Strait of Hormuz Tanker: LPG tanker ‘Sarv Shakti’ belonging to India has been successful in crossing the Strait of Hormuz. At a time when the movement of ships through this route is almost at a standstill due to the US blockade and Iran tension, this transit is being considered a big relief for India. According to MarineTraffic data, the LPG carrier ‘Sarva Shakti’ passed close to Iran’s Larak Island and followed the route set by Tehran to pass through this chokepoint. The ship is headed to a major LNG terminal in Visakhapatnam carrying 45,000 tonnes of gas and 18 Indian crew members.
A rare journey amidst crisis The Marshall Islands-flagged ship ‘Sarv Shakti’, carrying about 45,000 tonnes of LPG (commonly used in cooking), was seen passing near Iran’s Larak and Qeshm islands and entering the Gulf of Oman on Saturday. This ship has been plying between the Persian Gulf and Indian ports in the past and is currently giving signals to move towards India. Information about the presence of Indian crew on board the ship is also being circulated, which is a common security procedure adopted after the Iran war.
Indian oil buyers, first big movement
According to a shipping document seen by Bloomberg, the buyer of this cargo is state-owned Indian Oil Corporation. However, the company did not immediately respond to this. The voyage of ‘Sarva Shakti’ is also significant because it is the first recorded transit of a tanker belonging to India after the US started the blockade on ships belonging to Iran. After this blockade, the number of ships passing through Hormuz reduced to almost zero.
India faces energy crisis, severe shortage of LPG Being the world’s third largest oil importer and second largest LPG consumer, India is currently facing a serious energy crisis. Due to supply disruption from the Middle East, shortage of LPG in the country has created a situation of panic, long queues and limited supply. New Delhi has paid special attention to the safe transit of LPG ships since the US and Israel began attacks on Iran in late February. Under this, Indian ports have been instructed to give priority to these tankers and do faster unloading, and domestic production has also been increased.
Transit was disrupted amid tension The situation worsened over a weekend in April when Iran initially promised to open the passage, but its forces later fired on ships attempting to pass, forcing many ships to turn back. However, an Indian tanker named ‘Desh Garima’ somehow managed to escape by switching off the transponder.
Since then, the movement of ships in Hormuz has almost come to a standstill. During this period, India has succeeded in diverting eight LPG ships from this route through bilateral talks with Tehran and is also working on other options. India has increased domestic LPG production by 60% to 54,000 tonnes, while consumption has fallen to 80,000 tonnes per day. Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri gave this information on Friday.
Ship travel and technical challenges The ‘Sarv Shakti’ entered the Persian Gulf in early February and received cargo through ship-to-ship transfer near Dubai, although the exact source of the cargo is not clear. Passage through Hormuz usually takes 10 to 14 hours, but electronic interference in the area may cause the ship’s location to appear inaccurate. Many ships also turn off transponders to hide their location. The ship is managed by Dubai-based Foresight Group Services Limited, while its owner is listed as Zhe Yin Shan Zhou No. 4 Tianjin, which is linked to the same address. However, the company has not given any reaction on this.
Iran has sent the US a new 14-point proposal to end the war.
Published On 3 May 20263 May 2026
United States President Donald Trump says he will review the latest Iranian proposal to end the war but has expressed doubt that the new plan will lead to a deal as the two sides have escalated their rhetoric.
Tehran has sent a 14-point plan to Washington, calling for guarantees of nonaggression, sanctions relief, the lifting of a naval blockade and an end to the war “on all fronts”, including in Lebanon. This proposal seeks to postpone nuclear talks to a later stage, an issue Trump has considered a “red line”.
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Despite the diplomatic opening, the US president did not rule out the possibility of renewed hostilities. “If they do something bad, there is a possibility it could happen,” Trump said.
The Iranians have also fired back with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying it is on standby for a return to war.
Here is what we know as the conflict enters day 65:
(Al Jazeera)
In Iran
While Washington requested a two-month ceasefire, Tehran wants to focus on ending the war instead of extending the truce and wants all issues to be resolved within 30 days, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.
