By Mostafa Salem, CNN

(CNN) — Saudi-backed forces moved to capture a key southern Yemeni city on Thursday after Riyadh accused the UAE of helping a separatist leader flee.

Citing “reliable intelligence,” the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said the leader of Yemen’s UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), Aidarous al-Zubaidi, left the country by boat “in the dead of night” for Somaliland, before boarding an aircraft to Mogadishu, which later transported him to a military airport in Abu Dhabi.

CNN has reached out to the UAE foreign ministry for comment.

The interior ministry of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government said in a statement that government-allied National Shield Forces (NSF) had “secured” the southern city of Aden and its security situation was “under control.” The NSF posted a video on social media showing a large convoy of military vehicles mobilizing to “secure several provinces” in the south that had been captured by the STC and allied militias. CNN cannot independently verify the claims.

Aden had been the seat of Yemen’s government since the Iran-backed Houthi movement took over the capital Sana’a in 2014, prompting a military intervention by Saudi Arabia and the UAE a year later. Last month, government officials stationed there fled to Riyadh when the southern forces, led by Al Zubaidi, launched a military offensive to take over the area last month.

Over the past decade, UAE and Saudi agendas in the country diverged, leading them to support rival factions. In particular, the UAE’s backing of southern separatists was at odds with Saudi Arabia’s support for a unified and stable Yemen at its border. The UAE pulled most of its troops from Yemen in 2019, but a small contingent of what it called counter terrorism forces remained.

The advance of STC forces across key southern Yemeni provinces early December infuriated Riyadh and triggered an unprecedented public dispute with its Emirati neighbor, culminating in

Saudi airstrikes on UAE shipments and a call by the Yemeni government for the remaining UAE forces to leave the country in 24 hours, which Saudi Arabia endorsed.

Following the UAE’s withdrawal, Yemeni government forces, with Saudi air support, launched a counteroffensive that pushed the separatists to their former stronghold in Aden. Under intense military pressure, the STC’s leadership agreed to hold talks in Riyadh aimed at de-escalating the conflict.

The Saudi-led coalition said Wednesday that al-Zubaidi was expected to accompany the STC delegation, but instead mobilized “a large military force” to create “chaos and unrest”.

Following the statement, Yemen’s internationally recognized government accused al-Zubaidi of “high treason” for “inciting internal strife”.

An STC foreign affairs official, Amr Al-Bidh, said in a briefing on Tuesday that the delegation of more than fifty STC officials had been incommunicado since arriving in Riyadh. A photo posted on X by the Saudi ambassador to Yemen on Wednesday showed him meeting with the officials in the capital.

“The message (from Saudi Arabia) was either you come, or you are an enemy, and that is your last chance,” Al-Bidh said.

CNN has reached out to the Saudi government for comment.

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Por Ella Nilsen

El presidente Donald Trump quiere que Estados Unidos venda el petróleo de Venezuela. ¿Pero quién lo compraría?

China ha sido durante mucho tiempo uno de los mayores consumidores de petróleo de Venezuela. Pero su apetito por ese petróleo está disminuyendo, a medida que el país logra una transición asombrosamente rápida hacia los vehículos eléctricos.

Esa transición significa que las importaciones de petróleo de China probablemente no se verán gravemente afectadas por la reciente operación militar estadounidense en Venezuela ni por la presión de Trump para que las empresas estadounidenses revitalicen la infraestructura petrolera allí, según informaron expertos a CNN. China probablemente podrá obtener el petróleo que necesita de Rusia o Irán.

Pero existen pocas dudas sobre la trayectoria a largo plazo de la demanda de petróleo de China: los analistas afirman que tenderá a la baja. Muchos han proyectado que el país ya ha alcanzado el pico del petróleo o lo alcanzará muy pronto.

Como informó CNN, la administración Trump le dijo a la presidenta encargada de Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, que el país debe cortar los lazos con China, Irán, Rusia y Cuba, y aceptar asociarse exclusivamente con Estados Unidos en la producción de petróleo.

En una declaración el martes, el portavoz del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de China, Mao Ning, calificó las medidas de la administración Trump de “intimidación” y dijo que “violan gravemente el derecho internacional”.

El régimen petrolero de China es importante. Como el mayor importador de petróleo del mundo, lo que sucede aquí tiene un efecto dominó en el mercado petrolero mundial.

Los expertos en energía dicen que esta tendencia muestra cuán marcadamente divergen Estados Unidos y China en la transición energética, con China avanzando mucho en energías renovables y vehículos eléctricos, mientras que Estados Unidos redobla la apuesta en la perforación de pozos de petróleo en el país y en el extranjero.

Gran parte de esto se debe a la transformación del sector del transporte chino, que ha pasado de vehículos de gasolina a eléctricos. China domina el mercado de vehículos eléctricos; de los 18,5 millones de vehículos eléctricos vendidos a nivel mundial el año pasado, más de 11 millones se vendieron en China, según la firma de investigación británica Rho Motion.

