Yemen update 11/02\2015.. Chapala to flood a country already suffering major humanitarian crisis

Yemen: War Crimes, Peace Talks, and the US Agenda

Eric Draitser of StopImperialism.org provides his commentary (Oct. 30, 2015) on the ongoing Saudi war on Yemen. Draitser explains what US interests in Yemen are, and what fundamental issues are at play in the conflict. He points out the hypocrisy in how the US selectively applies international law, the Saudi agenda in Yemen, and possible solutions to the war.

Activists say Saudis use internationally banned bombs in Yemen

Yemeni media: Saudi warplanes drop cluster bomb on Sa’ada province

Saudi Arabia injure several people in Yemen’s Sana’a province

Saudi-led coalition bombs Villages in Fight for Yemen

Yemenis fire rockets at Saudi military base, ammo depot in Asir

Destroying Saudi vehicles and burning ammunition storage in Najran

Cyclone Chapala in Yemen and Oman Nov 2, 2015

RARE ARABIAN SEA CYCLONE CHAPALA TO HIT YEMEN

Source: CNN

Cyclone Chapala is headed for an extremely rare landfall at hurricane strength along the coast of war-torn Yemen late Monday or early Tuesday (mainland U.S. time). While wind damage will be a threat near the point of landfall, the bigger concern will be extremely heavy rainfall in a normally arid region, leading to life-threatening flash floods in a country already suffering a major humanitarian crisis stemming from years of violent conflict.

The eye of Chapala has already passed by Socotra, just to the north of the island, where flooding rain and damaging winds were reported. The island has likely not experienced a cyclone of hurricane-equivalent intensity since 1922.

Chapala was a Category 3 equivalent storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale as of late Monday morning (mainland U.S. time). It had rapidly intensified to a high-end Category 4 early Friday and remained in that Category through most of Saturday. This made Chapala the strongest tropical system so far south in the Arabian Sea on record.

While direct measurements from reconnaissance aircraft are not available over the Arabian Sea, Chapala’s rate of intensification from a high-end tropical storm to a high-end Category 4 storm in 24 hours ending 2 a.m. EDT Friday morning was quite impressive for this part of the world.

Steered by subtropical high pressure, Chapala is beginning to turn west-northwest on a path towards landfall along the coast of Yemen Tuesday (local time), or between Monday night and Tuesday morning mainland U.S. time.

The forecast of Chapala’s center has gradually trended farther south and west, potentially bringing the core of its strongest winds close to Yemen’s fifth largest city, the coastal, war-ravaged port of Al Mukalla, with a population of roughly 300,000.

Tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean basin, which includes the Arabian Sea, are simply known in English as “cyclones” or “cyclonic storms” regardless of strength. There are no special terms such as “hurricane” or “typhoon” applied based on reaching a certain intensity, but the India Meteorological Department does apply various adjectives such as “severe” or “very severe” to describe different intensity levels.