The 14-point Iranian plan includes guarantees of nonaggression, the withdrawal of US forces from the vicinity of Iran, the lifting of the US naval blockade, the release of Iran’s frozen assets, the lifting of sanctions and an end to the war “on all fronts“, including in Lebanon, according to Tasnim.
The IRGC said it is on standby for a return to war with the US, saying a resumption of hostilities is “likely” as “evidence shows that [the US] is not committed to any agreements or treaties”.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Trump’s description of the US capture of Iranian vessels as “piracy” is a “direct and damning admission of the criminal nature of their actions” against Tehran.
TankerTrackers.com said an Iranian supertanker has evaded the US blockade and reached the Asia Pacific while carrying more than 1.9 million barrels of crude oil valued at nearly $220m.
Diplomacy
The US has approved $8.6bn in major arms deals and military support for Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
A convoy of 70 tanker trucks carrying Iraqi crude oil has crossed into Syria via the al-Yarubiyah border crossing as Baghdad seeks alternative export routes after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
In the US
Trump said he is studying Iran’s latest 14-point peace proposal but warned that attacks could resume if the Iranian government “misbehaves” or does “something bad”.
The US is seeking to form an international naval coalition called the Maritime Freedom Construct (MFC) to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, which in effect has been blocked by Iran since the US-Israel war on the country began on February 28. According to US media, its core functions would be to share intelligence among member nations, coordinate diplomatic efforts and enforce sanctions to manage shipping through the strait.
Trump said a US troop withdrawal from Germany could far exceed 5,000 soldiers as tensions between the two allies rise over the war on Iran.
In Lebanon
At least 41 people have been killed as Israel launched 50 air strikes on southern Lebanon in 24 hours despite a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon being in place since April 16. The death toll since the latest escalation in the war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2 has risen to 2,659 people.
The Israeli military issued a new warning, threatening attacks on 12 towns and villages in southern Lebanon and ordering residents to flee their homes.The towns and villages include al-Duwayr, Arab Salim, al-Sharqiya (Nabatieh), Jibshit, Braashit, Sarafand, Dounin, Briqa, Qaaqaiya al-Jisr, al-Qasiba (Nabatieh) and Kfar Sir.
Israel’s military has admitted to striking and damaging a Catholic “religious building” in southern Lebanon on Saturday as criticism grows over Israeli attacks on Christian sites.
More than a third of HR decision-makers in the UK said they have faced pushback against equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives over the past year, according to new research.
The new YouGov poll, carried out for the national employment charity Working Chance, surveyed 565 HR decision-makers and found that resistance towards EDI was on the rise.
The findings raised concerns about the impact on people with convictions, who often rely on inclusive hiring practices to access work.
Working Chance, which supports women with convictions into employment, warned that scaling back inclusive hiring risked entrenching social exclusion and undermining efforts to reduce reoffending.
Evidence consistently shows that stable employment is one of the most effective ways of preventing people from returning to the criminal justice system, the charity said.
Last December, a Guardian analysis found the UK’s biggest businesses were rolling back their public support for Pride celebrations. It followed another Guardian investigation showing that only a third of recommendations from major reports commissioned to tackle systemic racism over the past 40 years had been implemented.
“If this trend continues, then access to work is likely to become increasingly difficult for people who already face significant barriers to employment, including those with criminal convictions,” Natasha Finlayson, the chief executive of Working Chance, said.
The findings come amid growing legal and political pressure on targeted inclusion schemes. A charity that organises internships for Black and minority ethnic candidates has been taken to court by an influencer for not offering equivalent schemes for white applicants. Employers and charities in the UK fear that copycat cases could follow, with some already withdrawing support from schemes.
The recent research was published amid a conference at the Ministry of Justice this week, bringing together HR leaders, employers and inclusion specialists to address a “confidence gap” among employers.
MoJ evidence shows employment is the strongest protective factor against reoffending, which costs the UK economy an estimated £18bn to £23bn annually. The conference will examine concerns around risk, disclosure, DBS checks and workplace integration, with organisers saying misconceptions and lack of guidance remain major barriers.
