The Appeal Court of Sanaa upheld last Wednesday the death sentence issued against the Sudanese Sanaa University morgue assistant, Mohamed Adam for the murder of two female students at the Faculty of Medicine of Sanaa University.
After denying the appeal of the defendant's lawyer, the court also ordered the public treasury to pay five million Yemeni rials to each of the families of the victims as compensation.
Mohamed Adam was found guilty by the primary and appeal court of killing and mutilating an Iraqi, Zainab Saud Aziz in December 1999 and a Yemeni, Hosn Ahmed Attiya in February 2000.
The remains of the 24-year old Iraqi victim Zainab were requested by the court to be taken to her family for burial as soon as possible.
The defendant still has the chance to challenge the appeal's decision at the Supreme Court. Once the Supreme Court upholds the appeal court's verdict, the final approval of President Saleh becomes necessary before Adam receives the death penalty, which is expected to be carried out publicly by firing squad at his chest.
This comes after the 'Sanaa Ripper' confessed himself of killing the two girls, chopping up their bodies, dissolving them in acid, and throwing their remains into the sewers. He also requested many times from the authorities to carry out the capital punishment as soon as possible.

For the first time blind pupils and students in Yemen will be able to study the same national curricula used in state schools throughout Yemen. This breakthrough follows the purchase of Braille printing press by the British Embassy in Sana'a at the cost of US$38,000 for the al-Aman Society for Blind Care.
The support comes under the British Government's Small Grants Scheme which is managed in Yemen by the British Council. Under the scheme, support is given for some 12 development projects per year to improve the educational, professional and welfare opportunities of the Yemeni people.
Al-Aman Society for Blind Care has been working strenuously to enable blind children to have access to state education. Previously blind students had to rely on self-financed audio cassettes.
The Braille Printing Press will be used to print Ministry of Education state curricula, as well as supplementary materials for the blind. This will expand the scopes of their education through publications, books and journals. The Printing press ,ordered for this Society, is a state of the art printing press with a speed of printing 1200 pages per hour.
The Society, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, has already begun printing curricula for the elementary stage and expects to complete this first print-run in the next few months.

The Second Training course of Arab Technical Editors, organized by the Al-Ahram Regional Institute for Journalism in cooperation with Mr. Ibrahim Nafi, chairman of the Arab Journalists Union and the UNESCO office in Cairo, was successfully conclude last Wednesday April 5 in Cairo. The courses were attended by 12 journalists form, Syria, Morocco, Jordan, Palestine, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan, Emirates, Oman, Tunisia and our country. Yemen was represented by Miss. Nadia Abdul Aziz Al-Saqqaf, Managing Editor of the Yemen Times as appointed by the Yemeni Journalist's Syndicate (YJS)

The Yemeni National Bank Chairman of the Board of Directors, the Director-General Abdulrahman Al-Kuhali leaves for the Jordanian capital Amman to take part in the 10th annual conference of the Arab Academy for Financial & Banking Sciences to be held there 7-9 April, 2001 under the motto '' Offering Retail Banking and Financial Products and Services VS Challenges of the New Century''.
In a statement to Yemen Times Mr Al-Kuhali has made it clear that Yemen's participation in the conference comes in context of contributing to the conference meetings and to benefit from contemporary technology, particularly in banking. He has pointed out that the Yemeni National Bank works hard for enhancing development of its capabilities to keep pace with banking knowledge, sciences, information and technology.

Today, Monday April 9, an agreement is to be signed at the Sheraton Hotel in Sanaa between Yemenia and the Raheb & Da'ud Syrian Company to resume the publication of the Yemenia monthly magazine. On this occasion, a ceremony and press conference are to be held. The resumption of the periodical is a step in completing the reform and development porject that Yemenia had started recently.

Al-Kathiri Group for Investment and Sheraton International Company on Tuesday April 3, 2001 signed a 20-year agreement. The signing ceremony was held at Sheraton Gold Mohur-Aden Hotel. According to the agreement the hotel's administration will be undertaken by the Sheraton Company, specializing in Hotel Administration. At the beginning of the press conference held on the occasion Mr Ahmed Sheikh welcomed the Director-General of Sheraton-Sana'a Hotel Mr. Wahba, Mr. Diab, Director-General of Sheraton Gold Mohur-Aden Hotel, and financial and economic advisors at Al-Kathiri Group for Investment.
Mr. Ahmed Sheikh said that beginning on April 3,2001 the Gold Mohur Hotel is to be one of the string of hotels of Sheraton International Company. This is in implementation of the agreement signed on February 14 between Sheraton Hotels Company and Al-Kathiri Group for Investment, particularly due to the hotel's good location and features. He added that he hoped they would complete certain improvements to meet requirements of world tourism. As for the second phase there will be a building of a tourist village located behind the hotel, a club for yachs, refurbishing and the maintenance of the Gold Mohur Beach club , as well as a Yemeni club, Mr. Ahmed Sheikh added. He had also said that the agreement signed with the Sheraton would be a gain for the country and tourism development.
Director-General of Al-Kathiri Group said the second phase would cost US$ 30 million. Further, confirming that tourism development influences and gets influenced by economic and social activity in general, and stated '' we hope that tourist movement would prosper under the political and economic stability.
Addressing the conference was also Mr. Fadhil Wahba, Director-General of Sheraton Sana'a who welcomed the journalists attending the press conference. He said that it was held on the occasion due to the agreement between Al-Kathiri Group and Sheraton company on April 3, 2001 based on the previous agreement signed on February 2001. Sheraton company would run Gold Mohur-Aden Hotel and its name would be Sheraton Gold Mohur-Aden based upon a 20 year contract.
Mr Wahba concluded his statement by saying that the number of employees in Gold Mohur-Aden Hotel are 151 with 8% foreigners. '' Our task is to develop the labor and train them. There are specialists for that, courses for qualifying them are scheduled to be carried out at the Sheraton International Company.