The Rock Stars
NEED TO KNOW
The Rock Stars
YEMEN
Some believe the Houthis of Yemen are having a moment.
The scrappy rebel Shiite group that has been fighting the government of Yemen for years and has terrorized major international shipping lanes has changed with the times.
“The Houthis have morphed from sandal-wearing fighters to rock stars,” Michael Knights, who studies Iranian influence in the Middle East with Militia Spotlight, told Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. “These are people who you want to be associated with right now.”
Knights was referring to how the Houthis have transformed from a group of ragtag Shiite fighters into an organization allied with the most successful militant groups in the Middle East.
Since they led an uprising that ousted Yemen’s Sunni-Muslim-led government from the capital of Sanaa in 2014, the Shiite Houthis have been fighting a civil war against Yemeni government forces who have turned to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states for support, reported Voice of America. A few years ago, as World Politics Review noted, people didn’t pay too much attention to this fighting in a small corner of the Arabian peninsula, though the Houthis occasionally garnered headlines for piracy along this major shipping route.
Now – numbering 350,000 members, 10 times their strength in 2015 – the Houthis are enmeshed with global terrorist organization Al Qaeda, al Shabab, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Hamas in Gaza and Iran, according to a recent 537-page United Nations report cited in the Arab News.
The Houthis have been helping Al Qaeda acquire and deploy drones to strike at Yemeni troops. They have perfected their piracy, which has made the crucial Red Sea among the most dangerous trade routes in the world: About 12 percent of all global trade, amounting to $1 trillion of goods per year, passes through the Suez Canal at the northwestern edge of the Red Sea. At the same time, the Houthis are reported to be earning about $180 million a month from illegal safe-transit fees paid by unnamed shipping agents to secure safe passage through the Red Sea.
Meanwhile, the Houthis have also amassed a significant business operation that includes the illicit trade in antiquities, racketeering, drug smuggling, and other criminal trades. These provide funds that have been crucial to their success in developing partnerships with others.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and pro-Iran groups in Iraq have also been aiding the Houthis as they have become more robust, the Times of Israel added. The Houthis, in turn, have launched missile and drone strikes against Israel and attacked shipping vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in protest at Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and the US have struck back, attacking ports and other Houthi facilities in response, Al Jazeera reported. These attacks clearly were meant to degrade the Houthis’ ability to fight and extend their reach in the region.
But the Houthis are also building a relationship with Moscow at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is looking for allies to help counter the West’s opposition to his invasion of Ukraine, wrote the Soufan Center, a think tank. Russia is a major exporter of advanced weaponry.
Meanwhile, the country is in limbo: Fighting between Houthi rebels and the Saudi coalition that backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government has largely subsided even though the UN-brokered ceasefire expired in 2022. Even so, concrete progress remains elusive, wrote the Council on Foreign Relations.
Analysts believe that over the next few years, the Houthis will end up as power players in the Yemeni government – they already hold large swathes of territory and wealth in the country and are the dominant military force.
But as all this plays out, Yemen remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the UN says, estimating that 60 percent of the almost 400,000 deaths in Yemen between 2015 and today have been the result of indirect causes of the conflict, such as food insecurity and a lack of accessible health services. Two-thirds of the population, or 21.6 million Yemenis, remain in dire need of assistance.
“It’s almost as if ongoing conflicts have become an accepted part of the everyday realities of life in the region,” said Hanan Balkhy of the World Health Organization. “It’s important to step back and remember that hungry children, disease outbreaks, hospitals shutting down … these are not to be normalized.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
The Comeback
MAURITIUS
Former Mauritian Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam and his four-party coalition won Sunday’s parliamentary elections by a landslide, following a vote heavily influenced by cost-of-living issues and a wiretapping scandal, Radio France Internationale reported Monday.
Incumbent Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth conceded Monday after partial results showed his five-party Alliance Lepep coalition was “heading towards a big defeat” against Ramgoolam’s Alliance du Changement.
Later in the day, results released at various constituencies showed that Jugnauth’s coalition failed to win any of parliament’s 62 seats, marking a major rejection for the current government, the Associated Press noted.
Voter turnout was around 80 percent, according to provisional estimates by election officials.
Though the election campaign was focused on the cost of living, Mauritius’ economy has been booming and the gross domestic product is expected to expand more than six percent a year until 2030, according to Bloomberg.
But there was mounting public outrage over alleged government corruption and fraud following a wiretapping scandal last month. Leaked recordings of politicians, police, business people and journalists prompted the Jugnauth administration to block social media sites earlier this month, citing national security concerns, Agence France-Presse noted.
The government reversed the decision before the Nov. 11 elections, but political observers noted that the prime minister’s crackdown alienated many voters.
Ramgoolam, who previously served as the island nation’s prime minister for three terms, vowed to reduce the price of food, fuel and medicine. The upcoming ruling coalition also pledged to raise pensions, improve infrastructure and overhaul the electoral system.
