The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack, which set the Greek-owned, Barbados-flagged ship True Confidence ablaze around 50 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen’s port of Aden.

In an earlier message on X responding to the Houthi claim, Britain’s embassy wrote: “At least 2 innocent sailors have died. This was the sad but inevitable consequence of the Houthis recklessly firing missiles at international shipping. They must stop.”

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2 Filipinos dead in Gulf of Aden Houthi attack

The Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea since November in what they say is a campaign in solidarity with Palestinians during the war in Gaza.

Britain and the United States have been launching retaliatory strikes against the Houthis, and the confirmation of fatalities could lead to pressure for stronger military action.

CENTCOM said the Houthi strike also injured at least four crew members and caused “significant damage” to the ship. Earlier, a shipping source said four mariners had been severely burned and three were missing after the attack.

The Greek operators of the True Confidence said the vessel was drifting and on fire. They said no information was available about the status of the 20 crew and three armed guards on board, who included 15 Filipinos, four Vietnamese, two Sri Lankans, an Indian and a Nepali national.

A US defense official said smoke was seen coming from the True Confidence. The official, who also declined to be identified, told Reuters a lifeboat had been seen in the water near the ship.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said it had received a report of an incident 54 nautical miles southwest of Aden, which lies near the entrance to the Red Sea, adding the vessel had been abandoned by the crew and was “no longer under command.”

“Coalition forces are supporting the vessel and the crew,” UKMTO said.

Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the leading seafarers union, called for urgent action to protect its members.

“We have consistently warned the international community and the maritime industry about the escalating risks faced by seafarers in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. Today … we see those warnings tragically confirmed,” Cotton said.

Four days ago, the Rubymar, a UK-owned bulk carrier, became the first ship to sink as a result of a Houthi attack, after floating for two weeks with severe damage from a missile strike. All crew were safely evacuated from that vessel.

The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa. The cost of insuring a seven-day voyage through the Red Sea has risen by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

While the militia has said it would attack vessels with links to the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel, shipping industry sources say all ships could be at risk.

The True Confidence is owned by the Liberian-registered company True Confidence Shipping and operated by the Greece-based Third January Maritime, both companies said in their joint statement. They said the ship had no link to the United States. – Rappler.com

But he said he was confident that, except for Africans, critics of his decision to allow blessings for same-sex couples would eventually understand it.

Blessings were allowed last month in a document called Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), which has caused widespread debate in the Catholic Church, with particularly strong resistance coming from African bishops.

“Those who protest vehemently belong to small ideological groups,” Francis told Italian newspaper La Stampa. “A special case are Africans: for them homosexuality is something ‘bad’ from a cultural point of view, they don’t tolerate it”.

“But in general, I trust that gradually everyone will be reassured by the spirit of the ‘Fiducia Supplicans’ declaration by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: it aims to include, not divide,” the Pope said.

Last week, Francis appeared to acknowledge the pushback the document received, especially in Africa, where bishops have effectively rejected it and where in some countries same-sex can lead to prison or even the death penalty.

Vatican moves to calm bishops over same-sex blessings approval

He said that when the blessings are given, priests should “naturally take into account the context, the sensitivities, the places where one lives and the most appropriate ways to do it”.

In the interview with La Stampa, Francis said he was not concerned about the risk of conservatives breaking away from the Catholic Church due to his reforms, saying that talk of a schism is always led by “small groups.”

“We must leave them to it and move on…and look forward”, he said.

Turning to Israel and the Palestinians, he said “true peace” between them will not materialize until a two-state solution is implemented and lamented that their conflict was widening.

Francis confirmed he is scheduled to meet the president of his native Argentina, Javier Milei, on Februar 11, and that finally visiting the country – where he has not returned since becoming pope in 2013 – is a possibility.

He said his agenda for 2024 currently includes trips to Belgium, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

Speaking about his health, which has taken some knocks in recent years with hospitalizations, mobility problems and cancelled trips or events, the 87-year-old said, “there are some aches and pains but it’s better now, I’m fine.”

Pope Francis’ approval of blessings for LGBTQ+ couples is historic gesture, according to Catholic theologian

– Rappler.com

On the ground in the seaside enclave, Gaza officials said on Thursday, January 25, that Israeli strikes killed 20 Palestinians queuing for food aid in Gaza City, six people in a house in central Gaza’s Al-Nusseirat refugee camp and at least 50 people in the prior 24 hours in Gaza’s main southern city Khan Younis, where Israel is currently focusing the brunt of its might.

