Majority of the parliament turned down on Saturday a decision by President Saleh to cancel a suggestion of extending presidency term to 7 years which was added to the amendments draft by MPs last September. MPs justify their stance by the current developments and circumstances the country is passing through.
The decision of MPs followed a heated discussion of a letter from the President last Saturday. The letter confirms the patriotic necessities for the constitutional amendments. President Saleh expressed his thanks for MPs who included a suggestion to extend presidency term to 7 years and said; “..for many considerations related to respect for the supreme interest of our country and enhancement of the democratic experience I insist on canceling this decision.”
The president’s request and the refusal of the majority of the parliament coincided with an amounting heated debate between the People General Congress (PGC) and Yemen Congregation for Reform (Islah) on the constitutional amendments, specially after the latter appeared as an opposer to the amendments. The PGC seems trying to attract supporters of its recent position against limiting authorities of the parliament.
Opposition parties including Islah and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) had brought a letter before the president to postpone amendments. “This issue concerns all people of Yemen and the future of political system,” reads the letter. “Hence it needs to be carefully discussed with the participation of political powers,” the letter adds. In response to this stance the PGC looked upon it as an unjustified backsliding of Islah’s earlier agreement with the PGC.
Mouthpieces of the ruling party accused the Islah and YSP of being two sides of the same coin of opposition that lacks any clear vision towards people’s interests.
Political analysts considered the President’s latest step as a tactical move to change the suggestion into a debatable issue. It is worth mentioning that extension of the presidency term was included by Islah and was announced in the parliament by head of the Islah bloc Mr. Ahmad Sharafaddin.
The constitutional amendments were presented by President Saleh on September 23 following the blasphemy campaign Sheikh Zindani head of al-Shoura Council of Islah led against minister of Information and a number of official newspapers particularly al-Thaqafiah. This portended a political crisis between Islah and PGC before a reconciliation meeting was sponsored by the Vice President and included minister of information and Sheikh Zindani.

DOHA_ The ninth summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) opened here Sunday to discuss a host of issues with an aim to promote Islamic peace and development.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, the chairman of the eighth Islamic summit, first addressed the opening session before handing over the chairmanship to Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani.
The three-day summit will discuss and approve 81 resolutions prepared by the preparatory foreign ministerial meeting pertaining to Palestine and Arab-Israeli conflict, and other political, economic, military and cultural issues concerned by the 56 OIC member states.
In his opening address at the OIC summit Iranian President Mohammad Khatami proposed a package solution to the decades-old Mideast conflict and the restoration of peace in the region. President Khatami said the solution required the return of all Palestinian refugees to their own homeland in the occupied territories. He proposed a referendum be held by the Palestinians to determine their own future. Khatami also called for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and decision of such an independent state regarding current inhabitants of Palestine.
Khatami chaired the opening of the summit in his capacity of the presidency of the eighth OIC summit held in Tehran three years ago. The three-day summit will discuss, among other things, ways of supporting the Palestinians’ uprising against Israeli
suppression. Other political, economic, military and cultural issues concerned by the 56 OIC member states would also be discussed.
Coinciding with OIC summit meetings, a huge female popular demonstration took to the streets in Sana’a city expressing solidarity with the Palestinians’ intifada against the repressive measures and atrocities committed by Zionist entity soldiers against the defenseless Palestinians. Demonstrators have also demanded Moslem leaders to come out with decisive resolutions and recommendations backing up the Palestinians rights and putting an end to Israel’s massacres. (Xinhua, Agencies)