The government estimates that about one in four working-age adults have some form of criminal record, a broad measure that includes cautions and minor offences, some of which may be disclosed in background checks. Campaigners calling for changes to the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) have long said it casts too wide a net.
Working Chance’s latest data shows that despite the scale of criminal records, more than half (58%) of HR leaders do not feel confident recruiting and supporting people with convictions.
“When done well, inclusive hiring is not only good for individuals and their families, but also for businesses, communities and the economy,” Finlayson added.
Rayhana, who did not wish to give her surname, likened the effect of Working Chance’s support to being reborn.
“I applied for and was provisionally offered five jobs, all of which were taken away the moment the DBS certificate came back and the employer found out about my conviction,” she said. “It felt like I didn’t exist. Like society wanted to pretend that I didn’t exist.”
She said her conviction came during a period of poor mental health after losing her job, and that she was determined to rebuild her life. “I don’t want to shrink any more, I want to be a force for good.”
She added: “Working Chance supported me to get my current job two years ago, and the impact of having this job is gamechanging. It feels like a rebirth to be able to rebuild my identity. Now I’m working I have the tools to take responsibility and I won’t go back to my old life,” she said.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Employment is key in reducing reoffending, which costs the UK economy billions every year. Evidence consistently shows that businesses who employ people with convictions benefit from a loyal, skilled and committed workforce. Supporting access to work not only helps individuals to rebuild their lives, but also delivers wider benefits for businesses, communities and the economy as a whole.”
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added a recently disclosed security flaw impacting various Linux distributions to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-31431 (CVSS score: 7.8), is a case of local privilege escalation (LPE) flaw that could allow an unprivileged local user to obtain root. The nine-year-old flaw is also tracked as Copy Fail by Theori and Xint. Fixes have been made available in Linux kernel versions 6.18.22, 6.19.12, and 7.0.
“Linux Kernel contains an incorrect resource transfer between spheres vulnerability that could allow for privilege escalation,” CISA said in an advisory.
In a write-up published earlier this week, the researchers said Copy Fail is the result of a logic bug in the Linux kernel’s authentication cryptographic template that allows an attacker to reliably trigger privilege escalation trivially by means of a 732-byte Python-based exploit. It was introduced through three separate, individually harmless changes to the Linux kernel made in 2011, 2015, and 2017.
The high-severity security vulnerability impacts Linux distributions shipped since 2017, and permits an unprivileged local user to obtain root-level access by corrupting the kernel’s in-memory page cache of any readable file, including setuid binaries. This corruption could be carried out by unprivileged users and could result in code execution with root permissions.
“Because the page cache represents the in-memory version of executables, modifying it effectively alters binaries at execution time without touching disk,” Google-owned Wiz said. “This enables attackers to inject code into privileged binaries (e.g., /usr/bin/su) and thereby gain root privileges.”
The prevalence of Linux in cloud environments means the vulnerability has a significant impact. Kaspersky, in its analysis of the flaw, said Copy Fail poses a serious risk to containerized environments, as Docker, LXC, and Kubernetes “grant processes inside a container access to the AF_ALG subsystem if the algif_aead module is loaded into the host kernel” by default.
“Copy Fail poses a risk of breaching container isolation and gaining control over the physical machine,” the Russian security vendor said. “At the same time, exploitation does not require the use of complex techniques, such as race conditions or memory address guessing, which lowers the entry barrier for a potential attacker.”
“Detecting the attack is difficult because the exploit uses only legitimate system calls, which are hard to distinguish from normal application behavior.”
Adding to the urgency is the availability of a fully working exploit proof-of-concept (PoC), with Kaspersky stating Go and Rust versions of the original Python implementation have already been detected in open-source repositories.
CISA did not share any details about how the vulnerability is being exploited in the wild. However, the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team said it’s “seeing preliminary testing activity that might result most likely in increased threat actor exploitation over the next few days.”
“The attack vector is local (AV:L) and requires low privileges with no user interaction, meaning any unprivileged user on a vulnerable system can attempt exploitation,” it added. “Critically, this vulnerability is not remotely exploitable in isolation, but becomes highly impactful when chained with an initial access vector such as Secure Shell (SSH) access, malicious CI job execution, or container footholds.”