Reuters could not independently verify the details while Israel said it was either looking into the reports or did not immediately comment on the incidents.

The judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also called the World Court, are due to rule on Friday on South Africa’s request for emergency measures against Israel in a case accusing it of state-led genocide in the Gaza Strip.

In more than three months of war, Israel’s campaign has leveled much of the enclave, displaced some 1.9 million Palestinians and killed at least 25,900 people, according to Gaza officials. Israel launched its offensive in October after militants from Hamas, which rules Gaza, stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.

The court will issue its ruling at 1 pm in The Hague (1200 GMT) in a hearing expected to last about an hour. While the judges will not rule on the merits of the genocide allegations, which may take years to decide, South Africa asked the court to issue an interim order compelling Israel to suspend its military operations.

Israel has called South Africa’s allegations false and “grossly distorted,” and said it makes the utmost efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.

The court’s rulings are final and without appeal, but it has no way of enforcing them. Israel on Thursday expressed confidence that the ICJ would “throw out these spurious and specious charges.” Hamas said it would abide by an ICJ ceasefire order if Israel reciprocates.

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Diplomatic efforts seek new truce deal

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to negotiate a break in the conflict continued. US and Israeli intelligence chiefs were due to meet Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Europe this weekend, one official told Reuters. A second source said Egypt’s intelligence chief would also participate.

The White House has been trying to facilitate the release of the more than 100 remaining Israeli hostages taken during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which ignited the war in Gaza, although there remains a considerable distance between the two sides’ demands.

A third source with knowledge of the talks said that Israel has proposed a 60-day pause in the fighting during which hostages would be released in phases, beginning with civilian women and children.

Previously, three sources told Reuters that shuttle diplomacy over the past month involving the US, Qatar and Egypt has sought to hammer out a new deal for a ceasefire of about one month. But progress has been held up by differences between Hamas and Israel over how to bring a permanent end to the Gaza war.

In Gaza on Thursday, tanks hit areas around two hospitals in Khan Younis, forcing displaced people into a new desperate scramble for safety, residents said.

Israel’s military said early on Friday that its intelligence found that Hamas was operating from inside and around the two hospitals, Nasser and Al-Amal, in Khan Younis. Hamas and medical workers have denied Israeli claims that militants in Gaza use hospitals as cover for bases.

The Israeli military said it was coordinating with hospital staff to ensure they remain “operational and accessible” and there is a safe corridor for people to leave the hospitals.

“The facts on the ground disprove the blatant misinformation that has been disseminated over the last 72 hours falsely claiming that the hospitals are under siege or attack,” it said in a statement.

Fleeing to Rafah

On Thursday, thousands of homeless people sheltering in Khan Younis sought to flee to Rafah, 15 km (nine miles) away, the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) said.

Video posted on X by Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, showed a crowd of people walking en masse on Thursday on a dirt road. “A sea of people forced to flee Khan Younis, ending up at the border with Egypt. A never ending search for safety that #Gaza is no longer able to give,” Lazzarini wrote.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said less than 20% of the narrow enclave – around 60 square kilometers (23 square miles) – now harbored over 1.5 million homeless people in the south. – Rappler.com

The seasonal El Niño, which causes hotter, drier weather throughout the year, has been exacerbated by climate breakdown, scientists say, a cause of concern at the ongoing COP28 discussions on climate action in Dubai.

Hwange has no major river running through it, and animals rely on solar-powered boreholes, a Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authorities (Zimparks) official said.

“We are relying on artificial water because our surface water has declined. Since elephants are water-dependent, we are recording more deaths,” the Zimparks principal ecologist at Hwange National Park, Daphine Madhlamoto, told Reuters.

The elephant population in Hwange is 45,000, and a fully grown elephant requires 200 liters (53 gallons) of water daily. But with water sources dwindling, the solar-powered pumps at the 104 boreholes or wells have not been able to draw enough water.

Reuters saw dozens of elephant carcasses near watering holes, and park officials said other elephants have died in the bush, providing ready prey for lions and vultures.

“The park has been witnessing the impact of climate change. We have been receiving less rains,” Madhlamoto said.

Zimbabwe’s rainy season runs from November to March, but it has barely rained so far this year. The drought is expected to continue into 2024, according to Zimbabwe Meteorological Services.

Zimparks said animals are being forced to walk long distances to search for water and food, and several herds of elephants have crossed into neighboring Botswana. Conservation groups are trying to supply extra water by desilting watering holes and pumping more water through solar wells to help deal with the crisis.

