Sanctions on Tehran will cripple its regional warmongering

A new United Nations report has confirmed what many in the Arab world have long known – that branches of regional instability trace their roots back to Tehran. How else can one explain the capacity of a ragtag militia to drive Yemen's legitimate government out of Sanaa? It is no secret that the Houthis, together with Hezbollah in Lebanon and fringe militant elements in Syria, are proxies of Iran. Now the UN panel of experts has confirmed those weapon supply lines between Tehran and the Houthis stretch back years.

The UN report validates the need for the Saudi-led coalition's efforts to restore Yemen's rightful government and comes in the wake of America's ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, supplying evidence in December last year that a Houthi missile fired at Riyadh international airport was Iranian-made – one of dozens of rockets launched at Saudi Arabia in recent years. Since the Houthis took control in 2014 and imposed their tyrannical rule, they have ushered in the world's worst humanitarian crisis, where civilians are used as human shields and peace is illusory. Today the country is dotted with landmines, tens of thousands of which have been destroyed by Saudi-led coalition forces. The Houthi grip on the vital port city of Hodeidah has hindered the supply of critical food and aid. The coalition has exercised great restraint in upholding a month-long ceasefire to aid negotiations. But as Khaled Al Yemany, Yemen's foreign minister, said, the rebels have chosen instead to stall for time. A window for a peaceful solution is rapidly closing.

Behind their malevolence is the scourge of Iranian expansionism. Shipments of smuggled Iranian weapons, from ballistic missiles to drones, have lengthened a grim war and deepened the crisis befalling ordinary Yemenis. Contrast that with Yemeni President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, who today arrived in Al Mahrah with the Saudi ambassador to inaugurate development projects. It is clear the war will not end until Tehran’s economic and military supply lines to the Houthis are severed. This was part of the reasoning that prompted US President Donald Trump to tear up the flawed Iran nuclear deal and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to take the regime to task. The sanctions relief afforded by the nuclear deal freed up millions of dollars for Iran’s regional adventurism while Iranian citizens – starved of resources and utilities – have been taking to the streets for months to protest the regime's failure to provide for them. Sanctions should change the regime's behaviour despite the pain for its people.

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Day 5, Dubai Test: At a glance

Moment of the day Given the problems Sri Lanka have had in recent times, it was apt the winning catch was taken by Dinesh Chandimal. He is one of seven different captains Sri Lanka have had in just the past two years. He leads in understated fashion, but by example. His century in the first innings of this series set the shock win in motion.

Stat of the day This was the ninth Test Pakistan have lost in their past 11 matches, a run that started when they lost the final match of their three-Test series against West Indies in Sharjah last year. They have not drawn a match in almost two years and 19 matches, since they were held by England at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi in 2015.

The verdict Mickey Arthur basically acknowledged he had erred by basing Pakistan’s gameplan around three seam bowlers and asking for pitches with plenty of grass in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Why would Pakistan want to change the method that has treated them so well on these grounds in the past 10 years? It is unlikely Misbah-ul-Haq would have made the same mistake.

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

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