Clashes in Yemen mark civil war anniversary

At least two Yemenis were killed and three others injured in the southern city of Aden after clashes on Wednesday between the police and supporters of the separatist movement, Al Hayat reported. Some residents have gone on a partial strike and shops and commercial facilities remained closed to mark the day the separatists were defeated when Yemeni forces entered Aden on July 7, 1994. That put an end to the civil war that erupted after southern leaders withdrew from a four-year-old union led by Ali Abdullah Saleh, the current president of Yemen.

People from Aden told Al Hayat that hundreds of separatist supporters took to the streets carrying placards demanding autonomy. Police clashed with the demonstrators. The Yemeni interior ministry said four people were wounded, three of them police, in the city of Al Dalei after two explosive devices went off on one of the main streets. The separatist leaders have called on their supporters to demonstrate and show civil disobedience in major southern towns to mark the 16th anniversary of the end of the civil war. Sources from the neighbouring Lahj province said clashes between armed men and the central government forces have also taken place in Al Habeileen region, leaving one soldier injured.

The Israeli government keeps insisting on starting direct talks with the Palestinians as if these were the ultimate goal to be achieved. It ignores the fact that decades of talks have yielded nothing for the Palestinians and simply allowed Israel to carry out its settlement construction plans, stated the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds in its editorial.

Israel claims that they have complied with the settlement freeze and generally "conceded much" to get the peace talks back on track, but the Palestinian Authority, they maintain, has not been responsive. In fact, Israel's lies, bolstered by the US, are worlds away from the reality on the ground. "Settlement construction has not stopped despite freeze claims, while the status of Jerusalem is still excluded from any prospective talks," the newspaper said. "Campaigns of mass displacements, ID confiscations and demolitions are still ongoing."

"Negotiations are the means not the goal ? The PA and the Palestine Liberation Organisation have shown maximum flexibility and eagerness but the indirect talks, which they like to call proximity talks, have not made any progress. How is it reasonable to switch now to direct talks?" Notwithstanding all the above, the US administration will soon be putting pressure on the PA to go back to head-to-head negotiations with the Israelis, instead of forcing Israel to abide by peace conditions.

The visit by the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to Algeria earlier this week was a judicious move that will relieve the tensions between the two countries, stated the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi in its editorial. With this visit, Mr Mubarak is also returning a courtesy. The Algerian president Abdulaziz Bouteflika flew to Egypt a year ago to comfort the bereaved Egyptian president who lost his nephew.

But the bitterness following the major "football crisis" that erupted during the World Cup qualifiers has not yet dissipated. The Egyptian initiative comes now to help alleviate those bad feelings. "Hopefully, the Algerian side will respond positively and undo some of the measures that have been taken against Egyptian economic interests in Algeria," the newspaper said. Meanwhile, Egypt has to take other "reconciliatory steps" regarding other Arab and African states. The country's relations with Syria and Sudan are currently under strain, over Lebanon with the former and Halayeb territories with the latter. In the face of various strategic threats, Egypt needs its friends by its side; the most serious of these threats is the agreement that may be signed among the Nile source states, with which Algeria has excellent ties, to reduce Egypt and Sudan's share of water.

The US president Barack Obama has let down all those who still hoped he would stand against Israeli expansionism, commented Mazen Hammad in his column for the Qatari newspaper Al Watan.

Mr Obama missed the chance to undo his country's disdain for Palestinian rights. "The US president turned out to be like many of his predecessors. In fact, he has gone further, becoming more Israeli than the Israelis and more Likud than the Likuds themselves," the columnist said. Nothing whatsoever has changed since his last meeting in March with the Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu; yet, his tone has mellowed markedly.

Now he is calling Mr Netanyahu "a man of peace" in their reunion earlier this week in Washington, and trumpeting the miserable ease of the Gaza blockade as some outstanding achievement. "He looked totally impotent when he did not use a single critical word against Israel," the writer added. "In one meeting, Obama brushed aside all those alleged differences with Israel and readily abandoned the Palestinians, for he must have deemed the best way to stay focused on Iraq and Afghanistan crises," he concluded.

* Digest compiled by Achraf El Bahi [e-mail]