Heavy airstrikes hit Houthi-held Sanaa, Mocha amid escalating Yemen conflict

Heavy airstrikes hit Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa and the Red Sea port city of Mocha in the southwestern province of Taiz on Saturday, killing and wounding several people, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported.

Successive airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition rocked Sanaa with powerful explosions. Local residents said that warplanes continued to hover over the capital amid loud blasts.

Al-Masirah said three people were killed and several others wounded when a strike hit a house in Asr, western Sanaa. It also reported casualties after a cement factory was struck in Hamdan district, northwest of the capital.

The broadcaster also said nearly 20 airstrikes hit Mocha, a city in southwestern Taiz province near the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's key maritime chokepoints.

There was no immediate comment from the Saudi Arabia-led coalition.

Turki Al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said on Saturday on social media platform X that the coalition intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi group toward the Saudi capital Riyadh.

The strikes came as Yemen's internationally recognized government forces, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, intensified their "Dawn of Yemen" offensive against the Houthis, while the group has responded with missile and drone attacks deep inside Saudi Arabia.

Yemen has been mired in conflict since late 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and much of the country's north, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

Heavy airstrikes hit Houthi-held Sanaa, Mocha amid escalating Yemen conflict

China on Saturday expressed serious concern and firm opposition to new U.S. outbound investment restrictions, saying that it will closely follow relevant developments and reserve the right to take all necessary measures.

The statement made by a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce came in response to a media query regarding the U.S. Treasury Department's updated proposed rules on outbound investment released on Friday.

In the statement released on the ministry's official website, the spokesperson said that the proposed rule expands the scope of investment restrictions targeting China in a discriminatory manner and intensifies these constraints, which is a classic example of generalizing the concept of national security and runs counter to the important consensus reached by the two heads of state.

It also interrupts normal economic and trade cooperation between Chinese and U.S. enterprises, and undermines the international economic and trade order, the spokesperson added.

Highlighting China's enormous market and immense consumer and investment potential, the spokesperson emphasized that investing in China means investing in the future.

U.S. restrictions on investments in China not only hinder bilateral economic and trade cooperation, but also harm the interests of American enterprises themselves, the spokesperson noted.

China urges the U.S. side to respect the laws of a market economy, stop overstretching the concept of national security, stop politicizing and weaponizing trade and economic issues, and create an enabling environment for China-U.S. business cooperation, said the spokesperson.

China firmly opposes US discriminatory investment restrictions: spokesperson