne jedoch eine militärische Eskalation auslösen, an der indirekt auch Russland und der Iran beteiligt sein werden, schreibt die Zeitung.
Eine militärische Intervention der US-Amerikaner würde, wie bereits üblich, mit humanitären Aspekten gerechtfertigt, schreibt das Blatt. Dann würde der Iran womöglich mit hybriden Attacken gegen die Schifffahrt im Persischen Golf reagieren.
https://de.sputniknews.com/politik/20170412315308430-russland-usa-jemen-streit-kommt/
12.4.2017 – Anadolu (A K)
Yemeni Coast Guard seizes arms-laden ship off coast
The Yemeni Coast Guard has seized a weapons-laden ship off the coast of the country’s eastern Al-Muhra province, according to a Coast Guard statement released on Wednesday.
The statement did not provide any information regarding the quantity or type of weapons seized, but asserted that the vessel had approached Yemen’s coast via Omani territorial waters.
The Coast Guard went on to state that the seized arms had been intended for Yemen’s Shia Houthi militia group, which for the last three years has been locked in a devastating conflict with Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/yemeni-coast-guard-seizes-arms-laden-ship-off-coast/795438
My comment: Al Muhra is the most eastern province of Yemen, at the border to Oman, far away from Houthi territory. Arms landed there would have to cross Al Qaida territory; they certainly would seize the weapons there, would they? Again, a quite dubious report. These arms also could have been going to Eastern Africa, a region full of wars and with a large import of arms.
And that’s another version (by a strict anti-Iranian website) of this strange story:
14.4.2017 – Track Persia (A K)
A group of Yemeni fishermen have succeeded in confiscating a boat loaded with Iranian weapons before it could reach Houthi militias, Yemeni sources told Sky News Arabia.
The sources said that the fishermen stopped the boat as it was set to dock at the eastern coast of Al-Ghaydah, the capital of the Al-Mahrah Governorate in eastern Yemen.
Weapons on board the boat were due to be unloaded and smuggled to Houthi fighters by land.
Iran relies on a weapons smuggling network for the delivery of weapons to Houthi militias, mostly via small fishing boats to avoid detection by big surveillance ships at sea.
http://www.trackpersia.com/iranian-weapons-boat-captured-off-yemen-coast/
12.4.2017 – Fars News (A P)
S. Arabia Fails to Lure Yemeni Tribes into Cooperation
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's attempts to coax Yemen's tribal leaders into cooperation with Riyadh are all in vain, a prominent Arab analyst said.
"The recent meeting between Mohammad bin Salman with a number of Yemeni tribal leaders and fugitive Yemeni president Mansour Hadi indicates the volume of pressures and impasse that Saudi Arabia is feeling," Rashid al-Haddad wrote in al-Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday.
Noting that Riyadh seeks to use the Yemeni tribes as a leverage against the Yemeni ruling system, he said but political analysts believe that these attempts are all in vain.
Haddad underlined that lack of influential tribal leaders, Saudi Arabia's failure in sowing discord among the Yemeni tribes and its lack of knowledge and information about these tribes all make the Saudi officials' plots to charm the Yemeni tribes into cooperation fail.
Riyadh's attempts are made as the Yemeni tribes vowed to give crushing response to the Saudi regime by setting up military units in the Northern part of Sana'a province against the Riyadh-back troops.
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960123001357
12.4.2017 – The Times (not rated B K)
There must be a war crimes investigation in Yemen
The prime minister no doubt used her visit to Saudi Arabia to desperately seek trade deals that will help cobble together a plan to combat the monumental act of self-harm that is leaving the single market.
What she should have done was have a moment of conscience and think about the people of Yemen.
International charities say Yemen is in the grip of a perfect storm of war, economic meltdown and humanitarian crisis. Yet while British aid is helping to save lives there, the country is being being pounded by British arms, sold to our Saudi Arabia allies, exacerbating the situation.
Yemeni families face a daily nightmare of falling bombs, a critical lack of clean – by Tom brake (subscribers only)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/there-must-be-a-war-crimes-investigation-in-yemen-78fhcqbbm
12.4.2017 – Yemen Press (A P)
Economics Bulletin’ Reveal the Conspiracy of the UAE’s presence in Socotra
[According to this brief article, the UAE is trying to subtly please the people of Socotra, providing them with aid and sending them to the United Arab Emirates to work. Cheap workforce.
The UAE, who should be in control of Aden, has also never improved the once thriving port in order to maintain the supremacy of Dubai port.]
10.4.2017 – Irish Examiner (*A H K)
Little known Yemen in grip of civil war
Yemen has been in the grip of an intensifying civil war for two years now but the Middle East’s least known and least developed country has received little attention from the international community and even less assistance.
“The big issue for us at the moment is funding. Last month the United Nations launched the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan which is a plan that aims to reach 12 million of those Yemenis most in need of help,” O’Leary explains.
“It requires funding of $2.1bn to carry out and at the moment we’re looking at a situation where that’s about 9% funded. That’s a big shortfall.”
O’Leary works as humanitarian access adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of 40 NGOs delivering vital aid to Yemenis affected by the war.
On the internationally recognised hunger scale, stage three indicates crisis, stage four emergency and stage five famine. Officially no area has breached stage four classification but O’Leary isn’t convinced.
“It’s quite likely that due to lack of ability to collect data at a really local level — in remote villages and small towns — there may be famine conditions and we just don’t know about them.
“There’s a hospital here in the city I have visited and it’s really shocking the things that we’ve seen. On the children’s ward there are babies that are five or six months old and weigh practically nothing and their mothers are too malnourished to feed them.
“These are the people reaching the city so there are undoubtedly more who die before they reach here.
“The situation is hard to put into words. We had a woman say to us the other day, I’d rather be killed by an airstrike than watch my children starve to death. It’s terribly sad.”
The food shortage is caused not just by the disruption to agriculture and fishing that in peace time sustains many of the poorest communities, but the de facto blockade that Saudi Arabia — which is backing the government side in the conflict — has placed on the crucial rebel-held port of Hojedia.
“Yemen is a country that imports 90% of its food and it imports almost all of its fuel and medical supplies and we have severe difficulties in getting those things into the country.
“Hojedia is responsible for 70% of the imports and there’s been a massive drop-off in what’s coming in there because of delays with getting clearance to be allowed berth.
“We’re talking ships waiting up to 100 days to be allowed dock at the port. NGOs are trying to bring in medicine and by the time the medicine is allowed into the country, it’s expired.
“What food is getting in has increased in price too so most people can’t afford what they need.
“We have a situation where public servants many of them haven’t had their salary paid since August of last year.
“It’s an even bigger problem for people trying to return home to their villages where there’s a lot of damage from ground fighting or air strikes. In terms of securing a livelihood, there are very limited options.”
Given the scale of destruction and suffering, the amount of political attention Yemen has received has been slight.
Geography gives its strategic importance but despite its natural beauty, , it has never been a tourist hotspot and its oil industry, tiny by comparison with the Saudis next door, means it has little economic influence.
O’Leary says the fact that the conflict hasn’t washed up on Europe’s shores may also be to blame.
“Yemen isn’t part of the large scale refugee crisis that we’ve been seeing play out in Europe – By Caroline O'Doherty
http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/little-known-yemen-in-grip-of-civil-war-447419.html
My comment: A good overview article.
3.2016 – Arte (* B H K P)
Film: ARTE | Mit offenen Karten - "...Jemen." Das Tor der Tränen.
[Einführende Erläuterungen anhand Karte / Infographiken]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo6Q4QtV_fA
cp3 Humanitäre Lage / Humanitarian situation
Siehe / Look at cp1
12.4.2017 – APA (* A H)
Verzweifelter Hilfsappell aus dem Jemen: ,,Bitte dreht euch nicht um“
Die humanitäre Lage in Jemen ist verheerend. Die Mortalitätsrate ist angestiegen, 17 Millionen Menschen droht eine Hungersnot.
Bemerkung: Kurzer Überblick.
14.4.2017 – Middle East Eye (* B H K)
Yemen's poverty-stricken teachers swap class for Kalashnikovs
Jamal Aidarows used to teach his students about the heroism of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers on the battlefield. But he did not think that one day he would be forced to take up arms himself.
"But when our salaries were stopped and we were unable to eke out anything for our families, then it became necessary to join the battlefield."
Education, like many aspects of life in Yemen, has suffered during the current two-year war.
In Taiz, the nearest big city to Aidarows, schools went on strike over conditions a year ago. The situation worsened in September when the Yemeni government relocated the central bank from Sanaa to Aden
The government only pays for employees and services in southern Yemen. As a result many public sector employees in the rest of the country - such as Taiz, one of the biggest cities - have not received salaries.
But troops are still being paid. In January 2017, the Yemeni government merged resistance fighters with the army and doubled the salaries of pro-government soldiers.
When he was a teacher, Aidarows used to receive YR64,000 ($256) per month. Now he earns YR60,000 ($240), a drop of only YR4000 ($16).
So he joined with the Popular Resistance in February 2016, together with two of his school colleagues after a month of training.
The Popular Resistance in Taiz, of which Aidarows is now a part, formed in March 2015 from civilians and soldiers under the leadership of Sheik Hamoud al-Mikhlafi, fights the the Houthis in Taiz.
The number of fighters now exceeds 15,000, including women and children. A source in the resistance, speaking to MEE on condition of anonymity, said that teachers were just one profession who had signed up: others included male nurses, students, accountants, even doctors who treat the injured.
Thobhani says that many of the fighters, either with the Houthis or the Popular Resistance, now face family and relationship problems from those who regard them as abnormal.
But not all of the fighters face such difficulties: some were encouraged by their families to join the resistance and get paid.
14.4.2017 – National Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response (A H)
Within 15 Days, NFDHR Medical Teams in Al Bayda Provide Services for 1009 Patients
NFDHR Medical teams in Al Bayda has provided its services to 1009 person during the period from March 15th – 30th, 2017. This project is part of the Cholera Integrated Health and Wash Project implemented by NFDHR and funded by OCHA.
According to statistical report issued by the Health and Nutrition Program in NFDHR, within the first two weeks of the project , our medical team in Al Wafa’a center, Sharyah District received 374 cases, 3 were suspected of cholera. In addition, the medical team in Mukayras Hospital received 279 cases, 16 of which were suspected of cholera while NFDHR MMT mobile medical team received 338 cases in different areas of the two targted districts, 15 of the cases where suspected of cholera.
The three medical teams provide cholera treatment services, acute water diarrhea, and other diseases besides distributing medicines to patients free of charge.
http://nfdhr.org/en/news.php?id=311#.WPGaHtLyiUl = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/within-15-days-nfdhr-medical-teams-al-bayda-provide-services-1009-patients
14.4.2017 – National Foundation for Development and Humanitarian Response (A H)
Distributing Winter Clothing Kits to 250 HH whose Children Suffer from Malnutrition in Khawlan District
As part of NFDHR’s efforts to reduce malnutrition rate among children under five years old, NFDHR Launched the distribution of winter clothing kits on Tuesday, March 4, 2017, to 250 HH in Khawlan Al Teyal district , Sana’a governorate as an attempt to reduce any infection that might accrue those kids due to bad weather. This project is part of the integrated Emergency Response Project in Food, Shelter and Sanitation which is being implemented by NFDHR in partnership with ZOA and coordination with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) since January 1, 2017.
It is also worth mentioning that united nation estimates that the number of malnourished children in Yemen has reached to 2.2 million.
http://nfdhr.org/en/news.php?id=310#.WPGaNtLyiUl = http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/distributing-winter-clothing-kits-250-hh-whose-children-suffer-malnutrition-khawlan
and here the website of National Foundation: http://nfdhr.org/en/index
14.4.2017 – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (* A H)
Yemen Humanitarian Bulletin Issue 22 | 14 April 2017
Some 48,000 people displaced by conflict on western coast since January
• Three million people displaced in the last two years
• 120,000 people recently assisted in Taizz and Al Hudaydah
• Seven million people face the threat of famine
On-going conflict increases suffering
Two thirds of Yemen’s population are now vulnerable and need support
Two years after conflict escalated in Yemen, the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country has reached a milestone with millions of lives devastated. The country is facing one of the largest food and protection emergencies in the world and there is broad agreement among humanitarian partners that this man-made disaster could reach a point of no-return in 2017. Continued hostilities in the country have been brutal on ordinary people who have borne the brunt of sustained airstrikes and localized fighting. The ongoing military campaign has destroyed the economy and moved an already weak and impoverished country towards social, economic, and institutional collapse.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-bulletin-issue-22-14-april-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/humanitarian_bulletin_issue_22_-_14_april_2017.pdf
12.4.2017 – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (* A H)
GIEWS Country Brief: Yemen 12-April-2017
Conflict endangers agricultural livelihoods despite good rainfall
In the country, owing to a variety of natural conditions, agricultural activities vary greatly depending on the location. In Central Highlands, wheat, planted in December, is currently being harvested. Across the country, sorghum, for harvest from September, is currently being planted. Remotely-sensed NDVI suggests a favourable start of the season although in some key-producing areas such as Taiz and Sana’s, NDVI remains slightly below the levels of last year owing to above-average rainfall in 2016 but still above average.
As a result of the persistent conflict, almost all governorates are reporting shortages of agricultural inputs as well as high prices of inputs with implications for the current agriculture season. The severity of the impact varies across the country. Agricultural activities, particularly those related to irrigated crops, suffer from high fuel prices, increasing the share of rainfed crops. Many rural households rely on casual labour opportunities as a source of income. However, in most conflict situations, hired agricultural labour tends to be replaced by family labour in order to cope with the increased costs of production.
Below-average cereal harvest gathered in 2016
Total cereal production in 2016 is estimated at 480 000 tonnes, including 220 000 tonnes of sorghum and 150 000 tonnes of wheat, about 11 percent below the previous year’s harvest and 37 percent below the five-year average. Agricultural production and livelihoods were affected by the ongoing conflict as well as torrential rains which caused flash floods and landslides in July 2016. The Yemen Emergency Food Security and Nutrition Assessment (EFSNA) estimates that 40 percent of all agricultural households experienced a decline in cereal production compared to pre-crisis levels.
Relatively stable import requirements
On average, total domestic cereal production covers less than 20 percent of the total utilization (food, feed and other uses). The country is largely dependent on imports from the international markets to satisfy its domestic consumption requirement for wheat, the main staple. The share of domestic wheat production in total food utilization in the last ten years is between 5 to 10 percent, depending on the domestic harvest.
The import requirement for cereals to guarantee a sufficient calorie intake in the 2016 marketing year (January/December) was estimated at about 4.1 million tonnes, including 3 million tonnes of wheat, 700 000 tonnes of maize and 420 000 tonnes of rice. However, the actual amount of imports is below the import requirement. In 2016, slightly less than 1.2 million tonnes of wheat (including wheat flour) were imported through the port of Al Hudaydah. A smaller amount of less than 30 000 tonnes was imported through the port of Al Mukalla between May and November 2016.
As of January 2017, following the crisis in the Central Bank, which led to a shutdown in trade finance and stopped wheat imports, the in-country commercial wheat grain stocks was estimated at some 940 000 tonnes (including flour), sufficient to satisfy the country’s requirements for only three months. In addition, continued fighting around the port city of Al Hudaydah, the main entry point for about 70 percent of the food import in the country and serving all northern governorates, hinders imports.
Some 17 million people estimated to be food insecure in March 2017
According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, 17 million people are estimated to be in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) and Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and require urgent humanitarian assistance from March to July 2017. This corresponds to 60 percent of the total Yemeni population and represents a 20 percent increase compared to the last IPC analysis conducted in June 2016. The most affected governorates are Al Hodeidah and Taiz where almost 2.2 million people are in Crisis and over 1.9 million in Emergency. Here the Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) prevalence is estimated to be above the WHO critical threshold of 15 percent. Similar levels of GAM prevalence are also reported in Abyan and Hadramount governorates.
The multi-agency EFSNA estimates that some 65 percent of the Yemeni households are food insecure, compared to 41 percent in the pre‑crisis period (2014). About 75 percent of the households report that the current economic situation is worse compared to the pre‑crisis. The cost of living is now 40 percent higher than pre‑crisis, with income levels significantly deteriorating due to disruptions in livelihoods and salaries of the public employees not being paid. High food prices continue to limit the household access to food.
Large regional differences persist in prices reflecting significant market fragmentation.
As of February 2017, there were approximately 2 million Internally-Displaced Persons (IDPs) and 1 million IDP returnees in the country, with the highest number residing in Hajjah, Taiz, Amanat, Al Asimah and Sana’a governorates. Most IDPs and IDP returnees are in need of urgent food assistance and they are putting strain on host communities, which are struggling to cope with the already stretched limited resources.
The majority of Yemenis have little access to Government services and support. Many people do not have access to clean water and are struggling to feed themselves and their families. Basic service infrastructure is near collapse, with fewer and fewer people able to access life‑saving assistance, basic health care and education. Children and women have been the hardest hit.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/giews-country-brief-yemen-12-april-2017 and in full: http://www.fao.org/giews/countrybrief/country.jsp?code=YE and http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/YEM_8.pdf
13.4.2017 – Press TV Iran (A H)
Film: Russian medical aid arrives in Yemen amid ongoing conflict: Video
A convoy of Russia’s medical aid has arrived in Yemen’s capital as millions of Yemenis are in urgent need of food and medical supplies as a result of the Saudi war on the impoverished nation.
