Houthi attacks on oil infrastructure ‘driving Yemen’s government into bankruptcy’

The Houthis conducted another strike last week against a commercial port in Shabwa as an oil tanker was offloading fuel, ignoring worldwide criticism. (AFP/File Photo)
The Houthis conducted another strike last week against a commercial port in Shabwa as an oil tanker was offloading fuel, ignoring worldwide criticism. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 15 November 2022

Houthi attacks on oil infrastructure ‘driving Yemen’s government into bankruptcy’

Houthi attacks on oil infrastructure ‘driving Yemen’s government into bankruptcy’
  • The Houthis conducted another strike last week against a commercial port in Shabwa as an oil tanker was offloading fuel

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s internationally-recognized government is on the verge of bankruptcy after Houthi attacks on oil facilities in southern Yemen halted all oil exports, and it may not be able to pay public employees in areas under its control in the near future, officials have warned.

A government source told Arab News public employees in liberated provinces might not receive their salaries in the coming months, adding that the country could experience severe fuel shortages and protracted power outages as a result of attacks forcing the government to stop importing fuel.

“Starting next month, the government may not be able to pay employees’ salaries, in addition to the projected shortages of oil derivatives used to generate energy, particularly in Hadhramaut, Aden, and Shabwa,” the government official, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
Last month, the Iran-backed Houthis staged two drone attacks on oil terminals in Hadramout and Shabwa in an effort to halt tankers from delivering the nation’s oil exports from the government-controlled territories to the global market.

The Houthis conducted another strike last week against a commercial port in Shabwa as an oil tanker was offloading fuel, ignoring worldwide criticism, primarily from the UN Security Council, as well as domestic indignation.

The group, who boasted about the accuracy with which their drones hit their targets, claimed they would cease striking oil tankers and infrastructure in government-controlled regions only if the government paid public employees in areas under their control.

During a meeting in Riyadh with the ambassadors of the EU, China, France, Russia, the UK and the US to Yemen on Monday, Rashad Al-Alimi, head of the Presidential Leadership Council, warned that the Houthi attacks would exacerbate the already dire humanitarian situation by fueling hunger, as thousands of public servants would not be paid and the government would be unable to fund food imports.

He said that for the first time, the hunger they had long feared is now likely to materialize “in its most horrifying forms.”

Although it had previously threatened to withdraw from the Stockholm Agreement and the most recent truce, both of which were mediated by the UN, the Yemeni government decided not to resume military operations this time to punish the Houthis for the attacks. Instead, it asked envoys to support a package of economic measures to pressure the Houthis to stop their attacks.

The measures would include pressuring businesses to move operations out of Houthi-controlled areas, limiting the movement of goods bound for Houthi areas through government ports, asking international shipping companies to cut ties with Houthi-controlled ports, blacklisting businesspeople who trade with the Houthis, and cutting banks that conduct business with them off from the SWIFT payment system.

However, some Yemeni officials say, the government is concerned that international powers and mediators, who pushed it to halt its military offensive to expel the Houthis from the western city of Hodeidah in 2018 due to fears of exacerbating the humanitarian crisis, will not agree to the government’s latest punitive measures for the same reasons.


Libya’s rival factions agree on terms for elections

Libya’s rival factions agree on terms for elections
Updated 07 June 2023

Libya’s rival factions agree on terms for elections

Libya’s rival factions agree on terms for elections

BOUZNIKA, Morocco: Envoys of rival Libyan factions have agreed on the legal steps to hold much delayed presidential and legislative elections in the conflict-scarred nation, both sides said early on Wednesday.

Election were due to be held in December 2021 but were never organized as differences persisted on key issues including who should run in the polls.

Libya has been torn by more than a decade of stop-start conflict since a 2011 revolt toppled strongman Muammar Qaddafi, with a myriad of militias forming opposing alliances backed by foreign powers.

The country remains split between a nominally interim government in Tripoli in the west, and another in the east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

After more than two weeks of talks in Morocco, representatives from both sides struck a deal but stopped short of inking any agreement so far in a sign some differences may still need to be resolved.

No date has yet been named for when the vote may take place.

“The members ... have agreed the laws for presidential and legislative elections,” Jalal Chouehdi, who represents the east-based parliament, told reporters in the southern Moroccan city of Bouznika.

“All that is left is for parliament to ratify” the texts of the accord, added Omar Boulifa, representative for the High State Council aligned with the Tripoli-based administration.

Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said the agreements would be signed “in the coming days” by Aguila Saleh, speaker of Libya’s east-based parliament, and Khaled Al-Mechri who heads the HSC.

