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UN says $144 million needed to avert Yemen tanker disaster
The United Nations...where theory meets practice and practice loses... was seeking $144 million on Wednesday needed to fund the salvage operation of a decaying tanker full of oil moored off the coast of Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , a ship whose demise could cause an environmental disaster. The amount includes $80 million to transfer the more than 1 million barrels of crude oil the FSO Safer is carrying to storage, said David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. The pledging conference, co-hosed by the U.N. and the Netherlands, comes more than two months after the U.N. and Yemen's Iran's Houthi sock puppets  ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the JewsThey like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... rebels reached an agreement to transfer the tanker's contents to another vessel. The agreement also includes a U.N. commitment to provide within 18 months a "replacement equivalent to the FSO Safer suitable for export." The Iranian-backed Houthis control Yemen's western Red Sea ports — including Ras Issa, just 6 kilometers (about 4 miles) from where the FSO Safer has been moored since the 1980s. The Houthis on Tuesday criticized the U.N. for allegedly "not presenting an operational plan" to maintain the tanker, more than two months since they signed the memorandum of understanding, a statement that could complicate U.N. efforts to raise funds. There was no immediate comment from the U.N. on the Houthi statement but the organization previously accused the rebels of delaying its maintenance plans. Gressly said the vessel is slowly rusting and going into significant decay, and could explode, causing massive environmental damage to Red Sea marine life, desalination factories and international shipping routes. "Every day that passes, every month that passes, every year that passes, increases the chance that the vessel will break up and spill its contents," he told news hounds earlier this week. Posted by: Fred 2022-05-12 |
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