Houthis Plead with Putin to Stop Liberation of Hodeidah

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters file photo
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters file photo
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Houthis Plead with Putin to Stop Liberation of Hodeidah

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters file photo
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters file photo

Houthi militias have begged Russian President Vladimir Putin for support against Yemeni government forces and the Saudi-led coalition which are tightening the noose on the insurgents and their Iranian-backed plan in Yemen.

In a letter sent to Putin, head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council Mahdi al-Mashat warned that the coalition has been aiming to take control of all strategic maritime areas to put them under US influence and lay hands on international trade, official sources said on Thursday.

According to the group, this letter aims at strengthening bilateral relations with friendly countries. Observers, however, viewed it as an attempt to legitimize the militia.

Mashat presented himself in the letter as a speaker on behalf of the Yemeni government and people.

He urged the Russian president to intervene to stop the battle of the West Coast, led by the legitimate government and Saudi-led coalition forces to liberate Hodeidah and its port and the Yemeni coast on the Red Sea.

The legitimate forces have been trying to control sea ports from where Houthis receive weapons sent by Iran and military and technical support from the Lebanese “Hezbollah.”

The letter claimed that the war waged by the legitimate government with the support of the Saudi-led coalition to end the coup is unjustified and violates UN charters, international laws and Yemen’s sovereignty, and threatens the world and the region, according to the Houthi version of Saba news agency.

Ironically, the group used terms such as UN charters, international laws, and Yemeni sovereignty while in fact it violates everything mentioned in the letter.

The group also claimed that the liberation of Hodeidah and the West Coast would transform the Red Sea into an American “lake” and would give Washington control of trade routes and power lines in Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Yemeni islands.

Mashat claimed in his letter that the group looks forward for a Russian role that would stop the legitimate government’s and the coalition’s liberation operations, and would support a comprehensive political settlement that would meet the expectations of the Houthis in ruling Yemen and keeping its weapons in service to Iran.



Gaza Struggles to Pull Bodies From Rubble as Storms Rock Damaged Buildings

A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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Gaza Struggles to Pull Bodies From Rubble as Storms Rock Damaged Buildings

A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Authorities in Gaza warned on Monday that more war-damaged buildings may collapse because of heavy rain in the devastated Palestinian enclave and said the weather was making it hard to recover bodies still under the rubble.

Two buildings collapsed in Gaza on Friday, killing at least 12 people according to local health authorities, amid a storm that has also washed away and flooded tents, and led to deaths from exposure.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October after two years of intense bombardment and military operations, but humanitarian agencies say there is still very little aid getting into Gaza, where nearly the entire population is homeless.

Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal called on the international community to provide mobile homes and caravans for displaced Palestinians rather than tents.

"If people are not protected today we will witness more victims, more killing of people, children, women, entire families inside these buildings," he said.

Mohammad Nassar and his family were living in a six-storey building that was badly damaged by Israeli strikes earlier in the war, and then collapsed on Friday.

His family had struggled to find alternative accommodation and had been flooded out while living in a tent during a previous bout of bad weather. Nassar went out to buy some necessities on Friday and returned to a scene of carnage with rescue workers struggling to pull bodies from the rubble.

"I saw my son's hand sticking out from under the ground. It was the scene that affected me the most. My son under the ground and we are unable to get him out," Nassar said. His son, 15, died, as did a daughter, aged 18.

Gaza authorities are meanwhile still digging to recover around 9,000 bodies they estimate remain buried in rubble from Israeli bombing during the war, but they lack the machinery needed to expedite the work, spokesman Ismail al-Thawabta said.

On Monday, rescue workers retrieved the remains of around 20 people from a multi-storey building bombed in December 2023 where around 60 people, including 30 children, were believed to be sheltering.


Mother of Jailed French Journalist Asks Algerian President for Pardon

This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP
This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP
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Mother of Jailed French Journalist Asks Algerian President for Pardon

This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP
This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP

The mother of jailed French journalist Christophe Gleizes wrote a letter to Algeria's president requesting he pardon her son from his seven-year sentence on terror-related charges.

Gleizes, a sportswriter, was convicted of "glorifying terrorism" in June.

"I respectfully ask you to consider granting Christophe a pardon, so that he may regain his freedom and his family," Sylvie Godard wrote in the letter, which was dated December 10 and seen by AFP on Monday.

Gleizes's lawyers are also seeking a new trial with the country's highest court.

Gleizes was arrested in May 2024 while travelling to northeastern Algeria's Kabylia region to write about the country's most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie.

In 2021, he met the head of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group designated a terrorist organization by Algiers.

At this month's appeal hearing, Gleizes said he did not know the MAK had been listed as a terrorist organization, and asked the court's forgiveness for his "journalistic mistakes".

An Algerian appeals court upheld his sentence this month, a decision his mother called "incomprehensible".

"Nowhere in any of his writings will you find any trace of statements hostile to Algeria and its people," she wrote in her letter to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Gleizes is currently France's only journalist imprisoned abroad, according to rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to work towards his release.

Gleizes's jailing comes at a time of diplomatic friction between Paris and Algiers after France last year officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region, where Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front.


Torrential Rains and Flash Floods Kill 37 in Moroccan City of Safi

The minaret of a mosque stands behind damaged or destroyed houses following an earthquake in Moulay Brahim, Al-Haouz province, on September 9, 2023. (AFP)
The minaret of a mosque stands behind damaged or destroyed houses following an earthquake in Moulay Brahim, Al-Haouz province, on September 9, 2023. (AFP)
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Torrential Rains and Flash Floods Kill 37 in Moroccan City of Safi

The minaret of a mosque stands behind damaged or destroyed houses following an earthquake in Moulay Brahim, Al-Haouz province, on September 9, 2023. (AFP)
The minaret of a mosque stands behind damaged or destroyed houses following an earthquake in Moulay Brahim, Al-Haouz province, on September 9, 2023. (AFP)

Floods triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 37 people in the Moroccan coastal city of Safi, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

Authorities said heavy rain and flash floods overnight inundated about 70 homes and businesses and swept away 10 vehicles. The Interior Ministry reported 14 people hospitalized, AFP reported.

Local outlets reported that schools announced three days of closures. Rains also caused flooding and damage elsewhere throughout Morocco, including the northern city of Tetouan and the mountain town of Tinghir.

Safi, a city on Morocco’s Atlantic shore more than 320 kilometers (200 miles) from the capital Rabat, is a major hub for the country’s critical fishing and mining industries. Both employ thousands to catch, mine and process the commodities for export. The city, with a population of more than 300,000 people, is home to a major phosphate processing plant.

Videos shared on social media showed cars stranded and partially submerged as floodwaters surged through Safi’s streets.

Climate change has made weather patterns more unpredictable in Morocco. North Africa has been plagued by several years of drought, hardening soils and making mountains, deserts and plains more susceptible to flooding. Last year, floods in normally arid mountains and desert areas killed nearly two dozen people in Morocco and Algeria.

This week's floods came after 22 people were killed in a two-building collapse in the Moroccan city of Fez. Morocco has invested in disaster risk initiatives although local governments often do not enforce building codes and drainage systems can be lacking in some cities. Infrastructural inequities were a focus of youth-led protests that swept the country earlier this year.

__ Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Rabat, Morocco, contributed to this report.