U.N. envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths
Talks between Yemen's warring parties next month will focus on a transitional governance deal and disarmament, the U.N. special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said in remarks published on Saturday.
Griffiths is trying to negotiate an end to the three-year conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people and pushed Yemen to the verge of starvation.
Air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition killed dozens of children traveling on a bus in the northern province of Saada on Thursday. U.N. chief Antonia Guterres has called for an independent investigation of the raid.
Consultations are due to begin in Geneva on Sept. 6 on a framework for peace talks and confidence-building measures.
The United Arab Emirates plans to build an oil pipeline connecting Eritrea and Ethiopia, the latest sign of the Gulf state's increasing involvement in the Horn of Africa.The pipeline will run from Eritrea's port city of Assab to Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, an Ethiopian official said.Landlocked Ethiopia began extracting crude oil on a test basis from reserves in the country's southeast in June and will need access through Eritrea in order to export it.Ethiopian army clashes with local government paramilitariesEthiopian broadcaster Fana first reported the pipeline plan earlier on Friday following a meeting in Addis Ababa between Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Reem Al Hashimy, the UAE's minister of state for international cooperation.The UAE played a behind-the-scenes role in helping Ethiopia and Eritrea end a two-decade state of war last month, Reuters reported this week.Hashimy, who last month publicly referred to herself as the UAE's policy lead on sub-Saharan Africa, said after meeting Abiy that the UAE is keen to exploit investment opportunities in Ethiopia, a country of 100 million people with the fastest growing economy in Africa, Fana reported.Eritrean plane lands in Ethiopia after 25-year hiatusAbiy's chief of staff, Fitsum Arega, told Reuters that the talks were largely on investment in "industries, agriculture, real estate, (the) oil pipeline, (and) resorts"."Most are under study," Fitsum said in a text message.REGIONAL RIVALRYThe UAE is also driven by a fear that rivals such as Iran or Qatar could gain a foothold. Earlier this year ties frayed between Mogadishu and Abu Dhabi and the two countries ended a UAE military training programme in Somalia.Ethiopia's PM Abiy sets up team to advise on privatisationAbu Dhabi has a military base in Assab which it uses in its military campaign in the war in Yemen, located just across the Red Sea.Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir arrived in Addis Ababa on Thursday and met with Abiy, although there were no detailed announcements from the meeting.Last month, Reuters reported that Ethiopia had asked Saudi Arabia for a year's supply of fuel with payment delayed for 12 months to ease severe foreign currency shortages.Ethiopia clarifies remarks of premier on UAE shiekhEritrea's foreign minister and a close adviser to President Isaias Afkwerki arrived in Ethiopia on Friday to discuss progress on implementing the agreement they signed last month.The rapprochement ended Africa's longest major military stalemate and holds great potential for both economies, which were held back by the "no war, no peace" status quo.Though the two countries have re-opened embassies in each other's capital and resumed flights, details ranging from border demarcation to war reparations have not been worked out.Internet in eastern Ethiopia shut down after regional violence
UAE plans oil pipeline from Ethiopia to Eritrea
"Primarily, we are trying to reach an agreement between the Yemeni government and (the Houthis') Ansarullah on the issues essential to ending the war and on a national unity government in which everyone participates," Griffiths told the Arabic-language Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
"This will require a signed agreement that includes setting up a transitional political operation under a national unity government ... and putting in place security arrangements for the withdrawal of all armed groups in Yemen and disarming them."
Yemen's Houthi group welcomed on Friday a call by the United Nations for an independent investigation into Saudi-led coalition air strikes that killed dozens of people a day earlier, including children travelling on a bus."We welcome the call of the secretary general (of the United Nations) and we are ready to cooperate," the head of the Houthis' supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said in a tweet. A Yemeni health official and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday than an air strike had hit the bus carrying children as it drove through a market in northern Saada province.U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday condemned the air strike and called for an "independent and prompt investigation," his spokesman said.UN chief condemns attack on school bus in YemenThe Western-backed alliance fighting the Iranian-aligned Houthis said the air strikes had targeted missile launchers used to attack the southern Saudi city of Jizan on Wednesday, killing a Yemeni civilian there.It accused the Houthis of using children as human shields and said the strikes were carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law.Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement in a three-year-old war, lies on one of the world’s most important trade routes for oil tankers, the Bab al-Mandeb strait. 
Yemen's Houthis welcome UN call for investigation into air strikes
He said the consultations would lead to direct negotiations.
The coalition of Sunni Muslim Arab states backed by Western powers including the United States and Britain intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015 against the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Griffiths efforts have succeeded so far in averting a full assault by the military alliance on the Houthi-held main port city of Hodeidah in western Yemen, but battles and attacks have continued in the impoverished Arab state where the Houthis control the most populated areas and the capital Sanaa.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned a gruesome attack Thursday in northwestern Yemen that killed at least 50 people, most of them children.Seventy-seven others were injured when a bus carrying children came under attack in Saada province, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).A statement on behalf of Guterres said local health authorities confirmed the casualties, the majority of them children between 10 and 13 years old."He [Guterres] expresses his deepest condolences to the families of the victims," said the statement. The UN chief called on "all parties to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law", saying they must take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in military operations.He also called for an independent and prompt investigation into the incident.The only way to end the Yemen conflict, said Guterres, is "a negotiated political settlement through inclusive intra-Yemeni dialogue". He urged all parties to de-escalate and to engage constructively in the political process.Yemen has remained wracked by violence since 2014, when Shia Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital, Sanaa.The conflict escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-Arab allies launched a massive air campaign in Yemen aimed at rolling back Houthi gains. In a statement, a Houthi spokesperson blamed the Saudi-led coalition for the attack.The coalition has yet to comment on the incident.Dozens killed, including children, in Yemen air strikesUS seeks to trigger chaos in Iran by reinstating sanctionsSecurity personnel, tribesmen killed in Yemen clashes
UN chief condemns attack on school bus in Yemen
Previous U.N.-sponsored peace talks have failed to end the conflict, widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and regional foe Shi'ite Muslim Iran.
The last round of talks in 2016 ended with Hadi's government walking out after the Houthis rejected a U.N. proposal calling on the group to quit three main cities, including Sanaa, ahead of talks to form a government.
Air strikes killed dozens of people, including children, in Yemen's Saada, Yemeni medical sources and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday."Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of 10," Johannes Bruwer, head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, said in a twitter post.Saudi Arabia and Sunni Muslim allies have been fighting in Yemen for more than three years against the Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of north Yemen including the capital Sanaa and drove a Saudi-backed government into exile in 2014.There was no immediate comment from the Saudi-led coalition. 
Dozens killed, including children, in Yemen air strikes
Griffiths said discussions on a new government should also include representatives from the General People's Congress, once headed by slain former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and the southern separatist movement, a powerful force that has provided many of the coalition-backed fighters against the Houthis.
"The future of the South will not be discussed in these consultations, but will be part of the Yemeni dialogue in the transitional period," Griffiths said, adding that the United Nations supported a united Yemen.