Yemeni official sources have announced that William Burns, US Assistant Secretary of State was due in Sana'a January 17th. The sources said Burns would hold talks with Yemeni officials on bilateral relations and cooperation in addition to the development of the Palestinian cause and peace in the Middle East.
The US-Yemeni cooperation in fighting terrorism is also to be discussed. Besides, the Commander of the Special Operations at the US Central Forces will visit Yemen soon. He is also to discuss cooperation between the US and Yemen, mainly in the fight against terrorism. The US confirmed its commitment to building up well-qualified Special Task Forces in Yemen to be able to crackdown on terror.
The US administration praised Yemen's anti-terrorists crackdown and expressed its strong support of president Saleh's determination to eradicate terrorism in Yemen, as demonstrated by the ongoing operations against suspected members of al-Qaeda in Shabwa, Mareb and al-Jawf governorates.
The US Ambassador to Yemen, Edmund Hull, encouraged the Yemeni parliament to support the president's initiative by ratifying the three remaining international counter-terrorism conventions. Yemen ratified nine of the 12 international conventions. The remaining are on the crackdown on financing terrorism, international convention on plastic explosives, and international convention on nuclear materials. These three conventions have been approved by the Cabinet but the parliament has not ratified them yet. Hull said during his meeting with Jubran Abu Shwarib, the Chairman of Parliament's Foreign Relations Committee that "By ratifying the three remaining conventions on counter-terrorism, Yemen would underscore its leadership in the international fight against terrorism by being the first Arab country to ratify all 12 conventions."
In a press release distributed by the US Embassy in Sana'a Wednesday, Abu Shwarib said the parliament would continue to support president Saleh's vigorous stand against terrorism and lawlessness, including kidnapping of foreigners and that parliament would give high priority to ratifying the three remaining international counter-terrorism conventions.
In his meeting with Sheikh Naji Abdulaziz al-Shaif on December 30, Mr. Hull said: "Tribal kidnappings are extremely bad for Yemen." "They stymie government initiatives to bring economic development to tribal areas. They damage Yemen's international reputation and blacken the reputation of honorable tribes. They scare away foreign investment," he noted, adding: "All Yemenis whether they are members of tribes or not, should support the president to put an end to tribal lawlessness. Without stability and security, there can be no development.''
Political observers believe that the ongoing war against terrorism has opened the way for US-Yemen relations to improve tremendously. The US Ambassador said fighting terrorism was a high priority of the US-Yemen bilateral relationship. However, he confirmed this relationship did go beyond just countering terrorism. He said: "The US and Yemen have been active partners on a variety of issues over the past several years. We will certainly continue to work closely together on fighting terrorism. But we also continue our support for the Yemeni democratization and economic reform. Yemen is a regional leader in reform and we want to be a part of this historic process. We will continue to support human rights, judicial reform and women's economic and political empowerment, just as we will seek to expand US-Yemeni cultural and educational exchange programs and continue to support Yemen's economic restructuring at the World Bank and in the IMF." " The US-Yemeni relationship is a broad and mutually supportive partnership," he added.
This is a very good pointer that the relationship between Yemen and the US is at its best for the US is aware of the role Yemen can play if we take into account its geographical position in the region.

The parliament began on December 30, 2001 discussing the draft financial statement of the General Budget after a two-month delay owing to annual vacation.
The statement contains the Central Authority Budget and local budgets of the Republic to all the governorates of the republic totaling more than YR 500 billion.
In a statement to the Yemen Times, Member of the Budget Committee at the Parliament, Abdullah Al-Maktari pointed out that the budget of 2002 was less than that of the previous year by an amount of YR 75 billion and the announced increase of the budget is not real. The target of this is to conceal the random treatment with Annual State Budget and the level of the national income which some concerned bodies want to conceal. During its discussion of the 2002 budget, the parliament didn't render the final account of 2001.

The Human Rights Information and Training Center (HRITC)concluded last Thursday The First Human Rights Seminar in Taiz.
Trainees from different countries such as Egypt, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE participated in the event. The Minster of State for Human Rights, Dr. Whaeeba Farae said Yemen was one of the leading countries that respected human rights. She laid great stress on that Yemen was completely away from terrorist acts which she described as inconsistent with the whole celestial religions and as against the moral values. She added that encountering terror and violence was one of the main responsibilities of the whole peoples of the world.
"Self-defense is a legal right through which human dignity can be achieved. Consequently our stand is stable to condemn terrorism and the Israeli aggression against the defenseless people in Palestine," she added.
The Governor of Taiz delivered a speech in which he thanked trainees for making a success of the seminar. He stressed that the world nations achieved tremendous accomplishments in the field of human rights adding that the first regional training course with regard to human rights was organized in Yemen in cooperation with a number of Arab countries.
In the same context, the British Ambassador to Sana'a said:"I believe that there is a vital role for non-governmental organizations in promoting human rights and in encouraging government to stick to their national and international obligations and I would encourage you all to continue in this very important endeavor."
In a statement to the Yemen Times the Director of the HRITC called for stabilizing human rights principles and disseminating awareness at the regional level, specifically in the Peninsula and the Arab Gulf.

Qaed Ali bin Sinian al-Harethi from Balhareth tribe in Shabwa gave himself up to President Ali Abdulla Saleh after a hunt-down for several weeks.
This comes after a mediation brokered by Sheikh Ameen al-Okaimi who was able to persuade al-Harethi to surrender himself to the government on the condition that he would not be extradited to the US authorities. Instead, al-Harethi was promised to be tried in a Yemeni court, not in the USA which accused him of having links to al-Qaeda network. Qaed al-Harethi was on the list submitted by the US administration to the Yemeni government following the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
Al-Harethi and eight sheikhs from Abeeda and al-Asharef tribe, accused of protecting and hiding him, were transported by a helicopter to Aden. This comes after a fierce armed fighting between contingents belonging to the Yemeni Special Forces and al-Salah tribe of Abeeda which resulted in the death of 33 troopers and tribesmen beside the injury of 30 others.
Republican Guard forces are building up troops in Mareb governorate to crack down on any potential confrontation, while the Minister of Defense, and a number of military commanders are still there.
The Yemeni authorities have deported 80 foreign students who were studying at the Dar al-Hadeth Institute in the Abeeda tribe area.

The Forum of the Sons of the Southern Governorates (FSSG), which held a meeting before the end of Ramadan, sent a letter to President Ali Abdulah Saleh asking for the fulfillment of 5 demands by the sons of the southern governorates. The letter included a number of demands, such as equal citizenship, local governance, as well as access to public jobs and land.
The FSSG expressed its dismay at the discriminatory practices exercised against the sons of the south, particularly with regard to access to public positions both in the army and civil service. It called for fulfilling the minimum demands for the people of the south through activating the local authority and creating a developed mechanism for tackling the issues of the southern governorates. The FSSG disclosed that government employees from southern and eastern governorates were facing a number of acts of harassment represented by dismissing them from public employment and excluding them from important posts without paying attention to their qualifications.
The statement condemned the division of Yemen into zones for a limited number of capitalists which disappointed many others in the southern and eastern governorates.
The statement also protested against the confiscation of land in the southern governorates by a limited influential persons in the government to the extent that even public parks and beaches are taken over. The statement released by the FSSG asked the President to promptly resolve these issues.
''The Forum also presented a number of secret demands related to the ruling system and other things which are not included in the statement so as to keep up the unity of the nation," a leading member of the Forum said. The same person added that neither the Vice-president Abdurabu Manssur, nor Hussein Arab nor Ahmad Mussaid Hussein spearheaded the meeting and that they had no role in the creation of this Forum.