Yemen’s fishermen set out at dawn to take on seas where they know they could face pirates, smugglers, and now Houthi militant missile attacks.
“We’re always scared,” Awad tells us as he sits on the edge of the wooden fishing boat.
“Because you don’t know when you will be attacked.”
The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden have become the new battleground in the spreading war in Gaza.
Houthimissiles targeting international shipping routes have caused havoc to global trade, forced food prices up and brought heightened misery to the Yemenis who rely on the waters for their livelihoods.
Gaza war ‘affects us 100%’
The waters are choppy and it is windy the morning we join a group of fishermen in the Gulf of Aden.
They tell us their hauls have reduced, their costs have gone up, and they rarely make a profit now after hours of back-breaking work on the seas.
“The war affects our work 100 per cent,” fisherman Naeem Hamoudy tells us as he’s busy pulling in his latest haul.
Their income has been cut by as much as 90%, he insists.
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Yet every one of the fishermen appears to support the action taken in support of the Palestinians – despite the impact on their livelihoods.
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3:47
Why the crisis in Ywemen is getting worse
“The Houthis oppress us,” says one.
These men are on the opposite side of Yemen’s civil war to the Houthis militants – but the Houthi stance protesting against Israeli aggression in Gaza has won grudging respect from them.
“We are with Gaza,” says Naeem.
“And we will be with Gaza until we die because we are Arabs and our blood is one blood.”
“They are killing women and children,” he goes on in reference to the Israeli bombardment in the Strip.
“But this won’t even really cover the cost of the fuel for the boat.”
He works out they’ll probably make the equivalent of a dollar each for their hours of work.
‘Biggest threat is from the Houthis’
There are considerable problems keeping Yemen’s seas safe.
We are taken on a tour along the coast by the head of Yemen’s Navy himself – Admiral Abdullah al Nakhai.
He takes us out on one of the two new boats they’ve received.
The fleet is small, he tells us – and certainly not big enough to counter the triple threats of piracy, smuggling and the Houthi attacks.
The biggest threat, he insists, comes from the Houthis.
“We’re morally responsible for protecting our territorial waters,” he explains.
“But at the moment, we don’t have the means to protect against piracy, terrorism, smuggling and the Houthi intrusion.”
He says much more international help is needed for Yemen to counter these dangers.
“If we don’t get support to help us confront the Houthis,” he goes on, “then the opposite will be the case. And the opposite of security is chaos in the sea – that’s terrorism, piracy and disruption.”
Scientists race to avert potential disaster
In the country’s ageing laboratories in Aden, the scientists are fighting a different sort of battle – that of potential catastrophic pollution of Yemen’s seas.
The Houthi attacks against ships passing through the critical Bab al Mandab Strait hit a vessel with thousands of tonnes of hazardous chemicals on board.
The Rubymar has been laying off the Yemeni Red Sea coast since mid-February and is now mostly submerged.
A trail of oil was seen seeping out into the sea shortly after the attack – but scientists are far more worried about the prospect of the cargo of dangerous chemical fertiliser emptying into the waters.
“The leaking could happen any time – today or tomorrow,” Tawfiq al Sharjabi, the Minister for Water and Environment warned.
“It’s urgent we get international help to sort this as soon as possible.”
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Yemeni scientists have painted a terrifying picture of a potentially catastrophic environmental disaster if the chemical cargo is not safely extracted.
If the cargo leaks out of the ship’s containers instead, the chemicals could end up destroying swathes of the Red Sea and its precious marine life.
“If it happens,” Mr al Sharjabi said, “it will affect the whole Red Sea – the mangrove trees, the marine life and the Red Sea coast. Imagine how many fishermen rely on the sea every day and this will affect the whole fishing community”.
A document outlining the urgency of removing the chemicals from the sunken ship – seen by Sky News – was sent to the United Nations two weeks ago.
Yemeni scientists have already been testing samples gathered from the waters near the sunken vessel under challenging conditions.
Dr Safa Gamal Nasser, the lab manager at the Aden Oil Refinery, told us the scientists were struggling with antiquated equipment and a lack of raw materials such as the solutions required to conform to international testing standards.
“We are doing our best,” she said.
But she went on to say Yemen is in desperate need of outside help.
Alex Crawford reports from Yemen with camera Jake Britton, Specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Yemen producer Ahmed Baider.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.