Yemen is on the verge of the “worst famine in a century”, the United Nations has warned.

As many as 13 million civilians are at risk of dying from the lack of food in the war-torn country in the next three months, according to Lisa Grande, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen.

“I think many of us felt as we went into the 21st century that is was unthinkable that we could see a famine like saw in Ethiopia, that we saw in Bengal, that we saw in parts of the Soviet Union, that was just unacceptable,” said Ms Grande.

“Many of us had the confidence that that would never happen again and yet the reality is that in Yemen that is precisely what we are looking at.”

Yemen has been in the grip of a civil war for three years after Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, seized much of the country.

Saudi Arabia, which backs the government, has imposed a blockade on the main Houthi-controlled port, restricting the amount of food and other aid allowed into the country.

The warning came as UN and humanitarian workers condemned an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shia Houthi rebels that reportedly killed at least 15 civilians near the port city of Hodeida.

Video footage released by the Houthis showed a mangled minibus littered with groceries and a woman’s hand bag, with rebel officials saying a day earlier that the airstrike in the Jebel Ras area had also wounded 20 others.

The Houthis said that five members of the same family were killed in the vehicle, adding that many women and children were among the casualties.

Eyewitnesses who declined to be named for fear of their safety said that the attack appeared to target a rebel checkpoint in the area.

"The United Nations agencies working in Yemen unequivocally condemn the attack on civilians and extend our deepest condolences to the families of the victims," said said Ms Grande.

"Under international humanitarian law, parties to the conflict are obliged to respect the principles of precaution, proportionality and distinction," said Ms Grande. "Belligerents must do everything possible to protect civilians – not hurt, maim, injure or kill them," she added.

Hodeida, with its key port installations that bring in UN and other humanitarian aid, has become the centre of Yemen’s conflict, with ground troops allied to the coalition struggling to drive out the rebels controlling it.

The UN in Yemen says that since June, more than 170 people have been killed and at least 1,700 have been injured in Hodeida province, with over 425,000 people forced to flee their homes.

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A British academic arrested in the UAE on suspicion of spying is facing at least another month in solitary confinement while an Abu Dhabi court re-examines the evidence against him. 

Matthew Hedges, 31, was arrested at Dubai airport in May on allegations of spying for a foreign state and has been held at undisclosed prison location in the UAE since then.

He appeared in court on Wednesday, where his lawyer insisted on his innocence and asked the judge to re-examine the evidence against him before delivering a verdict. 

The judge agreed and scheduled another hearing for November 21. By then, Mr Hedges will have been held in solitary confinement for more than six months. 

“Given the way the UAE have treated Matt since they detained him with no explanation, I did not have high hopes that Matt, an innocent man, would be granted anything close to a fair trial," said Daniela Tejada, Mr Hedges’ wife. 

“Although I welcome this decision to review the evidence, it pains me to think that by his next court hearing, Matt will have been detained for over six months for carrying out legitimate academic research.”

The case has strained the close relationship between the UK and the UAE, and Abu Dhabi appears to have been stung by the widespread media coverage of his detention. 

The UAE foreign ministry put out a statement insisting that “Mr Hedges’ welfare has been appropriately supported and maintained throughout the process”. 

The ministry said that he was receiving regular visits from family and British embassy officials and has been allowed access to “books and reading material of his choice”. 

Ms Tajeda disputed those claims, saying that he had been allowed only two visits from family in five months as well as “two to five minute monitored random phone calls”. 

She said British embassy officials had only been allowed to visit him twice for a total of 35 minutes since May 5. 

Ms Tajeda also said that UAE prison officials had only recently given Mr Hedges a set of books which she sent to him in July. 

“I know how they are keeping him and their statement is false. They know this, I know this and so does the Foreign Office,” Ms Tajeda said. 

A spokeswoman for the family also that Mr Hedges had only been given a medical assessment outside prison after his case became public. External doctors changed a prescription for medicine  given to him by prison doctors. 

Mr Hedges had been in the UAE completing research for his PhD at Durham University. He was studying the UAE’s foreign policy and security strategy. 

The UAE has not made public the evidence against him but it is believed that authorities grew suspicious about questions he was asking his interview subjects. 

"Matt is an innocent man. He was in the UAE to finish his PhD. The evidence will undoubtedly show this,” his wife said. 

