AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s internationally recognized government have reached an agreement with the Houthis, facilitated by Saudi Arabia, to lift economic sanctions and increase the number of Yemenia Airways flights from Houthi-held Sanaa.
Hans Grundberg, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, said both parties agreed to ease economic hostilities by canceling their most recent actions taken against banks in areas the other controls and pledged to halt all such measures in the future.
They agreed to increase the frequency of national carrier Yemenia’s flights from Sanaa to Jordan from one to three a day and to introduce daily flights from the capital to Cairo and India. In addition, the two sides will hold discussions about administrative, technological and budgetary issues related to the airline.
They will also hold talks on the humanitarian and economic challenges under an UN-proposed peace plan known as “the road map.”
Following the surprise announcement, Grundberg said the UN was ready to work with all parties to implement the agreed measures. He also “recognized the significant role of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in bringing this agreement about.”
The economic dispute between the government and the Houthis escalated in recent weeks when the government’s Central Bank sanctioned six banks in Houthi-held Sanaa and withdrew their licenses after they refused to relocate their headquarters from Sanaa to government stronghold Aden. The Central Bank had also withdrawn banknotes printed before 2016, which were in extensive use in Houthi-controlled areas, and shut down currency-exchange companies.
The economic sanctions were introduced after the Houthis this year, for the first time since the start of the civil war a decade ago, minted a new currency. The Yemeni government viewed this as an effort by the militia to establish an autonomous economy. The government also ordered Yemenia and telecoms companies to relocate their headquarters to Aden.
In an attempt to put pressure on the government to end its severe economic sanctions, the Houthis seized control of four Yemenia aircraft last month, announced that they would run the airline from Sanaa and threatened to fully restart the war. The militia previously attacked oil terminals in the government-controlled provinces of Shabwa and Hadramout, halting oil exports and preventing the circulation of banknotes printed by the Central Bank. They also banned traders in areas under their control from importing goods through the government and blocked the import of gas from the central city of Marib.
The Yemeni government said it eased its economic sanctions and reached an agreement with the Houthis to avoid exacerbating the economic crisis in militia-controlled areas, in response to requests from the business community and to comply with UN, regional and international mediation efforts.
“The government reiterates its steadfast determination not to subject Yemeni citizens in regions violently controlled by Houthi militia to additional living costs as a consequence of the militants’ unilateral actions, and to allow them to travel,” the official SABA news agency reported.
However critics of the deal, such as Kamel Al-Khoudani from the political bureau of the Yemeni National Resistance, said the government had conceded to Houthi demands for additional flights and an end to punitive measures against banks in Sanaa even though the militia had failed to meet counter-demands, including the resumption of oil exports.
Supporters, such as Yemeni journalist Sami Al-Kaf, argued that the government had successfully coerced the Houthis, who have previously rejected all demands to participate in negotiations, into agreeing to economic talks.
Houthis and Yemeni government agree to end economic hostilities, expand Yemenia flights
https://arab.news/9crj6
Houthis and Yemeni government agree to end economic hostilities, expand Yemenia flights
- UN’s special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, welcomes deal and acknowledges ‘significant role’ of Saudi Arabia in achieving it
- Following the surprise announcement, Grundberg said the UN was ready to work with all parties to implement the agreed measures
Turkiye seeks deeper Africa ties at summit
Turkiye has invested heavily across Africa in recent years, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan carrying out 50 visits to 31 countries during his two decades in power.
Fourteen African countries attended the latest ministerial meeting in the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti this weekend.
They included Angola, Chad, Comoros, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who presided over the summit, said trade with the continent surpassed $35 billion last year and Turkiye’s direct investments now totalled $7 billion.
“Turkiye is employing a comprehensive and holistic approach in terms of enhancing our trade and economic partnership with the continent,” Fidan said in a speech.
Turkiye has become the fourth largest arms supplier to sub-Saharan Africa and helped train armed forces in many countries.
In recent months, it has attempted to mediate a feud between Ethiopia and Somalia, and struck a mining deal with Niger.
Fidan reiterated support for the African Union to become a permanent member of the G20, and for reform of the United Nations Security Council.
“We should continue our efforts to make the UN more relevant and capable of confronting the complex challenges of the century. Security Council reform is critical in this sense,” he said.
Fidan also called for greater African involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
“We believe that Africa can play an instrumental role in supporting the Palestinian cause and in stopping Israel,” he said.
“We appreciate the African countries that stand with Palestine,” he added, highlighting South Africa’s recent move to file evidence of “genocide” committed by Israel to the International Criminal Court.
The next Turkiye-Africa Summit is due to be held in 2026.
