The possibility for peace has increased in Yemen with a historic prisoner exchange between Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces and Houthi rebels. Meanwhile, Palestinians stood in solidarity with 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons on Prisoner Day, April 17. Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service reports.
The United States has been supplying weapons to the Saudi-led international coalition and helping the coalition implement a blockade of Yemen, despite announcing in 2021 an end to its role in the war.
The Saudi-led international coalition intervened in the Yemen conflict in 2015. It has also imposed a land and sea blockade. According to UNICEF, around 11 million Yemeni children are directly affected by the war and around 2.2 million are extremely malnourished, reports Peoples Dispatch.
UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths highlighted the drastic rise in civilian casualties over the last few months, reports People's Dispatch.
Dear Toward Freedom readers:
This week, Toward Freedom’s Board of Directors bids farewell to guest editor Charlotte Dennett, welcomes Toward Freedom’s new editor, Julie Varughese, and extends a heartfelt thanks to Sam Mayfield who stepped down as President of Toward Freedom’s Board of Directors in December, 2020.
Charlotte Dennett stepped in as Toward Freedom’s guest editor last October. Her decades-long experience as a scholar, author and activist allowed Charlotte to seamlessly step into the position serving Toward Freedom’s mission, “to publish international reporting and incisive analysis that exposes government and corporate abuses of power, while supporting movements for universal peace, justice, freedom, the environment, and human rights.”
In late May, a Predator drone replica, appearing suddenly above the High Line promenade at 30th Street, might seem to scrutinize people below. The “gaze” of the sleek, white sculpture by Sam Durant, called “Untitled, (drone),” in the shape of the U.S. military’s Predator killer drone, will sweep unpredictably over the people below, rotating atop its 25-foot-high steel pole, its direction guided by the wind.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019