Source: Press TV
A Yemeni government-owned oil and natural gas exploration and production company says nearly a dozen ships carrying energy derivatives destined for the conflict-plagued Arab country remain in the hands of the Saudi-led coalition despite the fact the vessels possess the required permits from relevant international bodies.

An unnamed official at the Yemen Oil and Gas Corporation (YOGC) said on Thursday that eleven tankers have been marooned at the port of Jizan in southwestern Saudi Arabia, adding that the alliance is preventing the vessels from offloading their consignments at the strategic al-Hudaydah port in western Yemen in a bid to tighten the screws on ordinary Yemenis and increase their sufferings.

Back on December 12, YOGC spokesman Amin al-Shabati told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the Saudi-led coalition is not allowing more than a dozen ships to unload critical fuel and food supplies at the Red Sea port of Hudaydah.

Al-Shabati highlighted that at least 13 vessels, carrying basic goods, were waiting for several weeks to gain access to the strategic port.

The vessels were being seized despite the fact that they had undergone inspection by the United Nations and obtained the relevant papers, he added.

Al-Shabati further explained that eight of the seized ships were carrying energy derivatives, while the five others contained food destined for the impoverished Arab country.

French munitions kill dozens of civilians: Top Yemeni official

Meanwhile, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee of Yemen, has roundly criticized France for providing arms and logistics to the Saudi-led coalition fighting the war-ravaged country.

“France has killed and injured more than 38 Yemenis by artillery shelling in al-Raqou market in Munabbih border district in Sa’ada governorate,” Houthi wrote in a post published on his official Twitter page on Wednesday.

He added that the French legal system was turning a blind eye to such attacks.

On Tuesday evening, at least 17 people, including a dozen African refugees, lost their lives when Saudi artillery units targeted the market. The attack left several people injured as well.

The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights strongly condemned the deadly Saudi-led airstrike, describing it as a blatant violation of humanitarian principles.

The ministry, in a statement released on Wednesday, said the crime adds to the offenses that “the heinous coalition of aggression” has perpetrated against the Yemeni nation, and represents an outstanding example of the alliance’s violation of humanitarian principles and international human rights laws.

The statement added that the Saudi-led coalition presses ahead with its brutal campaign against Yemeni civilians and continues to target them through various methods, and without any human or international deterrence.

By Randi Nord
Source: Geopolitics Alert
Sana’a (GPA) – While the mainstream media focuses on condemning President Trump for pulling US troops out of Syria, Yemen faces a national health crisis. The last functioning hospitals across multiple major cities in Yemen will shut their doors and stop providing services to patients. Geopolitics Alert spoke with Yemen’s Ministry of Health spokesman Yousuf Al-Haidari to discuss the repercussions of this crisis.

Yemen has completely run out of fuel.

Imagine how communities across the United States would screech to a halt if gas stations simply ran dry one day. People couldn’t drive to work. Families couldn’t cook food. Homes wouldn’t have hot water to clean or bathe.

For a country living under siege like Yemen, lack of gas also means that hospitals must close. Most hospitals have reduced their working hours and the rest are preparing to close entirely.

“There are hundreds of thousands of patients, if not millions, who will die quickly and slowly, they will die in pain. Who will provide oil to millions of Yemenis who need transportation to reach these hospitals? Who will provide transportation for the 6,000 kidney failure patients to the health center twice a week? Who will provide fuel to the private sector, which provides treatment services to about 60% of the population?” Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Yousuf Al-Haidari told Geopolitics Alert.

The poorest communities living in Yemen’s rural areas, like Hodeidah, are most at risk because they cannot afford transportation to functioning hospitals five-hours away in Sana’a.

Hospitals close in Yemen and the media remains silent
Dr. Yousuf Al-Haidari explained that while 50% of the healthcare sector operates in a country running on simple health infrastructure, the number of people in need of health services after the aggression and siege has multiplied five times over.

