Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie will take part in this week’s donor meeting on Yemen as the country hurtles towards “catastrophe”, with 17.4 million people needing food handouts as funding dries up, the UN said on Monday.
Jolie, celebrity envoy for the UN refugee agency, will on Wednesday join officials at a virtual fundraiser for Yemen, which has been battered by seven years of war between rebel, pro-government and foreign forces.
The humanitarian last week visited Yemen and met residents in the south and rebel-held north to “draw attention to the devastating impact of the war”, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York on Monday.
The donor meeting scheduled for March 16 represents "an opportunity to demonstrate that the world has not forgotten Yemen, even as other crises are demanding global attention”, said Mr Haq.
“We call on all donors to pledge generously and to disburse funds quickly.”
UN agencies meanwhile gave a warning that Yemen was “on the edge of outright catastrophe”, with 17.4 million people needing food handouts and an additional 1.6 million set to fall into “emergency levels” of hunger within months.
Children have been particularly affected, said the UN World Food Programme and other agencies, with 2.2 million youngsters acutely malnourished, more than a million of them so hungry they could starve to death.
“We need to act now,” said David Gressly, the UN’s aid co-ordinator for Yemen.
“The parties to the conflict should lift all restrictions on trade and investment for non-sanctioned commodities.”
UN aid chiefs worry that donor fatigue will undermine this week’s meeting, as governments shift spending to Ukraine, Afghanistan and other global hotspots.
Jolie said last week that appeals were “underfunded globally” and urged donors to give generously.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday said Yemen and other “vulnerable” nations were being hit by the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24.
Russia and Ukraine account for more than half of global sunflower oil supplies and about 30 per cent of its wheat. Grain prices have already exceeded those at the start of the Arab uprisings, Mr Guterres said.
“Food, fuel and fertiliser prices are skyrocketing,” said the UN chief, while warning that shockwaves from the European conflict were being felt in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Congo, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
“This is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe.”
Yemen has been mired in chaos since Houthi rebels ousted the internationally recognised government from the capital Sanaa in early 2015.
A Saudi Arabia-led military coalition intervened a few months later to try to restore the government.
Fighting has claimed more than 370,000 lives, directly and indirectly, the UN says, and caused widespread suffering, with four fifths of Yemen’s 30 million people needing handouts.
Winners
Ballon d’Or (Men’s)
Ousmane Dembélé (Paris Saint-Germain / France)
Ballon d’Or Féminin (Women’s)
Aitana Bonmatí (Barcelona / Spain)
Kopa Trophy (Best player under 21 – Men’s)
Lamine Yamal (Barcelona / Spain)
Best Young Women’s Player
Vicky López (Barcelona / Spain)
Yashin Trophy (Best Goalkeeper – Men’s)
Gianluigi Donnarumma (Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City / Italy)
Best Women’s Goalkeeper
Hannah Hampton (England / Aston Villa and Chelsea)
Men’s Coach of the Year
Luis Enrique (Paris Saint-Germain)
Women’s Coach of the Year
Sarina Wiegman (England)
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: N2 Technology
Founded: 2018
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Startups
Size: 14
Funding: $1.7m from HNIs
Barings Bank
Barings, one of Britain’s oldest investment banks, was
founded in 1762 and operated for 233 years before it went bust after a trading
scandal.
Barings Bank collapsed in February 1995 following colossal
losses caused by rogue trader Nick Lesson.
Leeson gambled more than $1 billion in speculative trades,
wiping out the venerable merchant bank’s cash reserves.
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
Price: Dh133,900
On sale: now
Checks continue
A High Court judge issued an interim order on Friday suspending a decision by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots to direct a stop to Brexit agri-food checks at Northern Ireland ports.
Mr Justice Colton said he was making the temporary direction until a judicial review of the minister's unilateral action this week to order a halt to port checks that are required under the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Civil servants have yet to implement the instruction, pending legal clarity on their obligations, and checks are continuing.
THE SPECS
Engine: 3.5-litre supercharged V6
Power: 416hp at 7,000rpm
Torque: 410Nm at 3,500rpm
Transmission: 6-speed manual
Fuel consumption: 10.2 l/100km
Price: Dh375,000
On sale: now
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
