 The US has re-designated Ansar Allah known as the Houthis as a terrorist outfit. What does it mean for the region? The House of Commons in the United Kingdom has passed a bill that will allow for sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. How did MPs vote on this legislation? This is the daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button. The Joe Biden administration is once again designated Yemen's Ansar Allah, which are known as the Houthis, as a terrorist organization. Now, this follows clashes between Yemeni forces and the US and its allies in the Red Sea. Ansar Allah declared that ships bound to and from Israel would be targets as part of its solidarity operation with the Palestinian people and against Israeli genocide. Now, this was followed by the Houthi US bringing together a coalition against the Houthis and conducting attacks inside Yemeni territory. To understand the implications of this development, we go to Abdul. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. So, in some senses, maybe bound to happen considering that the Houthis were the target of the US, the Saudi-led coalition, which the US was also involved in the US de-designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization in only 2021. But maybe quickly take us through what laid the ground for this process. Well, ever since the Israeli war in Gaza, Houthis have been quite vocal about the war, its genocide and nature, also about the US role in it. And they have been demanding that there should be an attempt to implement some ceasefire. If there is no ceasefire, they have the responsibility of kind of fighting on behalf of or in solidarity with Palestinians. And whatever they could do, basically they have been doing since October 17, they have been carrying out attacks on Israel-bound ships, which basically had led to a massive economic impact inside Israel. The apparently the Israeli ports are at least the ports in the Red Sea are in the operational for a very long time. And a large number of cargo had to move through the longer route, which goes through the Cape of the Good Hope. It's more expensive, of course, more time consuming, and so on and so forth. So, given the fact that the Houthi action in solidarity with the Palestinians was harming Israel, and of course, harming Israel would mean that it is also an impact on the US interest at large, basically US Joe Biden administration have been not only threatening, in fact, since last week it has been attacking Houthi, basically Yemen, Northern Yemen, different locations. At least there are reports of four times the Northern Yemen has been attacked by the US and UK forces combined. And so you can say that the attacks which were carried, which have been carried out by the US and UK against the Houthis or the threat which was created due to the creation of a multinational maritime alliance in the name of operation prosperity gargant, which has failed to deter the Houthi attacks. The Israeli, sorry, the US administration thinks that designating Houthis may have some kind of impact on their decisions to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. But as per the statements made by the Houthis, of course, they are not going to stop their attacks on the ships which are going through Red Sea to Israel, no matter what the consequences are, including their redesignation as a terrorist organization by the US. Right, Abul in this context, I think important to talk about the peace process or the lack of war, maybe a lack of fighting in Yemen, we've addressed it in an earlier episode as well. Now the key question is that once this designation comes about, will this lead to a drastic change in what is happening in Yemen right now? Because we know that there's been some respite for the people over the past year or so. Well, the US strikes inside Yemen, of course, has, you can say, have created a situation or a danger of kind of reenactment of what was happening to Yemen for the last eight years during the Saudi Arabia-led coalitions war in the region, which led to a massive humanitarian crisis, complete destruction of the civilian infrastructure, complete, you can say, collapse of the government in many parts of the country. And, of course, large extent of extarvation and human suffering. So that is one, of course, there is a possibility of that. There's another angle, because of the redesignation of Fouthi as a terrorist organization, it, of course, lead to further complications in the implementation of the humanitarian program, which is ongoing in Yemen. Though the scale has been limited for last few months, again, there are speculations that those scaling down of humanitarian operations in Yemen was also related to what Houthis have been doing in solidarity with the Palestinians. But nevertheless, there is a humanitarian program ongoing in Yemen. And if the, sorry, not if the designation of Houthis as a terrorist organization will lead to further complications in the inflow of a foreign humanitarian aid in the country, that, of course, will have an impact or a larger impact on the Yemeni population. Then this also leads to a possibility of a kind of strengthening of Houthis stance in the, in the, both in terms of the negotiations with ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia and the Saudi backed forces in southern Yemen, south and eastern Yemen, but also vis-à-vis the international organizations and so on and so forth. So this may create complications for the peace process as well. As if now there are, of course, no indications on those line, but this is too early to say. This was, this is not more than 24 hours since this decision was taken. There are already speculations that this may lead to complications, but I think we'll have to wait and see how exactly done for it. But there is no denial that it will have an impact on the humanitarian aid or humanitarian program in Yemen and that will lead to the suffering of millions of Yemenis. And if US uses the excuse of Houthis being a terrorist