The Russian medicine and medical equipment arrived at the Republic Hospital in Sana’a on Thursday.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/04/13/517938/Yemen-Russia-medical-aid
13.4.2017 – Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (* B H)
Jemen: „Ich glaube an eine gute Zukunft“
Jeden Morgen wache ich voller Hoffnung auf. Hoffnung, die ich im Lächeln meiner vier Kinder sehe. Sie motiviert mich, als Freiwilliger in einem Gesundheitszentrum zu arbeiten, um die Lebenssituation meiner und anderer Kinder zu verbessern. Ich glaube fest an eine gute Zukunft für die Menschen in meinem Bezirk und meiner Heimat.
Die Kinder leiden am meisten: Es fehlt an Nahrung
Von Zuhause bis zum Gesundheitszentrum des Jemenitischen Roten Halbmonds in Hajjah, in dem ich als Freiwilliger arbeite, laufe ich jeden Tag 15 Kilometer. Mein Ziel ist es, einen Beitrag zu leisten, dass keine Kinder und Frauen mehr sterben müssen. Dazu berate ich sie und überweise sie an Spezialisten, die eine entsprechende Behandlung und Ernährung anbieten.
Seit das Deutsche Rote Kreuz das Gesundheitszentrum unterstützt, können im Zentrum mehr Menschen behandelt werden – derzeit 70 bis 80 Patienten täglich. Da Versorgung und Medikamente für die Patienten kostenlos sind, kommen viele Menschen in das Zentrum, um medizinische Hilfe zu erhalten. Unter ihnen sind arme Familien genauso wie Menschen, die durch den Krieg vertrieben wurden und das Geld für medizinische Behandlungen nicht aufbringen können.
Die meisten Probleme, die wir haben, hängen mit der schwierigen Sicherheitslage und der schwachen Wirtschaft zusammen. Es gibt wenige Arbeitsplätze und die Lebensbedingungen sind oftmals menschenunwürdig. Das führt zu vielen weiteren Problemen wie Nahrungs- und Trinkwassermangel.
Erfahren Sie mehr über die Hilfe des DRK im Jemen:
» Jemen: Die Gesundheit von Kindern an Schulen verbessern
https://blog.drk.de/jemen-ich-glaube-an-eine-gute-zukunft/
24.2.2017 – DEC Charity (* B H)
Film: Yemen Crisis - Red Cresent Hospital in Hajjah
Saleh met the Red Crescent Volunteers in Hajjah, in the north of Yemen, who under extreme hardships keep going despite the huge rise in emergency cases. The hospital is supported by DEC member British Red Cross.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zETzd6Va9Es
13.4.2017 – Al Masirah TV(A H)
Film: Deterioration of the health situation in the Directorate of Zaher in Sa'ada and the suffering of the people by the aggression (in Arabic)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdFASqZ7dFc and also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6WjgN2oQPY (child with kidney failure)
13.4.2017 – E-International Relations (* B H)
Is Humanitarian Aid Politicized?
Is humanitarian aid politicized? Humanitarian aid is a political act. Conversely, most of humanitarian agents repeatedly announce themselves as apolitical. Nevertheless, international humanitarian policies struggle to reflect good governance practices. The inconvenient truth is that we live in a world of chaos: the number of people affected by humanitarian crises has almost doubled over the past decade according to recent reports from UN OCHA. Beyond the 60 million refugees and internal displaced persons (IDPs) of internal armed conflicts, the UN has recently declared that the world faces the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of the second world war, with more than 20 million people in four countries facing starvation and famine in: Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria. Adding to the complexity of humanitarian crises in the “modern” era other global issues such as climate change; population growth; volatile financial and commodities markets; disease epidemics including Ebola and HIV; water scarcity; sectarianism and the mushrooming of armed groups and extremists contribute to the enormity of this problem. Consequently, not only is the humanitarian aid industry in crisis, but humanity itself. There is no simple cure. The current interventions require the need to be selective and this has created a moral dilemma of deciding not only when to intervene, but also who should receive the aid. Humanitarian agencies work under time, operational and financial constraints which create a domino effect. Humanitarian aid reform has never been so urgent and imperative – by IZABELA PEREIRA WATTS
http://www.e-ir.info/2017/04/13/is-humanitarian-aid-politicized/
13.4.2017 – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (A H)
Yemen: Humanitarian Dashboard (January - February 2017)
SITUATION OVERVIEW
From January to February 2017, national and international humanitarian partners have reached 3.5 million people with some form of direct humanitarian assistance across Yemen. This has been accomplished despite continued conflict and access constraints imposed by the parties to the conflict. Lack of funds has also limited the response in these first few months. The 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan has received 14.4 per cent funding against the 2.1 billion appeal to date. (Infographics, figures)
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-humanitarian-dashboard-january-february-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/yemen_humanitarian_dashboard_-_jan-feb_2017-2.pdf and https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/en/operations/yemen/infographic/yemen-humanitarian-dashboard-january-february-2017
13.4.2017 – Doctors without Borders (A H)
Yemen: The little girl is losing oxygen
Hella Hultin is a surgeon from Sweden. She is currently on assignment with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Khameer, Yemen. Here she blogs about a little patient returning to the hospital a second time, in desperate need of medical care.
http://blogs.msf.org/en/staff/blogs/msf-in-yemen/yemen-the-little-girl-is-losing-oxygen
13.4.2017 – Al Araby (* B H)
The war on love and marriage in war-torn Yemen
Hopes of finding love have quickly shattered in Yemen, as more young adults than ever before are now unable to afford to get married.
Hopes of finding love swiftly shattered in Yemen, as more and more young adults struggle to afford not only a wedding, but marriage itself.
Pre-marital relationships are generally looked down upon in Yemen, where conservative values are dominant, so many couples either stay engaged awaiting the end of the war, or are unable to pull through preparing for their new life and break up soon after.
Yemeni sociologist Hind Nasser told The New Arab that there is a noticeable increase in the number of single young men and women as a result of the war.
"According to government statistics which date as far back as 2009, there were half a million Yemeni women unmarried under the age of 30. But I now expect that the number will double after we enter our third year of the war," Hind said.
The stigma behind widows and those disabled as a result of war also stops many from getting married. Female widows are usually less likely to find love after death because of male preferences of marrying someone who has never been married before.
Both men and women who have been injured and disabled because of war are also less likely to find love, with society equating disability with weakness.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/society/2017/4/13/the-war-on-love-and-marriage-in-war-torn-yemen
12.4.2017 – Ahmad Alghobary (B H)
Because of #Saudi attacks on the coastline ,18000 fishermen are jobless and many of them are starving to death #Yemen #Hudydah is suffering
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/852263995537010689
12.4.2017 – Jamila Hanan (A H)
Alhamdulillah! @AhmadAlgohbary has received all funds needed for treatment for baby Mohammad in #Yemen will travel with him today. #prayers
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852090251661258752 referring to https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/850840748450820096 and another phtoto of this boy: https://www.facebook.com/SaudiArabia.war.crimes.against.Yemen/posts/1662791174016870
Update on baby Mohammad: after car trouble + long journey @AhmadAlgohbary just arrived in #Saada will go to hospital in morning insha'Allah
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852581074341384192
@AhmadAlgohbary says thanks again to all who helped raise the funds for Mohammad's treatment, we hope to give you a further update tomorrow
https://twitter.com/JamilaHanan/status/852581679264825344
12.4.2017 – Meritxell Rexano, UNICEF (B H)
About 73% of the teachers in #Yemen have not received a salary since last October. How can education system continue to serve the children?
https://twitter.com/RelanoMeritxell/status/852176856212176900
We urge all education authorities in #Yemen to resolve teachers' salaries crisis. Children’s education must be above political disputes
https://twitter.com/RelanoMeritxell/status/852213386167373824
12.4.2017 – Stern (* A H)
Hungersnot bedroht mehr Menschen als je zuvor seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg
Die Vereinten Nationen haben wegen der Hungerkrise in mehreren afrikanischen Ländern und im Jemen vor einem "Massensterben" gewarnt und dafür unter anderem fehlende Hilfe verantwortlich gemacht. Es bestehe das zunehmende Risiko eines "Massensterbens" durch Verhungern, sagte Adrian Edwards, ein Sprecher des UN-Flüchtlingshilfswerks UNHCR in Genf. Diese humanitäre Krise "hätte verhindert werden können". Nun sei sie bald "unabwendbar".
Betroffen seien neben dem bitterarme Bürgerkriegsland Jemen der Südsudan, Somalia, Teile Südäthiopiens und Nigeria, sagte Edwards.
Edwards machte neben der seit Langem andauernden Trockenheit und den Konflikten in den betroffenen Ländern die unzureichenden finanziellen Hilfen aus dem Ausland für das Ausmaß der Katastrophe verantwortlich. Es drohe eine "schlimmere humanitäre Krise" als 2011, warnte der Sprecher. "Es ist schon fast zu spät."
http://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/hunger-bedroht-mehr-menschen-als-je-zuvor-seit-dem-zweiten-weltkrieg-7408260.html und von UN: http://www.unric.org/de/uno-schlagzeilen/28017-un-fluechtlingswerk-in-afrika-und-dem-jemen-droht-ein-massensterben
12.4.2017 – UN News Center (* A H)
Millions in Yemen on brink of famine, situation ‘close to a breaking point,’ warns UN agency
United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling up its emergency operations in war-torn Yemen to provide urgently needed food assistance to some nine million people, the agency said today.
“We are in a race against time to save lives and prevent a full-scale famine unfolding in the country, but we urgently need resources to do this,” said the WFP Representative and Country Director in Yemen, Stephen Anderson.
The new emergency operation will require up to $1.2 billion over a one-year period and should allow WFP to gradually scale up assistance to feed all severely food insecure people in Yemen every month. The success of this operation hinges on immediate sufficient resources from donors.
“The situation is getting close to a breaking point in Yemen with unprecedented levels of hunger and food insecurity. Millions of people can no longer survive without urgent food assistance,” said Mr. Anderson continued.
With the new plan, WFP aims to provide vital food assistance to nearly seven million people classified as severely food insecure, in addition to nutrition support to prevent or treat malnutrition among 2.2 million children. WFP will also assist breastfeeding and pregnant mothers with specialized nutritious foods.
Until it can secure the funds that it needs, WFP will prioritize 6.7 million people for urgent food assistance. Some 2.5 million of them – particularly those in governorates hardest-hit by food insecurity – will receive a package of assistance aimed at averting famine.
This will include a full food ration, which will cover 100 per cent of the food needs of every member of a family for a month, in addition to nutrition support for malnourished children and women. This is the first time that WFP has been able to provide a full food basket in more than a year.
A second priority group of 4.2 million people will receive a reduced food ration, which comprises 60 per cent of the full food basket.
“We have to secure urgent resources to meet the needs of all nine million people who are severely food insecure in Yemen as well as the millions of malnourished children and women,” added Mr. Anderson. “Until we are able to do this, we have to spread out what we have to ensure that we are helping the people who are at the most immediate risk of starvation.”
WFP prioritizes its assistance in consultation with humanitarian partners targeting people in highest priority governorates and districts, which are already showing signs of famine-like conditions – especially in Taiz, Hodeidah, Lahj, Abyan and Sa’ada.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56550#.WO51JtLyiUm and Reuters report: http://www.reuters.com/article/yemen-hunger-un-idUSL8N1HK4B2 and Sputnik News: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704121052566327-un-humanitarian-crisis-food-yemen/
12.4.2017 – Telepolis (* A H)
Saudi-Arabien: 200 Millionen US-Dollar täglich für den Krieg im Jemen
Das WFP bräuchte etwa das Fünffache für den Rest des Jahres gegen die Hungersnot. Die Spendenbereitschaft der kriegführenden Länder ist gering
Die Supermacht stellt demnach in diesem Jahr 66.865.626 Dollar für "sofortige, umfassende und nachhaltige Hungerhilfe" im Jemen zur Verfügung.
Das Geber-Profil des WFP für die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate weist 27.226 Dollar aus für Hungerhilfe von Flüchtlingen und bedrohter Bewohner in der Nachbarschaft Syriens (Jordanien, Libanon, Irak, Türkei, Ägypten). Zum Geber-Profil Iran gibt es anscheinend keinen allgemein zugänglichen Eintrag.
Das Geber-Profil für Saudi-Arabien weist 0 Dollar aus. Allerdings sieht das Bild der saudi-arabischen Hilfsbereitschaft, das die Zeitung Asharq al-Aswat - finanziert vom Haus Saud - vermittelt, anders aus.
Für Dezember 2015 bezifferte das amerikanische Wilson-Center in einem Beitrag zum jemenitischen Schlamassel des Königreiches die täglichen(!) Kosten des militärischen Einsatzes der Allianz unter Führung Saudi-Arabiens auf 200 Millionen US-Dollar.
Nicht ganz das Fünffache dieser Summe, 950 Millionen US-Dollar, benötigt das Welternährungsprogramm der Vereinten Nationen noch für das Jahr 2017, um Hungerhilfe mittels sogenannter "Ernährungs-Interventionen" leisten zu können. Nach aktuellen Angaben des WFP ist das Ausmaß der Hungersnot im Jemen ohne Präzedenz.
17 Millionen Menschen im Land werden als "food insecure" eingestuft, d.h. sie haben nurbegrenzt Zugang zu adäquater und sicherer Ernährung; 6,8 Millionen unter ihnen, ungefähr jeder vierte, gilt als "severly food insecure" und ist damit völlig auf Hilfe von außen angewiesen – von Thomas Pany
10.4.2017 – IUVM Press (* B E H)
Report … Yemen and smuggling anesthetics
Shipments of anesthetics have entered in the Yemeni markets without any control by the competent authorities of the Ministry of Health.
War on Yemen divided into military and economic which had significant repercussions in exacerbating health and humanitarian conditions on Yemen, giving the opportunity to drugs smugglers take advantage of the opportunity to support local markets for drugs.
As information indicates from the Ministry of Health in Yemen, shipments of anesthetics have entered in the Yemeni markets without any control by the competent authorities of the Ministry of Health.
According to the information that most of these valleys contraband entered Yemen on behalf of the Ministry of Health without customs and tax-exempt and all charges but they did not give to the ministry stores and to stores but some traders.
And a Yemeni official sources said that in light of the war and despite the maritime interdiction and ground and aerial imposed by the coalition, however, the drug smuggling is witnessing a revival, where those processes are common across the traders belonging to the alliance of aggression from the ports controlled by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi forces.
And of contraband drugs on the market under the brand name “midazolam” (midazolam) Swiss, and he belongs treatment to Alpinzdaaziban family, which has a Calming and hypnotic effect, where linked to their own brain receptors, which activates the “Gamma Amnoputrik acid” which owns the influential receptors work sedative, and it may cause treatment addictive psychologically and physically; do not distract therapy only as a specialist.
As well as Valium (Aldaaazibam), and is the first drug discovered drugs sedative Lesser known Balbnzodaazaban, and Xanax is the trade name and the most prevalent drug alprazolam name, and is part of the drugs group benzodiazepines drugs, which also include diazepam and flunitrazepam (Rohypnol) and Alooxazibam and temazepam.
The war in Yemen and the imposition of the blockade of the main reasons for the spread of anesthetics shipments in the domestic market, according to medical sources said more such pharmaceutical industry Swiss and Turkish and Indian to hit the Yemeni government and its inability to show a black necks and local markets.
According to a security source, that some of the drugs dealers, regardless of the interests of the Yemeni people, for their own personal interests and for the purpose of trade carried out these illegal steps.
Remark: This had already been reported some time ago.
Comment by Judith Brown: The effects of war. No wonder people are turning to Diazepam with all the stress they have, trapped inside this appalling conflict.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10155418638023641
cp4 Kulturerbe / Cultural heritage
11.4.2017 – HMML (* B)
HMML is collaborating with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, to provide open access to approximately 15,000 digitized Zaydi manuscripts from Yemen and neighboring countries. The three-year project will help support and make accessible the Zaydi handwritten heritage—a heritage that is on the verge of destruction in Yemen.
The Zaydi literary tradition is among the richest and most variegated traditions within Islamic civilization and at the same time, one of the least studied. Zaydi scholars produced manuscripts for over one thousand years covering a wide spectrum of traditional disciplines.
The project, “The Zaydi Manuscript Tradition (ZMT),” consists of two components: a digital portal on the website of the Institute for Advanced Study,[1] and manuscript images with catalog records in vHMML Reading Room, HMML’s online manuscript resource. vHMML Reading Room, www.vhmml.org, gives registered users free access to HMML’s photographic manuscript archives from around the world. Through the ZMT Portal and vHMML Reading Room, scholars around the world will be able to access Zaydi manuscripts from libraries in Yemen and neighboring countries, as well as those held by major libraries in Europe and the United States that have generously allowed access to their collections. Prominent among them are hundreds of Zaydi manuscripts microfilmed by HMML at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Through the ZMT project scans of these films are now available in vHMML Reading Room.
cp5 Nordjemen und Huthis / Northern Yemen and Houthis
Siehe / Look at cp1
14.4.2017 – New News (A K)
The world will See Great Progress in The Coming Days whether in The Missile System or Air Defense system.
Important remarks by brigadier general \Yahya Al-mahdi in special press releases for (Sputnik):
Brigadier general Yahya Al-mahdi “the head of the Department of Moral Guidance of Yemeni army ” confirmed that the next stage for Yemeni army will be
Yahya Al-mahdi confirmed that the element of surprise is one of the weapons which we depend. The world will see great progress in the coming days whether in the missile system or air defense system.