“Esto es realmente decisivo; no va a volver atrás”, afirmó Li Shuo, director del centro climático de China en el Instituto de Política de la Sociedad Asiática. En comparación con la implementación intermitente de la política de vehículos eléctricos en EE.UU., los vehículos eléctricos se han consolidado en China.

Y con el mercado nacional cada vez más saturado de vehículos eléctricos, las empresas chinas buscan vender sus coches en todo el mundo. La empresa china BYD, que recientemente desbancó a Tesla como el mayor vendedor mundial de vehículos eléctricos, exportó una cifra récord a nivel mundial este año, según datos de Rho Motion.

“Estamos viendo ahora que la historia de los vehículos eléctricos de China se está replicando en otras partes del mundo y, curiosamente, más en el sur global que en Estados Unidos y los países europeos”, afirmó Shuo.

Si bien la demanda de petróleo del sector transporte del país ya ha alcanzado su punto máximo, se proyecta que otros sectores, como el petroquímico y el combustible para aviones, seguirán aumentando. Según Janiv Shah, vicepresidente

By Kristen Rogers, CNN

(CNN) — If you’re eating several servings of fruits and vegetables daily, avoiding ultraprocessed foods and baking your chicken instead of frying it, you’re already following some of the newly updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The guidance released Wednesday largely retains some of the previous advice while also making room for US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement — urging Americans to eat whole foods, healthy fats and more protein, and to limit consumption of added sugar and preservatives.

“There’s some really good things about it that can really make a difference,” said Dr. Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University.

But other parts of the new guidance are “muddled, inconsistent, ideological, retro and hard to understand,” Nestle said.

In the wake of confusion over these new guidelines, here’s how Nestle and other experts suggest you eat for your health and well-being.

Eat whole foods

The guidelines encourage increasing your intake of a variety of whole, fibrous and colorful foods, which include fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds, and legumes.

“This is something that is absolutely a worthy goal,” said Dr. Alison Steiber, a registered dietitian nutritionist and the chief impact officer for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Quality whole grains include brown rice, rolled or steel-cut oats, quinoa, farro, and whole wheat. Adults should consume 22 to 34 grams of fiber daily depending on age and sex, according to the previous edition of the dietary guidelines.

While previous guidelines recommended 4.5 cups, or nine servings total, of fruits and vegetables daily, the new guidelines nearly halve that, Nestle said. “I don’t know where that came from,” she said. “If you want a healthy microbiome, you need fiber. You have got to feed those bacteria, and the fiber does that.”

To learn about appropriate serving sizes of all these foods and more, you can view the American Heart Association’s guidance.

Consume less ultraprocessed food

The guidelines also encourage reducing your consumption of highly processed foods, which aligns with what many health experts advise.

That’s because studies have linked ultraprocessed foods with numerous health issues and diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer, depression, cognitive decline and more. The products are manufactured using industrial techniques and some ingredients “never or rarely used in kitchens,” according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

These foods are typically low in fiber and high in calories, added sugar, refined grains and fats, sodium, and additives, all of which are designed to help make food more appealing. Additives often include preservatives to maintain freshness and texture or resist mold and bacteria, and emulsifiers to prevent ingredients from naturally separating. Other common a

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN

(CNN) — As measles outbreaks flared up across the US last year, causing a record number of cases, Scott Thorpe kept a wary eye on Spartanburg County, South Carolina.

Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in South Carolina’s upstate region, it’s a community with pockets of residents who have particularly low vaccination rates.

It’s not much different than many other parts of the US, especially as vaccination rates have been falling nationwide, said Thorpe, who ​​is the executive director of the Southern Alliance for Public Health Leadership, a nonprofit focused on improving health outcomes across the South. But Spartanburg County had already been through a measles outbreak about a decade earlier, and it’s now significantly more vulnerable: The share of schoolchildren in the county who have gotten the required immunizations has fallen from 95% to 90% over the past five school years.

Then it happened: The first measles cases hit the region last fall, and the South Carolina health department declared an outbreak at the start of October. Now, more than 200 cases have been reported over the past few months, and there are no signs of slowing.

“As community exposures increase, it’s becoming more and more difficult to actually pinpoint where all cases were exposed,” Dr. Linda Bell, state epidemiologist with the South Carolina Department of Public Health, said Wednesday.

“When we’re seeing more and more transmission in the community, it’s important to recognize that we will reach a point when we won’t know about all cases,” she said – a worry that has been heightened after the holidays, when schools were closed and public health lost key connection points to the community.

Coverage with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is lower than the national average in South Carolina, and vaccination rates in Spartanburg County are among the lowest in the state. Local health care providers say that the more imminent threat of measles has changed the calculus for some parents who had been hesitant but now want protection for their child.