Presidential and legislative elections have been repeatedly delayed over issues including their legal basis and the participation of controversial candidates including Haftar.

The talks in Bouznika, the latest attempt by both sides to reach a deal, had been underway since May 22.

In mid-March, UN envoy Abdoulaye Bathily had called on rival administrations to agree terms for elections “by mid-June.”


Kuwait votes in opposition-led parliament, one woman elected

Kuwait votes in opposition-led parliament, one woman elected
Updated 07 June 2023

Kuwait votes in opposition-led parliament, one woman elected

Kuwait votes in opposition-led parliament, one woman elected
  • Emir urges MPs to ‘carry responsibility of representing people, realize their aspiration for better future’

KUWAIT CITY: Opposition lawmakers won a majority in Kuwait’s parliament with only one woman elected, results showed on Wednesday, after the Gulf state’s seventh general election in just over a decade.

The opposition figures include conservatives and independent politicians not tied to the ruling family who are pushing for a raft of reforms.

The vote on Tuesday came after Kuwait’s constitutional court in March annulled the results of last year’s election — in which the opposition made significant gains — and reinstated the previous parliament elected in 2020.

Opposition lawmakers won 29 of the legislature’s 50 seats, according to results published by the official Kuwait News Agency. Only one woman was elected — opposition candidate Janan Bushehri.

The makeup of the new parliament is very similar to the one elected last year and later annulled, with all but 12 of its 50 members retaining their seats.

This has sparked concerns that the legislature may once again find itself locked in disputes with the Cabinet, further deepening a political crisis that has delayed reforms and hampered growth.

“The government has to contend with a more combative parliament than the already combative 2022 version,” said Bader Al-Saif, assistant history professor at Kuwait University. “Therefore, expect bumps in the road unless radical reforms unfold,” he said.

Longtime speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim and Ahmed Al-Saadoun, who replaced him last year, both return to parliament. Saadoun is expected to run again for the post of speaker.

Parliament’s first session is scheduled to take place on June 20.

“We are celebrating today the (victory of the) reformist approach,” opposition lawmaker Adel Al-Damkhi told reporters after the results were announced.

“The election results are an indication of the awareness of the Kuwaiti people.”

Turnout reached 50 percent one hour before polls closed, according to the Kuwait Transparency Society, a nongovernment group. Last year’s election saw turnout of 63 percent.

Since Kuwait adopted a parliamentary system in 1962, the legislature has been dissolved around a dozen times.

Continual standoffs between the branches of government have prevented lawmakers from passing economic reforms, while repeated budget deficits and low foreign investment have added to an air of gloom.

Bushehri, the new parliament’s sole female member, said she expected it “to seek stability and move ahead on outstanding issues, whether political or economic.”

Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah congratulated the incoming deputies and called on them to “carry the responsibility of representing the people and ... realize their aspiration for a better future,” according to KUNA.

Kuwait, which borders Iraq, boasts 7 percent of global crude reserves. It has little debt and one of the strongest sovereign wealth funds in the world.


Macron names French ex-minister Lebanon special envoy

Macron names French ex-minister Lebanon special envoy
Updated 07 June 2023

Macron names French ex-minister Lebanon special envoy

Macron names French ex-minister Lebanon special envoy
  • Le Drian, who served for five years as foreign minister up to 2022, had vast experience in “crisis management” and would be heading to Lebanon “very soon“
  • There is an urgent need “to bring together a form of consensus” to allow the election of a president of Lebanon

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron has named his former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as his personal envoy for Lebanon, in a new bid to end the country’s political crisis, the presidency said on Wednesday.
Le Drian will be charged with helping to find a “consensual and efficient” solution to the crisis which has intensified after the deadly 2020 Beirut port explosion, said a presidential official, asking not to be named.
The official said Le Drian, who served for five years as foreign minister up to 2022, had vast experience in “crisis management” and would be heading to Lebanon “very soon.”
Lebanon is facing a political crisis as factions struggle to agree on a new president while an economic crisis has seen the living standards of most Lebanese plummet over the last year.
“The situation remains difficult in Lebanon” with a need to “get out of both the political crisis and the economic and financial difficulties,” the official said.
There is an urgent need “to bring together a form of consensus” to allow the election of a president of Lebanon, which has been without a head of state for more than seven months because of the political deadlock.
Macron won praise from observers for heading to Beirut in the immediate aftermath of the explosion to push Lebanon’s leaders into radical reform. But he now faces pressure to follow up on these promises.
Former president Michel Aoun’s term expired last October with no successor lined up.
Since then, there have been 11 parliamentary votes to try to name a new president, but bitter divisions have prevented anyone from garnering enough support to succeed Aoun.
Lebanese lawmakers on Sunday nominated Jihad Azour, an International Monetary Fund regional director and former minister, for president, in a new bid to find a solution.


