Press Review [Archives:2001/13/Press Review]

Main Headlines:
-Yemeni-American Joint Manhunt for Suspects of Cole Attack
-Yemeni Official, Party, Trade Delegation Arrives Baghdad
-Activities of Al-Quds Week, Kicked Off
-US Ambassador to Yemen Mediates American Fraud Release
-Various Prospects on Cabinet Reshuffle in Yemen
-Health Minister Confirms Foot-and-Mouth Disease Cases
-Receiving Al-Quds Foundation Delegation, President Saleh: Yemen Remains Loyal to its Nation
-Arab Foreign Ministers Unanimous on Choosing Amr Mousa for Arab League General Secretary
-Speaker of Yemen Parliament Sheikh Abdulla Bin Hussein Al-Ahmar Urges Arab Leaders to Support Palestinian People Struggle
Review of excerpts from articles published by some Yemeni newspapers this week.
An-Nass weekly March 19, 2001.
Dr Abdukqaui Al-Shamiri has written an article in An-Nass weekly proposing the establishment of a ”National Committee on Combating Corruption”. Dr Al-Shamiri says societies could not experience any kind of stability if pluralism coexist in both power and wealth in addition other corruption phenomena such as breaching human tights, moral corruption, degradation of culture. Added to those are low level of services, financial corruption..etc, as all of these are the progeny of the pluralism in power and wealth.
Proceeding from this the author proposes a call on all political forces, both in power and opposition and institutions of civil society and intellectuals, especially policy-makers to hold a meeting and establish a national committee for fighting corruption in order to deliver the country from a real catastrophe.
The committee represents a practical step which the society has to take part in a kind of persistence guaranteeing it activeness because institutions without a guarantee for continuity are doomed to death. We think that the country is in need of rescue and surely such a committee will be facing resistance from corruption lobby. But we are on the other hand quite certain that the battle would at the end be in favor of the forces of good. We also call for the setting up of a committee meant for activating civil society institutions for coordination among civil society institutions.
Al-Mithaq weekly, organ of the People’s General Congress Party (GPC), March 19, 2001.
The weekly editorial is devoted to discussing the tasks of the coming stage, saying it is representing a great responsibility in the context of responsibilities that the president, the GPC and the government are shouldering to promote mechanism of development and stabilization of the democratic experiment.
The editorial maintains that transfer of power to the base of the pyramid of power nowadays embodies a long-awaited dream and an opportunity for the people to participate in accomplishing their requirements. It is also an opportunity to enable them to make decisions that are compatible with those requirements. It is the popular participation provided for the people in free elections as a transitional period that all hope to be a rich and useful experiment. This would only be realized with more work and full dedication at all levels.
The weekly’s editorial concludes that for that reason the coming stage would be a challenge for all the Yemenis who will definitely be capable to overcome it.   Al-Isbou weekly , March 22, 2001.
This week the newspaper devoted its editorial to discuss the coming Arab summit in Amman. The editorial says it is not required from the Arab summit to declare war on Israel, but on the other hand it is also not wanted from it to confine its stand to merely a statement carrying clauses of denunciation and condemnation to the enemy that hindering the settlement and maintaining annihilation of the Palestinian people.    The Arab summit is demanded in the first place to specify what the primary goal Arabs must place versus what is happening in the occupied land and against a colonialist hegemony that amounted to the extent of re-deployment of foreign armies on the Arab territories.
What is regrettable is that statements by Arab leaders do not inspire hope that his time they are going to surpass what had been familiar at their summits to work for establishing Arab re-union. Also, statements issued by Arab summits on supporting struggle of the people of Palestine had always ended in stands of languor. The Arabs, at their summit, should make their only target to change the political climate, at both Palestinian and Arab levels, in a way forcing Israel to again come to beg for peace.
Ash-Shoura weekly, March 18, 2001.
Dr Mohammed Abdulmalik al-Mutawakil has in an article published in the paper discussed last month’s local councils elections and referendum on the constitutional amendments. He has said that last month’s experiment was a real battle in part of which things reached to violence and bloodshed as a result of illegitimate attempts to influence the results.
