Iran Begins Efforts to Stop US-British Strikes Against Houthis

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani speaking to reporters (IRNA)
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani speaking to reporters (IRNA)
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Iran Begins Efforts to Stop US-British Strikes Against Houthis

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani speaking to reporters (IRNA)
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani speaking to reporters (IRNA)

Iran launched its diplomatic efforts to stop the US-British attacks on the Houthi group, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani.

Kanaani indicated that recent developments in the Red Sea are a result of the situation in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking at the weekly press conference, Kanaani announced that the UK-US attacks against Yemen violate the sovereignty of an independent and UN member state.

He described the attacks as a "flagrant act of aggression and adventure," accusing them of issuing "false claims" of not wanting to expand the scope of the war while they launched illegal and unilateral actions.

Hamas has been launching drone and missile attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since Nov. 19 in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In response, US and British forces began launching air attacks on Houthi positions.

The spokesman reiterated Tehran's condemnation of the attacks, saying the situation in the "Red Sea is caused by the conditions that are going on in Gaza."

Iran has expressed its transparent position on the issue, he further noted.

- Boycotting Israeli goods in Iran

Kanaani asserted that boycotting Israeli goods is a demand of all free people in the world.

The spokesman explained that the Foreign Ministry must monitor and prepare a list of companies and goods associated with Israel under the law.

Last year, the authorities identified the companies and goods affiliated with Israel and updated the list submitted to the Trade Ministry and the Customs Administration.

Last December, Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf demanded that the Foreign Ministry provide a list of goods linked to Israeli companies.

Ghalibaf said the government must take the necessary measures to prevent the import of these goods.

Kanaani asserted that none of the known Israeli goods will be allowed to enter Iran.

- Gaza, post-war

He indicated that the "Zionist entity does want to stop the war," accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking his interests through the ongoing war and lack of security and stability.

Kanaani defended the actions of the "Axis of Resistance" groups, referring to the recent visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian to Beirut.

Commenting on the death of Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers in Syria last month, Kanaani said officials on several occasions that any action against Iran will not go unanswered, and Tehran will respond to the Zionist action against it.

On Sunday, The Washington Post quoted Lebanese and Iraqi officials as saying that Iran is privately urging Hezbollah and other armed groups to exercise restraint against US forces.

"Iran may have realized their interests are not served by allowing their proxies unrestricted ability to attack US and coalition forces," one US official said.

"Iran is doing its utmost to prevent the expansion of the war and the escalation from reaching the point of no return," said an Iraqi official with close ties to Iranian-backed forces there.

The newspaper pointed out that Amirabdollahian praised the groups during a recent visit to Lebanon and promised continued support.

However, in private, Iranian emissaries have adopted a more measured tone. They've praised Hezbollah's sacrifices but cautioned that war with Israel would risk precious gains in the region, according to Washington Post sources.

Washington confirmed that Tehran enjoys a high level of control over its "agents" in the region. Tehran says it has provided funding, advice, and training to allies.

On Sunday, multiple Iranian and Iraqi sources told Reuters that the visit of the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, to Baghdad has led to a pause in attacks on US troops by Iran-aligned groups in Iraq.

Qaani met representatives of several of the armed groups in Baghdad airport on Jan. 29, less than 48 hours after Washington blamed the groups for the killing of three US soldiers at the Tower 22 outpost in Jordan, the sources said.

The sources added that Qaani informed the armed factions that shedding US blood risked a violent response and that they must move away from the scene to avoid launching a strike.

He said the militias should lie low to avoid US strikes on their senior commanders, destruction of key infrastructure, or even a direct retaliation against Iran, the sources said.

Since Feb. 4, there have been no attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, compared to more than 20 attacks in the two weeks before Qaani's visit.