El-Sisi starts Africa tour in Angola

El-Sisi starts Africa tour in Angola
Updated 07 June 2023

El-Sisi starts Africa tour in Angola

El-Sisi starts Africa tour in Angola
  • Lourenco said that the relations between the two countries were important
  • During the tour, El-Sisi will hold a series of talks with the leaders on cooperation and address concerns on the continent

CAIRO: Abdel Fattah El-Sisi arrived on Wednesday in Angola at the start of a tour that also includes Zambia and Mozambique.
El-Sisi, the first Egyptian president to visit Angola, met his counterpart Joao Lourenco in Luanda and witnessed the signing of a number of agreements between the two countries.
Lourenco said that the relations between the two countries were important.
Ahmad Fahmy, a spokesman for the Egyptian presidency, said that El-Sisi’s tour in southern Africa shows the country is “keen to intensify communication and coordination with its African brothers and to cultivate closer cooperation at the economic, trade, and investment levels.”
During the tour, El-Sisi will hold a series of talks with the leaders on cooperation and address concerns on the continent.
El-Sisi will attend the 22nd summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa during his visit to the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Zambia is taking the rotating chairmanship from Egypt.
In April, Ahmed Samir, Egypt’s minister of trade and industry, announced that the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and the African markets amounted to $2.117 billion during the first quarter of this year.
The value of Egypt’s exports to Angola increased in 2022 by 14.4 percent compared to the year 2012, according to a statement from the central agency for public mobilization and statistics.
Egypt’s exports to Angola in 2022 amounted to $22.9 million, compared to $20 million in 2021.


Lawyer and diplomat Abda Sharif named as UK’s new ambassador to Yemen

Lawyer and diplomat Abda Sharif named as UK’s new ambassador to Yemen
Updated 07 June 2023

Lawyer and diplomat Abda Sharif named as UK’s new ambassador to Yemen

Lawyer and diplomat Abda Sharif named as UK’s new ambassador to Yemen
  • Her previous diplomatic posts include spells as Britain’s deputy ambassador to Lebanon and as head of the UK’s mission in Benghazi, Libya
  • Following the start of the war in Yemen in late 2014, the UK closed its embassy in Sanaa and transferred its ambassador and staff to Riyadh

AL-MUKALLA: British authorities have appointed lawyer and diplomat Abda Sharif as the UK’s new ambassador to Yemen.
She will take up her post in September and succeeds Richard Oppenheim, who will move to another diplomatic role, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said.
Sharif’s most recent position was head of the Iraq and Arabian Peninsula Department in the Middle East and North Africa Directorate at the FCDO. Between 2012 and 2016, she served as deputy ambassador to Lebanon. Before that, in 2011, she led the UK Office in Benghazi, Libya.
“Delighted to be the next UK Ambassador to #Yemen. Look forward to returning to the Middle East, and to working with the excellent @UKinYemen,” Sharif said in a message posted on Twitter, referring to the UK’s embassy in the country.
Following the start of the war in Yemen in late 2014, the UK closed its embassy in Sanaa and transferred its ambassador and staff to Riyadh.
Sharif’s appointment comes at a time when the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, and the international community, including the UK, are stepping up pressure on the Yemeni government and the Houthis to reach an agreement that can end the long-running civil war.
Extensive international efforts have so far failed to persuade the Houthis to formally renew a long-term UN-brokered cease-fire, after a temporary truce expired in October of last year, or to end their drone and missile attacks on oil facilities in government-controlled provinces, which have halted exports that provide the country’s main source of income.
The Houthis have said they will only cease their attacks on the facilities if the Yemeni government shares oil revenues with them and pays public employees in areas they control.
Meanwhile, the militia have launched drone and ground attacks in government-controlled territories across the country over the past 48 hours.
Residents in besieged Taiz said on Tuesday that a Houthi sniper killed a man as he walked through a small village in the city’s Saber district. Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, 43, reportedly died on the way to the hospital.
Sporadic fighting between the Houthis and government forces has been reported in a number of contested areas outside of Taiz. Residents of the city have long complained that a UN-brokered truce has neither halted arbitrary bombardments and ground attacks by the Houthis, nor eased the militia’s siege of the city.