The tech giant has also detailed one possible route attackers could take to exploit the vulnerability –
Conduct reconnaissance to identify a Linux host or container running a kernel version susceptible to Copy Fail.
Prepare a small Python trigger for use against the endpoint.
Execute the exploit from a low-privilege context, either as a regular Linux user on a host or a compromised container process with no special capabilities.
Exploit performs a controlled 4‑byte overwrite in the kernel page cache, leading to corruption of sensitive kernel‑managed data.
Attacker escalates their process to UID 0 and obtain full root privileges.
Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies have been advised to apply the fixes by May 15, 2026, as updates have been pushed by impacted Linux distributions. If patching is not an immediate option, organizations are recommended to disable the affected feature, implement network isolation, and apply access controls.
President William Lai Ching-te says he met King Mswati III and signed trade agreements.
Published On 3 May 20263 May 2026
Taiwan President William Lai Ching-te says his government will never give up on engaging with the world as he visited Eswatini despite China’s efforts to block the trip.
Lai arrived in Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, on Saturday after “meticulous arrangements made by our diplomatic and national security teams”, he said in a Facebook post, although it is unclear how he arrived in the kingdom.
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He said he was greeted with a “military-style welcoming ceremony”. Taiwan’s leader said he met with King Mswati III and signed trade agreements.
The trip was originally scheduled for late April, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar cancelled flight permits for his charter plane without notice.
Taiwan’s presidential office said the cancellations came after heavy pressure from Beijing, including economic coercion, and it called the move “without precedent in the international community”.
Taiwan operates as a self-governing democracy, but China claims it is part of its territory and says it must come under its rule. Beijing has insisted that countries halt engagements with the island’s government.
Lai walks with Eswatini Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini upon arriving in Eswatini [Handout/Taiwan Presidential Office via Reuters]
‘Laughable stunt’
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson called the trip a “laughable stunt” and said Lai used a “foreign plane to “smuggle” himself out of the island”, insisting that Taiwan is a part of China.
China has spent decades pressuring countries to sever formal ties with Taipei, leaving Taiwan with only 12 diplomatic allies, which include Belize, Guatemala, Haiti and the Vatican.
Although the United States doesn’t recognise Taiwan, it has pledged to help Taipei defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
Eswatini is the only country on the African continent that still recognises Taiwan.
Lai thanked its king for standing with Taiwan “undeterred by various diplomatic and economic pressures” and reiterated that no country has the right to prevent Taiwan from contributing to the world.
When Suryakumar Yadav comes to bat, the atmosphere of the field changes. Fielders become alert, bowlers change their plans and spectators remain hopeful that something special is going to happen, but this story seems to be a bit different in IPL 2026. So far this season, he has been able to score only 183 runs in nine innings at an average of 20.33. Suryakumar Yadav’s flop was also the reason behind the failure of Mumbai Indians. His mind wants to bat strong, but his hand eye combination is not supporting him.
President of America donald trump has once again shown a tough stance towards Iran. He has clearly said that if Iran takes any wrong step, America can start military action again. However, along with this, Trump also said that he is considering a new proposal from Iran, whose purpose is to end the currently stalled conflict.
Reports by Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies have claimed that Tehran has sent a 14-point proposal to America through Pakistan. This proposal calls for ending fighting on all fronts. Besides, a suggestion has also been made to build a new system for the Strait of Hormuz, which is a very important oil route for the world.
VIDEO | On restarting military strikes against Iran, US President Donald Trump says, “If they misbehave, if they do something bad, but right now, we will see.”
What did Trump say on military action against Iran?
When Trump was asked about this proposal before leaving for Miami from Florida, he said that he has been informed about this deal and its complete details will be revealed soon, but later he also said on social media that he does not think that this proposal will be accepted.
