Sylvanus Ashan

A tax or attacks: how the Houthis fund themselves

Jason Palmer, Rosie Bloor, Corbyn Duncan, Stephen Askins, Alex Hearn, Ore Ogunbiyi, Amma Mensah, Sylvanus Ashan

In the Bab el-Mandab Strait, Houthi attacks have collapsed 70% of shipping volume and spiked freight rates fivefold, while major powers like the US and China remain constrained by regional diplomatic frictions that limit naval intervention. Simultaneously, China has rapidly narrowed its artificial intelligence gap with the US through cost-efficient frontier models like DeepSeek V3, challenging American infrastructure dominance despite sanctions on top-tier chips. In Ghana, founder Amma Mensah transformed a loss-making rainforest operation into a luxury spirits brand, boosting farmer salaries by 50% and targeting the global market with high-value rums derived from local botanicals.