The development in the missile system and air defense system by the Yemeni army came as response for Riyadh’s deadly air raids continue against Yemen.
14.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Ahrar Sana’a’ Announces Revolution against Insurgents
The “Ahrar Sana’a” movement announced on Thursday that it has launched a “revolution” against insurgents to liberate the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and reinstate stability in the city.
The movement issued a statement saying that it will target top Houthi officials if they do not retreat from Sana’a and end their “disastrous coup”.
According to the statement, the new movement was established in response to the people’s aspirations in getting rid of the insurgents, who turned against the republican system and undermined the governmental institutions.
“Ahrar Sana’a” described Houthis as “clergymen,” who caused riot and chaos in the country.
The movement said that the insurgents had used their weapons to kill, terrify civilians and destroy the country.
In addition, it accused them of alienating Yemen from the Arab folf and including it in the Persian “Wilayat al-Faqih”.
http://english.aawsat.com/theaawsat/news-middle-east/ahrar-sanaa-announces-revolution-insurgents and a video of this group: https://www.facebook.com/Almashhadalyemeni2/videos/820755124751057/
My comment: What a strange group is that? They repeat Saudi propaganda and announce to commit acts of terrorism (“will target top Houthi officials”). And, keep in mind: They speak of “revolution”; there for you actually need the people. Where are they at Sanaa, which had been bombed by the Saudi coalition for more than two years now? – And what about the Saudis, how much they really like “revolutions”?
13.4.2017 – Press TV Iran (A P)
Film: Yemeni children’s rally outside UN's office
Yemeni children have gathered outside the UN's office in Sana'a to call on the world body to force Saudi Arabia stop its aggression against the country, bring Yemen’s warring sides to the negotiating table and help end the country’s dire humanitarian situation civilians caused by Riyadh’s ongoing blockade. Press TV correspondent has attended the rally and filed this report from Yemeni capital.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2017/04/13/517939/Yemeni-children-rally-outside-UN
Comment by Judith Brown: Not on UK news of course. The children look too much like 'our' children and might create a backlash against the cruel blockade and the sale of disgusting weapons.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10155418581088641
13.4.2017 – New News (A T)
Albyda Province:Security Service Dismantles Explosive Device.
13.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Yemeni Army: Top Republican Guard Officials Joined the Legitimacy
Disagreements among loyalists of ousted president Ali Saleh have expanded in Yemen to include not only members of the Republican Guard – the military wing in central and northern fronts in Yemen -but also its top officials.
Yemen’s army chief of staff Mohammed al-Maqdishi stated that dozens of high-ranking army officials are joining the legitimate Yemeni forces in several areas.
Maqdishi said that armed forces managed to communicate with the military officials to secure for them an exit from Sana’a. He added that the national army welcomes all leaderships that want to join the legitimacy after discovering the malicious goals of the insurgency.
My comment: In this Saudi media, “Yemeni army” is Saudi-backed Hadi army; “legitimacy” is the Hadi government (even though it’s illegitimate since Feb. 25, 2015). – There is no possibility to recognize fact and fiction.
12.4.2017 – Nadwa Dawsari / Abductees Mothers (A P)
Statement by mothers of activists abducted and forcibly disappeared by Houthis. Follow their twitter account for updates.
https://twitter.com/Ndawsari/status/852183024427044864
referring to
Tens of charges are fabricated to our sons after confession under torture.
https://twitter.com/abduteesmothers/status/851810750200983555
12.4.2017 – Yemen Updates (A P)
#Houthis confiscate the public employment posts of those who sought refuge outside #Yemen!
https://twitter.com/yemen_updates/status/852253362804449281 referring to https://twitter.com/arefabuhatem78/status/852249563465428993 (image)
12.4.2017 – New News (A P)
A protest Rally in front of UN building
People of the capital Sana’a organized protest rally on Wednesday morning in front of the United Nation in Sana’a province, entitled: ( United Nations is a key partner in supporting terrorism and in looting money in Yemen)
The rallies rejected Russia’s actions by handing over the printed money to the colonial powers and their proxies , ISIS and Al-Qaeda, As well the collusion of the United Nations and in violation of the agreement signed with the Governor of central bank mr. BinHammam.
12.4.2017 – Aljazeera (A P)
Houthi-led court hand out first death sentence
Yemeni journalist has been accused by the Houthis of collaborating with an 'enemy state'.
A Yemeni journalist has been sentenced to death by a Houthi court, which accused him of collaborating with enemy states, activists have said.
Yahya Abduraqeeb al-Jubaihi was kidnapped by Yemen's Houthi rebels from his home in September 2016 and was forcibly dissapeared since then.
This is the first time a journalist has been sentenced to death in Yemen.
The court accused Jubaihi of helping rival President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government of conducting killings and attacks in Houthi-led areas.
Hooria Mashhour, Yemen's former Minister for Human Rights, wrote on Twitter "We have to stand against this farce trial".
Jubaihi is among at least 36 activists currently being tried by a Houthi court in Sanaa.
The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS) issued a statement condemning the death sentence of Jubaihi, calling the sentence "heinous" and "unconstitutional".
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/houthi-led-court-hand-death-sentence-170412160249299.html and by AFP: http://www.france24.com/en/20170413-rebel-court-sentences-yemen-journalist-death and Middle East Eye: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/houthis-sentence-saudi-journalist-death-spying-77787617 and Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/yemen-security-censorship-idUSL8N1HL2VK and Amnesty International: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/04/yemen-journalist-yahia-al-jubaihi-sentenced-to-death-by-huthi-forces/
My comment: That certainly is a very dubious trial. He was accused of being a “spy”: https://twitter.com/YemenPostNews/status/852278113815941121
Comment by Donatella Rovera: Shocking - #journalist sentenced to death in #Yemen 's capital by #Houthis ' so-called "court"
https://twitter.com/DRovera/status/852508229707890689
Comment by Hisham Al-Omeisy: Extrajudicial arrest, farce trial, evidence sealed bcz sensitive to nat'l security & death sentence? This is worse than a witch hunt!
https://twitter.com/omeisy/status/852523760313913345
and by
13.4.2017 – Saba Net (A P)
Criminal court sentences al-Jubaihi to death
The criminal court in the capital Sanaa sentenced on Wednesday Yahya Abdull Raqeeb Ahmed al-Jubaihi to death on charges of spying for Saudi Arabia.
Al-Jubaihi, 61, was also convicted of providing Saudi diplomats in Sanaa with reports that posed harm to Yemen's army, political position and economy in return for 4,500 Saudi Riyal from Riyadh since 2010.
The court referred the documents and reports convicting al-Jubaihi to the Yemeni National Security Agency.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461906.htm
12.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Yemen: Houthis Sentence Sana’a Journalist to Death without Fair Trial
Jubaihi is a member of the Arab journalists union and the Yemeni journalists trade union and works as lecturer at the Faculty of Information, University of Sana’a. In the 80s, he served as freelancer and appointed as media counselor at the Yemeni cabinet secretariat general.
14.4.2017 – maldhabyani (A P)
Film: During abductees trial by Houthi& Saleh, Dr.Yusuf Albawab spoke in a language full of brutal torture which was exposed to him& all abductees (in Arabic)
https://twitter.com/maldhabyani/status/851872528633081856
13.4.2017 – International Federation of Journalists (* A P)
Yemen: IFJ condemns state security court death sentence on journalist
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today joined its affiliate, the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate (YJS), in condemning the death sentence passed on 12 April by the Houthi Security Court against a veteran Yemeni journalist.
Reporter and former professor Yahya Abdulraqeeb Al-Jubeihi, 61, was yesterday sentenced to death on charges of spying for Saudi Arabia, the country that has been leading a deadly military intervention against the Houthis in Yemen since 2015. The rebels have controlled all government and media institutions in Sana’a since they overran the capital in September 2014 and are accused by the YJS of undermining press freedom.
Another 18 journalists also remain detained by the Houthis under brutal conditions and fear a similar fate, the union claims. The YJS reported that they are being deprived of health care in the Political Security prison in Sana’a.
¨The YJS strongly condemns this sentence, which shows how the current authority is targeting all elements of media and press freedoms, spreading fear and horror amongst journalists and taking Yemen back to a totalitarian era,¨ claimed the union in a statement.
The YJS also reported that the court didn´t give Al-Jubeihi and his lawyer the right to defend his case. They are appealing against the sentence.
The IFJ joined the YJS in opposing the sentence and a process that deprived Al-Jubeihi of the right to defend himself in court and have a fair trail.
¨We are outraged by this ruling against a senior journalist and we warn those who are overseeing this show trial against harming him,¨ said IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger. ¨Otherwise the IFJ, its unions around the globe and international partners will make sure that they face justice for their crime.¨
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A P)
PM discusses with ministers promoting national capacities to achieve food security
Prime Minister Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Habtoor discussed on Wednesday with Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Dr. Ghazi Ali Ahmed, and Deputy Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Dr. Mutahar al-Abbasi the issues of food security, and challenges in the light of the current status indicators.
The meeting reviewed the main determinants of the national strategy for food security approved in 2010 and the mechanism of activating it for its importance to reach food security by enhancing the available national components to achieve its purposes in the agricultural, animal, fish and industrial fields.
They also reviewed the objectives of the strategic investment program in the light of the study food security indicators in Yemen that conducted in coordination with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and projects to support the sectors that would achieve food security for the Yemeni people.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461865.htm
13.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
Islah strongly condemns death sentence against journalist
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5926
12.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (* A P)
Yemeni Condemnation of Houthi Coup against ‘Mufti’
Yemen’s government said on Tuesday a Houthi decision taken two days ago to establish a so-called new Dar al-Fatwa and appoint a new rebel mufti, who studied and grew up in the religious academies of Qom and Tehran, reveals that the plan of insurgents in Yemen has sectarian and racial grounds.
On Monday night, the so-called Houthi political council appointed Shams al-Din Mohammad Sharaf al-Din as the Mufti of Yemen instead of Judge Mohammed bin Ismail al-Omrani.
Yemeni Minister of Endowments or Awqaf Ahmed Attiyah told Asharq Al-Awsat that this decision is a further step in the bad records of Houthis and Saleh rebels.
The Yemeni minister said: “We had preferred that the religious institutions stay away from this conflict. We thought the coup was political and military. But through this decision, they have also hurt the religion and legitimate institutions.”
Attiyah also warned that the new appointment would pave way for other fatwas that could spill blood and money based on sectarian grounds.
The minister accused Iran of interfering in Yemen’s Sharia law. “We, at the Awqaf ministry, have a general mufti and a Dar al-Fatwa, therefore, we do not recognize this new rebellious authority.”
Attiyah said the Yemeni Awqaf ministry fully rejects the Houthi decision, which the minister described as being “part of the coup and unconstitutional.”
He told the newspaper that according to the constitution, the president has the sole right to form a new Fatwa authority.
“The new mufti studied in Qom and Tehran, and he was raised in the auspices of Iranian mullahs,” Attiyah said – by Asmaa Al-Ghaberi and Abdul Hadi Habtoor
http://english.aawsat.com/asmaa-al-ghaberi-and-abdul-hadi-habtoor/news-middle-east/yemeni-condemnation-houthi-coup-mufti and by Al Arabiya: https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2017/04/11/Yemenis-reject-the-appointment-of-fatwa-issuing-Houthi-authority-in-Sanaa.html
My comment: “Yemen” and “Yemen government” = Hadi government. This report refers to http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461706.htm. – One problem is: “He told the newspaper that according to the constitution, the president has the sole right to form a new Fatwa authority”; Hadi is no more president since more than two years now, and the new authority was appointed by the Sanaa government’s president. – Al Arabiya’s headline: “Yemenis reject…” is funny; as if the Hadi government would be “the Yemenis”. – In English, there was no more information available on both muftis. – Step by step, the division of Yemen is growing. It’s like Germany in 1948.
cp6 Südjemen und Hadi-Regierung / Southern Yemen and Hadi-government
13.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Yemeni FM calls for urgent action to save journalist
Yemen's Foreign Minister Abdulmalik al-Mekhlafi condemned on Thursday a ruling issued by a Houthi-linked court, sentencing journalist Yahya al-Jubaihi to death.
In a series of tweets, al-Mekhlafi said the death sentence against the journalist revealed the level of crimes being committed by Houthi militias.
"We call the UN's Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez, the human rights commissioner and the UN envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to move urgently to stop this crime," he said.
"We call for an urgent release of al-Jubaihi and the other detainees from the prisons of Houthi putschists," he added.
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/yemeni-fm-calls-for-urgent-action-to-save-journalist-/796025
Remark: For that sentence, look at cp1 and cp5.
13.4.2017 – Aden Now (A)
chaos sweeping the streets of Aden Shbakat martyrs and wounded and the unprecedented security spread by the parties and the region of Mqith and the liquidation of old accounts among the officials (graphic photos)
https://twitter.com/AdenNowNews/status/852505861650034689
13.4.2017 – Aden Now (A)
The martyrdom of Ali Saleh Haidar is back in the junction of Al-Wadeea and his cousin Amin Abdullah Haiderah, the commander of the Security Belt (photo)
https://twitter.com/AdenNowNews/status/852531897221746690
13.4.2017 – AP (A T)
MORE THAN 20 INMATES ESCAPE IN YEMEN PRISON BREAK
More than 20 inmates escaped from a prison in Yemen's southern city of Aden on Thursday after gunmen demanding the release of detainees imprisoned without trial blocked roads and clashed with security forces.
The officials said one person was killed and four police conscripts were wounded in the violence. The officials […] said the 23 inmates who escaped were being held on criminal charges and that it was not clear who the gunmen were – BY AHMED AL-HAJ
13.4.2017 – Nasser Arrabyee (A T)
30 Qaeda/ISIS detainees escaped after sympathizers set fire to tyres& rioted around prisons in Aden south Yemen where US-backed UAE rule (photos)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/852456816890048512
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/852449568532910080
12.4.2017 – Nasser Arrabyee (A T)
Saudi-backed Qaeda/ISIS militants killed this boy today in Taiz central Yemen for suspicion of being Houthi (photo)
https://twitter.com/narrabyee/status/852157019222093824
cp8 Saudi-Arabien / Saudi Arabia
14.4.2017 – Mufta (* B P)
Change Is Not Coming to Saudi Arabia
On April 4, 2016, CNBC ran an article about Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud that read like a hagiography. The thirty-year-old prince – who is also Minister of Defense and chair of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs – was described as “stan[ding] in stark contrast to the traditional Western image of a Saudi leader – young, urbane and with views that seem far from traditional.” Bin Salman, the article declared without irony, “is changing the world.”
Bin Salman is the latest in a series of so-called audacious Arab ‘reformers’ lauded by the West. Typically, these men (yes, they are nearly all men) are the youthful, Western-educated sons of dictators, described as passionate reformers restricted by the systems their fathers established. What these narratives overlook, however, is the fact that these men are a product and main beneficiaries of the status quo. Their incentive to bring about meaningful change is limited to non-existent, as demonstrated by the poor track record of these Western darlings.
Up until recently, Bashar al-Assad was described as a mild-mannered, soft-spokenophthalmologist who had almost reluctantly taken power after his father’s death; for many, his Western education and fluent English were sure proof of his reformist mind.
Bashar al-Assad and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi respectively promised development and modernization, reform and democratization. They delivered none and eventually turned on their people in the bloodiest of ways. Now it is Prince Mohammad’s turn.
Indeed, his Vision 2020 for Saudi Arabia contains the same buzz words as Assad’s and Gaddafi’s respective reform plans. Like his predecessors, Prince Mohammad also appears to be more interested in shedding blood than in helping his people. As the media praises him, he has continued to wage a war in Yemen, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the country. Far from benefiting the Saudi people, the Yemen conflict has depleted Saudi Arabia’s coffers and, along with the slump in oil prices, set the country on a course toward possible bankruptcy in only a few years.
How long will it be before the mainstream media catches up with this reality? – by Franco Galdini
http://muftah.org/change-is-not-coming-to-saudi-arabia/#.WPGMUtLyiUk
Comment by Judith Brown: I think this article does not hit the spot for me - it does not take into account the dabbling of the West. Saif Ghaddafi and Bashir Al Assad were only going to be hailed as young saviours of their countries if they toed the Western line and if they didn't - then the West would deal with them - and see what they have done. Assad stayed resolute on the question of Palestine and was developing and independent economy in Syria - and Qaddafi was setting up a gold backed African currency. Not supporting the pro Israeli line, seeking an independent economy and the not supporting the US dollar are reasons to be fearful. Now on to Mohammed bin Salman. I think the West is playing a longer one here. MbS does not have total legitimacy - he was selected by his father and not by the Saudi elites. He thought that winning a war would win him that legitimacy. The trouble was he didn't know how impossible it would be to win a war in Yemen. The cunning western leaders did know. They want Muslims to attack each other and in the case of KSA they would like to control the Saudi oil reserves - weakening the KSA economy through war is their chosen methods. So MbS is a pawn. Being pro Israel and pro US dollar just isn't any good if you own a prize that the powerful West covets. But having said that - how on earth can change come to Saudi Arabia led by one of the beneficiaries of the status quo. That bit I do agree with.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10155418822803641
12.4.2017 – Noto Wahabism (A H P)
Dina Ali is a Saudi woman who escaped KSA due to abuse by her family. As she attempted to seek refuge in Australia, she was stopped.