There was no immediate comment from the Foreign Office.  British authorities have raised Mr Hedges’ case with the UAE several times.

“The UAE invests considerable time and money painting itself as a progressive and tolerant country, but Hedges’ case shows the face of an autocratic government with a fundamental lack of respect for the rule of law,” Human Rights Watch deputy Middle East director, Michael Page, said in a statement this week.

Jamal Khashoggi’s words could not be more powerful or more poignant.

In a column published by the Washington Post on Wednesday night, the missing Saudi journalist says Arab governments have been given free rein by the international community to silence the media at an accelerating rate, in a piece that apparently foreshadowed his own fate.

The writer has not been seen since entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a fortnight ago.

Turkish officials say they have obtained audio recordings that suggest he was tortured and killed although the government of Saudi Arabia insists it does not know what happened to the prominent dissident.

In a note published with the column, Karen Attiah, global opinions editor at The Washington Post, said the piece  perfectly captured Khashoggi’s commitment to freedom in the Arab world: "A freedom he apparently gave his life for."

She said she received it from his translator a day after he disappeared.

“The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together,” she wrote.

“Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post.”

In his piece, Khashoggi describes how the optimism of the Arab Spring in 2011 was quickly dashed, replaced by the Middle East’s version of the Iron Curtain, imposed by domestic forces as they grappled for power.

The rest of the world has done little as journalists were arrested or newspapers silenced, he continues.

“Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence,” he writes.

“As a result, Arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate.”

He calls for a modern form of the old transnational media – something akin to Radio Free Europe that began broadcasting during the Cold War – to provide a platform for Arab voices.

“We suffer from poverty, mismanagement and poor education,” he writes. “Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face." 

CNN correspondent Jim Acosta was denied entry to the White House on Wednesday evening following a heated row with President Donald Trump, who called him a "rude, terrible person" during a press conference. 

Mr Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, said he was informed by Secret Service officers that he could not enter for his scheduled 8pm broadcast.

Officials later confirmed that his credentials had been revoked.

The episode will reignite fears that Mr Trump has scant regard for press freedom and is intent on limiting space for critical coverage.

Hours earlier Mr Acosta found himself in the president’s line of fire during a news conference called to trumpet Republican success in Tuesday’s midterm elections, but which quickly turned hostile when Mr Trump opened the floor to questions. 

Mr Acosta asked the president about his reference to migrants travelling towards America as an "invasion". 

"Honestly, I think you should let me run the country and you run CNN," Mr Trump snapped, adding "and if you did it well, you’re ratings would be much better".

Mr Acosta persevered in his attempt to question the president, but Mr Trump told him: "That’s enough. Put down the mic."

"You are a rude terrible person," he added. "The way you treat [White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee is horrible… You shouldn’t treat people that way."

"When you report fake news…you are an enemy of the people," he said, as an intern tried to take the microphone from the reporter.

The president also berated NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander, telling him "I’m not a big fan of yours either". 

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary, confirmed that Mr Acosta was no longer permitted entry.

“As a result of today’s incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice,” she said. 

Mr Trump has repeatedly lambasted what he calls the "fake news media", particularly CNN, during the course of his presidency.

The news network was sharply critical of the president’s rhetoric and attacks on the media after a number of pipe bombs were delivered to its newsroom last month. 

During Wednesday’s press conference Mr Trump was also rebuked for telling another reporter he could not understand her accent.

Meanwhile an African American reporter for PBS who asked Mr Trump whether his embrace of ‘nationalism’ is ‘white nationalism’ was told her question was "racist" and "insulting". 

"Why do I have my highest poll numbers ever with African Americans?" he responded to Yamiche Alcindor. "That’s such a racist question. It’s insulting to me."

Villagers crushed a tigress to death with a tractor in a game reserve in north India in the second controversial killing of one of the endangered species since Friday.

Officials at the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve warned against the "serious offence", which villagers said was carried out in defence after the tigress mauled a villager to death.

The killing reignited a nationwide row over the ‘murdering’ of India’s national animal after another tigress was shot dead by hunters last week following a killing spree of its own.

Ministers traded blows with local officials over the weekend as environmentalists called for control and more humane methods of dealing with dangerous tigers after the initial killing that followed a high-profile hunt.

