Britain takes part in more Yemen air strikes

Welcome to Tuesday’s Early Edition from i.

In an exchange with reporters at the White House last Thursday, US President Joe Biden was blunt. Asked whether the air strikes in Yemen were working, he replied: “When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.” Despite facing the might of the US military – joined by Britain on two missions, and with the support of other nations including Canada, Australia and the Netherlands – the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have not backed down. Attacks on Red Sea vessels have continued, and so have their vows to carry on. After the first joint UK and US operation earlier this month, a Houthi foreign ministry official said: “America and Britain will undoubtedly have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences of this blatant aggression”. On Monday night the US and UK conducted strikes on eight targets in what Britain said was an act of “self defence”. Grant Shapps said the mission would “deal another blow” to the militants. What do we know about the latest strikes, and do they risk exacerbating further tensions that are already inflamed? We’ll take a look, after the headlines.

 Today’s news, and why it matters

Women who have suffered miscarriages and stillbirths have been reported to the police over “illegal abortions”, a leading NHS doctor has said. Dr Jonathan Lord, medical director of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), said he knows of three patients who were investigated over premature deliveries despite a lack of any suggestion they had tried to access abortion drugs.

Parents who hoped the much-anticipated new free 15-hours of childcare for two-year-olds would relieve their financial nightmares say the chaotic rollout has left them facing “cruel and unfair” disruption. With just over two months before it is due to start, the scheme is beset with problems, with parents complaining they have been unable to access it due to delays in allocating funding and issues with the IT system controlling it.

Jeremy Hunt has hinted at the idea of cutting taxes in March’s Budget – with experts predicting that inheritance tax and income tax could be slashed. But tax experts have said that they do not solve key problems with the current system. Here are the changes they would make at the Budget if they had free reign over the system.

The House of Lords has voted to delay the UK’s new treaty with Rwanda, which is intended to allow deportation flights to the country to begin. Peers agreed on Monday evening with the argument that the treaty should not be approved because the promises made in it have not yet been delivered.

Civil Service bosses who do not get their staff back to the office will be penalised under Government plans to crack down on working from home. Managers will be disciplined for failing to get employees to return staff to the office after the Civil Service faced criticism over the number of people working from home since the pandemic.

Britain’s “ghost town” high streets lost nearly 5,000 shops, pubs and restaurants last year, i can reveal. A net total of 4,415 retail businesses and 555 accommodation and food firms disappeared from the high street in the first nine months of 2023, House of Commons library research shows.

Three questions on the latest US/UK joint operation against Houthi rebels:

What did the air strikes target? Monday night’s operation was the eighth round of air strikes carried out by the US against Houthi-linked targets in Yemen, and the second time British forces had joined in. US Central Command said the strikes targeted missile systems and launchers, air-defence systems, radars and underground storage sites. The six allied nations involved in the mission – including Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands – said “we will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways in the face of continued threats”. The Ministry of Defence in London said four Royal Air Force Typhoon jets struck “multiple targets and two military sites in the vicinity of Sanaa airfield” using precision-guided bombs. Two Voyager tankers were also involved. The department said that a “very rigorous analysis” was carried out to avoid civilian casualties. Grant Shapps said the strikes were aimed at “degrading Houthi capabilities” and would “deal another blow to their limited stockpiles”. A senior US military official said the strikes dropped between 25 and 30 munitions and hit multiple targets at each location, Associated Press reported. The latest strikes appeared to be on a smaller scale than the first joint operation between the US and UK on 11 January, which hit 60 targets at 28 locations, using more than 150 munitions.

Should Sunak have consulted Parliament? Unlike the last strikes, the PM is understood not to have briefed Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer nor the Commons leader Sir Lindsay Hoyle about the latest operation. Some Lib Dems and the SNP called for a parliamentary debate or a vote after the first mission on 11 January, saying there should have been one before the strikes. However, Sir Keir said he agreed with the operation. On 16 January he told the Commons: “The UK’s response was proportionate and necessary. Labour will always stay resolute in the face of aggression which threatens global security.” Will that change after last night’s events? And will Sunak make a statement today, as he did before? This remains to be seen.