This occurred in the Philippines. Security detained her against her will and waited for her family to come find her.
Her uncles arrived at the airport & violently assaulted her, tied up her arms and legs, taped her mouth closed and covered her with sheets.
They then forcefully dragged her onto a plane back to Saudi Arabia. She is in danger of being killed the moment she returns (film)
https://www.facebook.com/NotoWahabism/videos/1185720221556558/ and film: https://twitter.com/nns6s/status/852139232760090624
My comment: Earlier recording at YPR 292, cp8. It’s unbelievable that the Philippine authorities are playing the role of handyman to execute Wahabism in the Philippines.
More information is here:
12.4.2017 – The Australian (* A P)
‘If I go back they will kill me’
A Saudi woman attempting to flee from her “abusive” family and seek asylum in Australia has reportedly been forcibly returned to Riyadh after being gagged, tied with duct tape and wrapped in a sheet by two uncles while on a stopover in the Philippines.
Dina Ali Lasloom, 24, a Saudi national currently living in Kuwait, landed in Manila in the early hours of Monday morning, on a routine layover en route to Sydney, where she claims she intended to claim asylum. She says she had secretly obtained a tourist visa, seen by The Australian, from the Australian embassy in Kuwait. Saudi women are not allowed to travel without approval from their male guardian, and Saudi embassies are known to assist families in tracking down women who have fled abroad.
After Ms Lasloom’s arrival, she claims her passport, boarding pass and travel documents were confiscated by Philippines Airlines staff and she was told that “someone important” had instructed them not to allow her to board her 11am flight to Sydney.
A Twitter feed apparently set up in her name has laid out the claims she made about her ordeal and posted pictures of her boarding pass.
“They took me and locked me up for thirteen hours, just because I’m a Saudi woman, with the co-operation of the Saudi embassy,” Ms Lasloom claimed in a video sent to a Saudi activist and posted online. “If my family come, they will kill me. If I go back to Saudi Arabia, I will be dead. Please help me. The Philippines government and Saudi are violating human rights and international law. I am kept here as a criminal, I can’t do anything, I can’t go out.”
The video has since gone viral, along with the hashtag #SaveDinaAli.
It is unclear why the young woman feared being killed if she was forced to return to Saudi Arabia. She told Meagan Khan, a Canadian tourist who came to her aid at the airport, that “her family, her uncles, are very strict, and abusive to her, so she ran away.”
“She told me she was a teacher, she said ‘they forced me to become a teacher or be a slave’. She is not allowed to leave the house without a guy at all,” a distressed Ms Khan told The Australian after landing in Bali.
On Monday afternoon, two men who Ms Lasloom identified as her Saudi uncles, whom she described as diplomats and who were accompanied by a woman from the Kuwaiti embassy, approached Ms Lasloom and Ms Khan. “Her face just collapsed and she said ‘they’re here Meagan!’ As soon as she saw them her eyes started swelling up with tears,” said Ms Khan, who lent Ms Lasloon her phone to put her posts up on Twitter.
One of the men later claimed to be her father, which Lasloom angrily denied.
An airport employee told The Inquirer newspaper Ms Lasloom had insisted the man was her uncle. “She (Lasloom) kept telling us: ‘They kill me if I go back’,” he told the newspaper.
According to Ms Khan, police briefly interviewed Ms Lasloom before she demanded a lawyer be present. A local lawyer was then hired for $1200, however Moudhi Aljohani, a feminist activist who spoke with Ms Lasloom a number of times during her ordeal, claimed that the lawyer was hired by her family so that it could be claimed that she had received legal representation – by Jacob Atkins.
My comment: Long article, continue reading at the original site. A shorter report showing the tweets here: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-woman-enroute-australia-kidnapped-and-returned-family-1202461843 and films: https://twitter.com/Moudhi90/status/852061196752760834 and https://twitter.com/Deeyah_Khan/status/852202710174748672 – Philippine authorities executing Wahabism rules in the Philippines – incredible, but it just happened.
Comment by Ali Al Ahmed: I invite everyone to condemn human rights criminal Eddie Montreal, GM of #Manila airport @naia_miaa for kidnaping #DinaAli
https://twitter.com/AliAlAhmed_en/status/852254838528368641
And another report, showing the involvement oft he Saudi state:
12.4.2017 – Inquirer (* A P)
Saudi woman seeking asylum in Australia repatriated from PH
A Saudi Arabian woman who was reportedly seeking asylum in Australia but was off-loaded from her flight at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) was repatriated Monday night.
On the request of officials from the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Manila, Dina Ali Lasloom was off-loaded from her Australian-bound flight at the NAIA Tterminal 2 and put on a 10:30 p.m. Saudi Airlines flight to Jeddah at the NAIATterminal 1.
Lasloom was a passenger of a Philippine Airlines flight PR 669 from Kuwait to Manila, which arrived at 3:30 am Monday, and was supposed to take an 11 a.m. connecting flight to Sydney, Australia the same day.
According to personnel at the NAIA Terminal 2 the group from the Saudi Arabian Embassy were the persons with Lasloom in the video, which the group calling itself the Saudi Arabian Female Empowerment (SAFE) Movement posted on Twitter.
The video was taken inside the NAIA Terminal 2 transfer lounge.
One of the NAIA personnel, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed that a member of the group from the embassy introduced himself as Lasloom’s father, which the woman denied.
“She (Lasloom) kept telling us: ‘They kill me if I go back’,” the source told the Inquirer, adding that the Saudi woman had also claimed that the man introducing himself as her father was just her uncle.
The source said that Lasloom had apparently shared her story with a fellow foreign passenger at the NAIA Terminal 2 transfer lounge and that same passenger had put up the posts on Twitter.
The posts from SAFE stated Lasloom was on her way to Australia to seek asylum. But “some airport officials took her passport away and prevented her from continuing her flight to Australia.”
According to the source, the Saudi Arabian Embassy officials were already waiting for Lasloom and already had her off-loaded from the flight to Australia when she arrived at the NAIA Terminal 2 – By: Jeannette I. Andrade
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/888504/saudi-woman-seeking-asylum-in-australia-repatriated-from-ph and shorter reports by Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-women-rights-idUSKBN17E1WP and BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39577932
Comments by Ali Al Ahmed: #Saudi FM @AdelAljubeir is among those involved in the kidnaping #DinaAli. Int. media must question him
https://twitter.com/AliAlAhmed_en/status/852281628663705600
Kidnaping is a serious int crime & those involved @naia_miaa will be tracked & brought to justice #DinaAli (photo)
https://twitter.com/AliAlAhmed_en/status/852555230424203265
14.4.2017 – Moudhi Aljohani (A P)
One of the criminals , Moueed Laslom , he tortured and kidnapped her, he threatened to kill her #SaveDinaAli (photos)
https://twitter.com/hashtag/SaveDinaAli?src=hash
12.4.2017 – Teen idle and others (A P)
This girl was detained by airport security for asking about Dina's flight number! #WhereIsAlaaAnazi #SaveDinaAli (photo)
https://twitter.com/sinsofmagic/status/852145389746741248
Alaa disappeared since yesterday after she left for the airport to meet Dina #whereAlaaAlanazi #WhereIsAlaaAnazi
https://twitter.com/alaame5/status/852109672479944704 referring to https://twitter.com/mashahed123/status/849131579096129536
cp9 USA
Siehe / Look at cp1
14.4.2017 – Truthdig (* B K P)
In Just Three Months, Trump Has Escalated Four Middle Eastern Wars
In his less than three months in office, Donald Trump has escalated four wars, and all of his escalations have been failures.
To be fair, Trump inherited all four wars from Barack Obama: Afghanistan, Iraq v. ISIL, Leftist Kurds v. ISIL in Syria, and targeting support and tactical advice to Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
Trump campaigned on reducing such foreign entanglements and focusing on the US and its needs. But in office he has declined to rethink any of these commitments and indeed has escalated in each theater.
Trump’s first escalation was in Yemen, in late January.
What all four Trump interventions in his ongoing U.S. wars in the Middle East have in common is that they were splashy, produced headlines for a day, and altered the course of the conflict not a jot or a tittle.
Trump is gradually inducting his Four Wars into his Reality-Show universe, where everything is done for ratings and just for show – by Juan Cole
13.4.2017 – New York Magazine (* A K P)
Someone Please Show Ivanka Pictures of Starving Yemeni Children
While all those bombs were being dropped (and columns being written), Saudi Arabia was deliberately starving the people of Yemen with our government’s tacit support.
For years, the U.S. has backed the Saudis’ intervention in Yemen’s civil war, despite the kingdom’s fondness for dropping American-made bombs on Yemeni hospitals. Since 2015, the Saudis have imposed an aerial and naval blockade on Yemen, which has kept commercial and humanitarian resources from reaching the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula
In Syria, the perpetrator of the crime was a longtime adversary of the U.S., over whom we have no diplomatic sway. In Yemen, it was a longtime ally that depends on our government for military aid.
In Syria, our intervention directly killed more innocent people in the immediate term, while doing nothing to end the country’s broader humanitarian crisis. In Yemen, we could end the humanitarian crisis almost immediately, by using our leverage over Saudi Arabia to end its blockade, and delivering emergency funds to the United Nations food program — actions that would kill no one.
In Washington, many bleeding hearts, on both sides of the aisle, have hailed Trump’s bombing of Syria as a moral necessity — while treating our complicity in the starvation of Yemen as unworthy of comment.
If our political leaders feel morally compelled to deliver missiles to Syria — but not food aid to Yemen — what, do you suppose, they mean by morally? – By Eric Levitz
My comment: It’ still totally uncertain which side in Syria really is responsible for the gas attack. – And, comparing the Syria case to the Saudi war in Yemen, you once more can see: western hypocrisy and the fact that the West actually cares a shit for Human Rights and humanity… they are just used as a means for pushing the own geopolitical agenda.
13.4.2017 – Haykal Bafana (A P)
Protest in front of the @WhiteHouse against the US-Saudi war on #Yemen. Photo by @EdithSteinII
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/852577228563120130
13.4.2017 – Common Dreams (A P)
Hunger Strikers at UN Headquarters Call for End to Yemen War
'We call on the Saudis and Donald Trump to look at the horrific effect their bombing is having on the beautiful babies in Yemen, where one child is dying every ten minutes from the effects of this war'
Peace activists are holding a week-long vigil and hunger strike at United Nations headquarters in New York City to demand an end to the U.S.-backed, Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen and humanitarian aid for the country's starving population.
The hunger strike and vigil, organized by Creative Voices for NonViolence, the New York Catholic Worker community, the Upstate Coalition to End the Wars and Ground the Drones, Friends of Franz and Ben, and CodePink, will also include a demonstration at the White House Thursday.
The activists are calling on President Donald Trump—who claimed that the death of Syria's "beautiful babies" in a chemical weapons attack led to his decision to unilaterally bomb that country—to take note of the mass starvation threatening the children of Yemen – by Nika Knight
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/13/hunger-strikers-un-headquarters-call-end-yemen-war = https://www.mintpressnews.com/hunger-strikers-at-un-headquarters-call-for-end-to-yemen-war/226831/
12.4.2017 – Antiwar (* A K P)
Yemen, Syria, the Press, and Trump the War President
How can you tell that Donald Trump is just another war president? Because in spite of the administrative chaos, the executive branch with its ever-shifting staff, and the half-conspiracies that surround him, the meat of the matter is the question, which near-war should the public pay attention to?
The recent gas attack on civilians in Syria has renewed interest in the West meddling further in the disaster that is that nation.
Airstrikes on Iraq – no hang on – Syria are the new, bold, neocon-approved Trump’s MO. As the mainstreamest of media put it, bombing Syria made Trump more presidential. They were delighted.
The love affair won’t last long, however. It has already dulled, in fact
Trump is simply a goofier version of the status quo president; that is, the war-making bully that the US has given the benefit for the doubt for the last many decades – perhaps centuries. And it is all too easy to dissect his weirder inanities and habits than it is to realize the same wars have been going on forever, and that the same mistakes are repeated on a 3-15 year loop, and that these mistakes are now Trump’s.
But which country is actually next on the US war list?
Maybe not Iran, no matter how many stars Weekly Standard editor William Kristol wishes on each night. On the other hand, there’s always the ongoing war in Yemen (with its helpful tie to Iran). Saudi Arabia has been leading that charge since 2015, but the US has been an enthusiastic helper. Currently, Yemen is about to break out into a full-on famine (along with South Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia).
The war in Yemen is ostensibly Saudi Arabia’s fight against the Houthi rebels who are supported by Iran. The US is involved because it tolerates only certain humanitarian violations on certain days, but not others. Or, rather, it is allied with Saudi Arabia, and pretends that it never overthrew an Iranian leader, shot down an Iranian passenger plane, or helped Iraq use chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers, so why should there be any distrust between the US and Iran?
Another nasty group of people fighting another nasty group, however, is no excuse for making the situation much worse for innocents.
Letting food and medicine into the country is the first thing to do if you want to actually help. That does not appear to be on the table, being only discussed by small-minded people at the UN, or in various aid organizations.
Though an impressive number of his initial supporters appeared to be disgusted by the Syria airstrikes, Trump was applauded for them by the same kinds of important people who sneeringly dismissed him as a rich buffoon ten minutes previously. That kind of elite back-patting has had a murderous effect on previous world leaders. There’s no proof whatsoever that Trump will turn out to be any different – by Lucy Steigerwald
http://original.antiwar.com/lucy/2017/04/12/yemen-syria-the-press-and-trump-the-war-president/
12.4.2017 – Huffington Post (* A K P)
Trump Inches Toward A Bigger U.S. Role In Another Middle East War
Absent a plan from the president, U.S. partners Saudi Arabia and the UAE are moving forward despite strategic and humanitarian concerns.
After years condemning U.S. interventionism in the Middle East, President Donald Trump stunned the world last week by escalating American involvement in Syria’s six-year civil war. But Trump has also been quietly preparing to boost the U.S. role in a war on the other side of the troubled region ― specifically in Yemen.
The Trump administration is slowly ramping up support to a Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed militants, according to government sources, advocates and analysts. In the weeks ahead, they believe, Trump will approve a major transfer of bombs to Saudi Arabia, and may greenlight a coalition assault on Hodeidah, an essential port for food imports. Such a move would worsen the humanitarian crisis and damage United Nations efforts to negotiate a political solution.
Katherine Zimmerman, an expert at the Republican-leaning American Enterprise Institute think tank, said coalition representatives went to recent meetings like a summit between Trump and the Saudi defense minister with arguments tailored toward Trump’s stated goal of weakening Iranian influence.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reportedly wants to provide some help to the Saudis and their close ally in the coalition, the United Arab Emirates, in their effort to take Hodeidah, though he has stopped short of recommending a deployment of American Special Operations forces.
Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump declined to answer an emailed question about potential Defense Department involvement in planning for Hodeidah, citing force protection concerns. He also refused to comment on whether the U.S. would begin targeting the Houthi militia.
But the stasis in Washington doesn’t prevent the U.S.-backed coalition and others from moving forward in ways that could limit Trump’s ability to shape events ― and threaten both the United States’ long-term goals in Yemen and the country’s desperate civilian population.
The Saudis, for instance, feel more certain of American support than they have since the beginning of the war.
“The intent is there and the meeting of minds is there,” said Ali Shihabi, the executive director of a new D.C. think tank called the Arabia Foundation, which is considered close to Saudi thinking. “It boils down to the details and what exactly America can do more than it has done previously... The fundamental problem which has already been solved was the overall attitude.”
The Saudi view of Hodeidah, which the U.N. has repeatedly asked warring parties to keep safe, seems set.
“Saudi Arabia has said... that port needs to be either taken over, or if you’re saying taking it over is a huge humanitarian problem, then let the U.N. go in and supervise it. The U.N. sort of is shrinking away,” Shihabi said, citing coalition worries about Iranian weapon shipments through the port and the Houthis’ manipulation of food supplies received there to deprive civilians living outside of their areas.
Stump, the Pentagon spokesman, made clear that Iran’s role is central to U.S. thinking. “If Iran continues its destabilizing and malign activities, then the United States will work with its partners to respond,” he said.
It seems unlikely that the weapons transfer is really in question either.
With a friend in the Oval Office, the Saudi-led coalition can push ahead. But U.S. experts believe Washington should be wary.
“The US must not out-source its Yemen policy to Saudi Arabia or the UAE,” Zimmerman wrote at AEI’s Critical Threats blog in February. “Neither will act to secure US interests in full in Yemen and their divergence on key questions may prolong instability.”
The coalition’s strategy of pummeling its opponents, in the hope that that will weaken them and force them to negotiate, has remained largely the same since the conflict began in 2015 and has failed to provide results, she told HuffPost.
“The biggest contribution the United States can make to this fight is leadership to start to extricate our partners from Yemen,” Zimmerman said. She believes the administration should urge a political settlement as soon as possible.
A continuation of the war in its present form seems unlikely to have strategic benefits, even with high-profile efforts like the attack on the port. And meanwhile, Yemen will continue to bleed – By Akbar Shahid Ahmed
12.4.2017 – Tobias Schneider (A P)
It appears somebody showed @realDonaldTrump a barrel bomb video (Trump’s statement in image).
https://twitter.com/tobiaschneider/status/851923798328782849
My comment: Is he a crazy idiot? What about US arms supplies and support for Saudi bombing in Yemen? The US bombs are much worse than the Syrian primitive barrel bombs.
