A tanker full of oil has been sitting near Hodeida since 2015, and has decayed to the point where it can't be repaired and will surely spill its cargo. That will poison life in the Red Sea, perhaps the whole of it.

The sensible thing to do would be to pump the oil into other ships and take it away. But the Houthis will not let the UN try.

What, I wonder, is their motive; what do they demand? Surely they don't want to poison the Red Sea — they live near it and must depend on fishing in it.