He also added that Iran has not yet had to pay as much of a price for its actions as it should have. When Trump was asked whether military action could be taken again, he avoided giving a direct answer and said that it remains a possibility. He said that if Iran did anything wrong, the situation could change. Some reports also say that this proposal includes setting a deadline of one month for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, removing the US Navy blockade and ending the conflict related to Iran and Lebanon. Only after this, a plan has been announced to start further talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Situation may worsen again – Iran
Iran has also made it clear that the situation may worsen again. Mohammad Zafar Asadi, a senior Iranian army officer, said that it is difficult to trust America and there could be another conflict between the two countries. At the same time, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said that now it is up to America to decide whether it adopts the path of dialogue or continues confrontation. He also said that Iran is prepared for both situations.
In a statement on Saturday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said the sanctions “improperly” restrict business between Chinese enterprises and third countries “in violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations”.
The Commerce Ministry said it had issued a “prohibition order” stipulating that the sanctions “shall not be recognized, enforced, or complied with” to “safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests”.
“The Chinese government has consistently opposed unilateral sanctions that lack UN authorisation and basis in international law,” the ministry added.
It said the order blocked US measures against Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery and four other so-called “teapot” refineries: Shandong Jincheng Petrochemical Group, Hebei Xinhai Chemical Group, Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical and Shandong Shengxing Chemical.
Announcing the sanctions on April 24, the US Treasury Department called Hengli “one of Tehran’s most valued customers”, saying it had generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Iranian military through crude oil purchases.
The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the other four refineries named by the Chinese ministry, among other facilities, last year.
China gets more than half of its oil from the Middle East, much of it from Iran.
According to commodities data firm Kpler, China bought more than 80 percent of the oil Iran shipped in 2025.
China’s “teapot” refineries operate independently and are generally smaller than the facilities run by state-owned oil giants, such as Sinopec.
The facilities, which have been crucial to China’s efforts to secure its oil supplies, capitalise on heavily discounted crude sold by countries under sanctions, such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela.
Teapots account for a quarter of Chinese refinery capacity, operate with narrow and sometimes negative margins, and have been squeezed recently by tepid domestic demand.
US sanctions have created additional hurdles for refiners, including difficulties selling refined products under their correct place-of-origin markings.
Championship-leading teenager Kimi Antonelli has claimed pole position for the Miami Grand Prix as the race’s start time was brought forward by three hours due to an expected heavy rainstorm.
The 19-year-old Italian, the youngest title race leader in Formula One history, resisted a late charge by four-time champion Max Verstappen in a tense qualifying session on Saturday.
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The Mercedes driver produced a fastest lap of one minute 27.798 seconds to top the times ahead of Red Bull’s Verstappen with Charles Leclerc third quickest in his Ferrari.
World champion Lando Norris, who won the sprint race earlier in the day, will start his McLaren from fourth in Sunday’s grid.
It was Antonelli’s third pole and his third in consecutive races, a feat that draws him alongside great former champions Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher in the record books.
His Mercedes teammate George Russell was fifth ahead of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton in the second Ferrari and Oscar Piastri, who was seventh in the second McLaren.
Alpine’s Franco Colapinto was eighth ahead of Isack Hadjar in the second Red Bull and the second Alpine of Pierre Gasly.
“It has been an amazing day for me to be on pole again,” Antonelli said.
“It was obviously a difficult sprint for me earlier, but I am super happy with this recovery. I got a little too excited in that last lap in Q3, but my first lap was good enough.
“I was so stressed because I was waiting for everyone to finish their laps, but it was good enough, and now, hopefully, I will have a magic start tomorrow.”
Antonelli celebrates after winning the pole position [Charly Triballeau/AFP]
‘Heavier rainstorms’
The Miami Grand Prix will start at 1pm (17:00 GMT) rather than the previously scheduled 4pm (20:00 GMT) due to a forecast of extreme weather, including potential thunderstorms, officials announced on the eve of the race.
The sport’s governing body, FIA, along with commercial rights holders and local promoters acted “due to the weather forecast that is expected to bring heavier rainstorms later in the afternoon close to the original planned race start time”, they said in a statement.