Here’s what the current crisis looks like in practical terms:

120 government hospitals and 255 private hospitals
3000 government health centers, 900 private
More than 5000 pharmacies, public and private
Hundreds of laboratories
27 dialysis centers
3 cancer treatment centers
Al-Haidari highlighted the already devastating health crises facing his country:

More than 50,000 total citizens wounded — including men, women, and children — due to the coalition military attacks.
The number of malnourished children (under five) has risen to 2,200,000 out of 5,000,000 children — or 44% — 500,000 of whom are severely malnourished.
1.1 million women of child-bearing age are malnourished which affects their children and future pregnancies.
A woman dies every two hours due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
UN reports and MoH reports also say that a Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from malnutrition or a deadly disease.
48,000 health workers’ salaries have been cut off for 40 months due to the relocation of the Central Bank of Yemen from the capital Sanaa to the city of Aden, under the Saudi-Emirati occupation.
Weaponizing disease
Not only has the Saudi coalition continued its aggression, but it’s also tightened the noose on Yemen’s aid and healthcare in an attempt to strangle Yemen’s most vulnerable civilians to death. Cancer patients, kidney patients, pregnant women, children, and the elderly face the worst consequences.

Many people may not realize how a fuel shortage and blockade affects every aspect of Yemeni healthcare.

95% of the medical devices in Yemeni government hospitals are out of their validity period but doctors must work with them because there is no alternative. Patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes (500k patients), heart disease, kidney failure (6000), kidney transplants (3000), cancer (60k), and other chronic diseases cannot access their medicines due to the high price in the commercial market. The government isn’t able to offer a free or affordable alternative due to the blockade.

MoH spokesman al-Haidari said that dozens of people die from a lack of access to vital medicine every day.

Epidemics have spread again, which disappeared in Yemen decades ago, due to the destruction of Yemeni infrastructure, whether in water or sanitation. As part of the cholera epidemic, 2,099,531 people were infected as of October 5, 2019.

Al-Haidari highlighted that the blockade, deteriorating healthcare system, and poor sanitation has caused medieval diseases to return in Yemen with devastating consequences:

“Another 3,662 never arrived by ambulance to hospitals because of the poor economic conditions, the destruction of roads, and fear of warplanes targeting them and other reasons. This is a catastrophic figure in one epidemic and in the 21st century!”

It’s common for Riyadh to carry out “double-tap” airstrikes that target ambulances, media crews, and EMTs following an initial airstrike on a civilian home or gathering. Last summer, warplanes struck a crowded fish market in Hodeidah and subsequently bombed the entrance to the hospital, killing 55 and injuring over 130.

Compounding the cholera issue, a diphtheria epidemic has also surged with 4,244 infected and 233 killed as of September 2019 — 79% of which were children under 14. Furthermore, H1N1 flu, malaria, dengue fever, measles, and many other epidemics have spread and killed thousands of Yemenis.

Another 42,000 Yemenis died due to the closure of Sanaa airport, which was closed on August 8, 2016 and is still closed today.

“More than 200,000 patients need to travel abroad for treatment and cannot because of the closure. We lose about 30-50 patients daily,” he said.

Why do Yemeni hospitals need gas?
Only 40% of Yemen had access to electricity prior to the war. During the course of the nearly five-year aggression, US-backed Saudi coalition warplanes have bombed vital power stations and equipment that major cities needed to supply power. Most hospitals, factories, hotels, large buildings, and industrial operations all relied on backup gas-powered generators to supply electricity even before the war began.

Many Yemeni homes and communities throughout the capital Sana’a have shifted to solar power to break their reliance on gas. However, it’s not uncommon for the Saudi coalition to target community solar stations as well. While solar power may fill the gap for homes, hospitals and large operations still require gas power.

Yemen is an oil-producing country and home to more than 3 billion barrels of crude oil reserves but the United States and the United Arab Emirates currently occupy Yemen’s major oil fields and export the product.

As a result, Yemenis must import fuel and rely on aid to survive.

