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The United States has publicly warned United Nations member states not to support Thursday’s UN General Assembly resolution denouncing US President Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. The text will also call for nations, including the US, not to relocate their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To date, the US is the only country who said it will do so. The UN General Assembly is scheduled to hold a special emergency session to disavow Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem on Thursday at the request of Yemen, Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The resolution is expected to...

Haley berated UN member states for their hypocrisy. On the one hand, she noted, they complained that Trump’s decision “prejudges” final-status issues. On the other, she said, they rely on the United Nations, despite being “disproportionally hostile” to Israel, to weigh in on all kinds of issues regarding Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Prior to the vote, knowing full well Haley would veto the proposed resolution, Rycroft and other envoys from American-allied countries worked behind the scenes to make sure the United States would stand alone in opposition. They watered down the language, weeded out explicit anti-American statements and dutifully anchored the text...

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time "multiple ground operations" in Yemen, while noting that the Islamic State has doubled in size in the war-torn country, where an insurgency by Houthis rebels has allowed terrorist groups to seek haven. "U.S. forces have conducted multiple ground operations and more than 120 strikes in 2017," said a statement from the U. S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida. The goal is to "disrupt the ability of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and ISIS-Yemen to use ungoverned spaces in Yemen as a hub for terrorist recruiting, training and...

The United States has publicly warned United Nations member states not to support Thursday’s UN General Assembly resolution denouncing US President Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. The text will also call for nations, including the US, not to relocate their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To date, the US is the only country who said it will do so. The UN General Assembly is scheduled to hold a special emergency session to disavow Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem on Thursday at the request of Yemen, Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The resolution is expected to...

The Volcano 2-H ballistic missiles was aimed at the al-Yamma royal palace in Riyadh, but was stopped by Saudi’s air defences. Reporters heard a blast and saw a plume of smoke rising above the Saudi capital near the palace, where King Salman chairs weekly government meetings and hosts foreign dignitaries. It was the second time in as many months that a rebel projectile had reached as far inside the kingdom as Riyadh, and while audacious, neither caused any real damage.

Yemen's Houthi movement fired a ballistic missile towards the Saudi capital Riyadh targeting a meeting of Saudi leaders at a royal palace on Tuesday, its spokesman said. Mohammed Abdussalam said on Twitter that a Volcano 2-H ballistic missile was fired towards al-Yamama royal palace.  Saudi air defences intercepted the missile, Saudi-owned channel al-Arabiya reported in a news flash quoting a Saudi-led military coalition.

OHANNESBURG — The U.S. military’s Africa command says its forces conducted an airstrike against Islamic extremists in Somalia last week, approximately 30 miles northwest of Kismayo, killing eight militants and destroying one vehicle. In its statement released Monday, the U.S. Africa Command said that it assess no civilians were killed in the strike. The statement said U.S. forces will continue to use “all authorized and appropriate measures” to protect U.S. citizens and to disable extremist threats. This includes partnering with the multinational African force in Somalia and the Somali National Security Forces to attack the extremist rebels of al-Shabab, their...

Nikki Haley shows ‘concrete’ proof Iran broke missile agreement By Max Jaeger December 14, 2017 US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday showed “concrete” proof that Iran is violating UN resolutions by supplying weapons to a rebel group in Yemen. “In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation, gathered from direct military attacks on partners in the region,” she said, standing in front of a charred ballistic missile the size of a car during a press conference at Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling in Washington, DC. Gesturing to the massive rocket behind her, she argued for...

Some weapons bought by the U.S. military in 2015 ended up in the hands of Islamic State fighters within two months, according to a report released on Thursday. The findings, by Conflict Armament Research (CAR), an independent arms-tracking organization, are based on three years of meticulous documentation of weapons recovered from ISIS on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is warning that Iran may be defying a U.N. call to halt ballistic missile development even as it complies with the nuclear treaty with six world powers. He says in a report to the Security Council that the United Nations is investigating Iran’s possible transfer of ballistic missiles to Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen that may have been used in launches aimed at Saudi Arabia. He says several other launches have also been brought to his attention. …

BackgroundThe sea level records since the start of the twentieth century show oscillations with many periodicities up to multi-decadal. The sea level may then change because of local factors such as subsidence or uplift, and global factors such as mass addition and thermal expansion of the oceans.PurposeWe use non-aligned data from the tide gauges of Aden, and the tide gauges of Mumbai and Karachi, to reconstruct the most likely pattern of sea levels for these three locations of the west Indian Ocean.MethodsLinear and parabolic fittings of monthly average mean sea levels (MSL) from the different tide gauges of the three...

