Walid Al-Saqqaf
Freedom of the press, in general, is defined in the Webster dictionary as the right to publish information or opinions without governmental restriction, subject only to the laws of libel, obscenity, sedition, etc.
Hence, to discuss and assess the freedom of the press in developing countries, we need first to get at least a broad idea of the way those laws of libel, obscenity, sedition, etc. are being set in those countries.
To start with, we need to understand that most developing countries found themselves forced to adopt democracy and freedom of the press to cope with the worldwide globalization phenomenon that is pushing for more freedom and liberty for world citizens.
Being one of the most important pillars of democracy, the freedom of thought and expression always took great priority in any evolution towards a truly democratic country. Those laws of libel, obscenity, sedition, etc. were formulated in tens of years in the developed world. On the other hand, those are the same laws that cause great restrictions to journalists in the developing world. Governments tend to use those press laws to restrict the press freedom journalists could get and hence imposing self-censorship on journalists. This is done to make sure that journalists do not exceed their “red line” in terms of what they report, especially to what is related to “national” values.
Looking back in time, we can see that most of the developing countries started adopting democracy at a much later stage than most of the developed world. The fall of the USSR and the emergence of a sole superpower brought about abrupt changes in governments urging them to take solid steps toward adoption of democracy. Whether the rulers of those developing countries were convinced or not that democracy was the right choice, they found themselves obliged to move into the direction of democratization.
Due to the fact that the majority of those countries have been under dictatorships that controlled the press with an iron fist, it is only logical to see how difficult it would be for such a system to move on into a country where writers can criticize government actions. If the democracy we see in the West had only come after centuries of experiments, how in earth can we expect perfect democracies in developing countries, which started adopting democracy with the last decades.
Failure would be the most probable consequence of any violent and abrupt change in the way a country is run and in the way people and government are related.
For press freedom to flourish, there should be steady and strong steps in gradually and slowly integrating democratic values in the way of life of any nation. One should start by teaching children the values of freedom of expression within the family, the classroom, and the neighborhood. Once the generation is aware of the importance of tolerance and accepting the ‘other’ opinion, the whole society could be ready for a major change to a free society where freedom of thought and expression is a major component.
We, in the Arab world, sometimes feel that we should get things easily. We asked for democracy, while we do not practice it in our family. We ask for press freedom and expect it to succeed, while we are not convinced that we should respect the ideas and opinions of our neighbors.
In other words, we are missing the main prerequisite for having a society that is truly free, and that reflects the true meaning of freedom of expression.
I may seem to be getting out of the line of the subject. But frankly speaking, I cannot help asking how we can adopt a system that we are not convinced of.
However, once the regime is convinced that democracy and a free press could help in development and reforms, there will be better coordination to point to the corruption, inefficiency, and obstacles faced in the country. The independent free press never attempts to damage the reputation of a government or regime, but it points to its mistakes and serves as a watchdog so as to have what is wrong corrected, and what is right encouraged.
And as Mr. James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank once said, What could be more intrusive on politicians than a free press? What is it that could enfranchise people more than a free press?

