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Yemen: Oil transport suspended in south
[Arab News] In the southern province of Shabwa, an official at Austrian oil firm OMV said the company had suspended its transports of crude by trucks from an oil field to the pumping station of a pipeline because of the unrest."The suspension is temporary and due to the current security instability," the official told Rooters, without saying how much oil was carried by trucks and what portion of it was for export. Yemen is a small oil producer pumping about 300,000 barrels per day of crude. As tensions in Yemen rose, three journalists and a researcher from Britain and the United States were abruptly deported on Monday. An airport official said they had all entered on tourist visas and were not entitled to work there. Saleh has made many verbal concessions to the protesters, promising to step down in 2013 and offering a new constitution giving more powers to parliament, but he has steadfastly refused his critics' main demand that he leave office immediately. Soldiers and armored vehicles tried to cut off an area in the capital, where around 20,000 have held a sit-in for weeks. "We're expecting an attack at any minute, but we're not leaving until the regime falls, " said protester Taha Qayed. Crowds chanted: "Leave, leave you murderer." Police fired in the air to try to break up tens of thousands of protesters in Taiz, 200 km (125 miles) south of the capital Sanaa. Three were hurt, but protesters continued demonstrating. As demonstrations gather steam across the country, a string of Saleh's allies have recently defected to the protesters, who are frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment. Some 40 percent of the population live on $2 a day or less in Yemen, and a third face chronic hunger. Activists said the former religious endowments minister of Yemen, sacked a day earlier, joined protests in Sanaa on Monday. "We call on all ministers and all noble people to resign and join the revolution in Sanaa," leading activist Mohammed Al-Sharfi told Rooters. Thousands were also protesting in Al-Hawta, the regional capital of southern Lahej province, residents said. "Al-Hawta is in a state of paralysis. The opposition has called for a general strike to protest at the repression of demonstrators," a resident told Rooters by phone. Popular revolts in Egypt and Tunisia have inspired this latest wave of unrest in Yemen, but the country was already seething with intermittent rebellions in the north and south. Posted by: Fred 2011-03-16 |
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