Located in the Indian Ocean, the country has seen peaceful transfers of power since it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1968.
The election’s outcome comes more than a month after the UK returned sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
No Drawing Board
HAITI
Haiti’s transitional presidential council dismissed Prime Minister Garry Conille this week, a move that plunged the Caribbean nation deeper into political crisis as it grapples with rampant gang violence, the Washington Post reported.
The council named businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as Conille’s replacement in a decree signed by eight of its nine members.
Conille condemned the move as unconstitutional and insisted that the council lacked the authority to remove him. Citing the constitution, he claimed that only legislators could legally dismiss a prime minister.
The council’s decision has intensified Haiti’s constitutional crisis, where no democratically elected officials remain in office. The president’s office has been vacant since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and parliament has been empty since early 2023, with no elections held since 2016.
The transitional council was created earlier this year in response to the escalating violence, with international backing from the United States and other countries, to steer Haiti toward elections by 2026.
However, relations between Conille and the council soured amid disputes over cabinet reshuffles and calls to remove three council members accused of bribery, the Miami Herald wrote.
Conille’s dismissal drew international concern, with diplomats cautioning that the instability within Haiti’s transitional government undermines efforts to restore security and provide aid.
Political observers worry the dismissal could further embolden heavily armed gangs, which control an estimated 85 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince.
Gang violence has displaced thousands and created a severe humanitarian crisis, with nearly half the population facing acute food insecurity.
A United Nations-approved multinational security force led by Kenya was deployed this summer to combat the gangs, but it has struggled with limited resources and has been criticized for making little progress.
Cracks in the Pre-Nup
NEW ZEALAND
Hundreds of New Zealanders began a nine-day march Monday to protest a controversial bill that would alter the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s foundational document signed in 1840 between the British Crown and Māori chiefs, Reuters reported.
The protest, known as “Hīkoi mō te Tiriti” (March for the Treaty), will see demonstrators traveling from Cape Reinga in the far north to other towns and cities until they reach the capital Wellington.
Organizers expect tens of thousands to join by the time they arrive in the capital on Nov.19.
The march comes a week after New Zealand’s center-right government introduced the Treaty Principles Bill, which seeks to enshrine a narrower interpretation of the document that guides legislation and policy in the Pacific nation.
Decades of interpretation by courts and a separate Māori tribunal have tended to expand the rights and privileges of the Indigenous group, which makes up around 20 percent of the country’s population of 5.3 million people.
But Associate Justice Minister David Seymour of the right-wing ACT New Zealand, one of the parties in the ruling coalition, explained that the draft law would allow important political and constitutional questions raised by the treaty to be decided by parliament instead of by the judiciary.
He added that the current policies are disadvantageous to many non-Indigenous citizens, while rejecting claims that the new bill was racist.
However, critics and Māori advocates worry that the bill will threaten Māori rights and deepen existing inequalities. Organizers hope that the marches will also spark a broader conversation about New Zealand’s treatment of its Indigenous people.
In addition to protesting the bill, demonstrators are also opposing other recent government decisions affecting the Māori community, including the dismantling of the Māori Health, changes to child welfare laws impacting Māori families, and mining policies that expedite land use approvals, the New Zealand Herald added.
DISCOVERIES
Beneath the Ashes
Nearly two millennia after Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii under layers of ash and pumice, a new genetic study has unveiled some surprising details about the Roman city’s victims.
An international team of scientists examined DNA from five individuals preserved in Pompeii’s iconic plaster casts and found that some commonly held assumptions about the victims’ identities and relationships may be false.
Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 CE entombed the ancient city and killed an estimated 2,000 people. But it also preserved Pompeii in time.
In the 19th century, archeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli pioneered a plaster-casting technique in which he filled human-shaped voids left in the ash to create detailed representations of Pompeii’s inhabitants in their final moments.
This technique allowed generations of archeologists to study the victims, but interpretations were often based on assumptions influenced by modern perspectives, according to Live Science.
For instance, a cast showing an adult with a golden bracelet holding a child had long been interpreted as a mother and child.
However, study co-author David Reich explained that the DNA analysis showed the individuals were actually “an unrelated adult male and child.” Another cast of two people in an apparent embrace was found to include at least one genetic male, challenging previous beliefs about their relationship.
“The findings demonstrate the importance of integrating genetic analysis with archeological and historical information to enrich or correct narratives constructed based on limited evidence,” co-senior author Alissa Mittnik of the Max Planck Institute said in a statement.
The genetic study also highlighted Pompeii’s diversity, confirming that many residents were recent immigrants from the eastern Mediterranean.
These revelations also serve as a caution against making assumptions based on limited data.
“Instead of establishing new narratives that might also misrepresent these people’s experiences,” Reich said, “the genetic results encourage reflection on the dangers of making up stories about gender and family relationships in past societies based on present-day expectations.”