Zimbabwe has an elephant population of nearly 100,000, but the capacity only for a little more than half of them, meaning the national parks are overwhelmed, Zimparks said. – Rappler.com

Thanks to the meters-high sandbag barricade, the Kame Surf Camp hotel clings to its section of beach in the resort of Assinie, even as the waves hem the hotel in on three sides and, in a recent surge, devastated the businesses of its neighbors.

“Frankly, I am exhausted,” said Nassar, 50, who first came to the area as a child when this stretch of beach on the Gulf of Guinea was much wider and it took five minutes on foot to reach the shoreline.

Now he spends up to 1 million CFA francs ($1,640) a week to keep the sea at bay and his business afloat, buying truckloads of sand and hiring workers to pour it into bags and shore up the hotel’s defenses.

Such expenses are likely to increase. Without adaptation, damage from sea level rise could cost 12 large African coastal cities up to $86.5 billion by 2050, according to United Nations climate experts. Those cities include Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan, just down the coast from Assinie.

“A small business like mine, all it can do is fill sandbags and put them out front and pray for the best,” Nassar said, surveying his sea wall in a skull T-shirt bearing the slogan: “Call of the Wave.”

The rapidly growing populations of West Africa’s low-lying coastal areas are particularly exposed to rising sea levels, a trend that is accelerating globally due to extreme glacier melt and record ocean heat levels, the World Meteorological Organization warned in April.

Coastal erosion at the palm-fringed tourist haven of Assinie is classified as of particular concern due to the high rate of beach loss at a resort that is an important economic hub, according to Ivory Coast’s National Coastal Environment Management Program. It says the national coastal erosion rate averages between 0.5 and 3 meters a year.

Over several days in August, a series of rogue waves underscored the vulnerability of Assinie and other coastal towns east of Abidjan.

The oversized waves pummeled the shore, striking higher than ever before and devastating homes and businesses.

“I was lucky enough to anticipate…but if you look around me, everything else has been completely destroyed,” said Nassar, recalling the thunderous crash of the six- and seven-meter-high waves against his homemade ramparts.

More than three months on from the onslaught, the water has receded from its peak but other hotels and restaurants are struggling to reopen after the waves swept away beach huts, swamped swimming pools, and knocked down sea-facing walls.

The coordinator of the National Coastal Environment Management Program, Eric Djagoua, told Reuters such extreme events are becoming more frequent and said more political will was needed to protect vulnerable coastal infrastructure.

The urgency is clear. West Africa’s coastal areas generate at least 56% of the region’s economic activity and host a third of its population, according to a World Bank study from 2019.

Even as needs rise, richer countries are falling short on a promise to give $100 billion a year to help poorer countries adapt to climate change impacts like sea level rise.

For some, it is already too late.

Thirty kilometers down the coast from Kame Surf Camp, 60-year-old Alex Messan Kouassi stands in the wreckage of his home and hotel that the waves tore through in August.

“Everything is gone…the sea came and took it all, what can I do?”

– Rappler.com

$1 = 607.3700 CFA francs

The world produces about 400 million metric tonnes of plastic waste annually and less than 10% of it is recycled, according to the UN Environment Programme.

At least 14 million metric tonnes ends up in the ocean every year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature says, while more piles up in landfills.

International delegates meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi for the third round of talks will consider a list of possible measures to include in the treaty.

“I urge all the negotiators to recall that 2024 is only six weeks away and (there) are only two other meetings to go,” Ruto said at the opening of the talks.

Governments agreed in March 2022 to put together a treaty on controlling plastic pollution by the end of next year.

In Nairobi, delegates will be haggling over whether to stick to their broad mandate of addressing the entire life cycle of plastics, including production, or to prioritize plastic waste management.

The talks need to come up with a first draft agreement, outlining commitments to reducing the plastic menace, and a financing scheme for its implementation, said Carroll Muffett, president of the Centre for International Environmental Law.

“We need to navigate extraordinary risks over the week ahead,” he said, citing attempts to derail and delay the talks by some members states in previous rounds.

Kenya is among those who want a strong, binding agreement on the manufacture and use of plastics, having enacted several laws banning certain uses of plastics, such as for shopping bags, since 2017.

“We must change the way we consume, the way we produce and how we dispose our waste,” Ruto said. “Change is inevitable. This instrument that we are working on, is the first domino in that change. Let us bring it home.”

