© AFP/Navil Hassan
Houthi convoy on way to Hodeidah.
the coalition's spokesman Turki Maliki said Monday.
"Military operations in Al Hodeidah continue in order to put pressure on the Houthis and force them to sit down at the negotiating table. These military actions are part of the political process in Yemen and are in accordance with international law," Maliki said at a press conference broadcast by the Saudi channel Al Ekhbariya.
Maliki also accused the Houthis of disrupting all political efforts that could lead to a negotiated solution to the crisis.
Yemen is engulfed in an armed conflict between the government and the Houthi militia. The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf nations has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at the Yemeni President's request since March 2015.
Military operations in Al Hodeidah began earlier in June when the Yemeni government forces, supported by the Saudi-led coalition, engaged in an offensive to capture the port from the Houthis. The battle continues despite warnings by the international community that the situation would aggravate the acute humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
Comment: Bringing the Houthi movement to the negotiation table is an excuse. SA would rather draw them in and finish them off.
See also:
Nagasaki, 82, proudly lived in the buff after a typhoon washed away his clothes.
authorities denied a man the chance his wish to die a castaway on an island he called home for three decades.
Masafumi
Nagasaki was the only inhabitant of the kilometre-wide Sotobanari island but was forced to return to civilisation after being found unwell by police.
He lived in solitude since 1989 and became known as the 'naked hermit' after being discovered by a
traveller who writes about
castaways.
lvaro Cerezo
told news.com.au Nagasaki was evicted after someone found him on the island looking 'weak'.
GranmaTue, 26 Jun 2018 15:32 UTC
© Prensa Latina
New York hosted UN Special Committee on Decolonization session for Puerto Rico.
In a draft resolution adopted by consensus, the Special Committee once again urged the United States to assume the responsibility of promoting a process that allows Puerto Rico to take sovereign decisions to address its urgent economic and social needs.
Promoted by Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Russia and Syria, the text was added to the 36 resolutions and decisions on Puerto Rico adopted by the Committee since 1972.
A press release on the UN news site highlights that this year's document refers to the devastation caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which exacerbated unemployment, marginalization and poverty, in addition to aggravating problems related to education and health.
The resolution calls on the General Assembly to comprehensively examine the question of Puerto Rico and decide on the issue as soon as possible. It also urges the United States to guarantee the protection of the human rights of the Puerto Rican people, and to return the territory occupied by its military bases, in particular the Vieques and Ceiba islands, and to assume the costs of cleaning and decontamination of these areas. The text also expresses concern about actions carried out against pro-independence activists and calls for rigorous investigations.
© Patrick Hertzog/AFP
French butchers have issued a plea for police protection against vegans, whom they blame for a series of attacks designed to "spread terror" among meat-lovers.
The butchers say they are coming under "physical, verbal and moral" attack from vegans and animal rights groups in the land of the "steak frites", and warn that animosity against their profession is being fueled by heavy media exposure to the anti-meat cause.
They are asking for the interior minister, Gérard Collomb, to intervene.
Their request comes days after a rotisserie in Lille, northern France, was vandalised - the fourth such incident of its kind in a matter of weeks. In the Hauts-de-France of northern France, seven butchers and charcuteries were attacked and sprayed with false blood in April.
RTTue, 26 Jun 2018 09:45 UTC
© Andrey Lyubimov/Moskva News Agency
Protest rally of mortgage takers in Moscow.
The Russian Supreme Court has ruled that municipal authorities cannot deny a request for a protest rally because of inconveniences it could bring to non-participants, but noted that protests should not obstruct traffic.
On Tuesday, the Plenum of the Russian Supreme Court passed a statement concerning the practical application of the updated law on street rallies in which it emphasized that organizers of such events must get a license from municipal authorities. At the same time, the
court judges significantly cut the list of reasons that allow bureaucrats to deny applications for rallies, in particular saying that this cannot be done because of fears that protests would cause inconveniences to pedestrians.
Comment: New rules. Will they 'walk' the 'talk'?
© Erin Austin/screen capture
Alison Ettel
A white woman in San Francisco was been recorded appearing to call the police on a black eight-year-old girl for "illegally" selling bottled water on the sidewalk.