13.4.2017 – Senator Paul Murphy (A P)
MURPHY, PAUL, DURBIN, FRANKEN ANNOUNCE LEGISLATION TO SET NEW CONDITIONS FOR U.S. MILITARY SUPPORT TO SAUDI ARABIA
Bipartisan Legislation Will Suspend Munitions Transfers To Saudi Arabia Until The Government Of Saudi Arabia Demonstrates A Commitment To Fighting Terror & Protecting Civilians In Yemen
U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Thursday announced new legislation to limit U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen, which has led to thousands of civilian casualties and a security vacuum that has empowered our terrorist enemies, al Qaeda and ISIS. The bipartisan legislation will require the president to formally certify that the Government of Saudi Arabia is demonstrating an ongoing effort to target terrorist groups, minimize harm to civilians, and facilitate humanitarian assistance before Congress can consider the sale or transfer of air-to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia
“The United States has no business supplying a military that targets civilians or enables terrorist groups to thrive, but that’s exactly what we’re doing right now in Yemen,” said Murphy. “The Saudis are important partners in the Middle East, but they have continued to disregard our advice when it comes to target selection and civilian protection. We have an obligation to ensure U.S. military support is not being used to kill innocent civilians, and requiring Saudi Arabia to meet these basic conditions should be a no brainer.”
Under current law outlined in the Arms Export Control Act, the sale or transfer of arms to foreign governments by the United States must be proposed by the U.S. State Department and then approved by Congress. If Congress approves the sale, the administration is then permitted to finalize and implement the transfer. The Murphy-Paul legislation will add a step to the approval process by requiring the president to attest that Saudi Arabia is concretely demonstrating its anti-terror efforts and protection of civilians before Congress can consider the sale. The president’s certification will assess whether Saudi Arabia has used U.S.-origin munitions in attacks against civilians in Yemen, how that affects U.S. credibility in the region, and how defense sales to Saudi Arabia contribute to U.S. national security objectives.
My comment: This still sounds very weak to me. And it will by no means change the main problem. The Congress certainly would agree to most of military measures required by the Trump government. In US media and politics, there is a broad consent on US military intervention worldwide – as the reactions and comments to the US attack in Syria shows. A great part of US politics and media, whether “liberal” or “conservative”, is convinced that the US would have the right to play the role of world policeman. – The problem is that the US is an empire – the Darth Vader of the post 1989 era.
12.4.2017 – Common Dreams (* A P)
55 Bipartisan Lawmakers Demand Trump Pump Brakes on Military Action in Yemen
'Once again, the administration appears ready to ramp up U.S. involvement in a complicated civil war without a clear strategy in place or the necessary authorization from Congress'
As conflict swirls over the recent U.S. bombing in Syria, more than 50 bipartisan lawmakers have demanded President Donald Trump seek approval from Congress before expanding U.S. military action in another Middle East theater: Yemen.
The letter sent this week came in response to reports that the Trump administration is considering a proposal to directly engage the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia's war against the Houthis in Yemen, including a planned United Arab Emirates-led attack on the Yemeni port of Hodeida, currently held by Houthi rebels.
"Such an attack could push the country into full-blown famine, where nearly half a million children in Yemen are facing starvation," said U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who led the letter campaign along with Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).
"Direct U.S. hostilities against Yemen's Houthis would run counter to your pledge to pursue a 'disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy' that protects American families in 'every decision'," reads the letter to Trump. "Indeed, according to U.S. defense officials, the U.S.-backed Saudi war against Houthis in Yemen has already 'strengthened al Qaeda there' and poses 'a serious threat to U.S. security'."
The lawmakers, who garnered 50 additional signatures for their missive, note that "Congress has never authorized the actions under consideration."
In turn, they write:
Engaging our military against Yemen's Houthis when no direct threat to the United States exists and without prior congressional authorization would violate the separation of powers clearly delineated in the Constitution. For this reason, we write to request that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) provide, without delay, any legal justification that it would cite if the administration intends to engage in direct hostilities against Yemen's Houthis without seeking congressional authorization.
As U.S. Representatives, we take seriously the right and responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of force, or to refuse to do so, as mandated by the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution. We expect that any direct military actions pursued by the administration against the Yemeni Houthis be brought before Congress for consideration and authorization for approval before they are executed.
"President Trump does not have the authority to send U.S. forces to battle the Houthis in Yemen, period," said Lieu. "Once again, the administration appears ready to ramp up U.S. involvement in a complicated civil war without a clear strategy in place or the necessary authorization from Congress. A unilateral decision for direct U.S. involvement in Yemen would be met by swift, bipartisan opposition."
The letter, and a full list of signatories, is here (pdf).– by Deirdre Fulton
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/12/55-bipartisan-lawmakers-demand-trump-pump-brakes-military-action-yemen and by Zerohedge: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-12/lawmakers-demand-trump-pump-brakes-military-action-yemen and by Middle East Eye: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-lawmakers-worry-arm-sales-saudi-might-increase-bloodshed-yemen-1482158840
10.4.2017 – RT (* A P)
Potential smart bomb sales to Saudi Arabia questioned by US lawmakers
A group of US lawmakers wrote to the presidential administration asking for more information about a potential sale of smart bombs, aka precision-guided munitions (PGM), to Saudi Arabia. They expressed concern over widespread civilian casualties in Yemen.
The letter, dated April 6, is addressed to Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
“We write to request information related to the operational conduct of the Royal Saudi Air Force in Yemen,” the letter states.
The lawmakers cited “recent reports” which suggest that the State Department “has now reversed course and removed the suspension on these PGM sales.”
“It is in our national security interest – as well as that of our Saudi partners – to ensure that the RSAF has the ability to avoid civilian casualties before the US sells them any additional air-to-ground munitions.”
The letter asks if RSAF is abiding US provided “no-strike lists” and if there have been any violations. It also asks the US administration to provide details on these no-strike lists, including “the number and types of targets, the dates of delivery of each distinct list to the Saudi Arabia-led Coalition, and the frequency with which the overall list is updated.”
The authors also requested information on US military personnel currently working with the Coalition Command and “their specific roles.”
https://www.rt.com/usa/384303-us-saudi-smart-bombs-doubts/
12.4.2017 – Sputnik News (* B K P)
World Has to See 'What US is Doing to Aid and Abet Crimes in Yemen'
Commenting on the recent letters of a group of US Congressmen to the US president and Secretary of State on the situation in Yemen, Director of Human Rights for Yemen from London Kim Sharif compared the dire developments in the Arab country with a Nazi-era concentration camp.
"What is going on in Yemen is the Auschwitz (a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II) of our time," she told Radio Sputnik
"We need to look at what else the US is doing to aid and abet these crimes in Yemen," she said.
She further elaborated that the US is doing the fuelling for Saudi jets, it is providing intelligence, it is also providing marines in the south of Yemen.
"And what business do they have in the southern part of Yemen," she questioned.
However even one signal from the US to the Saudis will be enough to stop their campaign, she noted. Without US support they can't continue their criminal behavior.
The US actions in the Arab country, the human rights activist said, pose a great danger to the international community.
"The danger is that the international platform in terms of legal relations and international conventions has become anarchic, and quite frankly, Nazi and fascist in its operation. That can't be sustained because the rest of the world do have an interest in maintaining law and order on the international platform," she said.
If the US administration does not take these letters seriously, she noted, it is going to "backfire on them spectacularly."
"There are lots of international NGOs writing and providing evidence about what is happening in Yemen. So hopefully these guys [in the administration] will respect and preserve the dignity of their own country and their own administration, otherwise they are looking worse than other rogue regimes. The US presents itself as the greatest nation on Earth yet it is coming out as a criminal with relation to Yemen," Kim Sharif said.
Hypocrisy over this issue also poses a danger, she said.
"If you adopt a hypocritical stance to issues of human rights of certain ethnic groups as opposed to others, you come across as a lying hypocritical entity and you are not going to be listened to, even children will ignore what you will be saying in the future. You will become less than a clown," she said.
The US needs to be consistent in how it applies the principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law across the world.
"You can't select one group in preference over another group. International humanitarian law must be applied consistently to all groups irrespective of their background, whether they are Arab, Jews, Indians, Africans or anybody else. It must be applied equally, because in the eyes of the law all humans are equal. Any preference to one group over another will lead to chaos and anarchy in the international platform," she finally stated (with audio interview)
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704121052567901-us-yemen-campaign/
12.4.2017 – Democracy Now (* B K P)
Trump Is Moving "Full Speed Ahead" in War in Yemen, Despite Massive Civilian Casualties
we speak with longtime investigative reporter Allan Nairn.
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, first, the particulars of that attack, that attack was aimed to be targeting al-Qaeda, a local al-Qaeda affiliate. It’s worth noting that in Syria many of the rebels, who the U.S. has been backing and arming and training, often conduct joint operations with al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
And if you look at the press, including outlets like MSNBC, various press outlets that are considered to be liberal, one of the main arguments they make is that a U.S. action is good when it pleases the Saudis. They always—there’s this constant line of criticism, which has been going on for decades, criticism against U.S. presidents who are considered to be too soft at a given moment. And that criticism is: You’re letting down our Middle Eastern allies, i.e. you’re letting down the Saudis. The journalists will say, "I’ve just been in the Middle East, and I’ve been talking to our allies there," i.e. the Saudis, the Gulf states, "and they’re very unhappy, because they think the U.S. is not showing enough credibility. We’re letting them down"—i.e. the U.S. isn’t being violent enough. And that’s the context in which this attack on Yemen by the Special Forces took place.
As to why Trump authorized it in that way, I think a very important motivating factor, that is really underestimated by people, especially scholars, is the extent to which, when you have power, when you’re the king, a lot of the motivation for violence, for war, it’s not just interest. A lot of the motivation is fun, is thrill, is getting a charge out of ordering violence, and thrilling the public, exciting the courtiers around you, exciting the press around you (with interview in film)
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/13/full_interview_allan_nairn_on_trump (full) and https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/12/allan_nairn_trump_is_moving_full (part)
10.4.2017 – 28 Pages (* A P)
Saudi Arabia Paid Conservative PR Firm $90,000 to Bring Vets to DC to Lobby Against JASTA
Firm owned by National Republican Trust PAC director Scott Wheeler months late in registering with the Department of Justice
Saudi Arabia paid a conservative political consulting firm $90,000 to bring three groups of 25 to 35 military veterans to Washington to lobby for changes to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), according to disclosure documents recently filed with the U.S. Department of Justice.
The firm, Capitol Media Group, is owned by Scott Wheeler, executive director of the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee and an occasional commentator on Fox News, Newsmax and the Sean Hannity Show.
Wheeler’s relationship with the Saudi monarchy is apparently one of great mutual trust: According to a box checked on the filing, their arrangement “is the result of neither a formal written contract nor an exchange of correspondence between the parties,” implying his agreement to perform substantial work and take on financial responsibilities on behalf of the kingdom was purely oral – By Brian P. McGlinchey
Remark: There already were several reports earlier.
A reminder:
12.4.2017 – Countercurrents (* B K)
Saudi Arabia Uses U.S.-Supplied White Phosphorus In Yemen
The hypocrisy of U.S. leaders when it comes to chemical weapons is staggering. While saying Syria needs attacked because there is a possibility President Assad used gas on his people, the U.S. also supplies Saudi Arabia with white phosphorus(a vicious chemical weapon that can maim and kill by burning to the bone) to use on the civilians of Yemen.
U.S. forces used white phosphorus in Iraq and Afghanistan according to the Washington Post. It sure seems strange that it is a huge tragedy that needs retaliation without evidence when chemical attacks happens in Syria, but the U.S. approves of similar chemical attacks in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Gaza.
Should we believe that it is OK for the U.S. and its allies to use chemical weapons but if there is any chemical attack that can be blamed on an enemy, then the enemy should be condemned for doing exactly what the U.S. and its allies do? That just seems ridiculous, but it is exactly what U.S. leaders are doing.
The Washington Post reported on the U.S. supplied white phosphorus being used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen:
Why do we accept such hypocrisy from our leaders? Not only do we accept it from them, but a lot of Americans actually seem to believe the hype that what happened in Syria is the biggest tragedy of the year while conveniently forgetting the U.S. military used chemical weapons on civilians and sold chemical weapons to be used on civilians.
http://countercurrentnews.com/2017/04/saudi-arabia-uses-u-s-supplied-white-phosphorus-in-yemen/ and this is the original Washington Post article (Sep. 19, 2016): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/09/19/saudi-arabia-appears-to-be-using-u-s-supplied-white-phosphorus-in-its-war-in-yemen/?utm_term=.4dd6fe1b8dc3
Comment by Judith Brown: So true. This is double standards and It is the same in U.K. Teresa May states that it is ok for Saudi Arabia to investigate allegations of war crimes and ignores the evidence provided by credible sources in Yemen - including evidence of white phosphorus. But without any inquiry she is judge jury and executioner in Syria. If it's ok for KSA to investigate allegations of war crimes then why is it not ok for Syria to do the same? Double standards. And we wonder why some people turn to dreadful crimes such as the various murders in London, Sweden, Germany, France. The soldier that was acquitted of murder on the basis that war had made him incapable of making sound judgements. Do they think that brown people have different types of minds? That they are immune from the effects of terrible stress on their judgements????? Where oh where will this end.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10155416644173641
13.4.2017 – Reuters (* A E P)
Saudi banks, bin Laden companies face $4.2 billion U.S. lawsuit by 9/11 insurers
More than two dozen U.S. insurers affiliated with Travelers Cos (TRV.N) have sued two Saudi banks, companies affiliated with Osama bin Laden's family, and several charities for at least $4.2 billion over the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The lawsuit filed late on Wednesday night in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan is the latest effort to hold entities in Saudi Arabia liable for the attacks.
Nearly 3,000 people died when hijacked airplanes crashed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. and a Pennsylvania field.
The 10 defendants in the lawsuit include Al Rajhi Bank 1120.SE, National Commercial Bank 1180.SE, aviation contractor Dallah Avco, the Mohamed Binladin Co, the Muslim World League, and other charities.
They were accused in the lawsuit of having "aided and abetted" the attacks through a variety of "activities in support of al Qaeda" in the years leading up to them.
"But for the assistance provided by defendants," the lawsuit said, "al Qaeda could not have successfully planned, coordinated, and carried out the September 11th attacks, which were a foreseeable and intended result of their material support and sponsorship of al Qaeda."
The insurers are seeking to recoup sums paid to policyholders who suffered personal, property and business injuries from the attacks.
Their lawsuit seeks at least $1.4 billion of compensatory damages, triple damages and punitive damages – By Jonathan Stempel and Katie Paul
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-sept-idUSKBN17F2FX
13.4.2017 – Jurist.org (* A E P)
Insurance companies seek $4.2B from Saudi Arabia banks, other organizations in 9/11 lawsuit
Over two dozen US insurance companies associated with Travelers Companies [corporate website] initiated a lawsuit on Wednesday against ten defendants over the September 11 terrorist attacks, including companies affiliated with Osama bin Laden's family, Saudi banks and several charities. The companies filed suit [Reuters report] in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] and alleges that the defendants aided and abetted the attacks through activities in support of al Qaeda. The defendants include National Commercial Bank, Al Rajhi Bank, the Mohamed Binladin Company and the Muslim World League [organization websites]. This is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed after Congress overrode former President Obama's veto, in order to remove Saudi Arabia's immunity from US citizens' lawsuits.
Last month more than 850 family members of victims of the 9/11 attacks filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This legal challenge only became available after congress passed the Justice Against State Sponsors of Terrorism Act [materials], which provided the legal recourse to sue foreign governments over the 9/11 attacks – by Alexandra Farone
12.4.2017 – Reformer (A H P)
SIT student honored for her work in Yemen conflict
A local student, who worked to keep kids safe from al-Qaeda and Houthi militias as a child protection officer in South Yemen, hopes a national award she received will bring attention to the violence in her native country.
"It was for the kids. It's about the people I served, the people I worked with," said Fadja Najib Thabet, who in January started studying peacebuilding and conflict transformation at the School for International Training Graduate Institute in Brattleboro. "My plan for getting this award is to get people to pay more attention to the Houthi that the international media are not covering at all. People are suffering a lot. There's been a lot of war crimes. People aren't even talking about it in the media."
Thabet was presented the Secretary of State's International Women of Courage Award by First Lady Melania Trump and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas A. Shannon on March 29 in Washington, D.C. Thabet was one of 13 recipients receiving the award that honors women around the world "who have exemplified exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for human rights, women's equality and social progress, often at great personal risk."
Thabet immediately went to work in a local non-governmental organization in Yemen after studying computer science as an undergraduate in 2011. She was helping refugees coming from Africa.
A year later, Thabet started documenting what the United Nations Security Council considers the "six grave violations" against children. That includes killing and maiming, abduction, child-soldier recruitment, sexual violence, attacks against schools or hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access.
The reports would be investigated by the Security Council, Thabet said, as a way to hold both her group and militias accountable. She also reported minor violations by the government.
In 2014, Thabet ran a campaign called Hold a Pen, Not a Gun. The goal was to end the recruitment of children soldiers from South Yemen to North Yemen. A telephone hotline was established and children were told about the consequences of those who had been recruited.
