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THE UNITED NATIONS aid chief has warned that Yemen is sliding deeper into humanitarian crisis and could face famine this year.
The poor Arab country has been engulfed in war since a Saudi-led coalition launched a bombing campaign in March 2015 to push back Iran-backed Huthi rebels who had seized the capital Sanaa and other cities.
“The conflict in Yemen is now the primary driver of the largest food security emergency in the world,” Stephen O’Brien, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council.
“If there is no immediate action, famine is now a possible scenario for 2017.”
About 14 million people – nearly 80% of the entire Yemeni population – are in need of food aid, half of whom are severely food insecure, O’Brien said.
At least 2 million people need emergency food assistance to survive, he added.
The situation is particularly dire for children with some 2.2 million infants now suffering from acute malnourishment – an increase of 53% from late 2015.
“Overall, the plight of children remains grim: a child under the age of 10 dying every 10 minutes of preventable causes,” O’Brien said.
The Saudi-led coalition’s shutdown of the Sanaa airport has had a heavy toll on civilians because medicine cannot be flown in and Yemenis cannot receive treatment abroad.
O’Brien warned that Yemen could run out of wheat within months because foreign banks no longer accept financial transactions with many of the country’s commercial banks.
Coalition blocking cranes
The country is almost entirely dependent on imports, most of which transit through the Hudaydah port, which was bombed by the coalition in 2015.
O’Brien said the Saudi-led coalition had ordered a vessel carrying four mobile cranes for the port to leave Yemeni waters and it was now awaiting approval from Riyadh to deliver the new equipment.
The cranes will boost the port’s capacity to handle humanitarian cargo.
The United Nations is calling for a ceasefire in Yemen to allow urgently needed deliveries of humanitarian aid and to resume political talks on ending the war.
About 10,000 civilians have died in the war, according to UN officials.
Returning from talks in the region, UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed took a swipe at Yemen’s President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi for rejecting his peace proposals.
“President Hadi continues to criticise the proposals without agreeing to discuss them and this will hinder and impede the path towards peace,” the envoy told the council.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed has put forward a roadmap for peace that provides for a new unity government to be formed in tandem with a Huthi withdrawal from the capital and other cities.
Under the proposal, Hadi’s powers would be dramatically reduced in favour of a new vice president who would oversee the formation of the interim government that will lead a transition to elections.
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Over 50 years since the first civil rights marches took place in the north and Irish citizens are still having to fight for their rights in Ireland. Bit by bit though, we are winning the fight.
@Johnny 5:
She obviously didn’t feel very strongly enough about her desire not to be a British citizen. It would have cost her £200 to have her British Citizenship revoked. So instead she went to court, lost and is still a British Citizen.
The fact that anyone born in Northern Ireland is a British citizen at birth, unless they actually renounce it, it still stands in UK law. They don’t have to act on it, or ever use their British citizenship, but it is always there.
On the other side of that coin, is that in Irish law, anyone born in Northern Ireland is an Irish Citizen by default, again they don’t have to act on it or ever use it but it is always there. I don’t know if there is a legal route in Ireland to renounce your Irish citizenship.
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: under the Good Friday Agreement she is entitled to both Irish & British citizenship,…. it was a legal issue as a result of Brexit with regard to her husband, a loophole that needed to be fixed of which there are many in both countries in unrelated matters… that crop up now and again.
And to prove my point that she is entitled to both UK & Irish citizenship as a result of the Good Friday Agreement I point to the New Zealand actor Sam Neill who was born in Northern Ireland and has both UK & Irish Citizenship.
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh:
Your understanding of the case is completely incorrect. Read up on it
It had nothing to do with Brexit. It was not a loophole. It was a very significant point of international law.
The GFA allows for people born in Northern Ireland to “identify” as British / Irish or both.
The UK’s stand was very logical and responsible: A child, born in Northern Ireland does not have the faculties to identify as an Irish citizen. If they were not considered a British citizen at birth, they would effectively be stateless. The UK government would then be in breach of its international obligations.
deSouza, and those funding her, had no chance of winning their case.
@Paul O’Sullivan: She was not trying to argue her entitlement to Irish or British citizenship
She was attempting to argue in law that she was “not” British by default.
@Paul O’Sullivan: Sorry Paul, the first comment was in response to you, obviously not to myself
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: You must be sickened at this news. You did everything you could to fight it. Ireland always had her traitors and that is as much the case today as ever. You sided with the British in another blatant infringement of an IRISH citizens rights. I hope when this island celebrates reunification that your friends tell you not to bother coming down to the pub to celebrate. You wont be welcome.
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: you ok hun?
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: it had everything to do with Brexit..
@Conan Campbell:
The complexities of this case are obviously beyond your capacity to understand it.
I am far more of an Irishman than someone who supports any organisation responsible for the murder of an Irish soldier, Irish Gardaí and Irish citizens. Here is a list of the Irish soldier and numerous Gardaí murdered by the traitorous organisations of the IRA and INLA.
Pte Patrick Kelly, Detective Garda Jerry McCabe, Garda Richard Fallon, Insp Samuel Donegan, Garda Michael Reynolds, Garda Michael Clerkin, Garda John Morley, Garda Henry Byrne, Garda James Quaid, Garda Patrick Reynold, Garda Patrick McLoughlin, Garda Gary Sheehan, Garda Francis Hand, Sgt Patrick Morrissey
@Paul O’Sullivan: Sorry Paul. The original case had absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. If you don’t believe me, read up on the case. Its a very interesting case.
What happened recently was different, and yes, was related to brexit. The UK government changed the immigration law so as to treat both Irish and British citizens born in Northern Ireland as EU citizens in respect getting residency for a non EU spouse. What that meant for the deSouzas was that her nationality was irrelevant to the immigration process.
What it meant for the court case was that the deSouzas now effectively have no legal standing to take the case, and the current UK law still stands in that a person born in Northern Ireland is regarded as a British Citizen at birth.
@Feardorcha Ó Maolomhnaigh: What has this to do with the topic. Ps you failed to mention Dublin Monaghan bombings which was supported and aided by British intelligence, Bloody Sunday, Murders in Ballymurphy, and many other innocent civilians murdered by loyalists and security forces..A bit of balance please .
Yes bit by bit indeed. Nothing irritates the British Gov more than the north of Ireland being discussed in the U.S Congress. London being Honest Brokers and all that.
There’s Hozier again
Does this mean that a baby born in NI to parents from NI (UK citizens) cannot automatically be conferred with British or Irish citizenship? Do we have to wait for the baby who can choose either citizenship? If the state can’t assign me citizenship without consent, should my parents be able to? They might be high-ranking members of the DUP, but how do they know the baby doesn’t think it’s Irish? They might be infringing the childs rights to be an Irish citizen and not be British.
@Conall:
They are still automatically regarded as British Citizens in UK law. They are also regarded as Irish Citizens in Irish law.
The Good Friday Agreement allows for a person born in Northern Ireland to identify as Irish, British or both. It does not allow for their parents or guardians to make that identification for them.
There is nothing to signify at what age a person is capable of making that identification, it would need to be tested in court.
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