Footage of the incidents has been viewed millions of times across a number of social media platforms, with the woman, Alison Ettel, being nicknamed "permit Patty".
© Getty
The
news last week that the Justice Department had secretly seized phone and email records from a journalist illustrated the
extreme lengths to which the Trump administration will go to crack down on leaks. The news that the seizure was intertwined with a relationship the reporter had been having with someone on her beat illustrated the ethical perils of such a choice.
But another, equally troubling development in the story came on Tuesday night
courtesy of the Washington Post. The newspaper reported that a Customs and Border Protection agent independently confronted the same reporter-Ali Watkins, a
New York Times journalist who previously worked at Politico and BuzzFeed-about her confidential sources a year ago, several months before the FBI had approached her about the leak investigation that would eventually include the seizure of her records and culminate in the arrest of a Senate Intelligence Committee staffer.
Comment: It makes sense that a journalist who had an intimate relationship with someone indicted for leaking confidential data would be investigated and that her records would be seized. As a 'person of interest' in a judicial case, the prosecutors most definitely want to investigate the full extent of Wolfe's leaking. The media may want to portray this as a case of the Trump Admin. cracking down on journalistic freedoms, but more likely this is about finding out exactly what Wolfe leaked to an influential and connected journalist.
Update (June 26): The
NY Times itself (the company which Watkins worked for) has
published a scathing report on Watkins which both points out that she was using Wolfe as her source but that after her relationship with him ended, she had a second relationship with another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The question is, did the
Times encourage her to use her sexuality and feminine wiles to gain inside information?
The fact that the
Times itself published this story, outing one of their own journalists, smells of a PR move intended to get in front of any criticism the
Times might receive. Indeed, in the very article the
Times even noted that Watkins once told friends she "wanted off the beat," but "
her editors were eager for scoops." A cynical mind might suggest that the Times is well aware of journalists using sex as a means to gain insider info, despite that it's "frowned upon" in the journalistic community, and is more than willing to look the other way if it means access they would otherwise be unable to gain.
Censorship is alive and well on America's political left as a restaurant in Lexington, VA faces backlash for telling Trump Administration Press Secretary Sarah Sanders that she was not allowed to dine there.
"This business recently made waves in the news, which often means that people come to this page to post their views on the news," says a banner post on the
Red Hen Restaurant's Yelp page.
"While we don't take a stand one way or the other when it comes to these news events, we do work to remove both positive and negative posts that appear to be motivated more by the news coverage itself than the reviewer's personal consumer experience with the business."
AFPSun, 24 Jun 2018 19:12 UTC
© AFP/File / ANDREAS SOLARO
As Italy's new populist government cracked down on foreign NGO boats operating in the Mediterranean Saturday the Italian coastguard has followed suit telling boats in Libyan waters to "turn to" Libya when in distress.
According to the Italian media the national coastguard sent a message to rescue boats operating in the Mediterranean advising them that Italy would no longer be their first point of reference.
"From now on, under the Solas Convention (Safety of life at Sea), captains who are at sea in the area in front of Libya will have to turn to the Tripoli Centre and the Libyan Coast Guard for help."
Diane Abbott, along with over 50 other signatories has sent a public letter to Tommy Robinson supporters.
Dozens of left-wing politicians have sent a strongly worded open letter to Tommy Robinson supporters, labelling the support for Tommy as the 'resurgent racist right'.
The letter states: "The 15,000-strong violent far-right protest to "free Tommy Robinson" on Saturday 9 June has raised major questions for all those who value our diversity. The racist right are using Robinson to reorganise. Nazi salutes and Islamophobia were at the centre of the mobilisation.
"This is the first serious attempt since the collapse of the English Defence League (EDL) to develop a racist street movement and give it a political form. It is supported internationally by notorious figures including from the US and the Dutch Islamophobic right."
Comment: More recent news on the Tommy Robinson saga:
Some background on Mr. Robinson:
Comment: Bringing the Houthi movement to the negotiation table is an excuse. SA would rather draw them in and finish them off.
See also: