Yemen Watch

[biffvernon]

Not quite sure about everything in Martha Mundy's piece in the Ecologist but certainly we are not paying much attention to Yemen.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_a ... e_oil.html

[adam2]

There is now a large scale cholera outbreak in Yemen.
Death toll unknown but clearly substantial.

[woodburner]

BBC news

Death toll in May was 180, now around 1300.

[raspberry-blower]

Houthi forces are inflicting some serious damage on KSA - not just militarily but also now economically as well. A recent rocket attack hit a Saudi oil refinery at Yanbu - which a Saudi spokesman blamed on.....hot weather!!!

Reuters, Khobar Sunday, 23 July 2017
The Saudi Aramco Mobile Refinery (SAMREF) at Yanbu is operating normally after a fire hit a power transformer at the gate of the facility on Saturday, a spokesman for a Saudi government body was quoted as saying on the state news agency.
Operations are ongoing and have not been affected by the incident, which happened due to hot weather, Abdulrahman Al-Abdulqader, the spokesman for the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, which manages and operates industrial cities in Saudi Arabia. The fire broke out at 21:22 local time, according to the spokesman

Moon of Alabama: Yemeni forces create a heat wave in Saudi Arabia

[raspberry-blower]

Former Yemeni President Saleh has been assassinated today.

It appears that he was trying to negotiate a settlement to end the Saudi led war of aggression against Yemen

It may be that his unexpected turn-on-a-dime towards a new alliance with the eternal enemies of Yemen, the Saudis, has alienated his followers.

The Saleh family and clan is quite big and resourceful. Many of his relatives have held high military positions in the Yemeni army and keep enough money to pay for their troops loyalty. Some nephew of his may take up his banner. It is unsure though if such a replacement could gain the following of the former army units Ali Abdullah could call on.

The Saudis had recently bet on Saleh to end the stalemate in their war on Yemen. Had he won out, it could have meant a pause in the war and probably its end. With the Houthi now having the upper hand in Sanaa, the war, the permanent Saudi bombing and the blockade of Yemen are likely to continue. The Houthi will continue to attack within Saudi Arabia and the fight against the Saudi proxy forces on the ground will go on.

It will need another breakthrough event for the war to stop.

Moon of Alabama: Yemen Without Saleh

[adam2]

Fighting looks worse than usual, possibly a credible attempt to overthrow the government, or for part of the country to secede from the rest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-42852285

[Mr. Fox]

New Report Reveals Involvement of 7,000 UK personnel in Saudi-Led Bombing of Yemen

While criticism leveled against the U.K. government for its involvement in Yemen has focused on the country’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia, newly published government documents reveal that the U.K.’s complicity in the conflict runs much deeper.

The documents were made public in a newly published paper titled “UK Personnel Supporting the Saudi Armed Forces – Risk, Knowledge and Accountability,� which provides details as to the real “footprint� of the estimated 7,000 employees of U.K. contractor companies, civil servants, and temporarily deployed military personnel currently aiding the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) and other Saudi security forces in the waging of their brutal bombing campaign against Yemen.

Full report: http://www.mikelewisresearch.com/RSAFfinal.pdf

[raspberry-blower]

Yves Smith: The War Nerd: Anglo American media complicity in Yemen's genocide

And Lord, how happy the Anglo media have been to supply that last necessary element! Compare this silence to alleged starvation stories from Sunni regions of Syria.

If there was even a rumor that Sunni Syrians might be going hungry, every mainstream media outlet was all over the story. If their CIA-funded shills from the White Helmets made ridiculous claims of massacres and giant famines, later disproved, you could count on everyone from BBC to CNN to blast them over every TV in the Anglosphere.

But the hundreds of thousands of verified, real famine and epidemic cases in Yemen get very little coverage. There’s nothing subtle about why not. The Syrian Sunni jihadis were de facto allies of the US/UK/Saudi/Israel/UAE bloc. So their suffering needed to be amplified. The Shia Yemenis can be slandered with one word: “Iran.� Anything touched by Iran, for Anglo media, is inherently evil, and anything done to those so tainted needs no further justification. The “Houthi,� i.e. the Shia of NW Yemen, are allegedly puppets or proxies for Iran, the Shia Mister Big of journalistic imagination, and therefore legitimate targets for even the nastiest war of extermination (such as by hunger and disease.)

See also:
Moon of Alabama: US grants approval for genocide in Yemen

Western propaganda working through omission yet again

[raspberry-blower]

The Saudis have been checkmated in the genocidal war against Yemen.

First, one of its coalition partners, UAE, has begun an active withdrawal of its forces. In the areas controlled by GCC forces, there has been a battle of proxy armies of KSA and UAE with the latter seeming to have the upper hand.

Then there is the small matter of the Houthis - who are opposed to all occupying forces. They have been gaining military momentum seizing outposts, inflicting demoralising defeats on Saudi backed forces.

Now they have demonstrated that they have the capabilities of striking at the heart of the Saudi economy - its oil and gas infrastructure - that are hundreds of miles away.

Today's attack is a check mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets within that range:

The field’s distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis’ drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai’s busy international airport within their range.
Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them, analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range. The Houthis have used drones, which can be difficult to track by radar, to attack Saudi Patriot missile batteries, as well as enemy troops.

The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state. The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will.

Source

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

Not quite sure about everything in Martha Mundy's piece in the Ecologist but certainly we are not paying much attention to Yemen.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_a ... e_oil.html

4 years later, still not paying much attention.

Now we all can understand WHY we aren't paying attention. After 4 years, it is obvious it doesn't matter much. Except to the Yemenese anyway.