As Flooding Becomes a Yearly Disaster in South Sudan, Thousands Survive on the Edge of a Canal

Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)
Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)
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As Flooding Becomes a Yearly Disaster in South Sudan, Thousands Survive on the Edge of a Canal

Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)
Children ride in a small canoe around the area where they live in Jonglei state, South Sudan. (Photo: AP)

Long-horned cattle wade through flooded lands and climb a slope along a canal that has become a refuge for displaced families in South Sudan. Smoke from burning dung rises near homes of mud and grass where thousands of people now live after floods swept away their village.
“Too much suffering,” said Bichiok Hoth Chuiny, a woman in her 70s. She supported herself with a stick as she walked in the newly established community of Pajiek in Jonglei state north of the capital, Juba, The Associated Press said.
For the first time in decades, the flooding had forced her to flee. Her efforts to protect her home by building dykes failed. Her former village of Gorwai is now a swamp.
“I had to be dragged in a canoe up to here,” Chuiny said. An AP journalist was the first to visit the community.
Such flooding is becoming a yearly disaster in South Sudan, which the World Bank has described as “the world’s most vulnerable country to climate change and also the one most lacking in coping capacity."
More than 379,000 people have been displaced by flooding this year, according to the UN humanitarian agency.
Seasonal flooding has long been part of the lifestyle of pastoral communities around the Sudd, the largest wetlands in Africa, in the Nile River floodplain. But since the 1960s the swamp has kept growing, submerging villages, ruining farmland and killing livestock.
“The Dinka, Nuer and Murle communities of Jonglei are losing the ability to keep cattle and do farming in that region the way they used to,” said Daniel Akech Thiong, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.
South Sudan is poorly equipped to adjust. Independent since 2011, the country plunged into civil war in 2013. Despite a peace deal in 2018, the government has failed to address numerous crises. Some 2.4 million people remain internally displaced by conflict and flooding.
The latest overflowing of the Nile has been blamed on factors including the opening of dams upstream in Uganda after Lake Victoria rose to its highest levels in five years.
The century-old Jonglei Canal, which was never completed, has become a refuge for many.
“We don’t know up to where this flooding would have pushed us if the canal was not there,” said Peter Kuach Gatchang, the paramount chief of Pajiek. He was already raising a small garden of pumpkins and eggplants in his new home.
The 340-kilometer (211-mile) Jonglei Canal was first imagined in the early 1900s by Anglo-Egyptian colonial authorities to increase the Nile’s outflow towards Egypt in the north. But its development was interrupted by the long fight of southern Sudanese against the Sudanese regime in Khartoum that eventually led to the creation of a separate country.
Gatchang said the new community in Pajiek is neglected: "We have no school and no clinic here, and if you stay for a few days, you will see us carrying our patients on stretchers up to Ayod town.”
Ayod, the county headquarters, is reached by a six-hour walk through the waist-high water.
Pajiek also has no mobile network and no government presence. The area is under the control of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, founded by President Salva Kiir’s rival turned Vice President Riek Machar.
Villagers rely on aid. On a recent day, hundreds of women lined up in a nearby field to receive some from the World Food Program.
Nyabuot Reat Kuor walked home with a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of sorghum balanced on her head.
“This flooding has destroyed our farm, killed our livestock and displaced us for good," the mother of eight said. “Our old village of Gorwai has become a river.”
When food assistance runs out, she said, they will survive on wild leaves and water lilies from the swamp. Already in recent years, food aid rations have been cut in half as international funding for such crises drops.
More than 69,000 people who have migrated to the Jonglei Canal in Ayod county are registered for food assistance, according to WFP.
“There are no passable roads at this time of the year, and the canal is too low to support boats carrying a lot of food,” said John Kimemia, a WFP airdrop coordinator.
In the neighboring Paguong village that is surrounded by flooded lands, the health center has few supplies. Medics haven’t been paid since June due to an economic crisis that has seen civil servants nationwide go unpaid for more than a year.
South Sudan’s economic woes have deepened with the disruption of oil exports after a major pipeline was damaged in Sudan during that country's ongoing civil war.
“The last time we got drugs was in September. We mobilized the women to carry them on foot from Ayod town,” said Juong Dok Tut, a clinical officer.
Patients, mostly women and children, sat on the ground as they waited to see the doctor. Panic rippled through the group when a thin green snake passed among them. It wasn't poisonous, but many others in the area are. People who venture into the water to fish or collect water lilies are at risk.
Four life-threatening snake bites cases occurred in October, Tut said. “We managed these cases with the antivenom treatments we had, but now they’re over, so we don’t know what to do if it happens again.”