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Forces from the US and the UK, supported by a coalition including Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand launched a series of precision air strikes on Saturday in a move to counter the threat to international shipping posed by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said four RAF Typhoon FGR4s, assisted by two Voyager tankers, targeted Houthi military facilities responsible for recent missile and drone attacks on commercial and coalition naval vessels in key maritime corridors.
The strikes were aimed at “Houthi military facilities in Yemen which had been conducting missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping and coalition naval forces in the Bab Al Mandeb, southern Red Sea, and Gulf of Aden”, the MoD said.
British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the military action was aimed at “further degrading Houthi drones and launchers used to mount their dangerous attacks”.
Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by Yemen's Houthi movement, said on Saturday that US and UK forces carried out a total of nine air strikes in the capital, Sanaa.
The military action targeted 18 Houthi targets across eight locations, focusing on “underground weapons storage facilities, missile storage facilities, one-way attack unmanned aerial systems, air defence systems, radars, and a helicopter”, according to a joint statement.
“These strikes are intended to degrade Houthi capability and disrupt their continued reckless and unlawful attacks on international commercial and US and UK vessels,” the statement said.
“The goal of this multinational effort is to defend ourselves, our partners, and allies in the region and restore freedom of navigation by destroying Houthi capabilities used to threaten US and partner forces in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways.
“These strikes are separate and distinct from the multinational freedom of navigation actions performed under Operation Prosperity Guardian”.
Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthis targeted the MV Torm Thor, a US-flagged, owned and operated oil tanker, in the Gulf of Aden, the group's military spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Sunday, as the militants continued to attack shipping lanes in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The group targeted the tanker with “a number of appropriate naval missiles,” Mr Sarea said in a televised speech.
The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have launched exploding drones and missiles at commercial vessels since November 19 as a protest against Israel's military operations in Gaza.
Apart from the joint operations with Britain, the US has also carried out repeated strikes against Houthi positions and weaponry in Yemen, claiming self-defence, and has downed air and seaborne drones in the Red Sea.
These efforts are part of a continuing campaign to dismantle the Houthi's capability to disrupt maritime traffic and pose a threat to regional security and the global economy.
The coalition's statement highlighted the gravity of the situation, saying: “The Houthis had staged more than 45 attacks on commercial and naval vessels since mid-November, which threatened the global economy, as well as regional security and stability.”
The operation on Saturday specifically targeted facilities where the Houthis have staged drones and missiles used in their maritime assaults.
In addressing the precision of the strikes, the MoD said: “Our aircraft used Paveway IV precision-guided bombs against the drones and their launchers, notwithstanding the Houthis' use of the old missile battery revetments to try to protect the drones.”
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin echoed the coalition's commitment to regional stability.
He said: “The United States will not hesitate to take action, as needed, to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world's most critical waterways.
“We will continue to make clear to the Houthis that they will bear the consequences if they do not stop their illegal attacks, which harm Middle Eastern economies, cause environmental damage, and disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen and other countries.”
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SNAPSHOT
While Huawei did launch the first smartphone with a 50MP image sensor in its P40 series in 2020, Oppo in 2014 introduced the Find 7, which was capable of taking 50MP images: this was done using a combination of a 13MP sensor and software that resulted in shots seemingly taken from a 50MP camera.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Read more from Kareem Shaheen
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
Haemoglobin disorders explained
Thalassaemia is part of a family of genetic conditions affecting the blood known as haemoglobin disorders.
Haemoglobin is a substance in the red blood cells that carries oxygen and a lack of it triggers anemia, leaving patients very weak, short of breath and pale.
The most severe type of the condition is typically inherited when both parents are carriers. Those patients often require regular blood transfusions - about 450 of the UAE's 2,000 thalassaemia patients - though frequent transfusions can lead to too much iron in the body and heart and liver problems.
The condition mainly affects people of Mediterranean, South Asian, South-East Asian and Middle Eastern origin. Saudi Arabia recorded 45,892 cases of carriers between 2004 and 2014.
A World Health Organisation study estimated that globally there are at least 950,000 'new carrier couples' every year and annually there are 1.33 million at-risk pregnancies.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
Dubai Rugby Sevens
November 30, December 1-2
International Vets
Christina Noble Children’s Foundation fixtures
Thursday, November 30:
10.20am, Pitch 3, v 100 World Legends Project
1.20pm, Pitch 4, v Malta Marauders
Friday, December 1:
9am, Pitch 4, v SBA Pirates
