Traffic department must exert

It’s not uncommon to see young teenagers driving cars in Yemen’s streets and sometimes they are younger than teenagers. They might be around 13 and 14 years old. They roam the streets without any restrictions which puts a high risk at their lives and other people’s lives as well. They are not to blame once they cause accidents because they are not grown up yet. The blame should be of people in charge who are supposed to put tighter restrictions.

It’s been a couple of months since Yemen’s traffic department set new rules regarding car drivers’ safety. Now drivers must put seat belts while driving otherwise they’ll be charged with penalty. Unquestionably, that’s a good step towards progress but more attention to basic risks should be given.

Yemen has a high rate of car accidents and looking deeply into the deep causes of the accidents would reveal more insight on the core nature of the problems. The reasons behind these accidents are excessive speed, overtaking the opposite side of the road, carelessness and other reasons. It’s good to solve problems but not for temporal time. Tackling issues superficially would never provide long term effectiveness.
Shatha Abass, Student 

Qat cultivating in the expense of other plants

A wide-spread phenomenon has been decreased in recent times is seeding Qat, despite the shortage of water which Capital Sana’a strongly suffers from. That is on the expense of useful and important plants which Yemen is famous for.

For instance, as is known that Yemen is famous for cultivating Coffee a long time ago and was called Mukka Coffee. But now, Brazil is the one all over the world. There are rumors say that the first coffee plant implanted in Brazil was taken from Yemen in advance. Unfortunately, Qat now is being paid attention more than the other plants. Farmers of Qat plant have not only taken almost all irrigation water but also they use some poisons to urge the plant to grow in large quantities and all that in order to gain a lot of money in a short time.

Even if I’m one of those who chew Qat, but I do not at all exhort against other useful plants. On the contrary, I encourage the cultivation of them.

Hashem Abdulrahmanal Mehrabi,
Employee