Has Iran given cruise missiles to Hizballah as well as Yemen’s Houthis? The maiden operational launch of Iran’s Soumar Kh-55 cruise missile was apparently entrusted to Yemen’s Houthis against a UAE target. ... Yemen’s Houthi rebels last week showed on their TV channel video footage of Iran’s most highly advanced Soumar Kh-55 cruise missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead. They claimed to have fired it at the unfinished Abu Dhabi power plant on Dec.3. The United Arab Emirates refuted this claim, saying that any missile reaching their air space would have been intercepted by advanced Emirati air defenses. But...

The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to fully enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents of six mostly Muslim countries. The justices, with two dissenting votes, said Monday that the policy can take full effect even as legal challenges against it make their way through the courts. The action suggests the high court could uphold the latest version of the ban that Trump announced in September. The ban applies to travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Lower courts had said people from those nations with a claim of a “bona fide”...

People unknown knocked down crosses and tombstones, including those of Mother Teresa's nuns, killed in March 2016. For Mgr Hinder, this is serious, confirming the country’s “ongoing difficult situation and violence." The Saudi blockade puts at risk “the survival of people”.Sana'a (AsiaNews) – In recent days "the Christian cemetery in Aden was desecrated," including the tombs of the Sisters of Mother Teresa killed during the attack against the retirement home they ran, said Mgr Paul Hinder, apostolic vicar of southern Arabia (UAE, Oman and Yemen), speaking to AsiaNews. The economic, social and humanitarian situation in Yemen is disastrous, the prelate...

[subtitle: Video circulating online appears to show Ali Abdullah Saleh's corpse being dragged on the ground] Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed Monday that ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh had been killed as fighting shook the capital Sana'a following the collapse of his alliance with the insurgents. The claim, which could not be independently confirmed, came as Yemen's long and devastating civil war took a potentially decisive turn. Heavy clashes were reported in the city between forces loyal to Saleh and the Iran-backed Shiite rebels, who together seized control of Sana'a from the internationally recognized government three years ago. Moving to take advantage...

In Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, Iran-backed Houthi rebels are clashing with supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh — an outburst of deadly violence between two groups that have recently been allies. Meanwhile, the Houthi rebels are claiming to have fired a missile at a nuclear power plant under construction in the United Arab Emirates. The claim has been denied by state media in UAE. The WAM news agency also says that the UAE would have the ability to shoot down such a missile, if it were fired, The Associated Press reports. Last month, Houthi rebels fired a missile...

The removal of the Jews from the Arab world has been all but ignored, says Tom Gross It is not surprising, given the sheer scale of the Holocaust and its sadism, that it has dominated contemporary discourse among Jews and others. But, while the extermination of European Jews has rightfully (though belatedly) generated a great deal of study and research, the removal of the Jews from the Arab world has been all but ignored. This ignorance extends to policy-makers at the highest level. Some journalists and politicians I have spoken to have expressed surprise when I even mentioned that Jews...

Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince vowed to "pursue terrorists until they are wiped from the face of the earth" as officials from 40 Muslim countries gathered Sunday in the first meeting of an Islamic counter-terrorism alliance. "In past years, terrorism has been functioning in all of our countries... with no coordination" among national authorities, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also the Saudi defence minister, said in his keynote speech at the gathering in Riyadh. "This ends today, with this alliance." The summit is the first meeting of defence ministers and other senior officials from the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism...

The next Saudi King Crown Prince Muhammad and Israel agree that Iran is the biggest threat to the region, but Israel’s top soldier rules out initiating an attack on Hizballah. Two London publications on the same day shed unusual light on the next chapter in Saud royal history, as well as on the hitherto semi-clandestine ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem. Daily Mail, quoting “a source close to the Saudi royal family” reported that King Salman, 91, intends to give up the throne next week and name his son, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, 32 as his successor. The king will...

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia issued a ruling forbidding war against the Jews and proclaiming that Hamas is a terror group. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Al Sheikh, issued a surprising religious ruling, saying that fighting against Israel was inappropriate and that Hamas is a “terror organization.” The Muslim cleric issued the ruling while answering a question on a television program regarding the Palestinian riots surrounding the Temple Mount in July, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported. Israel’s Communications Minister Ayoub Kara welcomed the unexpected decision and invited the Mufti to visit Israel.