Yemen’s Example
Democracy came to Yemen following the unification of former south and north parts of Yemen in 1990, which came just one year after the collapse of the USSR. Democracy was a must for the unified Yemen to continue because it would be impossible to have one of the two former ruling parties rule the whole country alone.
The two leaders agreed on establishing a democratic system that would enable the sharing of power and having the people entertain their right to choose. As one of the prerequisites of a democratic system, freedom of press emerged.
In just a few months, more than 100 newspapers emerged. Many of them were of a strong critical stand of the government. All of the active political parties that were given licenses established their own newspapers. This resulted in a sudden flow of newspapers with diverse stands and opinions. The change was abrupt, and there was no culture of respect for freedom of thought and expression. In other words, the generation that talked about press freedom is that very generation that was taught that being against the government is a national crime.
People started believing that they could say whatever they want and whenever they want. “We are free, and could use our newspapers to reflect our freedom,” was a sentence frequently spoken out by journalists during that time. However, this wrong understanding of the freedom of the press led to unfortunate results in 1993 and 1994. When tension started emerging between the two former regimes of Yemen, newspapers of both sides started waging a war of words and accusations. There was no limit to the by then so-called freedom of the press. Newspapers would publish extremely harsh statements, which sometimes included immoral words. This media war puzzled the Yemeni population that stood as a spectator. People read things that they could have never imagined before. This could be freedom of the press. But is it the freedom that we wanted?
The media war reached its peak in 1994, when the Yemeni civil war erupted between the secessionists led by the leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) Ali Salim Al-Beid and the former northern military led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh resulted in a state of emergency. Freedom of the press came to a standstill. Newspapers were closed and others were simply bankrupt as the assets that operated them had been frozen.
Post-1994 Yemen was a beginning of a decline in the strength of opposition newspapers, which was a normal consequence due to the weakness of the YSP, which continues to nosedive today.
Reports of press freedom violations emerged in tens since then journalists were imprisoned, threatened, blackmailed by government and non-government individuals. However, there is no doubt that one of the major reasons for not fully recovering from the 1994 war is the post-war political picture.
History has taught us in any developing country that unless there is strong and solid opposition, there will not be solid press freedom. The reason is simple and straightforward. If there is opposition on the ground, and if this opposition is strong, then this will be reflected on the strength of the free opposition press.
There are many examples of countries where the level of freedom of press is linked to the level of opposition strength, especially if the country is new to democracy.
There is no doubt however that there are many other reasons behind the slow growth in freedom of press in the developing world.
To summarize, there are several factors that hinder progress in freedom of press in developing countries:
1- Weakness of opposition and anti-government movements.
2- Vagueness of press laws and regulations.
3- Financial-dependency of independent and opposition newspapers on elements that could be controlled or influenced by governments.
4- State censorship in all its forms (before and after publication.)
5- Self-censorship of writers who are under threat of prosecution.
6- Awareness of the importance of the freedom of and expression.
7- Insufficient role performed by NGOs working in the field of human rights in promoting freedom of press as one of the phenomena of human rights.
8- The doubt harbored by many governments regarding the need for a free press, and looking at the free press as an enemy rather than a partner.

Conclusion
My experience in the field of freedom of press in Yemen has shown me that if the government or regime understands the importance of freedom of press and is convinced that the press could help the government rather than disturb it, then there could be great chances for development and prosperity.
“We are allies, not enemies” is a statement that we often say on behalf of the press to the government.
However, the unfortunate truth is that there are very few regimes of developing countries that believe in the significant role the freedom of press could play, and think of this just as a manner to let those writers get their frustrations out on paper rather than have them accumulated in them.
Hence, it is only logical to understand that leaders of the developing countries are the ones able to promote or discourage press freedom in their lands. Let us work together to convince them that freedom of press is for them rather than against them. This should be the priority of all developing countries, including Arab countries that are left behind in this very important human rights pillar.

(Part 5 of 10)
Ahmad M. Abdulghani
Chairman ofthe al-Jazeera & al-Khaleej Center for Studies
Many people may think that the wars that the United States fought incurred heavy losses on it, especially the Korean and Vietnamese wars. In fact, the USA achieved historic victories beside the collapse of the USSR and its socialist Pact. It also took advantage of the colonial legacy of the European countries when outlining its global strategy. The most important thing is that it developed its own techniques to introduce changes in the whole world in a drive to make of itself free from any moral or legal commitments.
The USA has been able to neutralize its European allies in their formerly dominated regions and subsequently take over the situation there. It has also been able to convince its European allies to take part in different wars under the pretext of protecting the achievements of the Western civilizations. Under the later pretext the USA has dragged the European allies to support its foreign policies whatsoever. Consequently, the European allies have so far failed to adopt their own policies, as each attempt has been doomed unsuccessful. The France of president De Gaulle is just a case in point. The United States went in so far that it foiled any attempt to establish strong relations between its European allies but within the US foreign policy's parameters.
The USA took part in many wars in different parts of the world and although these wars sounded to have no relations to each other, the fact is that all these wars have been a well-orchestrated episodic wars. Apart from the strategic objectives of these wars they also represented a need for manufacturing and upgrading its weaponry. It has also benefited from those wars in understanding the psychology of the societies it warred with. The USA has further been able to re-draw the military and security systems of these countries within the context of its relations with them. This is mainly meant for making these countries satellite states for the USA. These wars have also given the USA a chance to have a military presence in so many countries of the world either under the pretext of protecting these countries or training the armies of these countries on the modern US-made weapons, as well as for precluding any leakage of military information about these sophisticated arms. And this is what happened when it sold an AWACS squadron to a Gulf state in the beginning of the 1980s and demanded it to entrust their operation to US experts.
In the contrary of that the USA has attempted to avoid any involvement in Mid-Asia as it restricted its activities to the outer boundaries of the continent and this had spared it a lot of predicaments.
For the fact that the US strong economy has played a major role in its success mostly in all domains it has also benefited from wars economically through selling all the old military hardware at very expensive prices. In addition, it has bounded many countries with oppressive agreements that enabled it to exploit the wealth of those countries beside giving its companies the upper-hand in running the resources of those countries as well.