Sunday’s killing took place in Dudhwa Tiger Reserve 300 miles east of New Delhi. Villagers said they had slain the tigress in retaliation for mauling a 50-year old local farmer from Pilibhit district in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Identified as Devanand, the victim later died of his injuries in the local hospital late Sunday, officials said.

“While we were busy rushing the injured man to hospital, the villagers had tracked down and surrounded the tigress and crushed it to death under their tractor” forest officer Mahavir Kaujlagi told the Hindustan Times.

He said the tigress’s carcass had been recovered and an autopsy would be conducted on it under the National Tiger Conservation Authority guidelines.

“The killing of a tiger inside a protected area is a serious offence” Dudhwa Reserve head Ramesh Pandey said, adding that a case would be registered under the Wildlife Protection Act and ‘appropriate action’ initiated.

Locals, however, claim that the tigress had attacked and injured another local around 10 days ago and they were ‘alert’ and looking out for her. 

Animal rights activists said that though ‘reactive attacks’ on tigers by villagers living in and around the Dudhwa Reserve were not uncommon, large scale destruction of the animals’ habitat was largely responsible for the recent increase in such incidents.

Meanwhile, a senior Indian cabinet minister has accused her colleague of sanctioning the ‘ghastly murder’ of the other tigress in the Pandharkawada jungle in central India, who was shot dead by hunters on Friday after killing at least 13 people since mid-2016.

“This (killing the tigress) is patently illegal’ said Maneka Gandhi, federal Women and Child Development Minister and staunch animal rights activist.

“I am definitely going to take up this case of utter lack of sympathy for animals as a test case; legally, criminally as well as politically” she tweeted over the weekend.

Gandhi accused the provincial forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, who belongs to her Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, of disregarding  appeals to abandon the hunt for the tigress, officially designated T1 but  popularly known as Avni.

In response Ms Gandhi’s allegations Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state where T1 was shot dead has ordered an inquiry into the tigress’s killing. 

Officials said the tigress had evaded capture at least four times and was responsible for attacking and killing inhabitants living on the edge of the forest alongside cows, goats and horses.

Wildlife officials said for months they had planned on capturing the tigress, but it had attacked its trackers even after being hit by tranquiliser darts.

The tigress was eventually shot by Nawab Shafat Ali Khan, one of India’s best known big game hunters following a Supreme Court order in September which ruled that the animal could be killed failing tranquilisation.  

Forest officials, however, acknowledged that no veterinarian was present during the shooting as decreed by the court.

The Indian chapter of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals claimed that T1s killing was little more than ‘satisfying a hunters blood lust’.

 According to the 2014 censure India’s campaign to boost its tiger population had been successful with their numbers increasing from around 1,500 to over 2,200.

But animal rights activists said India’s burgeoning population of around 1.30 billion had infringed upon the animals territory, thereby increasing the conflict between man and beast.

According to official statistics one person had been killed per day in conflict with a tiger or an elephant between 2014-17.

The tiger is India’s national animal and it is categorised as endangered under the Wildlife Protection Act.

The US is moving ahead with reimposing severe sanctions on Iran next week but will grant waivers to eight countries to allow them to temporarily continue buying Iranian oil, officials said Friday. 

Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, did not say which eight countries would be exempted from the waivers but they are believed to be US allies like India, Japan, Italy, and South Korea. 

China, the world’s largest importer of Iranian oil, is also likely to get an exemption as Washington tries to avoid further antagonising Beijing with sanctions amid an already heated trade war. 

Turkey will also be among the eight nations to get a waiver, the country’s energy minister said.

The waivers will give Iran some limited respite from the sanctions on its oil industry, which go into force on Monday and are the second wave of American measures since Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Iranian nuclear agreement. 

The price of oil fell in response to the announcement as traders realised the US sanctions were not as harsh as expected and would not lead to an immediate drop in oil supplies.      

However, Mr Pompeo said the waivers were only temporary and that two of the countries would eventually cut all oil imports while the other six would import “at greatly reduced levels”.

He said the goal of the sanctions was “depriving the regime of the revenues that it uses to spread death and destruction around the world. Our ultimate aim is to compel Iran to permanently abandon its well-documented outlaw activities and behave as a normal country.”

