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The UK will spend £140m next year helping starving people in Yemen who are suffering one of the most “acute humanitarian crises in the world”, the deputy foreign secretary has said.

Speaking exclusively to Sky News, Andrew Mitchell raised the plight of the Yemeni people, whom he said were living “on the margins of subsistence” following nearly a decade of civil war.

Mr Mitchell promised that the UK’s bilateral support for Yemen would increase by 60% and that any money provided would be designed “directly to help people who are in a very perilous humanitarian position”.

“It is Britain doing good, going to the rescue of the most desperate people in the world and helping them,” he said.

The deputy foreign secretary’s intervention comes following months of reporting from Yemen from Sky News’ special correspondent Alex Crawford, who has detailed how the war in Gaza has had an adverse impact on the Yemeni people.

Yemen’s Houthi militants, backed by Iran, have targeted ships in the Red Sea region which they claim are linked to Israel or helping its war effort.

The repeated missile and drone attacks by the Houthis since November have forced international cargo ships to be re-routed and take longer, more costly journeys around the Cape of Good Hope that has pushed up the price of goods in Yemen – already one of the poorest countries in the world.

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The Houthi actions are wreaking havoc on global shipping routes but has seen them surge in popularity at home.

However, the Houthis’ actions, while condemned by the West, have prompted demonstrations of support in the streets of Yemen, where solidarity is expressed with Palestinians in Gaza.

Mr Mitchell said 70% of the food that gets into Yemen goes through ports used by international shipping and was therefore being put at risk by the Houthis’ actions.

“It is often impeded in getting there by what the Houthis are doing in disrupting the flow of international shipping,” he explained.

“So that is very bad – and, an example of the terrible effect of the Houthis are having on their own people as well as on the wider international community.”

Read more:
Babies are starving as Yemen teeters on brink of collapse
Alex Crawford: Inside Yemen – the forgotten war

Asked what the international community was doing to bring about peace in Yemen, Mr Mitchell replied: “Well, Britain holds the pen, in the jargon of the trade, at the United Nations. So we lead on Yemen.

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Sky’s special correspondent Alex Crawford and her team report from Yemen.

“And, recently we’ve been trying to make sure that the negotiations, which the UN special representative has been involved in, are successful.

“There’s a very different situation now from what there was a couple of years ago with the Saudis. And there is a peace process that is there for the taking.

“We urge all the different parties who are involved in Yemen to get involved in that peace process, to bring an end to a terrible situation, which, above all, millions of ordinary people in Yemen are suffering from.”

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Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

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Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

The CARF regulation, which brings crypto under global tax reporting standards akin to traditional finance, marks a crucial turning point.

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Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

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Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

Tokenized equity still in regulatory grey zone — Attorneys

The nascent real-world tokenized assets track prices but do not provide investors the same legal rights as holding the underlying instruments.

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

Read more:
Yet another fiscal ‘black hole’? Here’s why this one matters

Success or failure: One year of Keir in nine charts

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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

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“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

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Why was the chancellor crying at PMQs?

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

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Reeves is ‘totally’ up for the job

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

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