The US has previously deposed Yemeni governments in Aden in 1982-84, and Sana'a in 2011, and it is building large military bases on Yemen's island of Socotra. Yemen is powerless to interfere.
Socotra controls the Horn of Africa and the entrance to the Red Sea. With other bases in Djibouti, Mombasa, Diego Garcia, Darwin etc, the US dominates the Indian Ocean.
America's wars are part of its great game for world domination by military means, started by President Harry S Truman in 1947.
ALAN DAVIDSON, Gonville
Thank Chris not Jacinda
The Chronicle headline Saturday, December 23: "PM signs off on upgrade for gallery".
Can we have a modified headline shortly, Mr Editor. The grant of $10 million towards the Sarjeant Gallery project was pre-approved by the National Government, and specifically with the support of Minister Chris Finlayson.
It simply waited on a recent meeting of the Whanganui District Council to resolve to comply with the conditions that the National Government required.
Jacinda Ardern had nothing to do with this support and decision, she simply wrote the confirmation letter.
DAVID BENNETT, Whanganui
Equal rights in Jerusalem
Barry Hodson makes an emotional plea about the Jews' claim on Jerusalem for the past 3000 years, as the capital of Israel since King David, and the Biblical prophecies of armageddon (Chronicle, December 15).
Donald Trump's "bombshell" about Jerusalem has no real impact on Middle East events — who says that Jerusalem has to be the capital of Israel or Palestine?
For the Israelis, Jerusalem is a non-issue — it is the capital of Israel the way Paris is the capital of France. But the passion is high because the status of Jerusalem is not just between Palestinians and Israelis, it involves the whole Muslim and Arab world.
The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are angry and frustrated and the powder keg is potentially due to explode. It just needs that wind to ignite the third Intifada to reduce the place to ashes. But that will not happen.
Jerusalem is considered a corpus separatum in the 1947 partition of Palestine. Despite its annexation by Israel in 1980, West Bank settlements and the Golan Heights are considered illegal by the United Nations Security Council, its general assembly, the international Red Cross, and the International Court of Justice.
According to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, acquisition of territories by force and the shifting of population in those areas is also illegal. No wonder no nation except Costa Rica has moved its embassy to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem will not be a contentious issue because we are coming towards a bi-national state for both Jews and Palestinians with full civil rights for the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza, with one-man one-vote.
Forget about the two-state solution, we are heading towards one state for both people and the Palestinians are resigned to that reality.
A bi-national state was advocated by moderate German school Zionists in 1920s, by people like Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt, where they seek an accommodation with Palestinians managing their own affairs. But the hardline Zionists like David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and Levi Eshkol prevailed.
Ironically we are back to the 1920s, where Palestinians and Israelis will have equal national rights and Jerusalem as their capital.
LEON BENBARUK, Whanganui
Leave the past behind us
Helen Craig says she gets the warm fuzzies when she walks down the street and sees our dilapidated old buildings. It reminds her of the past.
She is probably the only one in 20,000 who get warm fuzzies from seeing uneconomic old buildings. That doesn't worry her — she wants the rest of us to pay to keep these wrecks.
No thanks — we have enough debt.
Let's look to the future, build new and those like Ms Craig can look at them as old buildings in 100 years time and get warm fuzzies.
Most of us would get warm fuzzies from using the money to feed hungry kids, not wasting it on derelicts.
G R SCOWN, Whanganui