Palestinians say Israel struck a Gaza clinic during a polio campaign. The army denies it
- The alleged strike occurred Saturday in northern Gaza, which has been encircled by Israeli forces and largely isolated for the past year
- Israel has been carrying out another offensive there in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands
CAIRO: Palestinian officials say an Israeli drone strike on a clinic in northern Gaza where children were being vaccinated for polio wounded six people, including four children. The Israeli military denied responsibility.
The alleged strike occurred Saturday in northern Gaza, which has been encircled by Israeli forces and largely isolated for the past year. Israel has been carrying out another offensive there in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands.
It was not possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. Israeli forces have repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, saying Hamas uses them for militant purposes, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials.
Dr. Munir Al-Boursh, director general of the Gaza Health Ministry, told The Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan clinic in Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, just a few minutes after a United Nations delegation left the facility.
The World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency, known as UNICEF, which are jointly carrying out the polio vaccination campaign, expressed concern over the reported strike.
“The reports of this attack are even more disturbing as the Sheikh Radwan Clinic is one of the health points where parents can get their children vaccinated,” said Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for UNICEF.
“Today’s attack occurred while the humanitarian pause was still in effect, despite assurances given that the pause would be respected from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.”
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said that “contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the (Israeli military) did not strike in the area at the specified time.”
A scaled-down campaign to administer a second dose of the polio vaccine began Saturday in parts of northern Gaza. It had been postponed from Oct. 23 due to lack of access, Israeli bombings and mass evacuation orders, and the lack of assurances for humanitarian pauses, a UN statement said.
The administration of the first dose was carried out in September across the Gaza Strip, including areas of northern Gaza that are now completely sealed off. Health officials said the campaign’s first round, and the administration of the second dose across central and southern Gaza, were successful.
At least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from areas of north Gaza toward Gaza City in the past few weeks, but around 15,000 children under the age of 10 remain in northern towns, including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, which are inaccessible, according to the UN
The final phase of the polio vaccination campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children in the north with a second dose of oral polio vaccine, the agencies said, but “achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints.”
They say 90 percent of children in every community must be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.
The campaign was launched after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization said the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms.
The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children.
Bangladeshi killed in air strike in Lebanon: govt
DHAKA: A Bangladeshi worker died in a air strike in Lebanon, Dhaka’s foreign ministry said Sunday, as the Israeli bombardment hampered efforts to repatriate citizens.
The foreign ministry estimates that between 70,000 and 100,000 of its nationals are working in Lebanon, many as laborers or domestic workers.
The first flights, organized by Dhaka’s government with the UN’s International Organization for Migration, brought home scores of Bangladeshis from Beirut last month.
Mohammad Nizam, 31, was killed on Saturday afternoon in a reported strike as he stopped at a coffee shop on the way to work in Beirut, Bangladesh’s ambassador to Lebanon, Javed Tanveer Khan said in a statement.
Mohmmad Jalaluddin said his younger brother Nizam had lived in Beirut for more than a decade, and had not been among the estimated 1,800 Bangladeshis who had registered for an evacuation flight home.
“We want to bury him in our ancestral home, and are now waiting for the government’s response,” Jalaluddin told AFP.
But senior Bangladeshi foreign ministry official Shah Mohammad Tanvir Monsur said it was challenging to arrange a flight into Beirut.
“With the ongoing war, there are hardly any flights from Lebanon to Bangladesh,” Monsur said.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to repatriate our citizens who have registered to return home.”
Israel drastically escalated its air campaign against Lebanon’s Hezbollah group in September, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
It has since launched a ground offensive intended to push the group back from its northern border.
Hezbollah has been firing thousands of projectiles into Israel over the last year, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis.
The war has killed at least 1,930 people in Lebanon, since it began on September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely higher due to data gaps.
Israel’s military says 38 soldiers have been killed in the Lebanon campaign since it began ground operations on September 30.
UAE, Qatari leaders discuss ties, regional developments
DUBAI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan on Saturday had a phone call with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani to review ties between the two nations and the latest regional developments.
They also discussed ways to strengthen cooperation to advance the shared ambitions of both countries and their peoples, WAM news agency reported.
The two leaders exchanged views on regional and international issues, and underscored the need for concerted efforts to prevent further escalation in the Middle East and avoid additional crises.
Giga-projects are here to stay, but AI likely to change future conception, say industry experts
- AI might reject tall structures, advise ‘greater square footage,’ predicts one expert
- Machine-learning still a long way to go before replacing human decision-making
SAN DIEGO, USA: Twenty years ago when a major project was being conceived, it would be built and then the real estate representatives would take over, working to fill the colossal buildings.