“This decision has been taken to ensure the least amount of disruption to the race, and to ensure the maximum possible window to complete the Grand Prix in the best conditions and to prioritize the safety of drivers, fans, teams and staff.”
The change was made as F1 returns from a five-week hiatus due to the United States-Israel war on Iran, which several teams exploited with upgrade packages on their cars.
“For me to be on the front row is way better than I expected,” said Verstappen, who was close to his best in his heavily revised Red Bull.
“Let’s hope for a good start. I’ve not had many of them this year.
“The team has worked flat out for the past few weeks to make me more comfortable in this car.”
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands in action during a qualifying session [Danny Karnik/AP]
‘No grip’
The qualifying session began in sweltering heat and a swirling wind as Valtteri Bottas led out in his Cadillac before teammate Sergio Perez.
It took time for the lap times to tumble before the leading contenders clocked fast laps with Norris and Verstappen setting the pace with Antonelli and the two Ferraris.
Verstappen grumbled his tyres “have no grip” as he was outpaced by both Ferraris with Hamilton top in 1:28.477 until Antonelli took over in 1:28.352 with Russell slotting in third with an identical time to Hamilton.
Ferrari have clearly improved their set-up after the earlier sprint race won convincingly by Norris in a McLaren one-two ahead of Piastri.
Like the Italian team, Mercedes also seemed to be quicker, and Antonelli improved to 1:28.289 before, in a final flurry, Verstappen took command in 1:28.116 to finish Q2 ahead of Antonelli, Leclerc, Piastri and Hamilton. Norris improved to seventh.
Piastri and Norris set the pace in Q3 before Verstappen and Leclerc outdid them and Antonelli, with a sizzling lap in 1:27.798, securing provisional pole after the first runs, three-tenths clear of Leclerc’s Ferrari.
The top five were separated by just hundredths of a second with Hamilton sixth, 0.578 off the Italian’s pace as they paused before the drama of the late final runs.
Mukalla, Yemen – At the Mukalla Creative Hub, a man in a black T-shirt leans over a desk to help a colleague with his project, while other men remain fixed on their laptop screens. Nearby women sit in ergonomic office chairs, writing or scrolling on their phones. On the other side of the space in Yemen’s coastal city of Mukalla, a sleek cafe-style counter stands at the entrance, while colourful armchairs are neatly arranged and occupied by a few people working among rows of computers.
What draws entrepreneurs, remote freelancers, and students here is not just the stylish setting or uninterrupted electricity, but something far more essential: fast, reliable Starlink satellite internet.
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“Four Starlink devices power the space, delivering speeds of 100 to 150 Mbps and allowing users to stay constantly connected,” Hamzah Bakhdar, a digital freelancer who also works at the hub, told Al Jazeera.
In a country where war has devastated telecommunications, eroded salaries and cut off remote areas, Starlink is helping create a small but growing digital workforce of designers, developers, teachers, and freelancers who can now work for clients abroad and earn far more than Yemen’s crumbling local economy would otherwise allow.
Internet access in Yemen has also been weaponised, with buried land cables sometimes cut, leaving parts of the country abruptly disconnected. The Houthi rebels, who are based in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and have fought the internationally recognised government since 2014, control the country’s major internet providers. That allows them to block websites they view as linked to their opponents inside and outside the country, including key platforms used by tech developers and remote workers.
The arrival of Starlink satellite internet has provided an alternative, allowing people to bypass the Houthis’ tight grip on telecommunications and stay online even in remote areas.
Mohammed Helmi, a video editor and motion graphics designer, was juggling projects for three clients in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Thanks to the fast internet at the cafe, he no longer worries about losing connection or missing deadlines, problems he said repeatedly disrupted his work in the past.
“In the past, when I downloaded files to my laptop, it would stop as soon as my data ran out,” Helmi, a young man with a thin moustache, told Al Jazeera at the cafe. “I had to buy another gigabyte and start the download all over again. Because of this, I often had to turn down projects.”
The Mukalla Creative Hub is a rare workspace for online freelancers, many of whom are drawn by its high-speed, uninterrupted internet powered by four Starlink kits. [Saeed Al-Batati/Al Jazeera]
Control over the internet
Starlink is operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, and delivers internet by linking a ground dish to low-orbit satellites owned and operated by the company.
