Yemen

Russia has called for an urgent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting scheduled for January 12 to address the recent military strikes conducted by the United States and the United Kingdom in Yemen. The move comes after US forces, supported by the UK, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Brent crude oil prices rose two percent to $78.94 a barrel after the escalation of the situation in Yemen.

On Friday night, the US and Britain launched strikes against Yemeni Houthi targets in response to their attacks on international ships in the Red Sea. US West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures also rose in price.

The US and Britain have launched air and sea strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen in response to the group's attacks on ships in the Red Sea. This is a dramatic expansion of the war between Israel and Hamas in the region, Reuters reported.

There are explosions all over the country, witnesses say, adds BTA. President Joe Biden has warned that follow-up action is possible.

Sustained attacks by Yemen's Houthis on vessels using Red Sea shipping lanes could have a "substantial" impact on economies and a knock-on effect on prices, a key Cypriot shipping industry group said on Thursday.

Heavy U.S. and British air strikes pounded targets in rebel-held Yemen early on Friday after weeks of disruptive attacks on Red Sea shipping by Iran-backed Huthi forces.

The strikes targeted an airbase, airports and a military camp, the Huthi rebels' Al-Masirah TV station said.

A high-ranking Hellenic Navy officer will visit the US naval base in Manama, Bahrain early next week to help plan Greece's role in the operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea.

The operation aims to protect merchant shipping from attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have declared that any ship destined for Israel is a legitimate target.

Iran's navy seized St Nikolas, the oil tanker associated with the Greek shipping company Empire Navigation, on Thursday in the Gulf of Oman, Iranian media reported.  The oil tanker was once at the center of a major crisis between Tehran and Washington, officials said, a seizure that further escalated tensions in the Mideast waterways.

An oil tanker once at the center of a crisis between Iran and the United States was boarded in the Gulf of Oman by "unauthorized" people in military uniforms early on Thursday morning, an advisory group run by the British military and a private security firm warned.

The UN Security Council has asked Yemen's Houthi rebels to immediately stop attacks on vessels in the Red Sea that began in November.

The United Nations Security Council demanded on Wednesday an "immediate" end to attacks by Yemen's Huthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea.

The resolution passed "demands that the Huthis immediately cease all such attacks, which impede global commerce and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security."