Yemeni journalists protest against censorship

About 100 journalists protested on Monday in the Yemen capital against harassment and censorship by authorities.

The protest was held outside the Sana'a residence of the vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is acting head of state while the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is in Saudi Arabia recuperating from wounds he sustained in an attack on his compound. The demonstration is part of wider anti-government protests that have been going on for more than four months, demanding an end to Saleh's rule.

One newspaper editor, Osama Ghaleb of al-Nass, said he was forced to distribute the daily to other provinces in banana boxes to ensure the copies would not be confiscated by security. "But unfortunately this method has now been exposed," he said.

Security has been deteriorating sharply across the Arab world's poorest country. In the latest clashes between government forces and tribesmen seeking to oust Saleh, five people were killed and six injured from the same family when a government artillery shell hit their home in the village of Beit Zuhra in Arhab. Tribal leaders in the Arhab and Naham mountains said 14 other people were injured from shelling on Monday.

The attack was the military's response to a raid by anti-government tribesmen on an army checkpoint that wounded five soldiers, according to tribal leaders.

The mountainous region has been the site of frequent clashes between the elite Republican Guard forces and anti-Saleh tribes. Since April shelling by government troops in this area has killed about 30 civilians and left 200 injured.

Journalists working for independent and anti-government newspapers say they are routinely attacked by security forces.

The Centre for Rehabilitation and Protection of Freedom of Press in Yemen has documented 465 cases of harassment of journalists in the past six months, which include threats, aggression, and detention. Calls by journalists to meet with the vice-president have gone unheeded, according to the head of Yemen's journalists' syndicate, Marwan Damaj.

Editors of seven weekly and daily newspapers claim army and security personnel at checkpoints have confiscated and burned copies of independent and anti-government publications destined for distribution to cities outside the capital.

Seif al-Haderi, head of a company that publishes two independent newspapers, al-Shemou and Akhbar al-Youm, said security staff in Taiz set fire to a bus carrying the publications on Sunday.

Cheney's Veil Lifted on Vice President's Residence

The changeover happened on January 18 in Google Earth, the search engine's 3D mapping service, and on Thursday in Google Maps. In other words, the vice president's house was revealed on Google the same week Cheney moved out and Joe Biden moved in.

For the past four years, since Google first began introducing high-resolution satellite imagery into Google Earth and Google Maps, people have noticed that Cheney's house remained obscured (top photo), even as the White House itself could be seen clearly. New York Times

Questioned about the blurring at the time, Google flacks said that the map images were displayed unaltered from the source — in this case, the U.S. Geological Survey.