Others, however, remain staunchly against vaccination — even when measles has reached their doorstep. And while the public health department is enacting measures to contain spread as much as possible, a growing list of exposures is making it increasingly difficult to keep the dam from breaking.

The South Carolina measles outbreak probably started in a Ukrainian immigrant community in the Spartanburg area, among whom vaccination rates tend to be particularly low, Thorpe said, but it has taken hold in a much broader population in the region.

“Antivax attitudes are firmly embedded in Ukrainian society,” says an analysis published in 2021 by the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank. It cites many possible factors for the sentiment, but much can be traced back to the early 2010s, when the Ukrainian government mishandled the storage and administration of routine vaccinations, resulting in many cases of complications among children that were initially covered up.

Many measles cases in the current South Carolina outbreak have resulted from exposures at local churches. But the outbreak has also continued to grow in the broader community, to the point where some people have had multiple exposure points and it’s unclear which one may have led to a case, Bell said. Public schools have been major sources of spread, and exposures have also been reported at restaurants and shops.

The vast majority of measles cases in South Carolina have been among children, nearly all of whom were unvacci

Por Chris Isidore, CNN

El presidente Donald Trump cree que las empresas estadounidenses pueden reactivar la asediada industria petrolera venezolana, beneficiando tanto a la nación como a Estados Unidos. Pero incluso si eso sucede, serían solo una fracción de los cambios necesarios para que el país, desposeído, se recupere.

La turbulencia de los mercados petroleros, la corrupción gubernamental y años de sanciones agobiantes han diezmado la economía venezolana, a pesar de que el país cuenta con una de las mayores reservas de petróleo del mundo.

Todo esto representa un enorme desafío para quien gobierne el país en el futuro.

La hiperinflación de hace casi una década disparó los precios a diario. Las tasas de inflación, que alcanzaron el 65.000 %, provocaron escasez de bienes como alimentos y medicamentos, y el desplome de la moneda venezolana, el bolívar.

Los residentes se ven obligados a usar dólares estadounidenses o una mochila llena de bolívares para realizar compras básicas.

La inflación actual supera los tres dígitos, lo que deja a la mayoría de la población en situación de pobreza. Según el Programa Mundial de Alimentos, hasta el 40 % del país enfrenta inseguridad alimentaria.

Esta escasez, sumada a la represión política, ha obligado a hasta un tercio de la población a huir del país.

“Es una devastación económica comparable solo a la de países que han pasado por una guerra”, manifestó Luisa Palacios, quien nació y creció en Venezuela y fue presidenta de la petrolera venezolana Citgo. “Este es un país que necesita restablecer el estado de derecho. Es necesario establecer las reglas básicas para una economía funcional”.

Pero no habrá una solución fácil. Esto se debe a que su industria petrolera, que aún se encuentra bajo sanciones, representa más del 90 % de las exportaciones de Venezuela y una parte significativa de los ingresos fiscales del Gobierno, según Palacios, actualmente investigador principal adjunto en la Universidad de Columbia.

“Es demasiado pronto para saber cuánto tiempo tomará”, expresó. “Estamos en la primera entrada de un partido muy, muy largo”.

Aún está por determinar quién liderará Venezuela.

Podrían ser los remanentes del Gobierno del derrocado Nicolás Maduro, el líder de la oposición que muchos creen ganó las elecciones del año pasado, o la propia administración Trump, como sugirió el presidente de EE.UU. el sábado.

Trump en ese momento también desestimó el costo de arreglar la economía de Venezuela.

“No nos costará nada, porque el dinero que sale de la tierra es muy sustancial”, afirmó, refiriéndose a la riqueza petrolera del país, y agregó que reclutaría empresas estadounidenses para ayudar.

Venezuela cuenta con 303.000 millones de barriles de crudo, aproximadamente una quinta parte de las reservas mundiales, según la Administración de Información Energética de Estados Unidos (EIA).

Sin embargo, la infraestructura petrolera del país se ha deteriorado tras años de inversión insuficiente y sanciones.

La industria produce una fracción de su producción anterior: poco más de un millón de barriles de petróleo al día, o menos de un tercio de lo que entregaba a finales del siglo pasado.

“Todas nuestras compañías petroleras están listas y dispuestas a hacer grandes inversiones en Venezuela”, declaró la portavoz de la Casa Blanca, Taylor Rogers, en una declaración a CNN.

Pero fuentes de la industria petrolera estadounidense comentaron a CNN que las compañías no considerarán seriamente reinvertir en Venezuela hasta que haya un Gobierno estable en su lugar.

“El interés por entrar en Venezuela ahora mismo es bastante bajo. No tenemos idea de cómo será el gobierno allí”, declaró a CNN el lunes una fuente influyente de la industria. “El deseo del presidente es d