Through the American Refugee Committee, Thabet continues to work to help children affected by conflict. She said she wants to return to Yemen after SIT with a focus on engaging more women in peace talks. She will tour the U.S. with all the recipients of the 2017 International Women of Courage Award starting in Los Angeles, Calif. – By Chris Mays
http://www.reformer.com/stories/sit-student-honored-for-her-work-in-yemen-conflict,504219 = http://www.islandpacket.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article145043349.html
Comment by Judith Brown: Now this woman is also working for human rights but note unlike Radya Muttawakel she appears to b on one side of the argument, though the article doesn't say it specifically. It's great that she is against militias and for children's rights, but note no criticism of the Saudi campaign that is devastating the north of Yemen. The children there are literally starving to death.
https://www.facebook.com/judith.brown.794628/posts/10155430098623641
12.4.2017 – KUOW.org (A H P)
Audio: 'In Yemen, if you're not dead by the end of the day, you're lucky'
Bill Radke speaks with Ramilya Salem and Yunus Alhobane, two students at Edmonds Community College. Three years ago, they came to America for a 10-month high school exchange program through the state department.
Then, a civil war broke out in their home country of Yemen. It was too dangerous for them to go home, so the State Department extended their stay.
Now, the State Department has decided it can no longer fund that program. So when June comes around, the students will be in limbo: no money, and no student visas. Most likely they'll be sent back to Yemen.
They said they don't know what the future will look like. They'll either need to apply for asylum or be sent back to Yemen.
We also spoke with State Department spokesman Nathan Arnold. He said the department has taken unprecedented steps to help these students. But at some point that program has to come to an end.
A former adviser for the students has set up a GoFundMe site to help with living expenses once the State Department removes their funding - By BILL RADKE & MATT MARTIN
http://kuow.org/post/yemen-if-youre-not-dead-end-day-youre-lucky
cp10 Großbritannien / Great Britain
13.4.2017 – Just Security (* B K P)
Contortions in the UK’s Arms Export Regime—and Costs of the Yemen War
Since the outset of Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen, the UK has demonstrated that it is willing to go to great lengths to maintain its arms sales to Saudi Arabia. This includes contorting the language of the UK’s own arms export control regime, and possibly even revising the regime, to allow for the provision of arms to a state against whom the evidence of widespread breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) is mounting. This is possibly unsurprising even if it does fly directly in the face of public opinion (demonstrated most recently during the Saudi coalition spokesperson Maj Jen Ahmed al-Asiri’s visit to London). Saudi Arabia is a crucial market for UK defense exports (and has been for over 40 years), with more than £3.3 billion ($4,120,380,000) of exports since the outset of the Saudi-led coalition’s intervention in Yemen. For U.S. and European countries, the British case foregrounds what steps, noble and ignoble, government officials and politicians are willing to take in this space.
UK Arms Export Control Regime
The Saudi Intervention in Yemen: UK Support and Possible IHL Violations
Saudi Arabia intervened in the conflict in Yemen on March 26, 2015, with the aim of restoring President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who had been ousted by the Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh. The UK strongly supported the Saudis from the outset, then-Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond promising support “in every practical way short of engaging in combat.” In fact, the UK’s support for the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen is such that Professor Philippe Sands QC has argued (para. 78) that the UK is effectively involved in the conflict.
The Saudi intervention in Yemen is backed by UN Security Council Resolution 2216 and at the invitation of the recognized government still led by President Hadi. However, since the start of the conflict, there have been widespread reports of potential IHL violations by the Saudi-led coalition (as well as the Houthis) in Yemen.
In February 2016, the European Parliament voted for an immediate arms embargo for Saudi Arabia on the basis that the export of arms to the Saudis for use in Yemen violated Common Position 2008/944/CFSP (incorporated into the UK’s Consolidated Criteria).
Yet the UK government essentially did nothing, despite calls from major opposition parties for a full review of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the suspension of sales while that review was ongoing, maintaining that there “has not been a breach of IHL by the coalition.”
On February 2, the Parliament’s International Development Committee called for the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. As it turns out, around that time the head of the UK’s Export Control Organisation warned then-Business Secretary Sajid Javid that arms sales to the Saudis should be suspended over IHL concerns, a warning Javid decided to disregard pending “new” evidence of a “clear risk” of IHL breaches. He asked for the support of the then-Foreign Secretary and then-Defense Secretary, bearing in mind that an upcoming judicial review would likely scrutinize the government’s decision-making process.
Arguments in the court case have focused on the definition of “clear risk” and of “serious violation” of IHL in the context of Criterion 2(c) of the consolidated criteria. According to the Secretary of State, the threshold for engaging a suspension—the trigger of a “clear risk”—was not met by the outside reports of possible breaches of IHL on the part of the Saudi-led coalition, which are relevant only as one element of the assessment undertaken by the Secretary of State based on both open source and confidential material – By Zoë Chapman
https://www.justsecurity.org/39948/contortions-uks-arms-export-regime-and-costs-yemen-war/
cp11 Deutschland / Germany
Siehe / Look at cp1
14.4.2017 – Deutsche Welle (* B K P)
Germany sells arms to UAE despite Yemen conflict
Germany has approved more major weapons deals with the UAE, including deliveries of high-caliber ammunition. The UAE is involved in a conflict in Yemen that has caused famine and humanitarian disaster.
Germany is supplying more weapons to belligerents in the Yemen conflict, even though the ongoing war in the Middle East's poorest country has triggered a famine and a refugee crisis.
Citing an Economy Ministry document delivered to parliament, both "Der Spiegel" and the "taz" newspaper reported this week that the German government approved the sale to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of 203,448 detonators for 40-mm shells by the Rottweil-based company Junghans Microtec, as well as 126 million euros ($134 million) worth of armor-plating for military vehicles by Dynamit Nobel Defence, located in Burbach, North Rhine-Westphalia.
The sales show that Germany is continuing its policy of arming countries in the Middle East despite their direct involvement in the Yemen conflict, and despite the German government's policy of vetting arms deals for potential humanitarian impact.
The political opposition was quick to condemn the new sales.
When asked, the Economy Ministry insists that Germany's arms export controls are among the toughest in the world, but that hasn't stopped the country staying among the world's top five arms exporters for many years.
Export guidelines, which are not legally binding, are supposed to prevent the sale of "offensive" military equipment, equipment that could be used against peaceful demonstrations, or the sale of military hardware to countries that commit human rights abuses. Also, German weapons exports typically come with "end user certificates," which are meant to guarantee the buyer will not pass on the weapons to other parties.
But the sale of detonators for 40-mm ammunition to a country that is likely to use them in a long-running war demonstrates that these guidelines are often ignored when the German government decides that a sale is in its strategic interests.
The news of the arms sales came in the same week that aid organization CARE International presented a new report in Berlin warning that 7 million Yemenis were facing starvation as a result of the two-year conflict in Yemen, which has already claimed 10,000 lives. – by Ben Knight
http://www.dw.com/en/germany-sells-arms-to-uae-despite-yemen-conflict/a-38430841
12.4.2017 – Reuters (A H P)
Berliner Hilfs-Appell gegen drohende Hungerkatastrophe in Afrika
Die Weltgemeinschaft muss nach den Worten von Außenminister Sigmar Gabriel eine große Hungerkatastrophe in Afrika abwenden.
"Wir müssen sofort helfen", forderte er am Mittwoch in Berlin. Die Not der Menschen sei ungeheuer groß. Es gehe darum, das nackte Überleben zu sichern
http://de.reuters.com/article/deutschland-afrika-hilfen-idDEKBN17E1F2
12.4.2017 – Linksfraktion (A H P)
Gabriels Appell kommt spät und blendet Ursachen der Hungersnot aus
Auch die Bundesregierung hat es versäumt, rechtzeitig angemessen finanzielle Mittel zur Verfügung zu stellen. Die weltweite Hungersnot ist nicht nur auf die Dürrezeit zurückzuführen, auch strukturelle Ursachen wie eine verfehlte EU-Handelspolitik mit Afrika sind dafür verantwortlich. Im Jemen tobt ein brutaler Bombenkrieg angeführt von Saudi-Arabien, verbunden mit einer jahrelangen Seeblockade, die Hilfslieferungen systematisch behindert, dies muss von Außenminister Gabriel scharf verurteilt werden. Die Bundesregierung muss sich für ein Ende der Blockade und des Krieges einsetzen, statt neue Waffenlieferungen, wie z.B. Fregatten, an Saudi-Arabien zu genehmigen. Ansonsten bleibt der Hilfsappell Sigmar Gabriels reine Symbolpolitik – von Heike Hänsel.
Mein Kommentar: Stimmt.
cp12 Andere Länder / Other countries
14.4.2017 – RT (A P)
Spanish firefighter refuses to ship arms to Saudi Arabia over Yemen ‘war crimes,’ may lose job
A Spanish firefighter could be suspended from work for up to four years after refusing to supervise a shipment of some 4,000 tons of munitions to Saudi Arabia. He walked out on the job because he believed the arms could be used to commit war crimes in Yemen.
The incident that may cost Inazio Robles his job happened in mid-March in the port city of Bilbao, the capital of Biscay, a province in the autonomous Basque Country in northern Spain. He was part of a firefighter crew supervising the shipment of 26 containers of hazardous cargo, El Mundo reported.
The containers were marked as a shipment of military munitions, and on asking about the cargo’s destination, Robles learned that it was bound for Saudi Arabia.
The firefighter said his conscience would not allow him to help with the delivery, as he knew that the Arab kingdom was involved in a military campaign in Yemen and was engaged in what many international human rights groups call war crimes there. https://www.rt.com/news/384741-spanish-firefighter-yemen-arms/
Comment: Would you give up your job for #Yemen? Someone is ready to. Thank you, thank you.
https://www.facebook.com/LivingInYemenOnTheEdge/posts/1338969869489373
13.4.2017 – Tempo (A E P)
Indonesia: Jokowi Disappointed By Saudi Arabia Investment
"I am a little disappointed about Saudi Arabia’s investment. [The investment] was small, yes small!" says President Jokowi as quoted by Presidential Palace's press release on Thursday, April 13, 2017.
The President explained that his disappointment lies on the fact that Indonesia received a small amount of investment compared to China. Indonesia received a Rp 89 trillion investment from Saudi Arabia meanwhile China received Rp 870 trillion.
President Jokowi admitted that he had hoped that Saudi Arabia would invested a large amount of money in Indonesia following the extravagant welcome prepared by the government for King Salman.
"I even held up the umbrella for King Salman when it rained. I also drove the car myself to show him around the Bogor Palace," President Jokowi stated.
https://en.tempo.co/read/news/2017/04/13/056865815/Jokowi-Disappointed-By-Saudi-Arabia-Investment
Comment by Haykal Bafana: idiot.
https://twitter.com/BaFana3/status/852590544874295296
14.4.2017 – Pakistan Observer (A P)
Pakistan’s Balancing Act
PAKISTAN’S Parliament rejected a Saudi request to dispatch troops to combat Houthi rebels in Yemen, much to the chagrin of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). When Pakistan joined the Saudi led 34 nation military alliance, Iran took offence believing itself to be the target. Pakistan thus found itself between a rock and a hard place. Stung by the sensitivities of both its friends, Pakistan has had to rethink its diplomatic overtures to maintain the right balance between Tehran and Riyadh.
KSA and Pakistan enjoy decades old partnerships. The House of Saud has come to Pakistan’s aid whenever it was in trouble even when the Occident imposed sanctions against it following its nuclear tests in 1998, KSA stood by Pakistan. Similarly, Iran which is Pakistan’s next door neighbour has been a staunch ally in its every hour of need. Owing to sectarian strife in Pakistan, the relationship has been tested but it withstood the test of time. A number of important development projects between Islamabad and Iran are at bay e.g. the Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project – by Sultan M Hali
http://pakobserver.net/pakistans-balancing-act/
13.4.2017 – Associated Press of Pakistan (A K P)
Parliamentary resolution to be followed about Saudi-Yemen conflict; says Asif
Minister for Defence, Khawaja Asif Thursday said that resolution adopted during the joint session of Parliament to stay out of the war in Yemen would be followed but protection to territory of Saudi Arabia would be ensured.
Responding to an adjournment motion submitted by PTI lawmakers to
discuss Pakistan’s membership of the 41-nation Saudi military alliance, the minister said the alliance has not been formed yet as the countries have only discussed the matters.
He said there would be next meeting of all the countries to be involved
in the alliance in May following which the formal alliance might be formed.
http://www.app.com.pk/parliamentary-resolution-to-be-followed-about-saudi-yemen-conflict-says-asif/
12.4.2017 – IRNA (A P)
Pakistan not to be part of any alliance against Yemen: defense min
Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has reiterated that Pakistan is not going to become part of any alliance against Yemen.
Delivering a policy statement in Senate, the minister said, 'Pakistan will not become part of any agreement which is against another Muslim state. We are bound to parliamentary dictate adopted in a resolution during the Yemen crisis.'
All concerns expressed by Iran about the Saudi-led military alliance, of which Pakistan is a member, would be removed, said the minister.
http://www.irna.ir/en/News/82490078/
12.4.2017 – Tribune Pakistan (A P)
Navigating a complex Middle East
The appointment of General Raheel Sharif as the chief of 39-nation Islamic military coalition has generated a serious controversy within the country and raised Iranian concerns. Earlier, our parliament had unanimously passed a resolution opposing taking sides in the Saudi-led war against Yemen. And the PTI is against joining the Saudi-led coalition and has advised that Pakistan instead play a conciliatory role between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The government, however, is determined and unlikely to retract especially when it has backing of the military leadership.
Close personal relationship between Nawaz Sharif and the Saudi royalty, stretching a few decades, is another major factor that draws him to lean heavily on Saudi Arabia – By Talat Masood
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1380970/navigating-complex-middle-east/
cp13a Waffenhandel / Arms trade
14.4.2017 – MbKS15 (A K)
#Raytheon is being awarded a $16.9M cost-plus contract for initial ILS & training for the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) of the #RSAF
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/852920052323987456
April 2017 – Defense Security Cooperation Agency (* A K P)
Major Arms Sales
Government of Kuwait – Facilities and Infrastructure Construction Support Service
WASHINGTON, Apr. 6, 2017 - The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Kuwait for facilities and infrastructure construction support service. The estimated cost is $319 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today.
Government of Kuwait – Sustainment and Contractor Logistics Support for AH-64D Apache Helicopters
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2017 - The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Kuwait for sustainment and contractor logistics support for AH-64D Apache Helicopters. The estimated cost is $400 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – 74K Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS) Aerostats
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2017 - The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for 74K Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS) Aerostats and related equipment, support, and training. The estimated cost is $525 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today.
Kuwait – AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2017 - The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Kuwait for AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM). The estimated cost is $110 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today.
http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales
cp13b Mercenaries / Söldner
14.4.2017 – Geopolitics Alert (* B K)
Who Are The Saudi-Backed Fighters In Yemen? Mostly Foreigners
We hear a lot about the “Saudi-led coalition” and Saudi-backed fighters in Yemen, but who are they? And what role are they playing?
But who exactly is the Saudi-backed coalition? It officially includes Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Senegal, and Sudan. These countries aid Saudi Arabia in the form of fighters and fighter jets.
In addition to the list above, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia allow the Saudi-coalition to use their air space and waters for the purpose of fighting Ansarullah and bombing Yemen. On top of all these, all the countries mentioned receive direct military equipment, intelligence, and weapons from the United States, United Kingdom, and France. China, Turkey, and Pakistan are also complicit supporters of Saudi Arabia’s actions.
Ansarullah and their allies have the world fighting against them in the air and on the ground. The mainstream media would lead one to believe that mostly Yemeni forces are fighting against Ansarullah on the ground. This isn’t accurate. Most of the ground forces fighting on Saudi Arabia’s behalf include fighters from the UAE, Morocco, Qatar, and Sudan. At this point it’s important to mention that al-Qaeda also fights along side the Saudi-backed troops. Al-Qaeda has become the US and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ally in Yemen.
The UAE-sponsored Blackwater/Academi fighters are perhaps what’s most unsettling about the Saudi-coalition. These are privately-hired mercenaries fighting on behalf of Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Thousands of these fighters hail from countries in Latin America including Colombia.
In addition to this, several reports from Yemenis on-the-ground state that Syrian “rebels” move into Yemen to fight as their objective goals fall short in Syria. Some even report seeing a Turkish plane transporting “rebels” after the liberation of Aleppo.
Western outlets might try to portray Ansarullah as Iranian puppets. But it seems like the Saudi-backed coalition are the ones transporting foreign fighters into Yemen to fight on the imperialists’ behalf.
http://geopoliticsalert.com/saudi-backed-fighters-yemen
13.4.2017 – Ayad (B K)
Saudi claims only national yemen army fight to librate #yemen yet their killed soldiers R sudanies,uae,isis,blackwater,dyne corp,,etc,etc ??
https://twitter.com/maddllock/status/852620919692460034
13.4.2017 – Emirati News Agency (A K P)
Coalition Command to Support Legitimacy in Yemen offers condolences to Sudanese Armed Forces
The Saudi-led Arab Coalition Supporting Legitimacy in Yemen has expressed condolences to the Sudanese Armed Forces over the martyrdom of five Sudanese soldiers during military operations.
In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency, SPA, the command of the coalition highlighted the essential role of the Sudanese forces alongside other forces in the coalition in alleviating the suffering of the Yemeni people and restoring stability and security to Yemen.
