. Earth Science News .
WAR REPORT
40 children killed in Yemen bus strike: new Red Cross toll
By Jamil Nasser
Sanaa (AFP) Aug 14, 2018

Yemen says waiting for peace talks invite, expectations low
Geneva (AFP) Aug 14, 2018 - Yemen's ambassador to the UN said Tuesday that his government had not yet been invited to peace talks planned for next month, but that it was open to attending despite low prospects for success.

"We are waiting for the invitation," Yemen's envoy to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Majawar, told reporters.

The UN's peace envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, told the Security Council earlier this month that he wants to host warring parties in the Swiss city on September 6.

A Yemeni government source, who requested anonymity, told AFP on August 3 that it would attend.

Majawar underscored that in the two weeks since Griffiths announced the talks, the UN has not shared any details, including on the crucial issue of whether the government and rebels would be asked to meet face-to-face.

The government is waiting for clarity from Griffiths "on the mechanism and contents of the consultations," Majawar said.

"In my personal opinion, they will be very difficult consultations... We don't think the Huthis will make any compromises to help the talks to go forward," he added.

The war in Yemen has triggered what the UN has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since March 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition intervened to support President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government against the Huthis.

While all sides have been accused of major violations, global outrage in recent days has focused on the coalition after it carried out an air strike on a bus that killed 40 children in the rebel-held north.

The last attempt at UN-brokered talks broke down in 2016 amid demands for a rebel withdrawal from key cities and power-sharing with the Saudi-backed government.

Forty children were among 51 people killed in a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a bus in rebel-held northern Yemen, the Red Cross said Tuesday, after thousands protested at a mass funeral.

Fifty-six children were also among the 79 people wounded in the Thursday strike on Saada province, a rebel stronghold that borders Saudi Arabia, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a new toll.

The child deaths have been an embarrassment for Western governments which supply the coalition with warplanes and other weapons and have sought to prevent the conduct of the war being scrutinised too closely.

The coalition has promised an internal inquiry but analysts and aid groups have voiced doubt it is ready to provide the transparency and accountability demanded by the wider international community.

The new casualty toll came after a mass funeral was held for many of the dead children on Monday at which thousands vented anger against Riyadh and Washington.

Mourners raised pictures of the children and shouted slogans against Saudi Arabia and its ally and key arms supplier, the United States.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 as Huthi rebel fighters closed in on the last bastion of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government.

The conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people since then -- the vast majority of them civilians -- and caused what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The UN Security Council called on Friday for a "credible" investigation into the deadly strike.

But it stopped short of demanding an independent inquiry as urged by UN chief Antonio Guterres after past probes failed to lead to any significant reduction in the high civilian death toll from the coalition's more than three-year bombing campaign.

- Western powers back ally -

The coalition has been repeatedly blamed for bombing civilians, including a strike on a wedding hall in the Red Sea coastal town of Mokha in September 2015, in which 131 people died. It denied any responsibility for those deaths.

In October 2016, a coalition air strike killed 140 people at a funeral in the rebel-held capital Sanaa.

Coalition commanders have admitted a small number of mistakes, but there has been no public disciplinary action or changes to the rules of engagement.

Commander have accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields.

The coalition initially called the strike on the bus a "legitimate military action" in response to a rebel missile attack on the Saudi city of Jizan on Wednesday.

But as photographs of dazed and bloodied children flooding into hospitals were beamed around the world, it was forced to concede to an investigation.

Western government have condemned the civilian deaths, but they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, which is a regional ally and spends billions of dollars on arms from the United States, Britain and France.

During US-led air campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria since 2001, Western forces occasionally admitted "collateral damage" when civilians were killed unintentionally.

But they too resisted independent investigations into the circumstances of major errors.

Key Saudi coalition ally, the United Arab Emirates, said Monday that the child deaths were a manifestation of the "ugly" side of war for which both sides were to blame.

"Unfortunately, this is really part of any confrontation," the UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said, adding that those calling for independent investigations should instead urge tighter rules of engagement.


Related Links
Space War News


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


WAR REPORT
Syria, Russia expand heavy shelling of rebel Idlib: monitor
Beirut (AFP) Aug 10, 2018
Syrian forces and their Russian backers unleashed heavy air strikes on rebel-held Idlib on Friday, a monitor said, expanding their shelling of the northwestern province. Idlib is the largest chunk of territory still in rebel hands, and President Bashar al-Assad has warned it would be his next target. The province's southwest was shelled heavily on Thursday and the bombing the next day "moved further east", said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "Air strikes by Russian warplanes and b ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

WAR REPORT
Nine dead including children as migrant boat sinks off Turkey: report

For wetter or worse: Philippine bride defies storm

Lombok quake sends shudders through tourist industry

Japan's crippled Fukushima plant stops selling souvenirs

WAR REPORT
Cars and Planes Are Safer Thanks to This Tool Developed for Shuttle

Loft Orbital announces inSpace mission partner program to standardize access to space

Boeing, U.S. ink contract for P-8 aircraft spare parts

Northrop Grumman tapped for E-2D radar plane upgrades

WAR REPORT
Pacific Ocean's effect on Arctic warming

Expedition probes ocean's smallest organisms for climate answers

Half a degree less warming can avoid precipitation extremes

Does rain follow the plow

WAR REPORT
Scientists trace atmospheric rise in CO2 during deglaciation to deep Pacific Ocean

Ice sheets of the last ice age seeded the ocean with silica

The Arctic Carbon Cycle is Speeding Up

Concern for climate as Sweden's highest peak melts away

WAR REPORT
US jury orders Monsanto to pay $290mn to cancer patient over weed killer

Jurors mull 'day of reckoning' in Roundup cancer trial

Cultivated areas halve in Iraq as drought tightens grip

Glyphosate under fire from San Francisco to Sri Lanka

WAR REPORT
Typhoon Shanshan clips Japan coast, sparing Tokyo

Indonesia quake toll jumps to 164, survivors wait for aid

Rain-on-snow flood risk to increase in many mountain regions of the western US, Canada

Flash floods kill 37 in India's tourist hotspot Kerala

WAR REPORT
South Sudan president pardons rival, rebels: state radio

Three Congo soldiers walk free after 'mass murder' convictions

Canadian UN peacekeepers return to Africa after 24 years

Suspicion of electoral fraud revives ethnic tension in Mali

WAR REPORT
Chimpanzee foods are mechanically more demanding than previously thought

New light shed on the people who built Stonehenge

Modern Flores Island pygmies show no genetic link to extinct 'hobbits'

Homo sapiens developed a new ecological niche that separated it from other hominins









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.