The writer says that democracy has begun to change from a slogan raised by the regime into a comprehension by the citizen that it is one of his rights. He has begun to realize that democracy is not a gift from the ruler or a favor done to him by the regime.
Regardless the results announced by the government, the people have by the local elections and the referendum achieved very significant gains, some of which are:
– People’s active participation has forced the authority to take off the mask of pretended democracy when it has openly practiced violations that made the elections and referendum lose their legitimacy.
– It has been practically proved that the active and positive participation by the political forces has forced the authority to openly practice falsification.
-People participation and the results that came contrary to what the authority wanted have confirmed that it is possible to defeat the authority despite its use of all potentials of the state.
_The new Yemeni experiment has contributed to a big political activity and restored the socialist party to the arena of political action despite its difficult financial circumstances and the authority stand towards it. It has also helped the approach of the Islah party to the opposition parties and disentangle itself from the alliance with the GPC.
_ Local elections and referendum have addressed a clear message to the ruling elite that the society has changed and that elite should reconsider their calculations and not to ream of making the future the way they like.
RAY weekly , organ of Sons of Yemen League Party, March 20, 2001.
The weekly editorial is devoted this week to discussion of the inevitability of change in mechanism of Arab ruling regimes and the nature of relations among their political systems.
The editorial has cited in this regard the political activity that Bahrain has been witnessing in the past few weeks and the positive reactions in its neighboring Qatar, and also in Kuwait that was ahead of them. It has also pointed out to the political leaps in the Syrian arena of scientific qualification of Syria towards an aware dealing with the future.
The article maintains that there are many examples on the inevitability of change in the political mechanism of the ruling system in our country leading to indisputable facts that dictate acceleration of comprehending the needs of realizing them with civilized mechanism.
What enhances the possibility of the success of the change process are those indications that confirm that the head of the state fully understands this change inevitability and has mentioned it in person on many occasions.
Al-Balagh independent weekly, 20 March 2001.
Uthman Abdulqadir has written an article saying unlike of what, to some extent, we have been used to in previous elections, this time many violations and engagements have taken place in the latest elections, the victims of which included some citizens, candidates and voters.
Whatever was the cause of differences in viewpoints and breaches among some political parties, whether the ruling or opposition parties or the independents, killings and bloodshed that have happened offends the democracy that we claim to practice in our political life and also offends the reputation of our country in the region and the world.
Now the next step should be dressing the wounds and forgiveness among all. Each member of the local councils should remember that he is representing the people and that Yemen’s interest is above all narrow interests; personal or party. Yemen possesses agricultural, fish and mineral wealths whereas the people are drowned in poverty. Therefore we hope that the political leadership, the government, the parliament and the local councils would play a big role in raising the living standard of the people so that to make them forget their suffering from partisan conflicts during the elections of local councils.
As-Sahwa weekly, March 22, 2001.
Political editor of the newspaper has written that there are two years before it is due to hold the net parliamentary and local councils elections in Yemen, as the first elections of the local councils were held on February 20 as a transitional stage. All political parties and organizations have to infer lessons from their results and build future democratic achievements bringing stability and good to the homeland and the citizen.
The writer calls for paying much attention to violations and mistakes that associated the latest elections process and contributed to the regrettable incidents, saying that it dictates on all who are loyal to the democratic experiments to show keenness on rendering care to this experiment and join forces to develop it for the best.
The author maintains that he thinks there are many issues that can be an axis for dialogue, coordination and future alliances between the Islah party, the GPC and other political parties so that all of them would pour into serving the homeland. The issues could be summed up in the joint action for expanding the span of freedom, enhancing democratic process in the society, activating commitment to the constitution and laws based on it and introducing a new electoral record proportionate to the ambition of establishing local elections constituencies equal in number to those of parliamentary constituencies for the year 2003.
As for the recently elected local councils the writer thinks that their members should perform their role as stipulated in law and that the ruling party bears the biggest portion of tasks as it has scored the majority of seats in them.

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