The US-Saudi coalition is arbitrarily detaining fuel ships to create a crisis
The unlawful US-backed Saudi-imposed land, sea, and air blockade restricts all imports to Yemen. Before ships dock at Hodeidah port to distribute aid, they must first dock in Djibouti where both the Saudis and UN inspect the ships for weapons and missile supplies.

The process takes weeks and food often rots in the hot African sun before it even makes it to Yemen.

Last month, Sana’a officials and local NGOs revealed that the Saudi coalition had arbitrarily detained at least 13 ships filled with food, fuel, and medical supplies. These ships had already passed inspection in a neighboring port yet Saudi authorities refused to allow the ships to dock and unload in Yemen’s Hodeidah port.

Riyadh’s actions detaining the ships are a blatant violation of the Stockholm Agreement from December 2018 where Yemen’s Sana’a government and members of the Saudi coalition worked out a partial peace deal. While Yemen’s Ansarullah held up their end of the bargain (which included handing over control of Hodeidah port to international observers), the Saudi coalition immediately violated the agreement with airstrikes and military bombardment and continues to do so.

Mohammed Al-Houthi of Sana’a’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee said in a Tweet that the ship detentions prove that the coalition is not interested in peace.

“The escalation of the blockade by detaining ships does not represent positive intentions and does not imply a practical orientation towards peace. The world should realize that exacerbating the humanitarian situation through increasing the blockade is nothing but a catastrophe. Yemen is known to be undergoing the worst humanitarian crisis created by the aggression. We hope to take the matter very seriously as it is purely a humanitarian issue.”

No media coverage for catastrophe in Yemen
Remember the surge of coverage about the so-called “last hospital in Aleppo?” Unsurprisingly, those same journalists are nowhere to be found now that Yemen’s healthcare system is legitimately collapsing due to the actions of Washington, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi.

A quick Google search shows that on the contrary, promoted articles written by Saudi coalition media outlets actually highlight Saudi “aid” to Yemen.

By Finian Cunningham
Source: RT
The devastating blitz on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry has led to a flurry of accusations from US officials blaming Iran. The reason for the finger-pointing is simple: Washington’s spectacular failure to protect its Saudi ally.
The Trump administration needs to scapegoat Iran for the latest military assault on Saudi Arabia because to acknowledge that the Houthi rebels mounted such an audacious assault on the oil kingdom’s heartland would be an admission of American inadequacy.

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars in recent years purchasing US Patriot missile defense systems and supposedly cutting-edge radar technology from the Pentagon. If the Yemeni rebels can fly combat drones up to 1,000 kilometers into Saudi territory and knock out the linchpin production sites in the kingdom’s oil industry, then that should be a matter of huge embarrassment for US “protectors.”

American defense of Saudi Arabia is germane to their historical relationship. Saudi oil exports nominated in dollars for trade – the biggest on the planet – are vital for maintaining the petrodollar global market, which is in turn crucial for American economic power. In return, the US is obligated to be a protector of the Saudi monarchy, which comes with the lucrative added benefit of selling the kingdom weapons worth billions of dollars every year.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi Arabia has the world’s third biggest military budget, behind the US and China. With an annual spend of around $68 billion, it is the world’s number one in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (8.8 per cent). Most of the Saudi arms are sourced from the US, with Patriot missile systems in particular being a recent big-ticket item.

Yet for all that financial largesse and the finest American military technology, the oil kingdom just witnessed a potentially crippling wave of air assaults on its vital oil industry. Saudi oil production at its mammoth refinery complex at Abqaiq, 205 miles (330 kms) east of the capital Riyadh, was down 50 per cent after it was engulfed by flames following air strikes. One of the Saudi’s biggest oilfields, at Khurais, also in the Eastern Province, was also partially closed.

There are credible reports that the damage is much more serious than the Saudi officials are conceding. These key industrial sites may take weeks to repair.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got it half right when he claimed, “Iran launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply”.

Yes, it is unprecedented. But Pompeo and other US officials have most likely got it wrong about blaming Iran.