The White House said 700 Iranian individuals, companies, vessels and aircraft were also being added to the sanctions list, restoring all of the restrictions that Barack Obama lifted as part of the nuclear agreement and adding hundreds of new ones. 

While the US is returning its sanctions to pre-2015 levels, the EU, Russia and China have promised to continue doing business with Iran. 

The EU has created a special financial instrument designed to shield European businesses from American sanctions if they deal with Iran, but so far many major European firms have been scared out of the Iranian market by the threat of US punishments. 

Iran’s currency has fallen sharply over the last year and Iranian cities have been rocked by large scale protests. The government of Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate president, is under severe pressure from both the public and more hardline elements of the regime. 

Mr Trump is gambling that the the economic pressure will eventually force Iran to make concessions not only on its nuclear programme but also on its behaviour in the Middle East, including arming militant groups like Hizbollah and supporting the Assad regime in Syria. 

The retired King of the Belgians has been ordered to take a DNA paternity test by a Brussels court, raising the prospect of finally resolving whether he is the real father of Delphine Boël, a 50-year-old aristocrat artist.

King Albert II, who has refused to recognise Ms Boël as his daughter for more than a decade, must submit to the test within three months or be legally presumed to be the multi-media artist’s father.  

An earlier court-ordered DNA test proved that Jacques Boël, scion of one of Belgium’s richest industrial dynasties, was not her biological father. Since that 2013 test, Ms Boël, who has two children, has tried to prove that Albert is her father.

The former monarch, 83, abdicated in 2013 in favour of his son Philippe after 20 years on the throne. The decision also cost him his immunity to court judgments such as the paternity test, which would be a saliva test carried out on Albert, Ms Boël and her mother at a Brussels hospital.

Ms Boël’s lawyers said in their statement that they were pleased with the "strong affirmation of the principle of acting in the interests of the child" as she seeks legal confirmation of her true identity.

“The wound that King Albert struck when he cast her out has not healed," the statement said.

Ms Boël’s parentage became the subject of fevered speculation in Belgium after the 1999 publication of a biography of Queen Paola, Albert’s Italian wife.  

The book alleged the King, who no longer has a public role, had a long extra-marital affair with Ms Boël’s mother Sybille de Selys Longchamps, a baroness, which resulted in the birth of a daughter in the 1960s.

The affair ended in 1976 after Albert chose to stay with Paola rather than abdicate to be with Mrs de Selys Longchamps, she has claimed.

The court decision, made public on Monday, overturned an earlier ruling and cannot be appealed.

The palace told Belgian media that it would not comment on the case, insisting it was “in the private domain.”

A Japanese journalist kidnapped in Syria more than three years ago is believed to have been released, the government said Tuesday.

Jumpei Yasuda, a 44-year-old freelancer, was seized in the war-torn country in June 2015, and appeared in a rare video released by a militant group over the summer warning that he was in a bad situation.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a late-night press conference the government was trying to verify information from Qatari authorities but it was "highly likely" Yasuda had finally been freed.

"The Qatar government informed us that Jumpei Yasuda has been freed and is now at the immigration centre in Antakya" in Turkey, Mr Suga said.

"We’re now verifying the information… but it’s highly likely it is Jumpei Yasuda himself," he added.

A jihadist group in August released videos of the Japanese journalist and Italian national Alessandro Sandrini, in which they appeal for their release.

Both men were wearing orange outfits with armed, masked men standing behind them.

The videos did not identify which group was holding the men or include specific demands.

Mr Yasuda is thought to have been seized by the group previously known as the Al-Nusra Front, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, in northern Syria.

But with the shifting territory of Syria’s complicated conflict, it is unclear whether he is still being held by his original abductors or has been transferred to other captors.

In the video, he identified himself as Korean and gave a different name, but spoke in Japanese.

He gave the recording date as July 25, saying he was in a bad situation and asking for help.

His wife said she had no idea why Mr Yasuda had identified himself as Korean in the video, but confirmed it showed him and that he is Japanese.

In 2015 militants from the Islamic State group beheaded Japanese war correspondent Kenji Goto and his friend Haruna Yukawa in Syria.

The Japanese government was criticised for what detractors saw as its flat-footed response to the crisis at the time, including apparently missed opportunities to free both men.