Yemeni Ports Revenues at $52 Million in 3 Months

A gunman walks at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen May 10, 2017. (Reuters)
A gunman walks at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen May 10, 2017. (Reuters)
TT

Yemeni Ports Revenues at $52 Million in 3 Months

A gunman walks at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen May 10, 2017. (Reuters)
A gunman walks at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen May 10, 2017. (Reuters)

A specialized Yemeni government committee confirmed that measures taken on port revenues by authorities managed to collect about 52 million dollars in three months, topped by the port of Hodeidah, with nearly 23 million dollars.

The economic committee said in a statement that these funds collected from imports and in port revenues will help pay the salaries of public service employees in areas controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militias. The payments will be made according to a UN plan.

It also stressed that these funds will contribute to financing the state budget deficit. Effectively collecting port revenues serves as a clear indicative for the government’s success in implementing sovereign laws and a move in the right direction towards economic stability.

Forty-four percent of revenues came from Hodeidah port, followed by Aden port at 35 percent Mukalla port with 16 percent and finally the Nashitun port in Al-Mahra governorate, which accounted for 5 percent of total revenues.

Since August, the government started implementing port measures that impose paying fuel import duties in the form of customs and taxes given to the war-torn country’s Central Bank in the interim capital of Aden.

The economic committee also said it had granted “four fuel ships entry permits to unload to the port of Hodeidah upon the request of the UN Special Envoy’s office.”

In previous statements, the economic committee accused the Houthis militias of standing behind the suspension of shipments of fuel off of Hodeidah port and of delaying entry procedures and unloading of cargo.

The government committee said the militias had stopped eight fuel tankers from docking at Hodeidah by preventing traders from submitting documents for government authorization. Houthis have been trying to create and prolong a fuel crisis in Yemen.



Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes 'Cruelty'

A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TT

Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes 'Cruelty'

A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
A Palestinian mourns as he carries the shrouded body of a child, killed in an Israeli strike the previous night, during a funeral in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip on December 21, 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas militants continues. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.

Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican's various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza, Reuters reported.

"Yesterday, children were bombed," said the pope. "This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart."

The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel's military campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas.

In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that "what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope's remarks amounted to a "trivialization" of the term genocide.

Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.

The patriarch's office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope's remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.