Some Trump administration officials told US media that “cruise missiles” were responsible for the giant fireballs seen over the Saudi oil facilities. One was quoted anonymously as saying: “There’s no doubt that Iran is responsible for this… there’s no escaping it. There is no other candidate.”

In a hurried effort to substantiate accusations against Iran, satellite images were released which show what appears to be the aftermath of the air strike on the Abqaiq refinery complex. US officials claim the location of the explosions indicate the weapons originated not from Yemen to the south, but from either Iran or Iraq.

Even the normally dutiful New York Times expressed doubt about that claim, commenting in its report: “The satellite photographs released on Sunday did not appear as clear cut as officials suggested, with some appearing to show damage on the western side of facilities, not from the direction of Iran or Iraq.”

The accusations made by Pompeo and others are assertions in place of substantiated claims.

It is noteworthy that President Donald Trump refrained from openly blaming Iran by name, merely hinting at the possibility. If Pompeo is so adamant in fingering Iran, why didn’t Trump? Also, the president made a telling remark when he said he was “waiting for verification” from Saudi Arabia “as to who they believe was the cause of the attack.” Again, if US officials are explicitly accusing Iran then why is Trump saying he wants “verification” from the Saudis?

For its part, Iran has flatly dismissed the allegations that it had any involvement, saying that statements by Pompeo were “blind” and tantamount to setting up a conflict.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi also rejected claims that his country’s territory might have been used by pro-Iranian Shia militants to launch the air strikes.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have issued unambiguous statements claiming responsibility for the air raids on the Saudi oil installations. They were specific that the weapons were drones, not missiles, adding with details that 10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were deployed.

The accusations made by Pompeo and others are assertions in place of substantiated claims.

Notably too, most US media reported initially that the attacks were by drones flown from Yemen. Associated Press reported a level of sophistication in the attacks whereby drones were used first to disable the US Patriot radar systems before other UAVs proceeded to execute the air strikes.

It therefore seems that US officials are attempting to switch the story by blaming Iran. It is reckless scapegoating because the logical consequence could elicit a military attack against Iran, in which event Tehran has warned it is ready for war.

The rationale for blaming Iran is that the Yemeni rebels (which Iran supports politically) are just not capable of using drones with such dramatic success against the Saudi oil industry. The culprit must be Iran, so the rationale goes. This is a follow-on from alleged sabotage by Iran against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf earlier this summer.

However, a timeline shows that the Houthis are more than capable of launching ever-more powerful ballistic missiles and deeper penetrating drones into Saudi territory. The rebels have been using drones from the beginning of the war which the US-backed Saudi-UAE coalition launched on the southern Arabian country in March 2015.

Over the past four years, the Houthi aerial firepower has gradually improved. Earlier, the Saudis, with American defense systems, were able to intercept drones and missiles from Yemen. But over the last year, the rebels have increased their success rate for hitting targets in the Saudi interior, including the capital Riyadh.

In May this year, Houthi drones hit Saudi Arabia’s crucial east-west pipeline. Then in August, drones and ballistic missiles were reported to have struck the Shaybah oil field near the border with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as the Dammam exporting complex in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

The Yemenis claim they are taking the war to Saudi Arabia and the UAE after years of relentless air strikes on their homeland which have resulted in nearly 90,000 dead. A recent UN report censured the US, Britain and France for possible complicity in war crimes through their military support for the Saudi coalition.

There must be trepidation among the monarchs in Saudi Arabia and the UAE that the rebels from war-torn and starving Yemen are now coming after them with drones that could demolish their oil economies. What’s more, the much-vaunted American protector is not able to deliver on its strategic bargain, despite billions of dollars of Pentagon weaponry. That’s why Washington has to find an excuse by casting Iran as the villain.

Finian Cunningham is an award-winning journalist who has written extensively on international affairs.

Saudi Arabia is US’ No.1 weapons customer

Defying international calls, the US has supplied Saudi Arabia with billions of dollars of weapons amid war on Yemen.

Over 60,000 people have been killed since the beginning of the war on Yemen and the number does not include those dying in the ensuing famine.

