That is a weird stage to set things on, but for me in Australia, I am looking to events in the NW (actually WNW to North), Canada looks at it as events in the East (actually ESE) and Europe sees it as events to the South (actually SE), we look at things from a different perspective and in this the ABC (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-31/uae-saudi-arabia-yemen-strikes-port-weapons-shipment/106188568) we get ‘UAE withdraws personnel from Yemen after Saudi Arabia air strikes’ and the headline matters, but this is not the most important part. You see, I partially take offense to “The United Arab Emirates is pulling its personnel out of Yemen after Saudi Arabia’s bombing of an alleged shipment of weapons and vehicles it claimed had been going to a separatist group. The UAE Ministry of Defence said it would withdraw its remaining “counter-terrorism teams” from southern Yemen after Saudi Arabia issued a 24-hour deadline to the Emirates to leave and cease sending weapons and money to any group in the country.” This follows the issue I have with “Both Saudi Arabia and the Emirates intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015, as the major players in a coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the north.” The ABC is wrong here, these aren’t Houthi rebels, they are Houthi Terrorists and they better realise their wrongful setting of the euphemism brush that they use in cases of Yemen events. As I see it,“A terrorist is an individual who uses or threatens violence against non-combatants (such as civilians) to create widespread fear and thereby achieve political, religious, or ideological goals.” And in all this Iran is equally guilty for enabling these terrorist events by delivering hardware and knowledge to the Houthi terrorists. We merely get “On 9 October 2021, Houthi forces launched two suicide drones on King Abdullah Airport in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. The attack left 10 wounded; six Saudi nationals, three Bangladeshi and one Sudanese as well as and minor damage to civilian property.” Yet, if the media took the trouble to question Colonel Turki bin Saleh al-Maliki of the Royal Saudi Air Force, they would get a number a lot higher and more recent of the attacks these terrorists made on Saudi Arabian soil, even though Yemeni hardware could never enabled these actions, neither was it possible to see the attacks on 14 September 2019, where drones were used to attack oil processing facilities. Houthi forces never had the knowhow and precision to follow through in that, making Iran the most likely culprit (I use culprit loosely as I never saw the evidence) and the western media is massively shy the reports on this, because that would enable Saudi Arabia to get the backing from the global population and that is a second setting the world was not ready for. It is all nice if one party is show to be the bad apple, but when too much evidence is showing to be incorrect, the people will ask questions and the media set themselves up for that stage. And there are developing stages here. As ABC gives us “But Dr Kendall said the Saudis and Emiratis supported different factions in southern Yemen, with Saudi Arabia preferring a united Yemen and the Emiratis supporting the separatist STC, which wants to create a new state in the south. That rivalry has intensified, especially after the UAE expanded its influence and military presence across southern Yemen and its islands, while Saudi Arabia responded by bombing the STC in Yemen’s eastern provinces last week. “Clashes have erupted in the past, most notably in 2019, but now is the most serious clash yet. This is a very serious disagreement about how, when and if the south should break away,” Dr Kendall said.” It shows that my knowledge is lacking involving Yemeni events and I blame the media for not keeping us up to date and that is the function of the media. ABC has been properly advising its readers (listeners and watchers too) of these events, but they likely have limiting resources. And as I see it, ABC stands mostly alone, whilst American, British and European news agencies let that chapter slide as (as I personally see it) Yemen isn’t sexy enough for the news. But that also implies that too many hand the bad card to Saudi Arabia whilst that is not the proper thing. As I see it, Iran is a lot more guilty of these bad cards than Saudi Arabia would have ever been entitled to.
We are also given ““The UAE categorically rejects any attempt to implicate the country in tensions among Yemeni parties and strongly denounces allegations that it exerted pressure on, or issued directives to, any Yemeni party to undertake military operations that would undermine the security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or target its borders,” the Emirati government said in a statement.” I cannot counter that because the media never gave us the real deal, but I am willing to color both nations in happy green, whilst keeping Iran in evil red (as colours go in my view of things) and that makes coloring the borders a problem, because I have seen close (thought Arabian news sources) to half a dozen attacks on Saudi civilian targets, making the Houthi terrorist the guilty party. So why is the ABC labeling them ‘Houthi rebels’?
It is a setting that due to one sided and limited exposure a setting of question and whilst we might see the UAE and Saudi Arabia as the noble sides, there is more going on in Yemen and that could give us a setting of doubt and we are able and willing to be in doubt, because as I see it, most of the media isn’t doing their job (as I personally see it).
All whilst ABC gave us this image which is striking. There is a whole range of elements in action, some in the hearts of the Yemeni and the media just won’t give us the real deal. Why is that?
Have a great day and today is the last day of the year here, tomorrow will be another year.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 