February 1, 2024

*) US says it downed Iranian drones, Houthi missile as Gaza war rages An American warship has shot down three Iranian drones and a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis, the US military has claimed. The US Central Command said in a statement that Iranian-backed Houthis fired one anti-ship ballistic missile from the group-controlled areas of Yemen towards the Gulf of Aden. It added that the missile was successfully shot by a US Navy destroyer. Less than an hour later, the US Navy destroyer engaged and shot down three Iranian UAVs in its vicinity, CENTCOM further said. *) Access to clean water in Gaza is ‘matter of life and death’: UN agency The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said that in besieged Gaza, access to clean water is a matter of life and death. In a post on X, UNRWA said, “In Gaza, every day is a struggle to find bread and water. Every day is a struggle to survive.” The UN agency pointed out that without safe water, many more people will die from deprivation and disease. *) ICJ rejects most of Ukraine’s terror case against Russia The top UN court has mostly rejected Ukraine’s claims that Russia was financing “terrorism” in eastern Ukraine, saying only that Moscow failed to investigate alleged breaches. Kiev had accused Moscow of being a “terrorist state” whose support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 war. But the ICJ tossed out most of Ukraine’s pleas, ruling only that Russia was “failing to take measures to investigate facts... regarding persons who have allegedly committed an offence.” *) Indian court permits Hindus to pray inside disputed Gyanvapi mosque An Indian court has weighed in on one of the country’s most sensitive religious disputes by permitting Hindu worshippers to pray inside a mosque in the city of Varanasi. The court in Varanasi ruled that Hindu worshippers — who claim the Gyanvapi mosque replaced a destroyed temple to the deity Shiva — could pray in the building’s basement. The Gyanvapi mosque is one of several Muslim places of worship that Hindu activists, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, have sought for decades to reclaim for their religion. *) Global air travel returns to pre-Covid levels Air travel has taken another major leap in 2023 rising to 94 percent of 2019 levels as it recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic. The International Air Transport Association said that domestic travel in key markets such as China, India and the US had led the rebound but it expected a “normal” growth rate in 2024. Based on revenue passenger kilometres, travel in the fourth quarter of 2023 alone was 98.4 percent of where it was four years earlier, IATA said.