Yemeni security is still on the lookout for four persons thought to be involved in the blast of the USS destroyer while mooring for refueling and exploded, crippling the destroyer in Aden bay, killing 17 and wounding 38 on board.
On the other hand, a US ship reached Aden yesterday to carry the reckage of USS destroyer and the car that carried the boat to the port. One of the suspects implicated in the incident confessed that the boat was bought from UAE.
Informed sources reported that a joint Yemeni-US investigation team re-conducted hearing to witnesses’ and suspects’ testimonies as investigators observed some contradictions between their testimonies in the first and the second investigation phases.
Current investigations are focused on interrogating15 persons some of whom recounted crucial information about the blast of the USS destroyer. At the same time, security discovered a new house, a fourth one, thought to be used by the attackers.
Security extended activities to track down the extremists’ groups in Aden, specially after obtaining some information maintaining that these groups had set up three underground organizations hostile to Western interests working in the guise of some commercial and investment projects in the region.
On the other hand, security had released twenty persons already detained for questioning in the USS Cole blast. Al-Waten al-Arabi, London-based newspaper, reported that the source of the explosive charges used in blowing up the ship, were of Russian or Eastern Germany origin and that they were earlier smuggled into Iraq and then into Yemen.
In a press statement, Yemeni Interior Minister, Hussain Arab, disclosed that investigations revealed involvement of some foreign parties in the incident indicating the possibility of Mossad involvement in planning for this attack with the objective to create a tense atmosphere between US and Yemen after president Saleh’s calls for supporting the Intefadh against Israel.
US NBC TV network announced that Yemen informed US investigators that security was able to arrest some suspects and that one of those confessed that the incident was already planned more than a year ago. There were two experts who supervised implementing the plan, one is Iraqi while the other is Saudi, the TV announced. NBC also claimed that some Yemenis had helped the attackers to get forged IDs and cars to cover their activities.
US officials announced that Yemeni investigators informed the US side that some extremists opposing the west had planned to attack another US warship last January. However, the plan was thwarted as the boat loaded with explosives sank nearby the US warship.
Press news in Kuwait reported that some persons were arrested possessing explosives. It revealed that they were affiliated to a terrorist network of 11 persons of whom two were Yemenis from Afgan Mujahdins. It also reported that Kuwaiti authorities along with some US explosives experts started examining the explosives to see if they were similar
Reports reveal that investigations conducted on the USS Cole have helped a great deal to discover the terrorist group in Kuwait. It is also expected that US Defense Minister, William Cohen, would visit nine countries in the Gulf and Middle East to enhance security measures and to protect US interests in the region.

Mahboob Ali, Yemeni Journalists Syndicate president, criticized the government going back on its decision to set up journalists special cadre which the cabinet endorsed in the beginning of this year.
The cabinet decided not to include it in the budget of the state for the year 2001. In a press statement, Mr. Mahboob Ali told Yemen Times about forming a committee composing of all media establishments and under the supervision of the YJS. The committee had to contact concerned big shots in the government to re-consider that groundless decision, he added. He indicated that the committee would start following this issue up from today, Monday, calling all journalists to stick together to assert their legitimate rights that would help improve their living conditions.
He said: “If all journalists including those working in government media and in independent and opposition newspapers have one firm stand, the syndicate is ready to escalate the issue and exercise pressure on the government to bow to our legitimate calls. Even if we have to stage demonstrations, all-out strikes leading to close down all daily government newspapers and TVs broadcasting stations.
In a courageous step of its kind, tens of journalists working in pro-governmental media establishments decided to impose sanctions on the activities of Finance and Civil Service Ministers. They emphasized that there would never be any coverage of any activities held in the two ministries or in any establishment affiliated with them. Nor would there be any news item for them, they confirmed. They also agreed that if a new item was to be published, they would put the two ministers’ pictures upside down on all the newspapers.
On the other hand, tens of Yemeni journalists staged a demonstration last Tuesday in front of the Cabinet’s building calling for executing the journalists’ cadre which required setting up an outstanding order for their employment improving their living conditions. They also submitted a letter to Dr. Abdulkarim al-Eryani, PM, urging him to endorse the journalist cadre and to carry out this from year 2001.
Journalists threatened that in case of no positive response, they would continue their demonstrations in front of the cabinet. If that did not work, they would stage an all-out strike.