Faruq al-Kamali
Mohammed Ben Sallam
- The Civil Aviation & Meteorology Authority signed bilateral air transportation agreement with the Republic of Italy.
- Yemen and France, signed in Sana'a an agreement to follow-up the implementation of some projects funded by the French government.
- Yemen won two golden medals and one bronze in the Asia competition for Gymnasium held in Iran.
- Gold, copper, and lead were discovered in Wadi al-Malahi in Shabwa.
- Republican decree No. 23 of 2001 concerning the by-law of the Ministry of Local Administration was issued.
- Cabinet approved a loan agreement between Yemen and the Arab Fund for Economic & Social Development for upgrading Sana'a International Airport totaling 28 million Kuwaiti dinar.
- Cabinet also approved a loan from the Islamic Bank for Development for funding the construction of a polytechnic institute at the cost of $ 9,235,000.
New Ambassadors were accredited in Yemen. These were:
- Yousef Abdulah Al-Unnaizi, Ambassador plenipotentiary of the state of Kuwait,
- Robert Truz, Ambassador plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea,
- France Michael, Ambassador plenipotentiary of the kingdom of Belgium,
- Dr. Nur Azman bin Mohammed Nazir, Ambassador plenipotentiary of the Federation of Malaysia,
- Frances Gay, Ambassador plenipotentiary of the United kingdom,
- Mark John, Ambassador plenipotentiary of Korea,
- Masameswa Oki, Ambassador plenipotentiary of Japan,
- Ibrahim Sahim Ansar, Ambassador plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka, and
- Christian Richard, Ambassador plenipotentiary of Madagascar.
- A new water field was discovered in Raydah, Radfan area,
- International Atomic Energy Agency funded five projects in Yemen amounting to US$ 1,314,000 to be used for pacific nuclear energy purposes.
- Hassan Saleh Shehab was awarded by the Ministry of Culture & Tourism for writing several books on Yemen.
- Abdullah Ali Al-Sunaidar, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce & Industry, announced a Yemeni-Saudi agreement to establish a joint holding company.
- Elements of the women police started working at the Sana'a Airport.
- The parliament gave the vote of confidence to the government's agenda.
- European Union allocated EURO 4 million to encourage Yemen to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
- Yemen was elected a member of the UN Economic & Social Council.
- The World Bank principally agreed to grant Yemen a US$ 52 million loan to be used for funding the rural roads network and another loan to finance a project in Taiz City for containing the flood disasters.
- European Union (EU) allowed the entry of Yemeni agricultural products to the EU countries without any restrictions.

Professor Mohamed Yahia Al-Sharafi*,
MD, Former MP
Email: hopeyemen@Yahoo.com
PO Box: 19387, Sana’a
Although the main target of our hypothesis about the human optimum or normal psyche (HOPe) is apparently to study the psychosocial aspects of human behavior and related subject matters, we find ourselves obliged to enter some physics, biology, chemistry and the like fields. This is mainly because of the functional structure nature of the human entity that we generally explained in the previous articles as from our hypothesis viewpoint. All human functions, physical and non-physical ranging from thinking to fight and flight is done through very complicated natural interactions between dainty matterless abstract theoretical thinking together with thick physical matter. Man seems to be the intersecting point of conversions for all planes of life. His activities are launched from strong psychobiological basis mediated through sophisticated electro-neuro-biochemical processes. Enzymes, hormones, proteins, DNA, water, nerves, muscles, bones, etc. are all involved in that. Yet it is done in the most harmonized goal-directed operations man can ever imagine and perceive.

