text: The head of the World Food Program in Yemen said on Monday that millions of Yemenis face the risk of more deaths as aid deliveries cannot get to those in need because of the continuing blockade of the war-ravaged country by the Saudi-led coalition. Speaking to The Associated Press by telephone from Sana’a, Stephen Anderson said it is “heartbreaking” that millions in Yemen depended on sustained access to humanitarian aid. Of a population of 26 million, some 17 million Yemenis do not know where their next meal is coming from and 7 million are totally dependent on food assistance. Humanitarian flights to the northern, rebel-held parts of Yemen have been grounded amid the blockade imposed by the coalition in response to a rebel missile attack near the Saudi capital, Riyadh, earlier this month. The missile was struck down but it marked the closest that a rebel projectile had come to the kingdom’s capital. After widespread international criticism of its blockade, Saudi Arabia said last week it would reverse its closure of Yemen’s sea ports and airports though not those in the hands of the Shiite rebels known as Houthis. On Sunday night, a coalition airstrike in the northern Yemeni province of Jawf killed 10 civilians, including four women and two children, according to security officials and tribal sources in the area. The airstrike targeted a house amid intense fighting in the area between forces loyal to Yemen’s coalition-backed and internationally recognized government, and the Iran-backed Houthis, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. There was no immediate word from the coalition on the airstrike or its intended target. The coalition, which began its war against the Houthis in 2015, claims the rebels often use civilians as human shields. The civil war in Yemen, an impoverished Arab nation in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, has killed at least 10,000 civilians since it broke out in 2014.
  Belarus’s KGB state security service said on Monday it had uncovered a spy ring working for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry that had been set up by a detained Ukrainian radio correspondent. Minsk-based journalist Pavlo Sharoyko was arrested in October and charged with being an undercover intelligence officer, KGB spokesman Dmitry Pobyarzhin said in a briefing. “In Belarus, Sharoyko built a network of agents made up of Belarusian citizens, who carried out his assignments for monetary compensation,” Pobyarzhin said. An adviser to the Ukrainian embassy in Minsk, Ihor Skvortsov, has been declared persona non grata as he is believed to be Sharoyko’s handler, Pobyarzhin said. The Ukrainian Foreign and Defense Ministries declined immediate comment. Sharoyko and Skvortsov could not be reached for comment. The case could put further pressure on relations between Minsk and Kyiv that were tested earlier this year when Belarus hosted large-scale joint military exercises with Russia on Belarusian territory. September’s Zapad-2017 (West-2017) war games unnerved neighboring Ukraine and NATO member states on Europe’s eastern flank, which feared the exercises could be a rehearsal or cover for a real offensive.
  Iran has criticized an Arab League resolution accusing Tehran and the allied Lebanese Shi’ite group Hizballah of destabilizing the region, contending that it is full of lies.
  The Lebanese president appeared to defend Hezbollah as necessary to resist Israel on Monday, after an Arab League statement accused the group of terrorism and noted it is part of Lebanon’s coalition government. “Israeli targeting still continues and it is the right of the Lebanese to resist it and foil its plans by all available means,” President Michel Aoun’s office quoted him as saying in a Tweet. The heavily armed Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah, formed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, fought Israel’s occupation of Lebanon in the early 1980s and says its weapons are still needed against Israel. Saudi Arabia, a regional rival of Iran, opposes Hezbollah’s role as a military force in Syria and has accused it of helping the Houthi group in Yemen and militants in Bahrain. The Arab League met on Sunday to discuss what it called Iranian interference in Arab countries, and accused Tehran’s ally Hezbollah of terrorism. Aoun said that Lebanon could not accept suggestions that its government was a partner in acts of terrorism, another Tweet quoted him as saying after meeting Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Beirut. Aboul Gheit said in Beirut that nobody was accusing Lebanon’s government of terrorism or wanted to harm Lebanon. “One of the ruling partners is accused of this… It is an indirect means of asking the Lebanese state to talk to this partner and convince them to restrain their acts on Arab land,” he said. “Everyone acknowledges the particularity of the Lebanese situation.” Lebanon faces a political crisis after its prime minister Saad al-Hariri suddenly resigned on Nov. 4 in a statement broadcast from Saudi Arabia. His resignation statement accused Iran and Hezbollah of “sowing strife” in Arab countries.
  Visa consultations in U.S. consulates in Russia could be resumed in the near future, TASS news agency cited U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman as saying on Monday. “I believe that in the near future they [visa consultations] may be resumed,” the agency quoted him as saying. “We are trying to do everything possible, and I hope that in coming weeks we will be able to effectively issues visas.” In August, the United States began to scale back its visa services in Russia, drawing an angry reaction from Moscow three weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff. The U.S. consulates are located in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg in the Urals and Vladivostok in Russia’s far east.