But today the physical completion of a development is just an initial part of the process. New technology is now being used to collect vast amounts of valuable data that can determine the success of both giga-projects and megaprojects.
In some cases this will mean the downscaling of an initiative such as The Line, while others will be accelerated to meet strict deadlines such as the Saudi Expo 2030 project.
In April 2024, Saudi Arabia’s Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said some of the Kingdom’s projects would be adapted to current economic and geopolitical challenges.
“I think that what we will see is a new rationalization of dates,” Naji Atallah, head of construction and manufacturing, EMEA Emerging Markets at Autodesk, told Arab News.
Speaking on the sidelines of the recent Autodesk University 2024: The Design and Make Conference in San Diego, US, he said decisions would be based on new priorities.
“Something like a new entertainment city won’t get the same prioritization as the Saudi Expo or projects for the World Cup, should Saudi Arabia win the bid, that have a definite deadline. But I think these projects will still be happening,” he added.
On the reduction of Saudi Arabia’s The Line, Atallah said: “Being able or just having the vision of building something that big is the limit of our means … The new scale is more manageable.”
But he said despite the change of size, it did not take away from the ambition. “The scale is smaller, but the ambition is still really large with what we are seeing now.”
He said that projects like the Red Sea islands might not have the same scale of one aspect, but as a giga-project it is broken down into many different parts.
“Part of the mandate of the Red Sea islands project is to create new tourism opportunities,” Atallah explained. “AI will help in the better decision-making to help set new targets that are not necessarily about immediate financial return.”
And in the case of the Red Sea project, a key example was the introduction of scuba diving in the area.
There is still a lot of work to be done on AI — it is only as good as the information it receives. But as the data banks continue to grow, the technology will learn and become more knowledgeable about future and existing projects.
Change is most likely with giga-projects, said Autodesk CEO and president Andrew Anagnost, in an interview with Arab News. “I don’t think giga-projects are going to go away … but I do think that more often than not AI is going to advise against these projects.”
Anagnost said he believed AI was more likely going to advise against massively tall structures and instead suggest “greater square footage.”
AI would also possibly suggest different kinds of capabilities inside, such as sustainable energy generation, or multiple-use buildings that could serve as a home and workspace.
“I think AI is definitely going to challenge some of these projects,” he added.
But the capabilities of AI are only as great as the data it receives, and we remain a long way away from computers taking over the world.
Also there remains a lot of mistrust in the collection of data, but the more information companies have, the more cost-effective and reliable their products become.
Design and construction are not new concepts; humans have been creating tools, shelter, and the means to build for millions of years.
However, there is surprisingly little information available on the physical structures that exist around the world.
The US cloud-based security and management company noted that its clients in the architecture, engineering and construction industry have quadrupled their data storage from 0.9 terabytes in 2017 to 3.5 TB in 2021.
But according to the investment banking firm FMI Corp., 95.5 percent of the data that is being gathered by AEC firms is not being used.
And this is information that could tell governments, designers and architects of today and the future how to more successfully develop existing and new products — whether a chair, or new city.
AI is very much dependent on the information that he described as 3D data and which is still lacking. “It’s kind of a paradox. We live in a 3D world, but the 3D data is scarce,” Ousama Lakhdar-Ghazal, director of trusted AI at Autodesk, explained.
“When we look around and see all these 3D objects around us, we can easily picture them, but to have that represented in a digital world is actually very .”
The collection of the data continues, but there remains a lot to be learned and that can only happen as the amount of data is gathered.
This information can help with predicting the flow of a flood, or the fuel consumption of a new, existing or future building.
“Like humans function better the more information they have, AI operates the same way, it needs to learn,” Lakhdar-Ghazal said.
And the learnings of AI are entirely reliant on the information it is given, so it is still influenced by human input.
“We are hoping that AI might at some point be able to maybe help solve some of the societal problems we face — that’s the driver,” he added.
On concerns over the evolution of AI, Lakhdar-Ghazal acknowledged that society tends to fear what it does not know.
“Most of the people working on AI are at a level (of a) Ph.D. (graduate), but for laypeople there’s a lot of unknown, there’s a lot of not understanding how it actually works.”
While fear of technological advances is not new, he said it would take time to educate people to accept that the benefits outweigh potential drawbacks.
“The point of AI is to help solve tangible problems. But it would still be up to humans to make the decision. AI can help identify labor-intensive, high-cost, low-return tasks, and help cut overheads.”
But the practice of saving time has its own limitations and at some point optimization is reached — there is no more time that can be saved.
But Lakhdar-Ghazal said the focus can always be shifted to improve areas including fuel efficiency, or other working practices, to cut overheads.
