Worldcrunch
👋 Tere!* Welcome to Monday, where Israel launches first strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen since the Israel-Iran ceasefire, the death toll in Texas flash floods rises to 82, and today’s quiz question comes from a theme park near Shanghai. Meanwhile, Soline Roy in Le Figaro analyzes the mental health issues of some of literature’s […]
Donald Trump has launched his most significant military operation since taking office, ordering airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthis. At the same time, he is directly threatening Iran while also offering a nuclear compromise — a dual approach that keeps the possibility of war on the table.
The Middle East’s militant and terror gangs, often described as Iran’s proxy forces, may have more in common with the cartels of a globalized war than with the fighters with a cause, more typical in the 20th century.
Despite their country’s complicated situation on the economic, humanitarian and political levels, war-weary Yemenis are divided over the Houthis’ escalation in the Red Sea. The situation is raising concerns among Yemenis about their future.
The Iranian-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen are now using the conflict in Gaza as a justification for widening its reach. But the direct clash with the U.S. and others in the Red Sea may take a nine-year-long war to a whole other level.
Three commercial ships traveling through the Red Sea were attacked by missiles launched by Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels, while the U.S. Navy shot down three drones. Tensions that are linked to the ongoing war in Gaza conflict and that may serve as an indication as to Iran’s wider intentions.
Houthi rebels in Yemen have escalated their maritime attacks in the strategically vital Red Sea. Both their links to Iran, and the decision to target key shipping routes raises the risks for international escalation.
Iran this week has reaffirmed its full support for Hamas, issuing new threats to escalate with more attacks like Oct. 7. This came after some in the region had criticized Iran for now joining the fray directly. With the rising rhetoric, Iran can’t stay passive forever.
Yemen’s itinerant beekeepers must follow the flowering season. But this nomadism, essential for their bees to produce this liquid gold known around the world, is hampered by the nation’s ongoing civil war.
AQAP, the local al-Qaeda branch, is determined to learn from its mistakes. They’ve learned that they can’t go too quickly and spill too much local blood.
COP21 WRAPS UP, TALKS CONTINUE The COP21 climate change conference in Paris will close later today without a deal, though French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said negotiations would continue into the weekend and that a final agreement would probably be adopted tomorrow, Le Monde reports. After almost two weeks of intense talks, a few roadblocks […]
MSF DEMANDS KUNDUZ WAR CRIME PROBE Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it will take the unprecedented step of calling on the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to investigate Saturday’s bombing by U.S. forces of its hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz that killed 22 people, swissinfo reports. FIRST SYRIAN AND RUSSIAN JOINT ATTACK Russian […]
MANHUNT FOR BANGKOK BOMBER Photo: Jack Kurtz/ZUMA Thailand’s junta government has launched a manhunt for the suspect believed responsible for bombing a tourist-packed shrine in Bangkok yesterday, which Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha characterized as the “worst-ever attack” on the country. At least 20 people were killed and 125 injured in the explosion, The Bangkok Post […]
CONFLICT INTENSIFIES AHEAD OF YEMEN TRUCE The Saudi-led airstrike campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen intensified over the weekend, hours before the beginning of a negotiated five-day ceasefire that will allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians. The Houthis said this morning they had downed a Moroccan fighter jet taking part in the strikes campaign, website […]
NEPAL DEATHS EXCEED 6,000 The death toll in and around Nepal, where a devastating earthquake struck Saturday, now exceeds 6,200 people, Reuters reports. More than 14,000 people were also injured, and at least 600,000 homes were destroyed in the disaster. SNAPSHOT Photo: Sajjad/Xinhua/ZUMA A laborer works at an iron factory on International Workers’ Day in […]
Photo: Hani Ali/Xinhua/ZUMA MEDICAL SUPPLIES REACH YEMEN The first medical supplies have arrived in the south Yemen city of Aden, and members of Doctors Without Borders have made their way to some of the city’s hospitals, Al Jazeera reports. Iran dispatched a naval destroyer and another vessel yesterday to waters near Yemen, AP reports. And […]
A view from Turkey on the new conflict that is not only shaking the map of the Middle East, but costing the lives of innocent victims.
U.S. BOOSTS WEAPON DELIVERY TO SAUDI-LED COALITION The U.S. is speeding up its weapon deliveries and intelligence sharing with the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen, as the toll in the latest Middle East war begins to mount. Al Arabiya reported on U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s press conference in the Saudi […]
A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER IN YEMEN The fighting in Yemen is creating a humanitarian disaster, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said yesterday. Hundreds of people have been killed in ongoing clashes between Yemeni militias backed by a Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels, Reuters reports. ON THIS DAY An eruption of Mount Vesuvius devastated Naples 109 […]
KENYA IN SHOCK AFTER MASSACRE“Terrorists make the earth shake again,” reads the front page of Kenya’s Swahili-language newspaper Taifa Leo after yesterday’s attack on Garissa University College in eastern Kenya. At least 147 people were killed and 79 were wounded when gunmen claiming to belong to the Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabaab stormed Garissa University College […]
FINAL MOMENTS FOR NUCLEAR DEALIran and six world powers (United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China) are trying to overcome their remaining differences and agree to a framework deal on Iran’s nuclear program. They are gathered in Lausanne, where their self-imposed deadline will come tonight. AIRSTRIKES IN YEMEN CONTINUEA Saudi-led coalition carried out airstrikes […]
BLACK BOX EXAMINED AFTER GERMANWINGS CRASH Photo: Maxppp/ZUMAA search and recovery operation continues in the French Alps, as investigators have started examining the black box of the Germanwings flight travelling from Barcelona to Düsseldorf that crashed yesterday with 150 people on board. French officials told reporters that the first findings from the recording devices would […]
Shia militiamen, Sunni clans, al-Qaida, Iran and Saudi Arabia all have their hands in the rapidly shifting sands of the poorest state in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen is everybody’s business.