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By: Mohammed Al-Qadhi, at Manakha,
Bassam Al-Saqqaf, at Naqeel Yislah, and
Ibrahim Al-Marghamy, at Al-Qadam.

The engineers of the Highway Authority are still trying to cope with the road destruction brought about by rainfloods. The most seriously affected regions are about eighty kilometers from Manakha to Al-Qadam on the Sanaa-Hodeidah highway. Parts of the Sanaa-Taiz highway was also similarly damaged.
"But most of the damage is on the feeder and secondary roads. This has resulted in a tremendous increase in transportation costs, as people have reverted to the use of camels and mules to carry supplies," explained Engineer Abdul-Wali Mughallis, Director General of Road Maintenance. He and his team are now working around the clock to repair as much as possible on the Hodeidah and Taiz roads.

At another level, lots of terraces and farms have been destroyed. The damage was extensive at Ba-Breid in Haraz region. Walid Hussain, a farmer, told the Yemen Times team which visited the area that his family has lost more than 500 trees.
Several houses collapsed, leading to to at least six deaths in the area of Bani Ismail, Al-Maghariba, Bani Attiyah and Al-Qadam, in the mountains sloping westwards.
Total damages because of the rains and floods is estimated at around 2.5 billion Riyals.

Five Yemenis were gunned down by Serbian forces last week. The local authorities displayed their passports on television.
The five are believed to have volunteered to fight side by side with the Albanian people who are subjected to a savage ethnic cleansing war by the oppressive Serbian forces.
The Yemeni government has no control over willing Yemeni adults who leave the country to fight in other regions.

Professor Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf, member of the Consultative Council (CC) and Chairman of the Human Rights, Liberties and NGOs Committee, tendered his resignation to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, on July 30th. Saqqaf said that the lack of dynamics and vision made the CC a lethargic organ which contributed little to the nation, in spite of tremendous potential. His resignation letter also pointed that President Saleh uses the CC as dumping grounds for individuals he wants to appease, but who he doesn't care to keep on active duty elsewhere.

Under the auspices of the National Program for Governance Capacity and Institutional Reform, a 3-day conference will be held in Sanaa. During 15-17 August, 'The National Conference for Administrative and Financial Reform' will address the following aspects of the on-going reforms:
1) Methodology of Reforms and Decision-making Efficiency;
2) Evaluating and Improving Factors in Institution-building;
3) Enhancement of Administrative Performance Efficiency;
4) Administrative Environment Inducive to Private Investment;
5) Transparency of the Financial and Administrative Systems.

Mr. Steven Day, Chairman of the British Yemeni Society, left Yemen yesterday at the end of a week-long visit to Sanaa and Aden. Yemen Times learned that Mr. Day will return to Yemen in November 1998, with a large British business delegation.

Mr. Allen Keiswetter, Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs at the State Department in Washington, is presently in Yemen.
Mr. Keiswetter is on an orientation visit. He will meet senior government officials, leaders of political parties, journalists and businessmen.

The chief of the Human Rights Organization in Yemen, Mr. Abdulafattah I. Al-Ahdel visited the Hodeida Central Prison on July 28, and made the following observations:
1- Abnormal overcrowding has made many inmates live in the prison's courtyard exposed to weather extremes.
2- Some prisoners were seen tied to tree trunks or shackled with iron chains.
3- Diseases such as scabies, typhoid, malaria, and other skin ailments are rife.
4- There is no health care.
5- Evidence of torture by interrogators at the Criminal Investigation Directorate was observed.
6- Almost all inmates, especially foreigners, have no clothes or bedding.
7- The women's prison is not better, at all.