The plastics industry and oil and petrochemical exporters like Saudi Arabia do not want plastic use curtailed, arguing that the global deal should promote improved the recycling and reuse of plastic.

“The vast majority of countries are eager to advance the negotiations to get the job done,” said Pamela Miller, co-chair of the International Pollutants Elimination Network, a global public interest organization.

“On the other hand a small group of like-minded countries of mainly major fossil fuel, petrochemical and plastic exporters like Saudi Arabia and Russia are actively attempting to take us backwards.”

Saudi and Russian delegates were not immediately available to comment. – Rappler.com

Evacuations through the border crossing, the only entry point to Gaza not controlled by Israel, were suspended for a third time on Friday, November 10, after issues transporting injured Palestinians from northern Gaza.

Hundreds of foreign nationals and dependents and dozens of injured have passed through since the crossing began facilitating limited evacuations on November 1.

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The suspensions had been due to bombardments that aid staff said hit or targeted medical convoys.

At least seven injured Palestinians arrived on Egyptian soil to receive medical treatment, plus more than 80 foreign nationals and dependents, with more undergoing border procedures, the sources said. More than 32 Egyptians also crossed over, they said.

At least 80 aid trucks had moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon, two of the sources said. – Rappler.com

“Almost exactly two years ago, W.H.O. recommended the broad use of the world’s first malaria vaccine called RTS,S,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing in Geneva.

“Today, it gives me great pleasure to announce that WHO is recommending a second vaccine called R21/Matrix-M to prevent malaria in children at risk of the disease.”

R21/Matrix-M, developed by Britain’s University of Oxford, will be rolled out in some African countries in early 2024 and available mid-2024 in other countries, Tedros said, adding that doses would cost between $2 and $4.

“WHO is now reviewing the vaccine for prequalification, which is WHO stamp of approval, and will enable GAVI (a global vaccine alliance) and UNICEF to buy the vaccine from manufacturers,” Tedros said.

The R21/Matrix-M is mass manufactured by Serum Institute of India and uses Novavax’s Matrix M adjuvant.

Tedros added the agency had also recommended Takeda Pharmaceuticals’ 4502.T vaccine against dengue called Qdenga for children aged six to 16 years living in areas where the infection is a significant public health problem.

Dengue, common in tropical and subtropical climates, is a viral infection spread from mosquitoes to people.

Takeda’s vaccine was shown in trials to be effective against all 4 stereotypes of the virus in people who were previously infected by dengue, Hanna Nohynek, chair of WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, told journalists.

She added, however, that there remained uncertainty about its performance against stereotype 3 and 4 in people who have not been infected previously.

The WHO’s strategic advisory group also recommended a simplified single dose regime for primary immunization for most COVID-19 vaccines to improve acceptance of the shots at a time when most people have had at least one prior infection

The agency added that any monovalent or bivalent vaccine could be used given that monovalent vaccines that target the XBB.1.5 variant – the dominant variant in many places this year – are not available in many countries. – Rappler.com

She recited their names as she wept.

“Taym, Yazan, Luqman, Salmah, Tumador, Hakim and his wife. Oh my God. My family, where are you?” she wailed. “Oh God. Even just one – my God – just let me find even one body.”

A week after the flood that swept the center of the Libyan city of Derna into the sea, families are still coping with the unbearable losses of their dead – and haunted by the unknown fates of the missing.

The center of Derna is a wasteland, with stray dogs standing listlessly on muddy mounds where buildings once stood. Other buildings still somehow stand precariously above bottom floors that were mostly washed away. The legs of a store mannequin in dusty trousers stick out of the rubble in a ruined shopfront.

Dams above the city burst in a storm a week ago that sent a huge torrent down a seasonal riverbed running through the centre of the Mediterranean city of 120,000 people.

Thousands are dead and thousands more missing. Officials using different methodologies have given widely varying figures of the tolls so far; the mayor estimates over 20,000 people were lost. The World Health Organization has confirmed 3,922 deaths.

A total of 283 bodies have been recovered from the sea since searches began and there are many left to find, a search team source told Reuters on Monday, September 18. But the teams are increasingly finding only parts of bodies as they disintegrate.

Grieving residents protest

Hundreds of people angrily protested in Derna on Wednesday, demanding accountability from authorities they said had done nothing to prevent the calamity despite advance warnings of the city’s vulnerability to flooding.

They lambasted regional officials and called for national unity in a country left politically ruptured by over a decade of conflict and chaos that have hampered the disaster response.