Children have been the largest casualties.

There are even reports of use of US supplied white phosphoros bombs which kill by burning to the bone!

But why is the US colluding in the massacre of Yemenis?

BY DAVID WILLIAM PEAR
Source: AHTribune
On October 31st the US Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis and the US Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo called for a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement to the war against Yemen. This was more than an obvious publicity stunt. Was it a cruel Halloween prank?

It is the US that is leading from behind the Saudi and other Gulf Cooperative Council countries’ war against Yemen. The GCC front countries for the US are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. The KSA and Qatar are embroiled in a feud. Oman has opted out of the war for now. Non-GCC countries Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia are also contributing to the massacre of the people of Yemen.

The US has recruited the usual suspects of non-state actors, Blackwater mercenaries (rebranded Academi), Daesh, and al Qaeda to terrorize Yemenis on the ground, while Saudi pilots pound them with 2000-pound bombs. The Saudi coalition pilots purposely target school buses, villages, markets and hospitals with precision-guided bombs.

The United Nations [its mission and impartiality weakened and hollowed out by decades of attacks and manipulation by the United States and its accomplices] is now just a US lapdog that gives the US and Saudi coalition a fig leaf of legality for the genocide in Yemen. The UN has authorized a one-sided arms embargo against Yemen, which the US and Saudis have turned into a total blockade of food, water, and humanitarian supplies. The blockade is keeping vital supplies from the Yemeni civilians, which are desperately needed by them to sustain life.

The UN continues the façade that the “internationally recognized legitimate government” of Yemen is Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. His term as an interim president in Yemen expired in 2014. He illegally extended his term for one year, and then he was driven out of office by the Yemeni people. The people had had enough of Hadi’s corruption, catering to the International Monetary Fund, austerity and the privatization of state enterprises at fire sale prices.

In a Houthi-led uprising, the people of Yemen forced Hadi out of office. Hadi resigned as president and then fled from the capital city of Sana’a and went to the southern port city of Aden. In Aden Hadi rescinded his resignation and tried to reconstitute his moribund government. When that failed, he fled to Riyad, Saudi Arabia.

With the US and Saudi backing, Hadi makes the claim from the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton Hotel that he is the legitimate government of Yemen. He has no portfolio with which to govern, and it is rumored that MBS is holding him prisoner in the Ritz-Carlton. Regardless of the rumor, he is still just a Saudi tool. The de facto government of Yemen is the Houthi-led movement’s leaders, which are supported by the people and the security forces of Yemen.

The US blames the war on Iran which has not invaded another country in over 200 years. The US does not have a shred of evidence that Iran is backing the Houthi movement. Yet the mainstream media constantly regurgitates whatever the US government’s warmongers feed them to say.

The Houthis in Yemen are the Zaydi Shia sect, which is similar to Sunni Islam. For centuries the Zaydi Shia and Sunnis have lived in peace and even pray together in Yemen’s mosques. Simplistic Western propaganda has tried to fabricate that the war in Yemen is a Sunni vs. Shia war, with the Houthis being backed by Shia Iran.

The Zaydi Shia in Yemen are a very different sect of Shia than the Iran Twelvers. (Western journalists are too lazy to look it up in Wikipedia). So, the US government dominated mainstream media never fails to repeat the propaganda that the Houthis are “Iran-backed”. Iran is the imaginary boogeyman that the US has invented.

The real Halloween boogeyman who is killing hundreds of thousands of Yemenis is the US-backed Saudi boogeyman Mohammed bin Salman. He is known affectionately as MBS, by his drooling admirer Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. MBS is a blood-drenched madman. He chops off the heads of his critics, dismembers their bodies with bone saws, stones women for adultery, and crucifies victims just for the fun of it.

The US turns a blind eye from this bloody madman because he buys billions of dollars’ worth of US weapons. Then MBS uses US weapons to kill innocent civilians in Yemen. Friedman says MBS is a liberal reformer in Saudi Arabia because MBS lets women drive cars (as long as they get their husband’s permission first).

