Latest newspapers in Yemen…

Some random observations from the latest English papers here in Yemen…

An article about ongoing mediations in a tribal conflict mentioned not only the government’s Committee to combat revenge, but the sub-committee of that organization as well. We all know that the best hope we have against violence is sub committees…

The authorities seized 136 video cds that contain what they consider pornography. The phrase “Tip of the iceberg” comes to mind… The video and audio CD shops are everywhere. The official in charge of this operation made some strong statements condemning the sellers of these types of movies and urged more crackdowns against them. I’m sure that this would stop people from viewing porn, why would a guy living in a country where he can’t even see woman’s faces or hair want to look at stuff like that?

A new organic restaurant opened up in Sana’a, the first of it’s kind apparently. The caption under the photo of the establishment says, “Now peace loving health nuts have a place to dine.” The photo showing patrons of course featured a woman in what we in ithaca called a “Lola granola” dress…

Those were in the Yemen Observer. The Yemen times, normally a slightly more sedate paper, had pictures of various sleeping positions. The report was trying to show how different sleeping positions revealed different aspects of people’s personality. There was a chart, probably copied from the internet, showing different positions and their titles. One of them was titled “Shake that ass.”

I wrote a rather pointed letter to the “economics” editor of the Yemen times. I asked why a variety of topics that are plaguing Yemen do not have adequate economic coverage. Many times, there are obvious (to those that are economically minded) reasons why certain things happen, but they are not reported. He wrote back with a fairly good response, explaining a lot of the problems with wheat prices here. He also made it clear that there are certain things that papers cannot really say due to either government pressure, or pressure from powerful individuals. The press in the Arabic world is quite a bit different than the US. The letter I got partially explained why the English papers here are filled with “fluff.” The papers are only 12 pages long, 4 of which are nothing but ads. There are also ads scattered throughout the rest of the paper. Of the remaining 10 pages, 3 or 4 of them are things like sleeping positions or painting on glass stories. With so much to possibly report on, there is much that the journalists can’t really say out loud…