The Sudanese army said five soldiers were martyred and 22 other injured while participating in the Arab Coalition's Operation Restoring Hope, led by Saudi Arabia, to back the legitimacy in Yemen.
http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302608406
cp13c Flüchtlinge / Refugees
31.3.2017 – UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Shelter Cluster (A H)
Map: Yemen: Shelter / NFI / CCCM Cluster 3Ws (Who Does What Where) for February 2017
http://reliefweb.int/map/yemen/yemen-shelter-nfi-cccm-cluster-3ws-who-does-what-where-february-2017 and in full: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/shelter_nfi_cccm_cluster-_3ws_-_february_2017-_16022017_0.pdf and https://www.sheltercluster.org/yemen/documents/yemen-shelter-nfi-cccm-cluster-3ws-who-does-what-and-where-february-2017
cp13d Wirtschaft / Economy
Siehe / Look at cp1 (article by Crisis Group)
12.4.2017 – Times of Oman (A E)
Omani-Yemeni investment facilitation forum kicks off
A presentation on the Omani investment was among the activities of an Omani-Yemeni forum that started yesterday. The second Omani-Yemeni Investment Facilitation Forum kicked off at the Hilton Salalah Hotel on Wednesday.
The two-day forum is organised by Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI) in the Governorate of Dhofar under the patronage of Sayyid Mohammed bin Sultan Al Busaidi, Minister of State and Governor of Dhofar.
The forum included a presentation on the Omani investment, as well as honouring the participants from the Yemeni side and the contributors, sponsors of the forum’s activities.
Investors from Oman and Yemen are participating in the forum. Participants will visit the Free Zone, the Industrial Zone and the Salalah Port.
http://timesofoman.com/article/106966
31.3.2017 – World Food Programme (* A H)
Yemen Market Watch Report, Issue No. 11, March 2017
Highlights
Prices of food and fuel commodities showed minor reduction in March 2017, but remained to be much higher than the pre-crisis levels.
The cost of the minimum food basket slightly decreased in March compared to the previous month, but was still 26% higher than in pre-crisis period.
Availability of food and fuel commodities generally remained unchanged in March 2017 due to low level of imports through the sea ports and reduced amount of informal cross border overland entries.
According to Alert for Price Spikes (ALPS) methodology, in March 2017, wheat flour persisted to be under stress situation, while vegetable oil and red beans remained on alert status, and sugar continued to be at crisis level. The ALPS indicator for the cost of the minimum food basket remained at alert status.
Macroeconomic Situation
As the conflict in Yemen enters into the third year, the magnitude and severity of human suffering continues to accelerate alarmingly. The ongoing conflict has led to massive destruction of basic infrastructure, loss of livelihoods, disruption of social services, and is rapidly pushing the country towards social, economic and institutional collapse. Salary payments for public sector employees have been disrupted for several months in many parts of the country.
About 60% of the population are currently facing hunger including onefourth of Yemenis who are at risk of severe conditions. The dire situation forced about two-third of the country’s population to use negative coping strategies, compared to 40% before the crisis. More than half of Yemeni households found themselves indebted for food, compared to only one-third two years earlier. All these rapidly worsening conditions suggest that the country is at a high risk of facing a widespread catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Commercial imports of basic commodities into Yemen and business activities continued to suffer from the lack of foreign currencies and continued depreciation of Yemen Riyal (YER) against US Dollar (USD).
Although the official exchange rate continued to be YER250/USD, the rates in parallel markets in March 2017 ranged between 330YER/USD to 355YER/USD.
http://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-market-watch-report-issue-no-11-march-2017 and in full: http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/ena/wfp291505.pdf = http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/wfp291505.pdf
cp14 Terrorismus / Terrorism
12.4.2017 – Elisabeth Kendall (A K T)
#AQAP claims it stormed Houthi positions overnight in al-'Abal village in the Qifa region of al-Bayda' #Yemen. Clashes continued until 3am
https://twitter.com/Dr_E_Kendall/status/852100985325596672
cp15 Propaganda
14.4.2017 – Saudi Gazette (* A P)
Asiri: We will not allow Houthis to become Hezbollah of Yemen
Major General Ahmad Asiri, adviser to Saudi Arabian defense minister and spokesman of the Arab Coalition Supporting Legitimacy in Yemen, announced that since the beginning of its operations, the forces of the Arab Coalition in Yemen have worked in two axes.
The first is to carry out military operations and reduce the capabilities and influence of the militias. The second is to build the military establishment from day one, pointing out that the alliance will not allow the Houthi militias in Yemen to become as the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Asiri, speaking in a seminar entitled “The current developments and the future of peace in Yemen” at the Arab World Institute in Paris, said that military operations in Yemen were being carefully conducted to protect civilians, adding that “the Houthi militias in Yemen have established command and control centers among civilians.”
He also considered that “the rush in the implementation of military operations in Yemen may lead to losses, and that the policy of besieging the militias in Yemen is leading to effective results.”
Asiri explained that the legitimacy forces have made progress in Yemen and that the political leadership has returned to Aden. He also confirmed that the alliance cooperated with the Yemeni forces to defeat Al-Qaeda.
He stressed that the Arab Coalition “seeks a comprehensive political solution that satisfies everyone”, saying that the solution in Yemen should include the implementation of international resolutions and the will of the Yemenis, refusing to accept any “mid-solutions that make the Houthis part of the solution in Yemen.”
Civilian security
He said that the legitimacy forces in Yemen are working to train young people in the security sector and the war against terror. He added that the coalition does not use non-guided free-fall bombs since they are dangerous to civilians. He also explained that the military operations in Yemen are taking place in dangerous areas because of the density of the population.
He explained that the coalition is implementing a maritime ban, not a blockade; meaning that they make sure who is using the waters, which challenges those who claim that the siege led to a famine.
He said that the coalition forces have given more than 6,000 permits to international bodies to work inside Yemen, saying that there are organizations that report on Yemen which are not even there.
Humanitarian crisis
He added that the port of Hudaydah is important, because it provides money, weapons and communication to the militias. But the port, according to Asiri, has become the source of the diversion of weapons inside Yemen instead of aid.
He said that the port of Hudaydah has become a base for targeting international navigation in Bab Al-Mandab, revealing that the alliance was clear to the international community “either inspection or submission to the legitimacy forces.”
http://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia/asiri-will-not-allow-houthis-become-hezbollah-yemen/ and Asharq Al-Awsat: http://english.aawsat.com/michel-abu-najm-and-badr-alqahtani/news-middle-east/arab-coalition-spokesman-operations-yemen-ongoing-conducted-carefully and shorter by Arab News: http://www.arabnews.com/node/1084826/middle-east
My comment: LOL. For a point-to-pont response, time is lacking.
14.4.2017 – The Atlantic (* A P)
What's Really at Stake for America in Yemen's Conflict
As the Trump administration navigates the risks of escalation, there’s a real danger it will get the calculus wrong.
Because there are actually three conflicts playing out in Yemen—all of which grew out of a civil war that began in 2015—it’s easy to get confused by what the administration may be doing. First, there is the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, now in its third bloody year. Partially nested within this first conflict is the Iranian campaign in Yemen, which, according to the U.S. military, has led to the introduction of anti-ship weaponry that imperils global trade and freedom of commerce through the Bab al-Mandeb strait—which separates the Arabian peninsula from the Horn of Africa—and threatens to internationalize an already terrible situation. Finally, there is the U.S.-led campaign against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
I’ll spend some time on each conflict, but let me cut to the chase: I assess the Trump administration is trying to intensify its efforts to counter al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Houthi maritime threat because those efforts are in the interests of the United States. But the Trump administration will try to do so in such a way as to convince both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—the two most important U.S. partners in the Gulf—that the United States takes seriously their fears about spreading Iranian influence, and in a manner that might allow the Saudi-led coalition a path to climb down from the mess it’s gotten into in Yemen. Escalating the conflict in a way that encourages more Saudi-led offensives would be a mistake, and there’s a real danger the Trump administration gets its calculus wrong in this regard.
The Saudi Campaign in Yemen
Many U.S. partners, and especially the Emiratis, who have forged a close partnership with Prince Mohamed, are also pushing the United States to invest in its relationship with him—which may help explain the red-carpet treatment he got on his visit to the United States in March.
The Obama administration couldn’t make up its mind on the Saudi campaign in Yemen. On the one hand, it didn’t want to encourage what it thought to be a misguided campaign that showed little promise of decisive victory. On the other hand, it didn’t want to wreck its relationship with Saudi Arabia—or the UAE.
The Post now reports the Trump administration is poised to do what we in the Obama administration would not: enable the only competent force in the Saudi-led coalition—the Emiratis—to seize the port of Hodeida on Yemen’s western coast. If I had any confidence this would hasten conflict termination, I would support this, but I fear it will not.
The Houthi maritime threat
Iran takes advantage of conflicts having nothing to do with Iran to bring in capabilities and weapons that threaten Iran’s adversaries.
If the conflict in Yemen started as an intra-Yemen struggle for power, Iran has apparently been only too happy to get involved, according to the U.S. military.
a U.S. military response, though, should be only a small part of the broader international response to what Iran is doing. The first thing the United States should do is pressure a broad coalition of nations with commercial interests in the Bab al-Mandeb to pound on doors in Tehran telling the regime to knock it off.
The war against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Where now?
It appears as if the Trump administration is poised to escalate all three of the conflicts described above. More fully backing the Saudi-led campaign carries the most risk. On the one hand, those now in the Trump administration would have noticed the way in which the Obama administration’s halfhearted support to the Saudi-led coalition pleased no one: The Saudis and Emiratis felt betrayed, and critics in the Congress and the human-rights community criticized the administration as if it had been carrying out the campaign itself.
On the other hand, there were good reasons the Obama administration didn’t more forcefully support the Saudi-led coalition.
But I struggle to see how the Saudi-led coalition can terminate this conflict through military means—and without some kind of embarrassing climb-down. I hope I’m wrong, and if the Trump administration thinks it’s found a way for a successful assault on Hodeida to hasten the end of the conflict, great, but I fear that if a good answer to this conflict existed, it would have been found by now.
Our Saudi and Emirati partners should see that we’re now taking Iran’s activities in Yemen seriously and take that as their cue to de-escalate their own campaign.
After the nuclear deal with Iran, we in the Obama administration no longer had the credibility to deliver it—an annoying fact given the 35,000 American troops who currently sit in or offshore Sunni Arab Gulf states protecting them from Iran. The Trump administration can. But it will have to do so in a way that doesn’t suck the United States in further to a hopeless war that has already brought far too much suffering to the people of the region – by Andrew Exum
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/04/yemen-trump-aqap/522957/
My comment: I agree that the Trump Milldle Eastern and Yemen policy is wrong. – But, the author was a member of the Obama administration – and this article in large parts is whitewashing the policy of the Obama administration. And, let’s stay serious, it was little better. – “critics in the Congress and the human-rights community criticized the [Obama] administration as if it had been carrying out the campaign itself.”: Well, this critics simply was right. Without the support by the Obama administration, there would not have been any Saudi war in Yemen. – And, more: What Exum states to be the second conflict in Yemen, “the Iranian campaign in Yemen”, which he fantasizes to be the “introduction of anti-ship weaponry that imperils global trade and freedom of commerce through the Bab al-Mandeb strait”, is little more than US and Saudi propaganda. Iranian support to the Houthis is little, and the Houthis by themselves are no threat to international shipping in bad al-Mandeb street. The Iranians by themselves are interested in save and free shipping there: what do you think through which route Iranian oil is shipped to Europe??
14.4.2017 – Emirati News Agency (A P)
UN rapporteur's report on Hodeidah seaport contains "untrue and unrealistic information: Yemeni government
The Yemeni government today criticised a United Nations report on the rebel-held strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah saying it contains "untrue and unrealistic information".
The press statement issued by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and international sanctions, Idriss Jazairy, was not based on true and realistic information, said Abdul Raqeeb Fateh, Yemen's Local Administration Minister and chairman of the Supreme Relief Committee, in a statement carried by the official Yemeni news agency. "The humanitarian disaster was inflicted on Yemen by the coup d'etat that was carried out by the rebel Houthi group and their ally, the now-deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh, against the Yemeni legitimate government."
"The rebel militias continue to block food aid convoys from entering several Yemeni governorates and has been besieging Taiz city for more than one and a half year, and have recently seized 223 aid convoys and 63 ships carrying humanitarian aid supplies and used them to back their war effort," he said.
He further stressed that the Arab Coalition's oversight on the seaport was in implementation of relevant international resolutions on the territorial waters of states as the rebels continue to use the port to smuggle arms and military equipment.
He urged the United Nations to force the rebels to end their occupation of airports in Taiz and Hodeidah.
In Taiz, the rebels block efforts to rescue wounded people in Taiz and deliver relief supplies to Hodeidah where people are facing famine, Fateh stressed, while pointing out that the rebels also use Sana'a International Airport to smuggle arms and militants.
http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302608530
My comment: The UN report of course disturbs the propaganda preparation of the attack at Hodeida. Thus this odd reply. Keep in mind: This UN report simply tells the facts. – And, this sounds even childish: “He urged the United Nations to force the rebels to end their occupation of airports in Taiz and Hodeidah”: The UN should play the role of Hadi’s handyman? How they could, why they should?
13.4.2017 – Al Sahwa (A P)
Hodeidah's authorities slam giving relief to putschists
Yemen's local authorities and tribes in Hodeidah are preparing to give a notification of objecting to the United Nations due its method of action in Hodiedah.
Local sources told Alsahwa Net that the notification protests the rejection of the UN to supervise Hodeidah Port, giving relief to the Houthi-Saleh militias and paying custom to them.
The sources said that the notification will be done next week.
Deputy Governor of Hodeidah Waleed al-Qudaimi told the Saudi newspaper of Okaz that the local authorities of Hodeidah demanded the UN to send international supervisors, pointing out that the Houthi-Saleh militias confiscate relief and assistances and give them to their followers.
https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5925
My comment: LOL. Hodeida is under Houthi / Saleh rule; that seem to be “local authorities” (appointed by the Hadi government) without “local”; and Hodeida tribes just had rallied in favour of the Houthis; so what? These pretended “locals” just are used as mouthpieces to repeat the Saudi coalition propaganda.
13.4.2017 – The national UAE (A P)
Yemenis protest against Houthis’ destruction of mosques
Dozens of Yemeni activists, journalists, victims’ families and imams have staged protests in Taez, Aden and Marib provinces condemning the targeting of mosques, including during prayers, by Houthi rebels.
The protesters accuse the Houthis of destroying more than 750 Sunni mosques in bombing and shelling attacks throughout Yemen during the past two years.
Mohammed Al Salihi, one of the protesters in Taez, said he condemned the actions of Houthis throughout the country because they have violated all international conventions respecting places of worship.
"The Houthis are killing civilians in mosques because they do not care about human beings or their belongings and they do not abide by the law or by Islam," he said – by Mohammed Al Qalisi
http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/yemenis-protest-against-houthis-destruction-of-mosques and see also https://www.alsahwa-yemen.net/en/p-5872
My comment: Nice propaganda. That simply ascribes the 712 destroyed and damaged by Saudi coalition air raids to the Houthis.
12.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A P)
Houthi Putschists Deprive Eight Yemeni Cities from Water
Yemeni areas under insurgency control continue to register deteriorating humanitarian conditions, with worsening water supply shortages. The internationally backed government estimated that eight Houthi-held areas have poor water supply.
With every day that passes by Yemenis locked in Houthi-held areas face worsening survival conditions with access to drinkable water dropping. High levels of contamination of water sources have been recorded.
The water supply and sanitation ministry in Yemen refrained from declaring a state of emergency, in an aim to curb the outbreak of panic and further disorder in the war-torn country.
Partnered with international bodies, the ministry will spare no effort in the quest to containing the crisis.
Most of the areas suffering water shortages are located in Tihamah which is a Red Sea coastal plain stretching from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Bab el Mandeb Strait, government official Hibatalllah Saghir Sharim told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Parched tracts of land include Hajjah Governorate, Hodeida, and Sana’a districts all of which are held under Iran-aligned Houthi militias, the official said.
Local authorities have sent out a cry of help warning the human catastrophe right around the corner.
Water pumping has dropped by a disastrous 50 percent in militia-held areas, the government has been working day and night to enhance water provisions to districts in need. However, water supplies pumped or channeled to insurgency areas are appropriated by militiamen to be sold at rocketing prices to impoverished civilians.
My comment: What the Houthis are not held responsible for… Until March 25, 2017, Saudi coalition air raids had destroyed 307 water tanks and networks: https://twitter.com/LCRDye/status/845617636675334144
And two more anti-Iranian propaganda articles, looking at who wrote them tells much:
and
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/12/irans-actions-show-it-cannot-be-trusted/
cp16 Saudische Luftangriffe / Saudi air raids
14.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by #Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen 13/4/2017 (full list):
13.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by #Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen 12/4/2017 (full list):
12.4.2017 – Legal Center (* A K PH)
The Violations and Crimes that are committed by #Saudi_Arabia and its alliance in #Yemen 11/4/2017 (full list):
14.4.2017 – Yemen Today (B K)
Film: Saudi aggression intensifies raids on Midi Midi and Haradh in Hajjah
[The film also shows the impact of former raids]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpZJ-2pITg0
14.4.2017 – Ahmad Alghobary (A K)
God save us all #Saudi jets is bombing Saada right now #Yemen The hotel windows are shaking
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/852954644775153664
14.4.2017 – Ahmad Alghobary (A K)
Today , 31 #Saudi air strikes on several areas in Taiz city #Yemen
https://twitter.com/AhmadAlgohbary/status/852961202267451393
14.4.2017 – New News (A K PH)
The Aggression’s jets Pounding, Taiz, Mareb, Saada Provinces
14.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi warplanes wage 4 raids in Sourwah
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461966.htm
13.4.2017 – New News (A K PH)
Yemeni Civilians are The Target of The Aggression’s Jets
April,12 \ Alhodeida province :
Saudi Arabia has been leading a brutal military campaign against Yemen since March 2015 while Britain and the US is turning a blind eye to the plight of Yemeni civilians. They have provided huge amounts of arms and military training to the Saudi forces.