There would be no war against Yemen had the US-led Saudi coalition not first attacked that country from the air, land and sea. Tens of thousands of people, most of them children would not have died, there would not be the worst cholera epidemic in history and 20 million people would not be suffering from a man-made famine, had the US-backed Saudis not invaded Yemen. It was the Obama administration that gave the Saudis the nod, wink and the military support for its war of aggression against Yemen. Yemen had not attacked or threatened anybody.

It was the US-led Saudi coalition that started the war in 2015. It was code named Operation Decisive Storm. Like most US-backed wars it was not decisive.

Operation Decisive Storm was supposed to be a short war, a cakewalk as the military likes to say. As we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, these cakewalks turn into never-ending wars that turn into quagmires, they kill hundreds of thousands of people and they leave millions of people in dire distress.

Three years later in 2018, the US-led coalition is still bombing, blockading, starving civilians and purposely causing the spread of the worst cholera epidemic in history. It is another US dirty war similar to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. As with the US-imposed blockade of Iraq in the 1990’s, a million children will die of cholera because of the destruction of the water purification works and the blockade of replacement parts and potable water.

Mattis’s and Pompeo’s Halloween announcement made it clear that they were not serious. Their announcements were just a Halloween prank to try to garner some good publicity after the tarnishing the US took from MBS’s butchering of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. That murder, which is not out of character for MBS, just happened to present a temporary public relations problem for the US, as well as for the Saudis.

The ugly publicity against MBS spewed over onto the US. The US came under scathing criticism from the US public for being allied with the Saudi gangster regime. The US-Saudi relationship has cast a bright light on the true nature of American values. They are denominated in power and dollars.

Mattis’s and Pompeo’s Halloween prank was an attempt to try and distance the US in the public’s mind from Saudi Arabia. They were not making a sincere peace initiative. It was all about political jockeying, hoping that the ugly Khashoggi murder would blow over. Anybody that has been following US foreign wars knows that the US and the Saudis are together in them. They both have blood up to their eyeballs.

The Mattis and Pompeo Halloween duet was a freak show. They tried to talk like tough peacemakers. They told the Yemen War that it had 30 days to “get out of Dodge”. Mattis demanded that everybody had to sit around the peace table in Sweden. The way the US tells it, whoever the US enemy du jour is always refuses to talk peace. We just went through a similar farce about North Korea supposedly refusing to sit at the negotiation table. Actually, it is always the US that refuses to negotiate unless its demands of preconditions are met first.

The US preconditions for Yemen is that it has to surrender. It has to stop resisting the US-led invasion. In return, the US made the “generous” offer of not bombing civilian targets. Only then will the US be willing to dictate the terms.

Mattis demanded that Yemen surrender or else the US-led Saudis are going to bomb more school buses, fish markets, hospitals, funerals, weddings, and civilian infrastructure. Those are war crimes. Mattis and Pompeo are hostage taking war criminals. They are threatening to kill more children that they are holding hostage, unless Yemen bows to US terms:

“Thirty days from now we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pullback from the border and then based on ceasing dropping of bombs (on civilian areas) that will permit the (UN) special envoy, Martin Griffiths — he’s very good, he knows what he’s doing — to get them together in Sweden and end this war.” Mattis should have added “Trick or Treat”.

Surrender first is the US version of negotiating. The US is holding Yemeni civilians hostage. By offering to not bomb civilian targets, the US is admitting that it has been leading the Saudi bombing of civilians on purpose. The US-led Saudi coalition has dropped over 15,000 2000-pound bombs on Yemen. Yet for three years the UN has insisted that (only) 10,000 civilians have been killed.

The actual number is in the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. The siege warfare and biological warfare of starvation and cholera have taking tens of thousands of lives as well. Most of those killed have been children. Someone should check with Madeleine Albright to find out if she thinks it has been “worth it”. She is another Halloween ghoul that thinks that killing children is a good thing.