The Cell or the Human Dynamo
God has equipped the HOMOSAPIEN race with very vast capabilities. His special capacities are extremely high and even miraculous, when compared to all other creatures known on earth. These human properties and functions are strongly based on and related to his particular and unique structure.
For that purpose, I think we should have a pause at this stage and try to give our noble reader a brief description of the basic human anatomical structure as related to function.
I hope to simplify this matter by avoiding unnecessary technical terms and specialized particular details as much as I can. But when that deems important, we will mention the idioms and explain their meanings briefly. Knowing those accredited scientific expressions might help the non acquainted readers in further studying and reference consultations.
The human body is formed of many layers or levels of classified living biological structural components formed and situated in a perfect architecture and wise orientation, so as to provide the most ideal basis for achieving intended functions.
The basic structural brick is called the cell. A number of specialized similar cells assemble to form a tissue e.g. connective tissue, bone tissue, liver tissue, etc.
Assembly of different tissues in structure and function constitutes an organ e.g. the kidney. A number of different organs gather and organize to form a system e.g. the urinary system being composed of the two kidneys, two ureters, the bladder and the urethra. Then all the systems are perfectly suited and very well organized to form the whole organism. The human cells reveal our inner architecture. Not all human cells look alike. An adult human, in fact, is an assemblage of some 100 trillion cells i.e. 1020- the figure 1 with twenty zeros in front. This assemblage is organized in such a way as we described above: cells, tissues, organs and systems, with groups of cells specialized in structure to perform particular jobs.
The individual human cell bustle with activity. In this microscopic world, a highly specialized intra cellular parts known as organelles are set in a highly organized system that conducts the many tasks which enables and keeps the human body life and functioning-see the photo.
All the cell’s gelatinous contents are surrounded by an ultrathin, cellular membrane. The filaments of this flexible cytoskeleton buttress the cell form within, they give it the ability to move and change shape.
The power plant of the cell is called the mitochondria, it acts as fuel ovens burning the food intracellularly available in the form of glucose particles, and provides the cell with the energy it needs.
The cell’s main product is the proteins. This is manufactured by ribosomes with accuracy and perfect control and under the direction of the DNA. One group of ribosomes produces proteins for export, another group produces proteins for the cellular internal needs.
As each new protein destined for secretion comes off the production line it travels through the endoplasmic reticulum for processing. The Golgi apparatus packages the protein molecules in vesicles before they move to the cell surface. The vesicles fuse with the cells membrane and discharge their contents.
The Golgi apparatus may also create lysosomes, bags of enzymes that digest bacteria and other materials entering the cell.
The nucleus lies in the middle of the cell. It is the cell’s inherited genetical archives. It controls and coordinates protein synthesis and all the other cellular activities.
The plan for work lies stored within the chromatin fibers that pack the nucleous. Before any cell divides to form two new cells, forty-six chromosomes take shape from these chromatin fibers.
Each chromatin fiber consists of a number of segments called genes. They are composed of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. The DNA determines the make up of every cell and the hereditary traits of each one of us. The cell full complement of DNA (end to end) would measure six feet. An efficient packing mechanism allows it to fit and function in a space only 1/2500 of an inch in diameter.

Chromosomes and DNA or the archives of life
Each one of our human somatic cells possesses a set of 23 pairs of separate chromosomes contained very perfectly in the nucleus as we have said previously. 22 pairs of these chromosomes have been haphazardly labeled according to the sequence of their approximate size, starting from the larger (No. 1) until the smaller (No. 22). The remaining pair (No. 23) is the sex pair of chromosomes. These are either XX in the female or XY in the male. The Y masculine chromosome is the smallest in size. Each chromosome is composed of smaller units called genomes. These are present as chromatin long threads composed of DNA.
The DNA thread is a message of information written in a code of chemical substances called bases (explained hereafter). Each one of these chemical bases is written in such a way that even we can read and understand.
This natural cipher or genetic code resembles written human languages such as Arabic or English or Russian or French or Persian etc. Like the English language, for example, it is written in a straight line and with all the digital properties in that any letter carries the same level of importance. But the DNA language is better than the English language in being much more simple. It has a very well tolerated alphabet that is composed of only four letters traditionally known as: A, C, T, and G. The DNA is the greatest yet simplest and most astonishing and fantastic cosmic secret that man has ever been able to discover.
The DNA molecule is a miracle of organization structured like a twisted ladder. The side of the ladder - alternating sugar and phosphate particles - form the molecule backbone. The rungs are alternating pairs of four chemicals called bases: Adenine (A), Thiamine (T), Cytosine (C), and Guanine (G) base. Only two different pairings are possible. Adenine (A) always bonds with Thiamine (T); and Cytosine (C) always bonds with Guanine (G). Using this four-letter alphabet, the DNA syntheses the protein mix that fulfills our genetic inheritance as we shall detail later by God’s will.
To be continued