Demonstrator Taha Miftah, 39, demanded an international inquiry and “reconstruction under international supervision”.

Libya has been a failed state since a NATO-backed uprising that ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Derna is in the east, beyond the control of an internationally recognized government in the west, and until 2019 was held by a succession of Islamist militant groups including branches of al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Residents say the threat to Derna from the crumbling dams above it had been widely known, with projects to repair the dams stalled for more than a decade. They also blame authorities for failing to evacuate residents in time.

Fading hopes

Sabreen Blil and other residents are mourning the uncounted thousands who are not on any confirmed list. She summons up a picture of her young nephew on her mobile phone, holding a kitten above his head in one outstretched hand.

“They used to play here. They were sitting here. They used to go out to visit me and I used to visit them. Nothing is left. The floods took everything,” Blil said. “Their toys, books, their father, their mother.”

Authorities have not yet given up on the possibility of finding people alive, Othman Abduljaleel, health minister in the administration that controls eastern Libya, told Reuters.

“Hopes of finding survivors are fading, but we will continue efforts to search for any possible survivor,” he said by phone.

“Now efforts are focused on rescuing anyone and recovering bodies from under the rubble, especially at sea, with the participation of many divers and specialized rescue teams from countries.”

For Ahmed Ashour, 62, the dissipating hope of finding survivors has meant accepting that he will have to raise his orphaned 3-month-old granddaughter. His daughter is gone. His wife still hasn’t accepted it.

“Her mother is convinced that she is still alive. I am convinced that she is dead,” he said.

Ahmed Kassar, 69, sat in front of his ruined house with a cigarette burned almost down to his fingers, quietly weeping for four of his children – two daughters and two sons – who drowned inside their inundated home, unable to escape before floodwaters rose to its ceiling.

“Catastrophe. I am all alone now,” Kassar murmured over and over. He escaped death only because he had left for neighbouring Egypt for medical treatment just before the storm struck Derna.

“I am not saddened only by their death, I am saddened that I left and was not able to fulfil my role as a father to them, to guarantee my children’s future,” he said.

Fears of spreading disease

The roads into Derna were clogged on Monday with ambulances and trucks carrying in food, water, diapers, mattresses and other supplies.

Men in white hazmat suits sprayed disinfectant mist from pumps mounted in the back of a pick-up truck and from hoses in backpacks, as authorities hoped to halt the spread of disease.

“We are sanitising the streets, mosques, shelters, where displaced people are staying, mortuary refrigerators, the blighted streets and the bodies,” said Akbar al-Qatani, head of the environment directorate based in Benghazi, eastern Libya’s de facto capital.

The International Rescue Committee charity said the flooding had left thousands of people without access to safe drinking water, raising the risk of waterborne diseases.

Western countries and regional states have sent teams of rescue workers and mobile hospitals. Five Greek rescue workers, including three members of the armed forces, were killed in a car crash on Sunday. – Rappler.com

The veteran South African politician, Zulu prince and controversial figure during the apartheid liberation struggle, died last week aged 95.

Mourners  – some dressed in traditional Zulu outfits made of leopard and other animal skins and holding shields crafted from cow hides – gathered at a stadium in the town of Ulundi, where they danced, sang and cheered ahead of the service.

South African media reported that two giraffes and six impalas had been slaughtered and skinned as part of the ritual preparations.

Buthelezi, the founder of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) who served two terms as Minister of Home Affairs in the post-apartheid government after reconciling with his governing African National Congress (ANC) rival, had undergone a procedure for back pain in July and was later readmitted to hospital when it did not subside.

He founded the IFP in 1975 and it become the dominant force in what is now KwaZulu-Natal province.

Like the ANC, he was critical of white minority rule, which had relegated Zulus and other Black South Africans to downsized ‘homelands’.

But his Zulu nationalist movement became entangled in bloody conflicts with the ANC in the 1980s and 1990s. The ANC was dominated by members of the rival Xhosa nation, and its leaders saw Buthelezi’s on-off willingness to work with the apartheid authorities as a betrayal of all Black South Africans.

The two parties made peace when Buthelezi decided to participate in South Africa’s 1994 election, the first national poll since the end of white minority rule, which brought Nelson Mandela to power.

By then some 20,000 people had been killed and hundreds of thousands fled their homes in fighting between Buthelezi’s supporters and those of the ANC, as a result of which critics dubbed Buthelezi a war lord. He stepped down as IFP leader in 2019. – Rappler.com