While other satellite internet companies exist, and others are quickly entering the space, Starlink is the only low-orbit satellite internet service legally available in Yemen after the internationally recognised government signed an agreement with the company in September 2024.
But it’s not for everyone.
The kits cost about $500, a price that remains unaffordable for the vast majority of Yemenis, living in one of the poorest countries in the world, where more than 80 percent of people live below the poverty line.
Owning a dish is therefore still a distant dream for many Yemenis desperate to get online.
University students, like Mariam, a student at Hadramout University, says that even buying internet vouchers from local providers who resell Starlink access is beyond her reach – let alone purchasing a device herself.
“People are using vouchers because they cannot afford Starlink devices, whose prices are very high,” Mariam, who preferred to be identified only by her first name, told Al Jazeera.
The Houthis have also reacted aggressively to the arrival of Starlink, launching a campaign warning people against using the service and threatening legal action against anyone found in possession of the device.
They have accused the company of serving as a “US espionage agent” and said it posed “a major threat to national security”. Experts have worried that data gathered over Starlink’s internet service could be used for “intelligence gathering and economic exploitation“.
There are also concerns internationally over the concentration of satellite internet services and infrastructure in the hands of Starlink, particularly in light of Musk’s ownership, with the South African-born billionaire increasingly associating himself with far-right causes in the United States and Europe.
A Starlink dish on a rooftop in Mukalla, where the service is legal. In Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, the group has banned the device and threatened punishment for those using it [Saeed Al-Batati/Al Jazeera]
Connecting Yemen’s remote areas
But despite Houthi threats and the high cost of the devices by Yemeni standards, Starlink has spread across the country, reaching areas that had long been isolated.
Omer Banabelah, a mobile app developer, said that before Starlink arrived, a visit to his home village in Hadramout’s countryside meant disappearing from the digital world altogether. He could not make a phone call, let alone connect to the internet, leaving him anxious that clients would move on when their messages went unanswered. With Starlink now available in rural parts of the province, Banabelah said he no longer fears losing work every time he travels.
“I can reply to their messages anytime, from anywhere,” he told Al Jazeera. “Work that takes 10 minutes with Starlink could take an entire day without it.”
Similarly, Yemeni teachers, struggling with poor and delayed salaries that have stagnated for years, have also benefited from the spread of the internet service, which has allowed them to offer uninterrupted online classes and earn badly needed extra income.
Raja al-Dubae, a school director in Taiz, told Al Jazeera that her school began offering online classes based on the Yemeni curriculum to Yemeni students living abroad in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and China in 2023. It started with just 50 students, with teachers connecting through local networks.
But when internet traffic surged in the densely populated city each afternoon, the connections would collapse, forcing teachers to abandon classes mid-session.
“Teachers were often disconnected from their students, and by the time the internet stabilised, the next class had already begun, leaving them frustrated and unable to finish their lessons,” she said.
Al-Dubae said she initially rejected her nephew’s proposal to buy Starlink because of the high upfront cost, but now regrets the delay. Since installing the service, the number of students has climbed to more than 200, revenues have grown, and teachers have begun earning better additional pay.
“With Starlink, the internet is very fast and reaches every corner of the school,” she said. “Teachers no longer disconnect from their students. I never imagined it would make such a difference. Videos load quickly, we no longer turn away new applicants, and our reputation for fast internet has spread.”
For Yemenis who have grown used to Starlink’s high-speed internet, and the better incomes and business opportunities it has helped create, the worst-case scenario is a return to the slow, unreliable service of local networks.
“Go back to the headache of local networks? Perish the thought. We hope the service will continue to improve,” al-Dubae said, scoffing at the idea of reverting to local internet providers.
Helmi reacted similarly. “If Starlink were cut off, I would be devastated and forced back into the local market, which cannot cover my expenses or living costs,” he said, shifting in his seat and smiling at the thought. “I would need to take on three or four jobs just to match what I earn from a single project from abroad.”