Yemen is another US dirty war. The US is using the same subterfuge and dirty tricks that it uses in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. The US and its co-conspirators Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries have been bombing Yemen and invading it with terrorist groups such as al Qaeda, Daesh and Blackwater mercenaries from South America.

It is the US-led Saudi coalition that started the war. If Mattis and Pompeo want to end it all they must do is to stop bombing and attacking Yemen. Open the ports and let the humanitarian aid flow in. Stop funding Daesh and mercenaries in Yemen. It really would be that easy. Yemen is not attacking Saudi Arabia or anybody else. They are only firing their feeble rockets into Saudi Arabia in defiance.

Here is some background on the war: See my article The US-Led Genocide and Destruction of Yemen. There was a popular uprising led by the Houthi Movement in 2011 that deposed the 33-year dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh. The United Nations then facilitated negotiations for an interim government until national elections could be held. A nationwide referendum was held on the UN peace plan in 2012. Only one name was on the ballot for the interim president. It was the name of the US and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia backed Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Not surprisingly he got 100% of the votes cast. His term in office was 2 years.

Instead of helping to form a unity government and prepare for elections in 2014, Hadi went on an International Monetary Fund imposed austerity program and a rapid privatization program. He went on a spree of an unauthorized massive sell-off of state-owned enterprises at fire sale prices. The purchasers were outside the Gulf States and US buyers. In 2014 Hadi illegally extended his presidency for another year, saying he needed more time. He increased the austerity program on Yemenis and intensified the privatizations.

The people of Yemen said they had enough of Hadi. Under the leadership of the Northern group known as Houthis there were massive demonstrations in the capital city of Sana’a and demands for Hadi’s resignation. Hadi resigned and fled the capital city of Sana’a. He went to the Southern port city of Aden, rescinded his resignation, and tried to reconstitute his failed government. Failing that, he fled to Saudi Arabia.

The US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the United Nations continue the hoax that Hadi is the “internationally recognized legitimate government” of Yemen. Based on that hoax, the US backs the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which are led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The GCC formed a military coalition with US support to restore Hadi to power in Yemen by force. The US, which has been covertly involved in Yemen for decades, raised the issue that the US’s national security is threatened in Yemen. The US claim is that the Houthis have caused conditions for the growth of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). How convenient that the US finds terrorists under every rock. It is the US that has been putting them there.

The US’s real concern is that a new government in Yemen will not be compliant to Western neoliberalism and IMF imposed austerity and privatization. The Saudi’s are worried that a Houthi-led government in Yemen would not be under its oppressive thumb. Together the UN, the US, the KSA and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries declared Hadi as the “internationally recognized legitimate government” of Yemen. Functioning out of a Riyadh five-star hotel, Hadi supposedly asked for the US-led Saudi coalition to aid him in restoring himself to power, in what he calls a civil war.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE claim that they are coming to the aid of the “internationally recognized legitimate government” of Yemen. (Notice that the Western mainstream media always uses that exact phrasing to describe Hadi). The United Nations imposed a one-sided arms embargo on Yemen, which is actually a blockade. All of this happened with a wink, a node and a push from President Obama in 2015.

With US logistical support, Saudi Arabia launched an air assault on Yemen in 2015 codenamed Operation Decisive Storm. When that failed the US-led Saudis appropriately renamed it Operation Restoring Hope. The US-led Saudis intensified their attacks on the civilian population, destroyed their water works and sanitation facilities, which has predictably caused an outbreak of cholera.

The blockade of humanitarian supplies, food, potable water and needed repair parts has, again predictably, resulted in the worst cholera epidemic in history. It is germ warfare, which is the same as the US used in the 1990’s to kill hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq. [See: “The Role of ‘Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities’ in Halting One Genocide and Preventing Others” by the Association of Genocide Scholars.]

The US-led Saudi coalition is a genocidal aggression. It has put 20 million people at grave risk of starvation and disease. Tens of thousands of Yemenis have died at the hands of the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The people of Yemen do not have the 30 days that Mattis is taunting them with to begin a peace conference. In 30 days another 10,000 children or more will die of cholera, starvation and disease.