organization, and now that they have designated it for kind of escalating their attacks inside Yemen, that may also lead to, as I said before, a kind of free enactment of what was the condition before last year or during the eight years of war against Saudi Arabia. Well, thank you so much for that analysis. The House of Commons passed the Safety of Rwanda Asylum and Immigration Bill, which lays the ground for sending migrants to the African country. Now the past few days saw a right-wing revolt among certain conservatives who wanted a more stringent version of the law, and there were even doubts for a while as to whether the government's bill would finally pass in parliament. But it did end up passing by a margin of 320 to 276 votes. Human rights organizations have harshly criticized the bill and the government's policies on migration. We go to Anish for more details. Anish, in the past, we talked about this very brutal, almost inhuman scheme. And of course, there have been a lot of protests against it, which actually forced it, but the plan could not go through because of that. But maybe could you very briefly tell us what really the plan is about and what happened over the past couple of days when Rishi Sunak seemed to face a revolt from his own party? So let's begin with the revolt, which wasn't that huge if you actually look at how things turned out in the parliament, but with only about 11 people from the conservative party actually voting against the bill. But nevertheless, Sunak did not get the majority in the parliament if you actually look at the year you got only 320. So the rebellion did work in showing that Sunak does not have or hold the majority in the house when it comes to this specific plan. It's just that at the time of the people who were present at voting, he just got the majority there. On the other hand, the plan specifically talks about like deals with the whole human rights clause when it comes to deportation and the fact that they want to actually overturn bypass that, which was something that was quite fundamental to rules and laws that dealt with not just deportation, but also asylum seeking and for refugees is being overturned, essentially speaking, just so that they can send people to Rwanda. And this is something of a desperate move by the conservative Sunak government, primarily because obviously we have talked about how he has been failing when it comes to popularity. There has been desperation over the past few bipoles. The conservatives have lost seats that they held for decades even. And all of that has actually come together to actually create the situation where they're doubling down on their right wing situation. So to overturn not just a court order, but also to overturn legal rights that are afforded to well people, not just British citizens, but also people, refugee seekers is something that pretty much pushes this conservative, the most right wing that it has ever been in recent memory. And this will definitely be a bigger issue, obviously in the coming days when the election campaigns are going to be in full swing in the coming months. So that is going to be a major part of the issue. The question obviously is whether or not the opposition is strong enough to take on this and take a very principled stand on the matter. Rani, that is my next question in the sense that what lies ahead for this bill? I believe it has to go through some more procedural formalities and there'll be other challenges as well. Yes. So once the bill is passed, obviously it has to go through the House of Lords where they can expect some level of greater opposition because the Lords are not really beholden to party politics. Most of them are not partisans. They're just appointees in many ways for various reasons. We are not getting into that, but definitely there is going to be a significant opposition in there. And we do not exactly know how things are going to be divided in terms of votes right now, but we can see more scrutiny on the bill. But this whole thing is not going to be easy, obviously, to get it to be enacted into a lot. This is going to be a long run. It's going to take months even. And there will obviously be core challenges once the bill becomes an act. So these are obvious formalities and opposition. But the question is whether or not the opposition, the Labour Party is going to take a more principled stand. It has been like it has opposed the bill. That's been very clear about that. It has opposed this specific plan to deport people to Rwanda, thinking of it as some safe country. But its question on deportations or sending the votes back are still quite ambiguous, especially under Kais drama. And that is where the concern lies, where the current Labour leadership is not taking a clear stand on what they think about asylum seekers and refugees who are going through a perilous journey across the Mediterranean to reach the country. And in many of these cases, most of them, it's a very mortal journey actually. And all of that is not being considered. There is obviously the left wing within the Labour Party that is calling for a clear recognition of rights of these refugees. But the current leadership is shying away from taking a clear stand. And that is the biggest concern right now. Because obviously there will be challenges to the bill. There will be opposition. There will be scrutiny. But there is a larger question of refugees who come through irregular channels, people who are many of them who are victims of trafficking, who need security, who needs protection and who needs to be taken care of within the UK. And that question is still being unaddressed by people who we think should be addressing it in the first place. Well Anish, thank you so much for that update. And that's all we have today. We will be back with a fresh episode tomorrow. In the meanwhile, do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org. Follow us on all the social media platforms. And if you are watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button.