Today, the Saudi-led coalition fighter jets launch today two air raids on Hies district. A martyr is killed and injured five others .
*Here are the names of the martyr and the injured : (photos)
and
and more information, better photos:
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=71095 (Arabic)
and photo of truck: https://twitter.com/JosephJo1221/status/852539167267573760 and film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JashZVwmtZo
13.4.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
Saada: injured child by a cluster bomb waged by the aggression in farm, directorate # Baqem
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=71071&lang=en
13.4.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
Numbers of Raids on Yemeni provinces and Artillery shelling targeting the Citizens
The US-Saudi alliance launched more than 74 raids yesterday (follwong raids)
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=71026&lang=en
12.4.2017 – Al Masirah TV (B K)
Film: The continued demining of cluster bombs carried out by the aggression in the Directorate of Razih Saada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0aosemjSN8
12.4.2017 – Yamanyoon (A K PH)
20 Raids in Hajjah province ,Target Citizens’ Farm in Marib
Warplanes of the US_Saudi alliance waged several raids in the provinces of Yemen, and targeted citizens ‘ homes and properties .
In Saada province, the fighters jets of the Saudi _ led waged five raids in the areas of the province , and in Marib it waged five raids two of them targeted citizens’ farm .
In Hajjah province , the brutal aggression launched more than 20 raids in the districts of the province , and in Amran province waged a raid .
http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=70986&lang=en
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi aggression launches raids on Capital
The US-Saudi aggression coalition warplanes launched on Wednesday three raids on the capital Sana'a.
A local official told Saba that the aggression coalition targeted Sana'a International airport and al-Dailami air base in Beni Al-Harith with two raids.
The official added that the aggression also launched an air raid on Attan area in Assbeen district in the Capital Sana'a.
The raids caused damage to the homes of citizens and public and private properties.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461858.htm and http://www.yamanyoon.com/?p=71019&lang=en
and by the other side:
13.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Arab Coalition aircrafts launch two air raids on Attan mountain southern Sana'a - residents
Local residents in the capital Sana'a said that the aircrafts of the Saudi-led Arab Coalition launched on Wednesday two air raids on Atan mountain south of the city, which is under the Houthi-Saleh militants’ control.
The residents told Almasdaronline that the air raids targeted the mountain, which the militias controlled late 2014 when overtaking the capital Sana'a. The mountain also contains military camps and ammunition stores.
It is noteworthy that the aircrafts had targeted that mountain by hundreds of air strikes since the beginning of the "al Hazim Storm" in March 26, 2015.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90361
My comment: “the aircrafts had targeted that mountain by hundreds of air strikes since the beginning of the "al Hazim Storm" in March 26, 2015”: There will be little left. These air raids do not have any more military purpose – they are just for bringing terror to the population of Sanaa.
12.4.2017 – Sanaa at daytime (A K)
Sanaa under Saudi-led warplanes attacks (photo)
Again 4:53pm huge explosion by Saudi jets in Sanaa (photo)
https://twitter.com/A7medJa7af/status/852158032809164801
5:05 PM Saudi jets are flying again over Sanaa
https://twitter.com/A7medJa7af/status/852160799300870144
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi aggression coalition continues airstrikes, missile attacks on Saada
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461807.htm
cp17 Kriegsereignisse / Theater of War
14.4.2017 – Yemen Today (A K PH)
Film: Aggression mercenaries bomb the houses of citizens and a clinic in Mtoun Aljouf 14 - 04 – 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LVvx0fLWPc
14.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
The mercenaries of the aggression shelled the houses and farms of citizens in different areas of Sourwah district.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461966.htm
13.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (* A K PS)
When asked about the army’s strategy for the upcoming stage Yemen’s army chief of staff Mohammed al-Maqdishi said that the army had made individual plans for each front because what worked for Hodeidah, can’t be applied to any other front.
He added that these plans will lead to great achievements in the coming days.
Maqdishi didn’t give further details about the plans but confirmed that the army has taken position at its bases and is steadfast in achieving its goals.
The chief of staff stated that the army plans to liberate new fronts in several areas, disrupting what is left of the insurgents’ military capabilities.
He also clarified that the army took full control of areas like Mokha, precisely the port. In addition, the army advanced in Taiz and is closing in on Khalid strategic military camp.
“Khalid camp will soon be under the control of the army which confirms the readiness of the national army’s different brigades,” Maqdishi stated.
My comment: preparation for the attack at Hodeidah, which will worsen the humanitarian situation and fuel famine (look at cp1, cp3).
13.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Over 100 of Saudi paid mercenaries killed in Mokha
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461889.htm and http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461907.htm
My comment: Very dubious. The other side claimed to have intercepted a missile.
12.4.2017 – Yemen Updates (A K)
Photo: Media: Intense and consecutive explosions on #Yemen-Saudi borders!
https://twitter.com/yemen_updates/status/852250120548753409
12.4.2017 – Emirati News Agency (* A K PS)
Yemen's National Army and Popular Resistance take control of Midi city
The Yemeni National Army and Popular Resistance took control today of new territories from the Houthi Saleh militias in the city of Midi in Hajjah Governorate.
The Yemen News Agency said that the army and popular resistance controlled the high areas of Tabbat-Aziz, Tabbat-Mahmoud, Eshash Siraj and a number of high areas north of downtown Al Barid, while the city is being cleared of pockets of militias that are fortified in tunnels and some residential buildings.
The National Army and Popular Resistance have managed, since this morning, to control the ports and entrances of the coastal city of Midi in Hajjah Governorate, liberating many of its neighbourhoods.
A statement from the 5th Military Command in Yemen mentioned that the military forces and popular resistance have started an attack on areas controlled by the Houthi Saleh militias in the city of Midi, managing to regain control of the historic Al Qamaheya citadel, the post building and electricity headquarters, and moved further into downtown areas from the north-western direction.
The Coalition Air Force started a series of raids on the militias’ sites in the city that led to the killing of 18 militia elements and the destruction of military equipment, including a tank and BMP vehicle.
http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302608384
and also
13.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (* A K PS)
Pro-government forces advance, control locations after violent battles in Midi
The pro-government forces made on Wednesday a significant military progress, infiltrated into Midi city, northwestern Yemen, and seized control of a number of military sites, after weeks of fierce fighting against the Houthis-Saleh forces.
The Media Center of the Fifth Military Region posted on Facebook that the pro-government forces, backed by the Saudi-led Arab Coalition forces, launched an attack on the eastern side of the city.
The Media Center quoted military sources saying that the pro-government forces have seized control of the historical al Qumahiya fortress, the post office, and the electricity building southeastern Midi.
''The pro-government forces advanced into Midi city center from the northwestern side.''
"The pro-government forces are imposing a siege on the city from three directions, control all the city entrances, with great collapses among the ranks of the rebels."
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90362
My comment: At the west coast, in the north, near the Saudi border.
13.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Pro-government forces declare 18 Houthis killed, wounded by an airstrike southeastern Midi
The pro-government forces declared on Wednesday that 18 militants from the Houthis-Saleh forces were killed and wounded by an air strike launched by the Saudi-led Arab Coalition aircrafts in southeastern Midi district, northwest of Yemen.
The Media Center of the Fifth Military Region posted on Facebook that the air strike had targeted a gathering for the militias.
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90360 and also by Anadolu with some explanation: http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/saudi-led-coalition-strikes-houthi-targets-in-w-yemen/796720
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
US-Saudi aggression coalition continues airstrikes, missile attacks on Saada
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461807.htm
12.4.2017 – Asharq Al-Awsat (A K P)
Report: Houthi Militias Killed over 393 Children in 48 Months
Militiamen in Yemen running a nationwide putsch have killed over 393 children in the last two years, 273 of whom had fallen victim to indiscriminate bombardment and sniper waves.
Yemen’s governorate of Taiz, situated near Mocha port on the Red Sea, was the most to suffer from children casualties by Houthi open fire.
On one hand Arab Coalition forces relentlessly seek to salvage children who had been recruited by Houthi militants and deployed near Saudi borders. After their capture from insurgency ranks, coalition bodies and authorities reunite the child soldiers with their families. On the other hand, Iran-allied Houthis have brutally killed minors in several Yemeni provinces.
An official report issued by the Yemeni coalition monitoring and documentation team dedicated to record human rights violations, said most of the children killed by insurgency sniper fire were engaged in noncombatant activities and environments like their homes or helping their families transfer water from charity tanks allocated for water distribution, or when leaving schools.
According to the report, Houthi militias and armed loyalists backing ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh have overstepped the rules of engagement when it comes to impunity of non-armed civilians— insurgency fire has deliberately targeted civilian areas. International human rights laws demand that warring parties distinguish between combatants and civilians when staging attacks.
Deliberately directing attacks against civilians constitutes a crime punishable by international law.
The paper documented the death of 393 children, including 273 killed by indiscriminate attacks and direct sniper fire. More so, six children were killed in attacks by al-Qaeda in Yemen.
My comment: The figure might be true. The official figure of children killed by the Saudi coalition’s air raids is 2.646 at March 25, 2017): https://www.facebook.com/lcrdye/photos/a.551858951631141.1073741828.551288185021551/796181513865549/?type=3
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Army kills mercenary leader in Mocha
A military official on Tuesday confirmed the death of a mercenary leader Rayed Yafie along with a number of his companions in the military clashes in Jabal al-Nar area in Mocha district in Taiz province
The official said in a statement to Saba that the mercenary leader Raed Yafie "Abu Harun" was killed as well as 18 elements of his companions in clashes with the heroes of the army and the popular forces in Mocha.
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461844.htm
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Army hits mercenaries in Mokha
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461808.htm
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Dozens of Saudi-paid mercenaries, Sudanese soldiers, killed in Mokha
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461799.htm
12.4.2017 – Saba Net (A K PH)
Ballistic missile hits mercenaries in Mokha
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461798.htm
but
13.4.2017 – Almasdar Online (A K PS)
Arab coalition air defenses intercept Houthi ballistic missile fired on al Mocha - source
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90358
12.4.2017 – AFP (A K)
18 fighters killed in raging Yemen clashes
Intensified confrontations between government forces and Huthi rebels on Yemen's southwestern coast have killed 18 fighters in the past 24 hours, military officials and medical sources said on Wednesday.
Clashes have raged as government forces, backed by warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition, push to seize rebel positions east of the government-held Red Sea town of Mokha, military sources said.
Fifteen insurgents have been killed in clashes and coalition air strikes in the past 24 hours, a medical source in the rebel-controlled port city of Hodeida said.
Three soldiers died in the battles, according to military and medical sources in Aden, the temporary base of the government as the capital Sanaa remains under rebel control.
http://www.france24.com/en/20170412-18-fighters-killed-raging-yemen-clashes
12.4.2017 – AP (* A K)
Yemen president's forces attack, 38 killed in heavy fighting
Yemeni security and military officials say forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized president have launched an attack on Shiite rebels around the southeastern port city of Mocha, unleashing heavy fighting that has killed some 38 fighters from both sides.
They said Wednesday that the fighting began a day earlier and was supported by the Saudi-led coalition opposing the rebels, known as Houthis. The military officials say troops loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi aim to take the area's key port at Hodeida, further north – By AHMED AL-HAJ
12.4.2017 – Albawaba (A K)
Yemen: Army, Houthi fighters clash in eastern Sanaa
Nine Shia Houthi militants and two Yemeni soldiers were killed on Tuesday in clashes that erupted in eastern Sanaa, according to a local military source.
“Clashes broke out after Houthi fighters tried to infiltrate army positions in the Mount Dawa region of Sanaa’s eastern Nahm directorate,” the source, speaking anonymously for security reasons, told Anadolu Agency.
“Yemeni army forces repulsed the infiltrators, killing at least nine and injuring several others,” he said.
The same source went on to assert that at least two Yemeni soldiers had been killed in the melee.
http://www.albawaba.com/news/yemen-army-houthi-fighters-clash-eastern-sanaa-961848
12.4.2017 – Fars News (A K PH)
Saudi-Backed Troops' Military Positions in Ta'iz Hit Hard by Yemen's Qaher Ballistic Missile, Sudanese The Yemeni army and popular forces hit hard the military positions of the Saudi-led troops with Qaher M2 missile, inflicting heavy losses on the coalition's foreign officers, soldiers.
The Saudi-backed militias' concentration centers and military positions in al-Mukha region of Ta'iz province in Western Yemen came under the Yemeni army's Qaher M2 ballistic missile attack.
Tens of Saudi-led troops, including a number of Sudanese officers and soldiers, were killed in Yemen's missile attack.
The attack also left seven military vehicles destroyed.
The Sudanese army in a statement admitted that five of its military men, including an officer, have been killed and 22 others wounded in Yemen's missile attack without mentioning the place and date of the attack.
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960123000692
12.4.2017 – Tasnim News (A K PH)
Yemeni Army Fires Three Homegrown Missiles at Saudi Positions
Yemen’s army and popular committees fired three homegrown ballistic missiles at a military base of Saudi Arabia’s mercenaries in retaliation for the continued massacre of civilians by a Saudi-led coalition in the Arabian Peninsula country, Yemeni sources said.
The missile command of the Yemeni army hit the military base of Saudi mercenaries with three “Zelzal-2” missiles, according to the Arabic-language Al-Manar TV network.
The missiles targeted the mercenaries in Nihm District in Sana’a Governorate, the report said.
Pro-Houthi / Pro-Saleh reports:
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461913.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461908.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461848.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461850.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461852.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461806.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461805.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461804.htm
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news461796.htm
Pro Saudi / Pro-Hadi reports and films:
http://almasdaronline.com/article/90359
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/yemeni-govt-forces-claim-gains-against-houthis-in-taiz/795181
https://twitter.com/MbKS15/status/852225220765261832
cp18 Sonstiges / Other
14.4.2017 – PRI
Yemenis make a heartwarming video about a nasty war
What country has mud-brick skyscrapers, the world's best flatbread and could also be the birthplace of coffee? It's the same place that is enduring a brutal civil war that's killed more than 10,000 people.
A London-based BBC journalist has been trying to focus the world's attention on the deadly conflict in her home country.
"No matter how many times we go on TV and radio and write about it online, people don't know — or care — about what's going on in Yemen," says Mai Noman, Yemeni journalist and the creator of "Guess my country," a perky 2-minute video for BBC Stories. It has been popping up in hundreds of thousands of Facebook feeds worldwide.
Noman spent the month of February reporting from the embattled nation. While in the rebel-controlled capital, Sanaa, she called on a Yemeni friend to help her make the film.
Hisham al-Omeisy, a political and information analyst with more than 21,000 Twitter followers, agreed to be the on-camera narrator. Noman's idea was to have Omeisy contrast some of the unique cultural riches of Yemen with the violence and hardship of its civil war, and to do it so entertainingly that Facebook users could not resist sharing it.
"I thought if we can't engage people with the devasting effect this war has had on 27 million people, then why don't we show Yemen in a different light," says Noman. "There are so many amazing things about this place, things that Yemenis are all so proud of."
As comfortable as Omeisy looks on screen, this role is new for him.
In between the sobering images of fighting and near-famine, he brings a spirit of fun. – by Stephen Snyder (with audio)
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-04-14/yemenis-make-heartwarming-video-about-nasty-war and the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHHccBo8dKc
13.4.2017 – Al Arabiya (D)
Yemen: What would you do if a stranger offered you a rose?
“Jouri” (rose) is a social experiment undertaken by two girls and a young man in Yemen, respectively Sarah, Marwa and Younis; it comes within the framework of “with my mobile” intitative.
The main idea behind this experiment is to see how the society reacts towards the culture of love and not war, through randomly giving flowers to people from different social categories in Sanaa.
Sarah, Marwa and Younis were shocked by the unexpected and conservative reactions of some people who did not want to be offered a flower.
The main message behind our experiment was to show people that society has forbidden love and encouraged wars.
My comment: What a nice experiment! Where did it take place? – It’s somewhat strange that a Saudi media reports it. Look at the photo: Imagine, what would happen to a woman in Saudi Arabia offering a rose to a male stranger in the street? She would be arrested by the police and jailed.
Vorige / Previous:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose/jemenkrieg-mosaik-292-yemen-war-mosaic-292
Jemenkrieg-Mosaik 1-292 / Yemen War Mosaic 1-292:
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/dklose oder / or
http://poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm
Der saudische Luftkrieg im Bild / Saudi aerial war images:
(18 +, Nichts für Sensible!) / (18 +; Graphic!)
http://poorworld.net/YemenWar.htm und / and http://yemenwarcrimes.blogspot.de/
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