If the US was sincere in wanting peace, which it shows no real desire for, then it would put a stop to the bombing within 24 hours. All the US would have to do is to stop supporting the Saudis. Stop refueling their planes, stop providing them with bombs, stop the US logistics and stop supporting Daesh and the mercenaries that the US, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have infiltrated into Yemen. A halt to the war would not put the US, Saudi Arabia or the other GCC countries at any risk. Yemen is not threatening to attack anyone. All Yemen wants is to be left alone.

The blockade should be lifted immediately for humanitarian reasons. Lifting the blockade would allow desperately needed food, water, medical supplies and other essentials to enter the country. Lifting the blockade would save tens of thousands, maybe millions of lives.

With the bombing stopped, terrorists subdued, and the blockade lifted, then humanitarian organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross could safely rush in to provide life-saving treatment for the thousands of dying children.

Stopping the war in Yemen would not be complicated. It does not require a 30-day waiting period and months of negotiations by the UN’s “he’s very good, he knows what he is doing” Martin Griffiths. Mattis and Pompeo are not serious though. They are just toying with the millions of lives in Yemen. It was all a cruel Trick or Treat Halloween prank by “Mad Dog” Mattis and Pompeo.

Source: MWC News
UN warns of ‘incalculable human cost’ in Yemen’s Hodeidah

Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance as fighting in port city threatens food supply, says UN official.

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen has worsened “dramatically” in the last week since UN-sponsored peace talks collapsed and fighting resumed in the port city of Hodeidah.

Lise Grande, UN humanitarian coordinator, said on Thursday that “hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance” in rebel-held Hodeidah, where “families are absolutely terrified by the bombardment, shelling and air strikes”.

The three-year war has unleashed the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis in the nation of 28 million people with 22 million dependent on aid.

The UN warned ongoing fighting in Hodeidah, the entry point for the bulk of Yemen’s commercial imports and aid supplies, could trigger famine in the impoverished nation where an estimated 8.4 million people are facing starvation.

“We’re particularly worried about the Red Sea mill, which currently has 45,000 metric tonnes of food inside, enough to feed 3.5 million people for a month. If the mills are damaged or disrupted, the human cost will be incalculable,” Grande said in a statement.

Battles rage

Yemeni forces, backed by a Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates-led coalition, seized the main road linking Hodeidah to the capital Sanaa, blocking a key supply route for the Houthi rebels in control of the country’s north.

“The main entrance in Hodeidah leading to Sanaa has been closed after forces backed by the UAE took control of the road,” a pro-coalition military source told the Reuters news agency.

Residents said the city’s main eastern gate had been damaged in air raids and fighting was continuing on secondary streets off the main road.

There was no immediate word from either side of the conflict on their casualties.

Doctors and medics in two hospitals in Hodeidah province told the Associated Press news agency that 50 people have been killed in the past 24 hours.

Hundreds of civilians have fled their homes in Hodeidah to escape the fighting and heavy smoke was rising above parts of the city, AP quoted officials as saying.

The fighting in Hodeidah intensified following the collapse of UN-sponsored talks in Geneva last week after the Houthi delegation failed to show up.

‘Living hell’

Coalition forces – which aim to restore the internationally recognised government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled Yemen after the Houthi takeover – believe their control over Hodeidah by cutting off supply lines would force the rebels to join the negotiating table.

Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy on Yemen, is expected to meet Houthi representatives as well as Yemeni government officials living in exile in Saudi Arabia this week in a bid to revive talks.

Meanwhile, Meritxell Relano, UNICEF’s representative in Yemen, said more than 11 million children faced food shortages, disease, displacement, and lack of access to basic services.

“The conflict has made Yemen a living hell for its children,” she said. “An estimated 1.8 million children are malnourished in the country. Nearly 400,000 of them are severely acute malnourished, and they are fighting for their lives every day.”

According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015. The death toll, however, has not been updated in years and is likely to be much higher.