Will Iran retaliate? The Houthi movement is backed by Iran, but it is not clear whether the rebels targeting ships in the Red Sea are doing so with any direction from Tehran. Earlier on Monday, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the top Navy commander in the Middle East, told Associated Press that Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks, but did not say that the country was actually directing them.“What I’ll say is Iran is clearly funding, they’re resourcing, they are supplying and they’re providing training,” he said, adding: “they’re obviously very directly involved. There’s no secret there.” Earlier this month US forces seized Iranian-made missile parts and other weaponry from a ship bound for Houthis in Yemen. Two Navy SEALs who went missing in that operation are now believed dead. Around 10 days ago Joe Biden said a private message had been delivered to Iran about the Houthi attacks, but the details of that have not been made public. Last week, David Cameron pressed Iran’s foreign minister on the matter, urging Tehran to stop supplying the rebels with weapons. But, as Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Times Radio last week: “We don’t know how the Iranian’s are thinking at the moment or where it is going.” She said: “It’s completely unclear whether Iran was the instigator of these attacks or whether the Houthis thought up the first attacks themselves and then let Iran know, but either way Iran is there as a state sponsor. And if the UK and the US continue to retaliate at some point Iran will have to decide ‘do we retaliate against US and UK’.” However, Iran has been flexing its muscles in other parts of the region recently, with missile strikes on Syria, Iraq and Pakistan. Some of those have injured US personnel, which Washington has said it will respond to. Analysts say both sides want to avoid a full-blown war, but an escalation of this is looking likelier with each attack. (Read more on that here). Iran recently showed off new powerful missiles that could reach Europe. “We are a missile power in the world,” Iran’s Defence Minister, Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani, said after the strikes aimed at Iraq and Syria. “Wherever they want to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will react.” Whether Iran will become more directly involved in this conflict remains unknown. But the Houthis have made clear their intentions. Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of Yemen’s Houthi supreme revolutionary committee, wrote on X: “Trust well that every operation and every aggression against our country will not be without a response”.

Around the world

 The White House has called on Israel to protect innocent people as Palestinian officials said the Israeli military had stormed one hospital in Gaza and placed another under siege. John Kirby said Israel had a right to defend itself but added: “We expect them to do so in accordance with international law and to protect innocent people in hospitals, medical staff and patients as well, as much as possible.”

Satellite imagery that appears to show cargo shipments between Russia and North Korea has added to growing speculation that Pyongyang is providing military aid to Moscow despite international sanctions. The UK has now given a UN panel of experts satellite images of three Russian ships loading containers in the North Korean port of Najin.

Russian forces have made advances into the heavily fortified city of Avdiivka after months of bloody assaults, according to Russian and Ukrainian media and open source analysts. Russian military blogger Rybar announced a “breakthrough into the south-east of Avdiivka” early on Monday, claiming Russian troops had seized positions inside the city and were holding them against Ukrainian counter-attacks.

A British man living in north-west Italy says the effect of Brexit on the exchange rate and on UK house prices when he was selling his London home wiped £214,000 off his budget to buy property in Italy. Silvia Marchetti reports.

Reese Witherspoon is at the centre of a debate over the safety of eating snow after she shared a TikTok video in which she added chocolate and syrup to scoops of fresh flakes from her garden. But her “snow salt chococino” creation was met with criticism from some viewers that eating snow was “dirty”.

 Watch out for…

 Storm Jocelyn, the latest bout of bad weather to hit the UK after Storm Isha subsided.  

 Thoughts for the day

 Nikki Haley is on course to seriously damage Donald Trump’s campaign. Nobody on the right has been able to cut the Trumpian head off the Republican serpent, but it looks increasingly likely, writes Andrew Naughtie.

Politicians have too easily forgotten the terror Hamas inflicted on 7 October. If Western politicians genuinely want to make progress towards a lasting settlement, they can’t afford to have the perspective of goldfish, warns Isabel Hardman.

I always have a jigsaw puzzle on the go – they are the answer to our attention crisis. Far from a distraction, a jigsaw can help focus the mind, says Simon Kelner.

Culture Break

 “I’m a writer, not a spokesperson”. Kiley Reid’s first novel ‘Such a Fun Age’ was a literary sensation. As she publishes her second, she talks to Francesca Steele about cash, class and motherhood.

 The Big Read

 By 2040, salaries won’t exist – and four other ways work will be unrecognisable. It isn’t just AI that will change working life. In 16 years, an ageing population and changing weather patterns will transform the 9-5, reports Eleanor Peake.

Sport

 “He’s like Kevin Pietersen”: India are warned not to target England’s Rehan Ahmed. A leg-spinner from Nottingham, Ahmed – who turned 19 last August – has garnered a lot of attention after making his debut two years ago, writes Chris Stocks.

Something to brighten your day

 A 12-year-old schoolboy from Devon has been invited to join Mensa after achieving the maximum possible score for his age group on an IQ test. Rory Bidwell was given a result of 162 on the Cattell III B test, a slightly higher mark than assigned to Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. According to the North Devon Gazette, Rory took the test without any preparation and was relaxed during the exam. His mother said: “He even took a leisurely stroll to the toilet during one section!”